Family and friends, Aloha! (That's Hawaiian, not Spanish, just to clarify) What a week!!! We met Juan Pablo's (Diablito Chiquito) dad this week. He got here from Mexico about a month ago and is awesome! He cooks at the Mexican restaurant where we go weekly (because one of the members works there and feeds us lunch), and he's awesome! Also, I realized that burrito literally means "Little Donkey"!!! Blew my mind! We asked Jose Torres (Boss/1 yr long member, drives a huge white truck, is 27 and comes to tons of lessons with us) and he told us it's because donkeys are pack animals and you just pack a ton of stuff on them just like you pack a ton of stuff in burritos. They also, in Mexico at least, have huge burritos that they just call burros. So ya, that happened. Specific people messages: Aunt Annie, thanks so much for the journal! I'll keep it as my "small plates" of my mission! Clair Driggs, hang in there. You're in my prayers. I honestly don't think I know anyone as strong or as positive as you, thank you for your example. People do notice, and you make a difference. Hold on. I'm praying for you! Mikell, good luck with school starting! Don't forget to keep your language in practice!!! I've met too many RMs who were fluent and I already know more Spanish than them, and it scares me. It's too much of a gift to lose! | Now back to everyone, Eduardo's baptism was awesome!!! He asked me to do it (I'm pretty sure just because I'm large and he was nervous about getting dropped). Lot's of people came, lots of miracles happened to make it all work, and the next day (yesterday) he was confirmed a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints! Watching him just grinning ear to ear during each part of that process was so thrilling and fun! Pictures to come, but it suffices me to say that that trio in that family is solid (Jesus 16, Eduardo 20, and Julia 24)!!! I love seeing the family support in the gospel they give each other!!! Thanks all for the FHE ideas! Feel free to keep them coming! I'll probably use everything I've gotten so far! Love you all so much! The church is true! There's no way this work could progress as it done without God's help. Regardless of that, however, I know for myself that this church is Jesus Christ's church on the earth! Until next time! Elder Smith P.S. I'm staying in Fort Walton Beach this transfer but we're losing Elder Galloway! He's going to train! |
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< Book of Mormon-themed Pictionary at the Spanish Noche de Hogar (Family Home Evening) on Monday. Hermana Gomez (love her, she's hilarious) is drawing her "Angel" and Elder Black approves! We had so much fun with this! If you tell a bunch of Spanish speakers to all shout out words as fast as they can in a competative setting...well it was definitely loud, energetic, and histerical!!! Everyone had a great time and laughed a ton (including one of our investigators, Jenny [pronounced Yenny...and we think spelled that way, not sure] who DIED laughing)! She is currently praying about a baptismal date (she's about 19-22ish and has an adorable little 2-4 yr. old named Michelle) and she is super solid! We're so excited for her! So this week in general has been nuts!!! We have a mission conference on Monday so we're going to have next week's preparation day on this Saturday. As for yesterday now, Jazmin (speaks English primarily but knows Spanish as well and her husband from Honduras speaks only Spanish, meets with us weekly since about two weeks before I arrived) has wanted to go to church for three weeks now. Things kept happening to keep her from it, but yesterday, with an impressive amount of determination, despite feeling a little uncomfortable with only a nice shirt and jeans to wear, and after getting lost, she arrived about 20 minutes late, right after the sacrament. She LOVED it! There were several things she didn't understand because we just barely got through explaining the Plan of Salvation to her, but we were able to explain basic things to her enough that she could follow all that was going on more or less, but regardless, she felt the spirit testify that what she was doing was right. She sang the hymns in the Sacrement meeting first hour, participated in Sunday school 2nd hour, and an awesome young mother, Sister Beamish, talked to her and helped her out through Relief Society 3rd hour (so she already has a friend in the ward to help her feel more comfortable)! I just love her so much and am so impressed with her desires to follow God's plan for her and trust Him! Also during church, I translated for Juan Pablo ("Diablito Chiquito") during Sunday School and Primary. He's SO funny! He's just 10, but he'll talk to adults and kids alike without fear (as it should be) and has the greatest questions! In Sunday-school, they were learning about the Atonement of Jesus Christ (La Expiación) and I said the word to him and he says "Like this?" as he pretends to look through binoculars. Yep, learned a new word. "Espiación" = Espionage. After clearing that up and having a good laugh, he LOVED singing the primary songs and thought it was HILARIOUS that in one of the activities we were supposed to sing "like babies"! His boisterous and unhindered laughter reminds me a lot of Mason at times :) It's great! Though I'm hoping someday I'll be able to translate for "big boys"...or at least not struggle with the little ones! Haha, working hard on that! Saturday, we moved two refrigerators in the trailer park...to where the other used to be. Yeah, they just traded similarly sized refrigerators. It was an odd request, but we were able to help a member and a recent investigator! The only thing I will say, is you'd think in the South it'd be easier to find a truck, but we needed the exercise so carrying them worked fine. Also, we fixed an AC unit for one trailer home that was owned by someone you could accurately call a hoarder. It was interesting, but climbing to the back end of the home where the AC was wasn't as difficult as we thought it would be, and we successfully saved the day! Because that wasn't enough, we also met a couple kids (16 and 13) clearing a COMPLETELY overgrown lot; as in vines had punctured the walls of this home by this point and the back yard literally was so thick that we were hacking through it with a machete. That's right, 3 service projects in one day? Booya! And one of them involved a machete, so it was pretty much a reward for doing the other two projects! Turns out they've met with missionaries but moved and want to learn more about the church and their mom is in our English class and had just invited us come visit sometime 3 days earlier! There's no way this work isn't God's! I love it! Pretty much the rest of the week was similarly awesome but I'm not going to describe everything because I'm pretty much out of time. In short, we've met new people and been able to help and serve them. We have tons of Recent Converts, Less-Actives, and Investigators all progressing toward Christ, and we're busy as can be! Life Rules! Eduardo is stoked for his baptism on the 29th (it'll be a double baptism, because the Sisters have someone being baptized that day as well). The ward is full of people who help all the time (like Sis. Beamish) and we have a whole list of people who speak spanish too and we haven't even been able to use all of them yet! The church is true. God loves everyone. Love you all! Elder Smith
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AuthorI am Elder Mathew Ross Smith serving a spanish speaking mission for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints in the Florida, Tallahassee Mission! Archives
January 2016
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