Week 13: It doesn't feel like Christmas

This week was blur. I don't even remember Tuesday hardly at all, Wednesday was zone conference all day, Thursday I didn't get to leave the apartment until 5, Friday was the Branch Christmas party, Saturday was pretty normal, and yesterday was the Christmas sacrament meeting.

All that I remember about Tuesday is that Elder Torrico had to go to the doctor's office in Tacoma, so Elder Kirkland and I biked around in the rain for most of the day trying to visit people.

Wednesday was pretty cool. At zone conference we had a gift exchange, did some Christmas skits (we did the haka), sang some songs together, and had a spiritual boost at the very end. We didn't get back to Lacey until 6:30, and we didn't get to do very much that day.

On Thursday we had weekly planning which adds a couple hours onto our morning studies, and so it took all of our time for the afternoon up until dinner at 4. So now we haven't been able to do very much missionary work all week because of zone conference and weekly planning, so we were all kind of anxious to get to work and finally do something.

Friday was pretty good. Elder Williams and I got stranded for a bit because his phone died at the end of 5-7's so we couldn't call the other two elders to come pick us up until we popped out the sim card with a key ring and put it in my phone. Then we showed up to the branch Christmas party pretty late because of that, and I made it in time just to play the piano a little for them.

Saturday was pretty normal. I got to teach those 3 kids that we've been trying to get baptized. It was pretty cool to do, because this was the first lesson that I got to teach other than the restoration (we taught the commandments). That night Elder Torrico and I knocked a house that I've been to last transfer, but nobody had answered. This time though they answered, and it was this lady who's had all the missionary lessons before and reads out of the Book of Mormon more than the Bible even though she's being visited by Jehovah's Witnesses. We were able to give her a blessing since she was sick, and from what we heard back, she slept like a baby that night.

Sunday was a miraculous day for me. A few weeks ago before transfers, I was asked to play piano for the Christmas service, and I was told just last week that we were going to be singing almost all of the Christmas songs in the hymn book. I was not ready. I've been practicing every P-day, but I was still not ready. Especially for those weird ones that I've never heard nor sung. When I went in to play I did so bad. It was worse than when I even practiced. But afterwards when I talked to people, they said they didn't notice a thing. I didn't believe them at all, because I had stopped playing at points because I was fumbling so bad. But even when I pressured them, thinking that they were just saying that to be nice, they were being serious. Somehow nobody noticed, and the only explanation that I can find for it is that God had something to do with it.

I think that's just about everything for this week. Merry Christmas!!
-Elder Smith

Pictures are from Zone conference before Christmas

We did the Haka

Week 12: Trainer or Trainee?

This week has been pretty long. Mostly because of transfers. Tuesday was really short. We didn't do a whole lot. Elder Williams and I had our Última Cena with our trainers at Wendy's, but that was about it. Wednesday was transfers, and it was pretty long. I inherited a much bigger desk than I had previously, found a new tie and rain jacket in the closet, and moved some things around. Elder Williams and I weren't allowed to come pick up our greenie for some reason, so we just knocked doors and biked around the whole day trying to visit people. At around 7, the new elders in our companionship picked us up and brought us to the church for our meetings with Hermano Diaz, the branch mission leader, and the branch president.

The new elders are Elder Torrico and Elder Kirkland. Elder Torrico is from Bolivia originally, and then moved to Virginia. He's been out for a little over a year now and he's kind of quiet, but when he does talk he can be super hilarious. He's awesome. In only the short time that he's been here he's made some small changes in how we do things that felt like they needed to happen for a while. He's mine and Elder Williams' follow-up trainer, and Elder Kirkland's first trainer. But Elder Williams and I are also training Elder Kirkland at the same time. So that's pretty interesting. Elder Kirkland is fresh out of the Mexico MTC and he's super excited to be here. He has a lot of energy and motivation to do the work, so we're helping him focus it in the right areas. He reminds me a lot of Elder Calhoun from the movie The Best Two Years. He can be a bit much at times, but he'll learn to tone it down eventually.

The rest of this week was pretty slow and less than exciting. Saturday we were supposed to baptize 3 UBC's, but we could never get in to teach them so it didn't happen. And yesterday at church Dustin was supposed to be confirmed since he got baptized last Sunday, but he never came to church. So that was very unfortunate. The only real interesting things this week is situating ourselves in the area with new elders who do things differently. I'm sure that in these next few weeks we'll be able to kick things back into motion and it'll be better.

Have a great week!
-Elder Smith

P.s. Here's my apartment address in case you want to send letters and such.
6203 Jamestown Lane SE
Apt D 205
Lacey, Washington 98503

Week 11: FIRST BAPTISM!!!

Not much really happened this week. Just brought someone into the kingdom of God through the waters of baptism. That's all. It was seriously so awesome. If you remember, last week a 10 year old boy named Dustin came up to us asking when he could be baptized, so this week we went through all the lessons with him and set up the baptism. That was the highlight of this week. Elder Powell was the one who actually performed the ordinance and Elders Williams and Bradley gave talks, and I played the piano of course. The Spirit was super strong last night. The rest of last night I was thinking about how true the scripture in D&C 18:15 is which says: "And if it so be that you should labor all your days in crying repentance unto this people, and bring, save it be one soul unto me, how great shall be your joy with him in the kingdom of my Father!" Everything about the baptism went smoothly. However, when we were cleaning up afterwards, my phone took a dive in the font. This is the part where I tell my mom to not freak out, because my phone is completely okay. Apparently my version is partially waterproof. How did my phone end up in the font? Well we tried to pull the plug to drain the font, but the string came unattached, so I tried to pull the plug with something that had a hook on the end of it. Unfortunately, while I was leaning over to do so, my phone slipped out and sunk right to the bottom. So Elder Powell just changed back into his wet clothes and retrieved my phone and pulled the plug. I put my phone in rice overnight, and it's been just fine.

Another awesome thing that happened this week: at the beginning of the transfer we had an 9 year old named Daira on date for baptism, but she and her grandma went on a trip to California. The week before last they returned and came to church with 3 other UBC's (unbaptized children), and two of them are of baptizing age. This week we got Daira, Daniel, and Jasmin all on date for baptism this Saturday. What's even better is that all three of them came to the baptism last night and are super excited to be baptized. So next Sunday we'll have 4 confirmations at church.

The only other things that happened last week was that we did service for some older lady who had a lot of trash in her yard that needed cleaning out. We did that on Saturday, and on the way there we got a call from the mission president about transfers. Elder Williams and I will be staying in Lacey and having Elder Torrico from Bolivia come and follow-up train us. Then we'll also be getting a greenie that us three will be training. Elder Powell who has been in Lacey for 2 transfers is going to Forks. Apparently they need a Spanish speaker up there so that'll be exciting for him. For anyone who doesn't know where Forks is, it's in the middle of a rainforest on the northwestern area of the Washington peninsula. It's also miles from civilization and it's where Twilight was filmed. As for Elder Bradley, he has only been in Lacey for the one transfer and he is going to the Tacoma Spanish branch. He'll be follow-up training 3 other Spanish elders.

Hope you all have a wonderful week! Happy Holidays!

Our last picture together before heading our separate ways.

Chilling while filling up the font

The four of us with Dustin

New companionship

Week 10: Sequel to the Book of Mormon? Ghosts? Stolen milk?

This week was a pretty average week, and yet it really wasn't. First off, the ZL's stole a gallon and a half of our milk on Tuesday so we only had one gallon for the rest of the week. They figured that since we used a half gallon of milk at their apartment during exchanges that they could just get back what we owed them. Plus they had no more money on their cards for food. So that was pretty funny. We also decorated our apartment for Christmas, so now we have a mini tree and a small line of Christmas lights.

On Wednesday we met our goal for finding new people, and this one lady we talked with we shared the video He is The Gift, and it made her cry. I'm not sure why, but it was cool to see the Spirit at work.
Thursday was also pretty normal, and we again met our goal for new people even after we raised the bar.

Friday was pretty awesome. We had interviews with the mission president in the morning, and right after we finish this man walks into the church asking where he could get the sequel to the Book of Mormon. His coworker had given him the Book of Mormon, and recently he injured his arm at work so he couldn't do much except sit at home. He said he doesn't really like to watch TV since he gets bored easy, so he read the Book of Mormon and finished it. That never happens. Except for with this guy apparently. So we gave him a triple combination book so he now has both the Doctrine and Covenants and Pearl of Great Price. That night we had soccer again and we had a ton of people there. Last week only one guy showed up, but this week we had people come that we've never even seen before. It was awesome. And right before we started playing we shared a Christmas video with them as we do each week. So that was pretty cool.

Saturday was the light the world service day, and we helped a man in our ward clean out his backyard. He lives in a trailer so his backyard is pretty small, but he had piles of trash over 6 feet tall. Only half of it was in garbage bags, so we took that half to the dump in someone's truck, so we had to make 4-5 trips. We did that for most of the day, and then that night we had another small miracle. On Thursday we found a small family that said that we could come back later to share a message with them, and on Saturday night we came back, and according to what the other two elders said, they're primed for baptism. They're Catholic but they dont understand why children need to be baptized. They were excited to learn what we had to teach them, and when Elder Powell and Elder Williams gave them a chapter of the Book of Mormon to read, they started reading right then and finished half of it before they left. It was so cool.

Yesterday was also pretty good. One of the people that we had on date for baptism at the beginning of this transfer came to church today. They had been on a trip in California for several weeks so they missed the baptism, but upon returning they brought 3 unbaptized children (UBC) with them, so we might be getting 4 baptisms. And then while at church a kid of one of the members came up to us asking when he could get baptized. We have been seriously blessed with miracle after miracle.

And then last night we had a pretty strange experience. We were at an apartment complex, and as we were knocking upstairs we saw this man standing out in the courtyard. And for the 10 minutes it took us to knock the upstairs he hadn't moved. He wasn't even doing anything. Just standing there looking off into the distance at nothing. We then walked down the stairs to go talk to him and tried to start a conversation. It went something like this:
"Hey how's it going?"
...
"How's your day been?"
...
"We're missionaries from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, have you talked to missionaries like us before?"
...
"Can we help you with anything tonight?"
...
"Okay you have a good night."
...

It was so weird. He didn't move at all. All he did was slide his eyes over to look at us and then resumed looking at nothing. He had what looked like a medical band on his wrist so we figured that he might have been a mental hospital patient, but he looked homeless like he'd been on the street for a while. After that awkward encounter we just resumed knocking the lower level of that same building. And we would just glance over every once in a while. We were so confused as to what he was doing. And then 5 minutes later we glanced over, looked away for a second, and when we looked back he was gone. Just completely gone. He must have vanished into thin air because we would have been able to see him walk somewhere since he was standing out in the open. We tried looking around to see where he went after we finished knocking that building but we couldn't find him. So that's my ghostly encounter.

Oh, also transfers are next week, but I'll find out where I go on Saturday.

Pictures:
1. Puzzle I finished on Tuesday. And it's missing ONE PIECE. It's killing me.
2. Funny don't break in sign.

Puzzle I finished on Tuesday. And it's missing ONE PIECE. It's killing me.

Funny don't break in sign.

Interviews with the President Lieshman

Week 9: I don't know what to put for the caption this week... a lot happened.

So Tuesday night was awesome. Elder Powell and I were out knocking and didn't really find anyone to teach for an hour and a half, but a half hour before we were supposed to be finished we went down this hidden driveway that Elder Powell found, and the first house we knocked on was this old lady who had talked to the missionaries and had lessons from them a few years before, but for some reason or other she didn't want to be baptized. It was such a miracle coming across her. She says that she's had a few near death experiences that had caused her to want to change, and since then she's turned to the bible and studied everything about it. It was so cool to meet her, because we ended up just talking with her for 2 hours. She was supposed to have bible study that night but it had gotten canceled, and yet we ended up on her doorstep and in some of the first few moments that we shared some things with her we taught her some things that the other missionaries didn't talk about. And she said that some of these things were very important to her and that she wanted to know more. By the end of the night Elder Powell ended up sharing something with her in Isaiah that made her tear up and feel the need to go talk to God when we were finished.

It took up the rest of our night and her house and now our clothes reeked of cigarette smoke (she smoked an entire pack while talking with us), but it was so worth it. It's just too bad that she's not Hispanic, so we have to refer her to the English missionaries.

Wednesday we had a meeting with the stake president and the rest of the zone. The stake president had some good tios for us, but what I really found meaningful is what the zone leaders had to say. One of the things they shared is a quote from Preach My Gospel:

“I have often said one of the greatest secrets of missionary work is work! If a missionary works, he will get the Spirit; if he gets the Spirit, he will teach by the Spirit; and if he teaches by the Spirit, he will touch the hearts of the people and he will be happy. There will be no homesickness, no worrying about families, for all time and talents and interests are centered on the work of the ministry. Work, work, work—there is no satisfactory substitute, especially in missionary work.”

—President Ezra Taft Benson


Thursday was Thanksgiving and no one from our branch invited us over, so the zone leaders found a family for us to have dinner with named Sagastizado. The food was just pretty standard stuff. We ended up staying there from 1:00 to 8:00 because after the meal we played a 4 hour game of risk and then a 2 hour game of unstable unicorns. It was so fun, and it was nice that we wouldn't just be at our apartment all day.

Friday we did exchanges with the zone leaders which was interesting.

Saturday we didn't get to do too much because we had to do weekly planning. We did get in a small car accident but everyone was fine and only our mirror got broken off, and so now we have a better car so the other one can get repaired. About the crash, Elder Powell didn't see a lady when he was switching lanes and she zoomed ahead to try and avoid a collision. It took off the mirror as you can see.

Sunday was mostly uneventful. Other than the zone leaders' car getting stolen. They got it back eventually because of a device the church put in the car, but the the ditched it and stole the bike rack and a few other things.  My companions and I were asked to speak, and we had to do it in Spanish, so I was super nervous. We were given the option to speak on anything we wanted to. I chose to speak about the Book of Mormon. I was supposed to speak for 10 minutes, but somehow I spoke for 15. Also giving a talk in Spanish is so much easier simply because I can't tell what I'm saying so I can't even judge my own talk on how it went.

I thought lizards lived in the desert?

Most of the zone

My companions and I: Elder Bradley, Elder Williams, Elder Powell (the ginger)

Unstable unicorns, it's a very interesting game.

Week 8: Happy Thanksgiving!!

Hey everyone!! This week has been pretty great. I've focused more on my personal studies and found a lot to learn from reading the Book of Mormon. Also this week we got 2 people on date for baptisms, so that's exciting. The hardest part though is getting them to come to church. They always have some sort of excuse as to why they can't come. We've also tried getting them to come to a church tour, but they won't even do that. This one guy, Brayan, who's probably in his late teens or early twenties, says that he feels like if he goes to church it should be with his parents and he just doesn't feel comfortable with church. We've tried to teach his parents but Brayan never invites us inside some just have lessons on his cold porch.

The other hard part about teaching Hispanics is that there's always someone different who answers the door and the other person you were going to teach isn't home. So we'll get plenty of new people to teach, but they don't commit.

Also a random experience that happened when we went to go visit some investigators: we were going to a trailer park, like usual, and there were four cop cars near our investigator's trailer. So there were lots of police out too, there were also some guys in military uniform, but when two of the elders went to meet with the investigator, they said that the police were out trying to find someone who had apparently been running around threatening people with a sword. We decided to not stick around for very long.

As for answers to questions about how a companionship of four works, we generally switch off every day. Me and Elder Williams just switch trainers, so he'll be with either Elder Powell or Elder Bradley, and I'll be with the other one. Then the next day we switch. Also we only have one car: a Toyota Corolla. So we generally only use the car and sometimes have members drive two of us so we can cover more ground and have members with us for lessons. We only have three bikes, and the elder who doesn't have one probably won't need one until he gets put in a biking area.

When we teach lessons, two of us will go meet with half of the investigators in the area, and the other two will meet with the other half. But usually we can't even get in the door. They either don't answer or they're not home. We have been getting fed some pretty good food though. When members feed us, they have to feed four of us at a time, but that's now changing. We had zone conference this week and one of the changes is that we won't be getting fed by members in their homes Monday through Friday. They either drop it off to us, we pick it up, or we just make our own food. On Saturday and Sunday they want us to have dinner with less active families, part member families, but if that doesn't happen then we can get it from members. It's putting more focus on the ward mission leader since he has to coordinate these things.

It can be difficult having to work some things out between four instead of just two, but it's definitely nice to have more people. Elder Powell is a funny guy who feels strongly about missionary work and his purpose. He's a wrestler and a football player. Elder Bradley is also pretty witty. He's very diligent and knows a lot about Spanish, how to teach lessons, etc. And Elder Williams loves to talk and fix things. He's almost always talking even if he isn't talking to anyone in particular. And if he's not talking, he's fixing something: food, tables, bikes, organizing closets, cleaning.

Happy Thanksgiving!!

Elder Williams making an apron from a pair of ruined dress pants he found.

Meme that Elder Powell made of Brother Saucedo. Brother Saucedo is an awesome guy who loves talking about ionized water, BYU (he's never been, but he's taking online classes), and about the blessings he can get by helping us with lessons, giving us water, or anything else.

My small desk and bed. I used to just have the stool as my desk, but now I got an upgrade and have a bigger desk.

Service project we did Friday morning for a witch who hosted a coven focused on earth based paganism. (Also I'm not sure what Elder Bradley is trying to do in the very back. He's either dancing, doing some martial arts thing, or raking the leaves. Can't tell)

Week 7: Week two in the field

Not a whole lot happened this week, but it went by fast. It's kind of discouraging how every week and every day seems exactly the same. We try to set up appointments for people who have seemed interested or for our investigators, but they all mostly seem to fall through. When we go to meet with them they're always busy, or it's too late since it starts getting dark around 5:30 here. The main thing I've learned that I need to focus on is the good that I'm doing. Often, it doesn't seem like I have the opportunity to do very much good, but every time we do find those people willing to learn amongst all the doors being slammed in our faces, it really helps reinforce the reason why I'm out here.

But even though every day is the same, there's generally always something that makes it stand out from the others. For instance, I've met some people in trailer parks who haven't had anyone to talk to for a very long time. This one lady we met while knocking doors, who seemed to be in her 70's, talked to us for about 45 minutes, and the entire time she was either laughing or crying, but it was all about how glad she was to have company for her skittish dog. To me and Elder Bradley, it seemed that she hadn't talked to anyone other than her dog for several months or she had some sort of mental disability that came with her old age. Probably both though. It was such a sad sight, and the weirdest experience I've ever had.

Week 6: First week in the field!!

This first week has flown by so fast! Each day feels so long but it all happens incredibly fast.

I arrived to the mission field with about 25 other new missionaries, and after meeting the mission president, we got an amazing meal and found a place to sleep for the night. Next day we had a bunch of training and learning mission rules, then finally we got to meet our companions. Turns out that I have three companions. Elder Williams is from Mesa Arizona and he came with me from the CCM/MTC, then there's Elder Powell from Logan Utah who has been out for only six weeks so he's technically still being trained since training goes for 12 weeks, but he's also training us. And then there's Elder Bradley who is from West Jordan Utah and has been out for 15 months. He started out in the Federal Way mission, but that got closed so now he got transferred to this mission. The area we're serving in is the Lacey/Olympia area, but we're serving in the Rainier Vista Spanish branch.
Our apartment is really small, because there's only one bedroom with two beds in it. So elders Bradley and Powell are sleeping on the beds while Elder Williams and I are sleeping on the couches which are actually more comfortable than the beds.

Other than this, the apartment had multiple other surprises that I wasn't prepared for. One being that we had basically no food whatsoever, two, there's black mold in the shower (which we're going to try to clean up today, but we're not sure how so if you have any ideas let me know), and three, apartments are basically the missionary graveyard for unwanted items. We've found tons of stuff that have just been thrown in closets. Elder Williams has been going to town on the apartment. He's been cleaning absolutely everything including the walls, organizing closets, and fixing everything. It's pretty funny actually. He says he's never like this, but he just feels the need to clean.

Also between the four of us we only have one car and three bikes. Generally, we only use the car because everything is so far spread out and the branch we're serving in doesn't have any boundaries like a ward would. So I haven't even used my bike yet which is a little disappointing since I was actually looking forward to it.

As for the rest of this week, I've already had some pretty interesting experiences. The weirdest one so far is when I met a prophet while tracting. One thing I've been surprised about is the difference in culture here. Everyone is religious, but they're all of different faiths: Buddhists, Catholics, born agains, I've even met someone who said his faith is one where they study every faith and believe in all of them. But running into a prophet really takes the cake. This guy believes that he is a prophet and he has seen God. He has some crazy beliefs, and all he wanted to do was to bible bash us. It was so weird.

But so far our schedule is mostly studying in the morning until 12, go knocking doors, try to get appointments, but have all of them fall through and so we go knocking some more. I haven't been able to teach any lessons yet, and it's frustrating that we can only teach Hispanic people. I feel like the MTC didn't prepare me for this at all since all we did there was practice teaching lessons and I haven't had the opportunity to teach anyone yet.

However, I feel like I've felt the Spirit a whole lot more out in the field already than I've ever felt in the MTC. One thing I want to share from my personal study is an invitation from Elder Bednar. He invited all the missionaries in one of his talks to get a cheap Book of Mormon and starting from the beginning and mark every spot where it mentions God, Christ, or the Spirit. I've started doing this and the change in my study has been incredible. It's usually hard to pay attention sometimes or understand what its saying, but as I've been going through marking, I've been a lot more focused and I've learned more as I've read. I invite each of you to try this even if you only do it for five minutes each night, you will be able to feel His presence more in your life.

Our trainer is introducing us to everyone for our first Zone Conference.
Elder Williams, Me, Elder Bradley, Elder Powell

Insta Finds :)

Now that I know the mission has an Instagram account, I'll be on the lookout. I think these were probably take the day after Jared arrived in Washington and  everyone was being assigned their companions and areas. Check out the neon color of Jared's helmet hanging on his bike (when we ordered everything they said this would be a good one for visibility -hehe).

"Sugah" has arrived!!!!

Jared had told us that he was allowed to call us from the airport during his layover for his flight to Washington yesterday. However, the time for the call came a went. We were pretty bummed. Then last night around 8pm we got a call from an unknown number and decided to answer. There was no doubt  who the booming voice belonged to on the other end. I was giddy to say the least!!!!! Jared sounded soo happy. It was such a joy to talk to him. He told us about his layover in Georgia. He loved how welcoming the staff at the airport was there. He said a lot of the workers there were black. He got a kick out of one lady who was checking his ID and said “Is this you sugah?”

After the call we got a couple pictures and a text from his mission president’s wife:

Your missionary has arrived safely and we are so happy to have them here. We love them already and look forward to serving here in the Washington Tacoma Mission together. 

We have had a nice evening together, having dinner, and getting to know them better. 

All of the elders are staying at the Assistants place and the sisters are with us at the mission home tonight. We will gather together in the morning for a day of training and meeting their trainer/companion and then head out to their new area later in the afternoon. 

I will be posting more pictures tomorrow evening on our Instagram page. If you would like to follow along, here is the name:  

washingtontacomamission

We love these missionaries and can't wait for them to experience the joy and happiness of this great work. 

Your missionary's 

P-day is on Monday's and can expect an email that day. 

If you have any questions, please don't hesitate to text me at this number or my (Sister Leishman) mission phone: 253-241-2805

Love, President and Sister Leishman 

Week 5 Goodbye MTC, Hello Tacoma, Washington!!

Hey everybody!!!

I don't feel like I have much to talk about this week, mostly because it's been the six weeks here now and not much changes. But this is my last email here in México, and I'm leaving for Washington early Monday morning. The bus I have to be on leaves at 2 in the morning and we have to be there a half hour early, and travel leaders have to be there an hour early, and I  got picked as travel leader for the missionaries going to my mission. So I'm not going to be getting much sleep that night.

Just as an explanation, I was writing this email earlier today and the power went out and basically none of this email got saved so I don't have time to write it all over again, so this is all you'll be getting today.

Week 4: Power outages & getting locked out.... again

Hey everybody this last week has gone by so fast, and I only have a week and a half more to go. I can't believe it's already that time.

Not that much has happened this week other than power outages, getting locked out for the fourth time, an earthquake drill, and a district vs district game of soccer.
So on Tuesday we had another power outage the entire day which I think was pretty fun, and then around 8:30 p.m. all these sirens started going off and a bunch of missionaries (mainly the hermanas) started freaking out. Turns out it was just an earthquake drill and that protocol calls for being calm if such an event were to happen.

Today my companion and I got locked out for the fourth time. Our doors have electric locks, so we could get into the apartment but not into our own room which also has electric locks. They've had to come fix it every time because not even the master key works. They tried changing the batteries the last time, but that didn't work apparently. My guess is that the internal hardware or programming is just messed up. We've given up on closing our door so were now just leaving it open while we're gone.

Also today we played an hour long game of soccer which felt amazing. We have a rival district that we played kickball with and we won, and today we won again 2 to 5. I injured my leg last week when someone I was playing soccer with stepped on my leg, and it's still bothering me which is really frustrating.

The Spanish is coming along better. I'm able to speak pretty well now, but it's still super hard understanding Latinos.

Sorry that there isn't much today.  Let me know what else I'm leaving out that you want to hear about.
Nos vemos!!
-Elder Smith

Pictures:
1. Elder Christensen making the game plan for today's soccer game. (We're very serious about winning against that other district)
2. All my roommates: under Elder Tobler is Elder Nydegger (from Chicago going to Peru) and Elder Coons. Under me is Elder Law (from Cache Valley Utah going to Peru) and Elder Atkinson.

Week 3: Another Day at the Temple!!

Wow this week has gone by fast!! I feel like General Conference was just yesterday! That was super good by the way. I think my favorite talks were by Elder Rasband and Elder Holland. Elder Holland's talk helped me out with some struggles I was having with another missionary, and so I acted in faith, put my trust in Christ, and walked up to that missionary against all instincts so we could settle something that was going on between us.

So I've been told to tell more about life at the CCM, so I'll give a brief overview. 6:30 get up and get ready, 7:30 is breakfast, and then we have class in one small little room until lunch at 12:30. Then we go back to the same little classroom until dinner at 6:30, then back again until 9:00. We all get really tired of that room super quickly. Basically we get a lot of lessons on how to teach better, lessons on various Spanish grammer rules, and practice teaching each other and our teachers. Sometimes in the morning we "get" to go to the TALL labs to work on computers and learn more Spanish. The program they have is so confusing because not everything is correct and it just confuses us. The only parts of the day that I look forward to are meals and gym time. My companion and I have taken up playing ultimate frisbee for gym, which is right after lunch, and we're getting pretty good at it.

Today we got to go to the temple again and had a special surprise. My companion found out just this morning that his dad was in Mexico City today and he was going to the temple. So when we got to the temple today, we got to meet his dad and do initiatories with him. Whenever we go to the temple, we can only go do an endowment session, but the branch president came with us today and he let Elder Tobler, his dad, and I go do some initiatories which was pretty interesting. But going through the endowment session, I could understand a lot more than I did two weeks ago. It was so cool! Every once in a while I would take off my head set and I could actually understand a little bit of what was going on.

So my parents need to know my favorite scripture for my plaque, and I had forgotten where it was until this week when I read it in my Spanish Book of Mormon. I thought it was so cool to have recognized enough words in Spanish to pick it out again, especially when I didn't know exactly where it was. My favorite scripture is 2 Nephi/Nefi 4:34-35. Really I love the whole chapter, but these two verses really highlight what feels like is my own testimony. To save you time, I'll type it in: "34 O Lord, I have trusted in thee, and I will trust in thee forever. I will not put my trust in the arm of flesh; for I know that cursed is he that putteth his trust in the arm of flesh. Yea, cursed is he that putteth his trust in man or maketh flesh his arm. 35 Yea, I know that God will give liberally to him that asketh. Yea, my God will give me, if I ask not amiss; therefore I will lift up my voice unto thee; yea, I will cry unto thee, my God, the rock of my righteousness. Behold, my voice shall forever ascend up unto thee, my rock and mine everlasting God. Amen."

Well I think that's all I can think of right now. Nos vemos!!
-Elder Smith

Ps I forgot to say that I got a haircut earlier this week, so you'll see it in the pictures.

Pictures
1. The Tacomi squad before going to the temple on that cramped yellow bus
2. My amazing district leader Elder Coons
3, 4, 5. Pictures of campus

I (mom) got this sweet follow-up text today:

Sister Smith -
I had the chance to meet Elder Smith this morning as I was passing through Mexico City on a business trip.  He looks well and is in good spirits.  Our son is very much enjoying serving with him.  Their Branch President facilitated the three of us completing some initiatory together.  It was great to meet him in person. 
- Brent Tobler