Wk 101 - NEW PRESIDENT

Area: Buenos Aires 
Companion: Elder De Los Santos

ma boyz!! elder martinez, me, elder stewart, idk, elder iverson,
elder yorgason, elder spackman, elder murray, and elder deaver

elder stewart, me, pres and sis Siedschlag

-missão brasil teresina

elder barros, elder chagas, elder de los santos, me, elder tenório 

me and my comp

baptism pics--Alcione

last haircut.. today!

-sunday in church with the elderzz

GOD BLESS AMERICA! Happy 4th of July this week! man i miss the
excitement, but its all good. i wouldnt choose to be in any other
place in the world right now than where i am right now. I loved the
pics and seein the my nephew and neice... cant wait to meet them. It
still hasnt sunk in that the mission is ending... and it probably wont
hit me till im actually home... 2 more weeks. And as you know as well
we got a new president... President Siedschlag. I had a meeting with
him on tuesday and wednesday and i absolutely love the new president.
I was getting a little discouraged,  but i feel super aliviated and
happy at this moment that i am leaving the mission.. the Lord really
knows what he is doing.

My week was great. Tuesday we had a good district meeting, like i
already said my district is pretty sweet... We had lunch at José and
Fatima´s again... Still the only question is when they will get
married and all... this lunch was cool because fatima is usually a
really closed person and she came to us this time and said... lets see
if we cant fix this marraige thing so i can get baptized... It would
be pretty impossible now for her to get baptized before i leave, but
that doesnt mean that we lost... i am super happy that SHE is finally
saying that. We then went to teach Alcione and we explained how the
baptismal interview would be and all and i was just hopin and prayin
all week that things would go well with her. We then went out to elder
murray´s area to do an interview and it was quite a ways out, but
wasnt work grabbin a bus. We had a good interview and it was an old
man whose wife has been in the church for years, and he finally
decided to get baptized. It was a long ways home, but we made it...
tiring day.

Wednesday was a great Independence day for me! We started the day with
an awesome leadership meeting in the stake center.. this was the first
time we got to know the new president. The meeting was super good. I
was getting a little upset about just hearing about baptism, baptism
and baptism.... the assistants started doing the same thing at the
start, but then the president got up... He said that if we are
baptizing 30 people a month and the number of people going to church
doesnt go up as well, that was lost work. he said We are here to
convert people and not to convince people to be baptized.... I have
waited my whole mission to hear someone say that and i had never felt
so happy and comforted.. the Lord knew that i needed to see the new
president. Elder stewart was at the meeting too and ended up stayin
with me the rest of the day. We went and taught some new investigators
with some members and it went very well.. i think its kinda cool that
me and elder stewart passed in the same area...he is a good guy and
we´ve become good friends out here.to end the night as well we had a
little star spangled banner playin and a quick 4th of july party with
the americans haha nothin much though.

Thursday morning we had a ´get to know you´ meeting with president for
all of the elders in teresina and the small cities close by. Everyone
that came to the meeting felt really good about the new president and
im really excited for the mission and that i get to leave the mission
all happy like this and knowing that the mission is in good hands. The
president left and awesome testimony about how we just need to work
hard and how we arent perfect, but it is our decision to be better.
Mom like you said in your email, it wont be worth all of this time and
work if we go home to be the same person we came as. He really wants
to work on your personal progress as well as a conversion for your
investigator and i love it. He said that many of the missionaries here
have made many mistakes, but what we need to do is leave the past in
the past. Learn from it, but dont live in it. (that was an elder
stewart sum-up by the way.. gotta give him credit for it but thats the
message that president gave us). We then booked it to do alcione´s
interview which went well, then jean came and picked us up cause lunch
was at his house. We had an amazing lunch then he even took us back to
our area to work. We taught Raquel and left a good message about the
atonement... kind of the feelings i was having when president talked
to us earlier, then we taught José who is kelly, ana karine and eli´s
dad. we tried going to arlete but again ´wasn´t home´... i dont know
what to do with her... Anyway, that night Jean came and picked us up
with domingos cause we were close to domingos´s house and we went to
get some pizza at a members restaurant. the bishop was there so it was
the perfect way to end the night cause i needed to talk to the bishop
about the baptism and make sure we were all good to go and i love the
bishop in this ward as well. The area just keeps getting better and I
am super happy with the friends i made here. Domingos and Jean are
such good guys.

Friday we had lunch at maria do carmo´s, who is mychelly´s aunt. We
ate a bunch then taught a few people close by then domingos came with
us to do visits. It was kind of a long afternoon but the week was
going fast. We taught a new lady then ended at Fatimas. We talked a
little about prayer and fasting, and it was a good spirit and she was
crying a little, but i am just super confused on what needs to happen
with their marraige that im not sure what to do... but i want to
encourage them to keep working on it, even if im not here.

Saturday we had a good lunch, even though we kind of surprised the
member when we got there, they are all super kind and made us a great
lunch anyway. We then went with domingos and alcione to the chapel for
the baptism! The baptism went well and my comp baptized her as his
first baptism on the mish. It was a good spirit and afterward i had to
interview another investigator for elder murray. This time didnt go as
well and the interview took forever, but its all good. the night was
just some contacts and some cool people we met... we had a kind of
different experience with an alcoholic that stopped to talk to us. I
had never seen anything too scary or wierd on my mission but as we
were talking to this totally drunk guy that invited us in, we sat down
and as we was talking he freaked out for like 5 seconds then in a
wierd mumble he said, ´he doesnt want anything and he wont stop
drinking´ then came back to normal. i dont say that to scare you or
anything but i dont know but im pretty sure there was something in him
that wasnt him.. it didnt scare me really but i sure felt something
that i didnt like too much... haha just another way to know that God
exists and that the enemy will do anything to stop this work from
moving forward. it was good though because after he took us to meet
his mom and a few other neighbors haha so it worked out quite well.

Sunday was another great day. At church in the morning i had the
opportunity to confirm alcione during sacrament meeting and then elder
murray, elder de los santos and i were asked to give talk for the
sacrament meeting talks. They were all really good and it was funny
cause i realized that there were 3 foreigners speakin in church that
day haha. Elder murray talked about being a member missionary and how
it is just being an example and telling people that we are this way
because of the gospel, then invite them to get to know the church, and
thats where we came in. Elder de los santos gave a good talk and
talked about the promised blessings that god gives us when we follow
his gospel and we are missionaries... and the talk called ´was it
worth it?´ from the last conference. I talked for about 18 minutes
because i filled up the rest of the time and i talked about the talk
from conference called ´the vision to do´ by Elder O. vincent haleck.
I talked about how we need to aquire the vision of what the Lord sees
in us, accept callings from the bishop, and do our best to become the
best person we can be. We had lunch at the bishops
and like i said, these last couple of weeks we really gained a trust
with the bishop and he supports us 100 percent. Im lovin it. We took a
bus home to drop off our suits and take a quick shower cause it was a
hot day then we went to visit alcione to see how she was doin after
everything then we went to a family night at José and fátimas that was
with a bunch of members. It was good and we got a ride home. After we
finished the day and took a shower, i was out on the balcony talking
to elder chagas and a car pulled up and 3 drunk guys got out of the
car... 2 of them started wrestling in the street and man it was the
funniest thing i had ever seen!!! i should have filmed it... oh
well... but good times. They were all friends so they werent mad, but
they were so drunk and in the middle of the street. Anyway, that was
the end to the week

The week went by pretty fast... i cant believe my time is ending
here.. im just super glad that im gonna finish off super happy. i love
you guys and cant wait to see ya here in a couple of weeks.

até logo,

Elder Smoot