Wk 91 - Dont lose the eternal perpective

Area: Buenos Aires 
Companion: Elder De Los Santos

Man i enjoyed the emails this week... pretty sweet. I was impressed to
hear that jade played in a varsity game... not too bad. Tayton and
Jade, keep up the good work! It is good to hear about what is going
on... just send more pics cuz i really like to SEE whats happenin as
well. anyway, jen careful with your driving!!!! gosh dang... thats a
bummer again. pay attention. Me and my comp joke about how women dont
know how to drive cause they always like pass right by us without
looking... AND YOU WONDER WHY they say that??? (no offense mom, there
are always exceptions)

Well the week was pretty chill... we had district meeting. We learned
about helping our investigators keep commitments. We later tried to
teach milton, who was a contact the other week, but again was watching
soccer, but we still talked to him for a bit... but its hard cause the
game was on. We later went to Levy´s house and talked to him and his
mom socorro who is a sweet lady... We had a good talk about the
importance of the church in our life... many people dont think that it
is important and Levy kind of thinks that it isnt necessary to follow
a church... but there are a lot of things that are necessary if he
really believes in the bible.

Wednesday we had lunch at a cool members house named Frances and
Névia. They are originally from Fortaleza but are really cool, he
really likes fight sports and like mixed martial arts. We then did a
division with elder donizete and elder lima. I went with Elder
Donizete and we had a great conversation with Fátima who was a contact
the other week... but she kinda understands now our purpose and
probably wont progress.... but she is a good lady and invited us to
meet the Esquadrilha da fumaça! haha tell ya more about this later. We
also talked to levy who showed us some of his cool animals... i forgot
what they are called. Later we visited Marcos and Raquel who were
doing awesome. They had prayed the other day together and marcos had a
dream where he was in a church and felt really good....yeah that was a
cool little miracle. I have been seeing a bit of this lately. Raquel
was feeling really good about the church since the first visit and
wanted to visit... they came on sunday. Our last visit was with Fátima
who is kelly and ana karine´s mom. She has had visits from the
missionaries for a while now.... maybe 7 months or so... and has
prayed many times and knows well the missionary messages... this night
was a little different because she wants something or something is
missing but she is close to an answer. the next day i got a call
telling me that she had some type of dream which we heard about on
sunday.

Thursday we were invited by the other Fátima to meet the Esquadrilha
da Fumaça.... we were to meet her at the airport and somehow she just
got us in and we met this group of show airplanes.. They were really
cool guys and we just took some pics and watched them take off to go
do a show in another city... The guys that worked with the team are
really cool and we took a bunch of pics and videos.  Later we met up
with a member and she took us to a friends house to teach her... it
didnt work out right then so we marked to go back on sunday. That
night we had a meeting with the ward mission leader which was alright,
but nothing comes from it cuz he´s the only one that shows up.

Friday we went early to help with a service project at a cool member
named Nilza´s place. We helped her paint a new place that she will use
as a restaurant. She gave us lunch after so it was cool. After we went
home, took a shower, and changed clothes we went and visited Fátima,
Levy and marcos and raquel again. It was kind of the same old same
old, but with marcos and raquel we arranged for them to go to church
with Ana karine cause they are really close to one another. They are a
great family, but arent married which is almost always a problem
here... so it will take a while for them to get baptized. Later we
were given a pizza from Nilza to eat for dinner cuz she owns a pizza
place. Good day.

Saturday was a decent day where we had a good lunch at a lady who is
the mom of someone that i met more than a year ago in campo maior...
so it was easy to get along from the start. We had a good lunch and
every lunch i dont know if i told you about this, but we always leave
a message. I left the message that was in Alma 40: 11-12 and talked
about not forgeting the eternal perspective and remember where we are
going and how the gospel will help us get there... it turned out well
i thought. and after we had the guy (that a while back i told you
about him that he served a mission in Salt lake and lived in salvador
but was going to get married with a girl from here.... this womens
daughter) come with us to teach a couple of lessons. We met a new
investigator in the house of a member whose name is deborah. She is
pretty darn catholic, but after talking a little she accepted to hear
the message of the restoration. It was a good clear message and she
understood well. After we visited Milton and we answered A LOT of
questions that he had about the authority of God (priesthood) and how
you recieve it and how the church works and all.. it lasted about 2
hours which usually shouldnt happen, but it was good. that pretty much
killed our day, but it was good.

Sunday we had Stake conference and marcos and raquel came! it was
super packed, but we got them good seats and we had to watch it in
another room... as always. the conference was good and president Dias
talked and had a great talk about the importance of baptism and the
restoration of the church which are two REALLY important things that
we teach... We had lunch and it was good and after they showed me that
the older brother won a baseball glove on the mission.... so i played
some catch!! it was a dream come true....man i miss baseball. (and
just a quick fact-brasilians dont know how to play baseball ;)) Well
we had a tough afternoon cuz not even our marked appointements worked
out... we ended up talking to a less active member and just seein how
he was doin. We then went to Fátima´s house to hear about this dream
she had... She talked about a place, a big house, where she was with
her whole family and she was very happy... She wanted to buy the place
and that was about it... I am sure it was some sort of answer from God
because until now she hasnt had anything like this... and she accepted
it as an answer.... but she still wont accept the church because the
church isnt vital as she says... God judges us for whats inside and
not what church we are in.. which is true. but again, If you truly
believe in the Bible and understand the purpose of God for us, It is
unevitably clear that a true church on the earth is necessary to live
with God again. I am sooo thankful for the church and that truly it is
the only church that offers an Eternal Family and that makes this
promise or covenant with God... Incredible. Dont loose the Eternal
Perspective.

So it was an exciting week and all and today we went with elder
donizete and elder lima to the mall to check some stuff out.. i bought
some new stuff that ive been meaning to buy.. like a cup and special
straw thing to drink tereré and chimarrão (or mate in argentina) but
that was cool. Anyway we are just chillin today....

Well thats about it.. have a good one


Elder SMoot

sunburn from american football

does this little girl look a little like lily austin??? 

some fighting roosters

some cool animal at levy´s house

a guy from the esquadrilha da fumaça

me and the district with a plane of the esqudrilha da fumaça (look
it up on google or something... they know the thunderbirds)

-painting at nilza´s

-birds at maria dias´s house. (lunch on saturday) 

me with the birds

-me and milton´s kid

-baseball

p day in the supermarket and we found some super hero masks

Wk 90 - Man i miss american sports...

Area: Buenos Aires
Companion: Elder De Los Santos

Well another week passed by... man i cant wait till i dont have to do
this anymore! i feel like my weekly message is super boring and
nothing really changes.. but ill let ya know how it was anyway. Thanks
for the pics and the emails.
this week was a little better than last week... we had a good district
meeting that elder donizete talked about helping people recognize an
answer from God. Many times we are praying for the answer, but many
times we think that the answer didnt come and we dont recognize it.
Many times the answer from God is subtle and the slightest thing, such
as a feeling. Or some type of knowing that is unexplainable. anyway,
it was good. We had a decent day, but there was a cool part that we
went to contact this couple that was sitting in the road... all i said
was, hello, whats your names? and the man was already opening the door
to let us come in and sit down.. so that was cool. They said they will
visit the church and all... but they are more just curious i think...
but ya never know. They are pretty cool and the man understands pretty
well when we talk about the church.

Wedneday we had lunch at domingos´s house which is always good. He is
a good man and helps us a lot when he can. he is supporting his family
(as finances go) and he does a lot to help his neighbor as well. We
had a visit to ana virginia and just reviewed the plan of salvation.
We passed by another investigators house (levy who likes to hunt) and
he gave us some meat that he made... it was pretty darn good. Domingos
came with us later to do some visits. We visited a family who was
pretty cool, but everytime we go he is exhausted cause he works at the
airport at 4 am. We taught another lady named fátima who is kind
of.... in her own little religion, but she says she is catholic.
anyway, with most of these people what we teach just seems like a good
idea, for some reason it doesnt go to their head the importance of
this! its somewhat frustrating sometimes. We were heading back and it
took a while to walk home, so we got home a little late. The other
elders had set up a bunch of booby traps for us... like a bucket of
water on top of the door, juice packets in the shower head, tripping
wires, my bed was missing the support to hold up the mattress so that
when you sat down you fell down... luckily i knew most of these tricks
and it didnt work. But i knew there was one more thing cause the
others were up doing something. anyway, they ran in the room and
turned on the ceiling fan that was full of flour and my comps foot
powder... ah man that was a long day and a long night.

Thursday we got up at 6 30 even after the long night, and the other
dudes thought they could just get a little more sleep... so we grabbed
a bucket of water to wake them up... ah man that was sweet revenge.
haha they didnt wake up too happy. but we cleaned it all up in the
morning and got back to work... little twerps... its like this always
when you have a bunch of newbies in the same house... once you get
´old´ on the mission, you get to tired to do this stuff and you really
just dont have the will power. But other than all this, we had a
decent day. we are working a lot on gettin our investigators
integrated with the members. we passed by domingos´s again and on our
way home he gave me a full camoflauge suit from the Brasilian army (he
works in the army and gets some free stuff). So that was cool.

Friday... happy b day Tayton! dude i realized that our fam doesnt have
anymore ´children´. they are all teenagers and up. how you feelin
about that? Well lunch was in josé and fatimas which was cool. That is
the second time they gave us lunch and they are always open to help us
out. I hope they will start comin to church. We talked to carol and
reaffirmed her baptism for the 28th of this month... she is bein
pretty flaky about some things, like she didnt come to church and all,
so im not sure how its gonna be. We pretty much spent the day walking
until later when we talked to matheus and his fam. THey are really old
investigators.. they love the elders and all, just that they dont go
to church or do really anything... but one day they say that they
will... that one day will probably never come if they dont start soon.
I realized that when we need to get something done, mark a day and get
it done, or it will never be done.

Saturday we taught ana virginia again just to review the 3rd lesson
and help my comp practice some more. We went to a hospital cause ana
karine asked us to give a blessing to her uncle there. After which we
went to teach marcos and raquel who are a new family that we are
starting to go to. They live right by kelly and ana karine so that
will be a good support to them. The wife is a little more interested
and open about learning more and visiting the church so hopefully
we´ll get them to church this week. Later on in the day it rained a
ton! i didnt have any food at home so we went to the supermarket to
buy some stuff... when we left it was a rainstorm and then some! gotta
love walkin home in the rain...

Sunday we had church in the morning... and again there wasnt really
any investigators that we invited there... There is a little girl that
frequents the church, but her family isnt super interested in her
being baptized if you know what i mean... we will start to work with
that this week. We had lunch then again we went to talk to carol.....
who ´wasnt home´ but when i called her i heard some stuff cause i was
right outside her house... We then went to visit Nilton, who was the
cool contact that let us in really quickly this week, and he had an
´important appointment´ which was the soccer game that was going on
that afternoon... so we went to elder lima and elder donizete´s
baptism which was alright. it was cool because josé, ana karine´s dad,
came... i really want the best for that fam and will be super happy
the day they get baptized.

other than that i think i forgot to explain a couple of pics. the one
with a bunch of letters in my hand was what the secretaries brought
me... there were 17 letters all from november and december! man the
mail system is so messed up here. and the last pic with a guy in a
white shirt and tie was rafael who me and elder bailey baptized last
year... pretty cool.

Well thanks again for the support and the pics and vids... gotta love
it. have a good week


Elder Smoot

Wk 89 - im kinda out of ideas....

Elder De Los Santos, Smoot & Lima

 i GOT 17 LETTERS FROM NOVEMBER AND
DECEMBER... THEY WERE ALL HAPPY THANKSGIVING AND MERRY CHRISTMAS
LETTERS.

rafael who me and elder bailey baptized last
year... pretty cool.

Area: Buenos Aires
Companion: Elder De Los Santos

HEy Again.... well that was exciting to see that taylor made it

home... He seems super happy and really confused of what to do with
his life! haha gotta love it. Life is starting to get really wierd as
far as seeing my friends home now... taylor is like a brother to me
and man its just mind boggling.... wierd.

WEll the week was alright... we really had a slow start because of
interviews and just some tought days, but we gave a lot of effort at
the end of the week.

monday we went bowling which was cool. I got 144 which aint too bad
right? P days are good in teresina cuz you can have a little fun.

TUesday we had the normal district meeting routine and all.. nothin
exciting... we headed to lunch and tried to talk to carol real fast
but she is always ´busy´ ya know... lunch was good though and jean
came by to visit the members and gave us a ride back to our apartment,
cuz my comp had to study.... after our study time we had to go to an
interview with president dias... We ended up waiting for 3 hours so it
killed our day. We went there at about 4 o clock and got out at about
8 30. The interview was awesome though. he asked us to bring our
planners and area books and he complimented what i had planned and
done..... which was surprising cause thats never happened to me... but
it was nice. We ran out of time to work cuz my area was a good 20
minutes from the mission office so we grabed some food and went home.

Wednesday we had to study from 8 till noon. It is a lot of studying.
The day was alright. we had lunch at francisco andrade that has really
good food, so it was fun. We visited ana virginia then met up with
some young men who wanted to go out with the missionaries. we walked
and walked and walked.... We went to a handful of houses, but only
two of them opened up to listen to the message. It was a pretty long
day, but we did visit mateus and his grandma. one of the young men
that were with us shared a cool testimony. both of them are the only
member in the family so it is harder for them to stay firm in the
church, but they found good friends and are gettin ready for
missions.. they were pretty fun to have with us during the day. at
night we had a meeting with the ward mission leader. WE are planning
an activity in the church for the 27th of this month.. hopefully it
will work out well.

THursday we were finishing up our studies and jean called and was
passing close to our house, so we met up with him and he gave us a
ride to lunch. we got money for lunch, so we combined with elder lima
and elder donizete and we had a good lunch together. We spent the day
trying to visit some people and ended up just making a bunch of
contacts.. We met a sweet old man named Raimundo that lives along
because his wife died a few years back. We explained the plan of
salvation to him and i was really greatful for the priesthood
authority that allows us to make promises with God, and in return he
promises an eternal family and many other blessings. We visited an old
couple later on that were just laughing and smiling the whole time...
they were very sweet and good people, but they dont really want
anything as far as religion goes... they are very deeply rooted in the
catholic religion which is more of a cultural thing here.

Friday we had lunch at josé and fátima´s house. They are good people
and lunch was very good. José is very hippie like i think cuz he loves
plants and talks about how he hears God in the wind and in the streams
and when he is all alone in the middle of nowhere. haha he is a good
guy. They gave us some maracujá fruits to take home and make juice...
(i think its passion fruit there right?). We visited mychely cuz she
had been gone the last week... i am really happy that the 4 people me
and elder lima baptized are super firm in the church. we dont visit
them that often anymore but they are in the church every sunday and
are doing awesome. We talked with Levy, who was a contact about a
week ago.. apparently he really likes to hunt and didnt believe that
people hunt in the states and that i liked hunting... he all of a
sudden became a really good friend haha it was funny. he would have
liked elder arrant a lot cuz he is a big hunter. and here they just
hunt with bb guns and traps... they cant have real guns here unless
you are police or breaking the law. WE visited some other people and
passed by domingos´s house because it was his neices b day and when we
got home all tired and sweaty, the water was out.. there was a man
that came to repair a pipe and didnt finish... so we had to shove some
plastic bags up in the hole and use a peice of metal to hold it in
place while everyone took showers.. ah man the adventures that have on
the mish. it came out a couple of times and almost flooded the place,
but it worked out alright.

Saturday we all got up and out to play a little basketball and do some
pull-ups as morning exercises... i like this apartement for this.
THere is the army base next to our house that in the front has a
basketball court and pull=up bars and what not for public use as
welll... so its cool. We had lunch far away so we grabbed a bus, then
walked back and went to work. WE marked a new baptismal date for carol
on the 28th... it will be tough but i hope if we work with her it will
work out. We then just made some good contacts. WE talked to another
woman about the plan of salvation. I used a book of mormon from the
primary to give to a woman named fátima. She really likes the bible
and all and i showed her the book of mormon and she really loved it. I
will go back this week to see what she has studied and learned and ill
let you know next week. THat was the last one from the primary... i
think some people stole the rest to do proselyting.. im not sure.. We
had a long talk with elizabete who just kept saying that she wasnt
going to change religion.. her fam has potential, but if she doesnt
want to learn, we cant help her. WE also talked with antonio augusto
and his daughter... they were watching some program from their church
that had some guy trying to expulse a demon from a woman... i gotta
admit i almost broke out laughing, but luckily i held it in. I just
became more thankful for having the truth in my life. I dont
understand how people are so blinded and dont see the light right in
front of them! this church is true, it makes sense and God answers the
prayers of those who truly seek to know.

Sunday we had a meeting at 7 am before church which was hard because
we live far away.. but it was a ward council meeting and we were
planning the activity. I like the bishop here.. he tries to help us a
lot. WE had church and we had almost noone there... there was one
little girl there that always comes.. and we had planned almost 10
people to come.... im loosing my head and getting a little frustrated,
but its ok. We met levy in the afternoon and met his girlfriend who he
was showing the book of mormon to and stuff... she was awesome. Super
lively and looks like she is a seventh day adventists, but doesnt go
anymore and was looking for another religion. We talked a little for
her and she wants to get to know the church and all...I think she has
a lot of potential. Her name is carmem. WE then met up with a man who
we contacted the other day and wrote down his address. His name is
Josemar and works at the airport here close by. He accepted us well
and we had a quick message with him then had to go.. i hope this one
goes somewhere as well. ANyway, it was a long weeek and im starting to
get tired... or actually it just happens at the end of every week... i
just hope that this next week is better than this past one.

Im still good happy and healthy and gotta get things goin here... im
glad to have a great family and i was happy to hear that taylor made
it back safe and sound... crazy how time flies.

Have a great week!

Elder smoot