BE A SHIBLON

Ok super cool week with a bunch of cool stuff.  First I have this investigator who is entering into the marines.  His name is socrates.  Hes still not baptized because being a marine has limited him from attending church.  Anyways 2 weeks ago he had an awesome experience.  He was standing at attention in line with all of class or promotion or whatever you call it waiting to go to lunch when there sargent called out "who here is catholic?" and about half of the kids stepped foward.  Then, "where are the evangelicals?" and another big group stepped forward. "Protestants?" some more kids.  "Any mormons here?" And socrates stepped forward.  He said his sargent stared at him for a while, smirked a little and said "he will say the prayer over the food"  I was so pumped about this story when socrates told us.  Sounds familiar?? The talk the profet gave about his time in the Navy? Theres a cool mormon message about it that i showed socrates and was stoked to see it.

I got a letter form Grandma this week and heard the family is growing.  Nikki and Rachel both had kids??? whaaaaatt! awesome thankyou for the letter grandma.

Also yesterday i got to do something awesome.  Pay attention please Andrew Kent Smith.  Yesterday a  clinic of about 40 med school students from michigan state university came down to iquitos to treat everybody who needs help in iquitos as fast as they can.  Only problem was that nobody spoke spanish except for like one or two doctors.  But never fear there was a mormon boy is this group of students who had the bright idea to call the mission president in iquitos Peru.  Thats right me and like 7 or 8 other missionaries got to go to the clinic and translate for the doctors yesterday. And were doing it again today!  I was in the part of the clinic that delt with eyes, ears, nose and throat.  all things sinus.  I was with one doctor and 2 med students and was translating for all of them all the same time.  It was so cool we treated like 60 people in 3 hours.  And the doctor let me take a look in the peoples ears and look at there tonsils and stuff.  It was super rad.  Except for that it was so confusing.  Before we started the doctor explained everything to the students.  They were like 3rd and 4th year med students but he was basically just quizing them about all things mouth eyes nose and ears.  Ive never heard so many medical terms so fast in life.  I was seriously just like wulp im never going to become a doctor because that is just way too much to learn and we were only talking about a little part of the body.  Ayaya im so happy i get to stay away from college for two years.  It scares me.  Anyways a little about my personal study this week.  I read a talk this week called truly good and without deceit ( ithink would be the translation) it was a talk about good people who magnify there calling and dont look for anything in return.  He talked about Shiblon. (Shiblon is a missionary in the Book of Mormon that suffers great persecution and continues to serve his people.) it made me think about the Shiblons i know in my life and made me want to be like him.  One shiblon i remember in my life was my sophmore year seminay teacher Brother Sanford.  Theres a lot of shiblons i know that i want to go back and thank.  One day i hope to talk to all them again.  Be a Shiblon!

Always 

Elder Smith