April 23, 2018 So 11 year old's can drive

And one just happened to give us a ride to a family home evening. And the sad thing. Is she has been driving longer than my companion has been. It was a very scary and faith building moment. I am still alive, but I have seen more of mexico and had a scary experience. This week overall was much better than the previous. We have been working hard as heck and giving it all we have. We only got 13 news this week (which for here in our mission is below our standard), but we got 8 investigators here in church this sunday. It was awesome, becuase 5 minutes we only had 2 and then 6 came out of no where. It was a straight up miracle. Its so nice to see the lord help us and bless us. We also had the chance to speak this sunday on ward missionary work. And Elder sabey mentioned how we want to be doing Family home evenings with the members of the ward. And the ward was super excited to help us and after several families and up and scheduled them with us for this week. So we have a lot of work this week. We also have zone conference this week and Im super excited to go hear our president and get some new council. SO spanish this week is growing and Elder Sabey and I have been teaching and contacting so much better. We connect with people so much better, its just hard sometimes when people still dont want to listen or talk to us anymore. FUNNY THING THIS WEEK. We were out contacting this week and we heard this plop sound. And elder sabey was like "what was that". And he looked on his backpack and a bird had pooped on him. It was so funny, he was just releaved that his shirt was ruined. Our investigators arent progressing super great at the moment. They either need to get married(which is very hard and expensive here) or have issues with giving up alcohol or something to that effect (alcohol also happens to be a very big part of the culture here). But we have some girls who have been coming to church for awhile who arent members but their parents are. One of them started invited her friend who loves the church so far and we are going to teach them this wednesday. Itll be super nice to work with them, they are one of those super awesome family who take care of missionaries. Also, dodge a bullet this week. Almost had to eat menudo, which for those of you unfamiliar with Mexican culture is cow intestine. I havent heard good things about it from americans, but thankfully the member hooked us up with fried chicken if we perferred that. So as of yet, havent had Menudo. Will Elder Smith ever have Menudo though? Find out next week, on the next edition of "whats good in Muzquiz Mexico" Loving it out here and Mexico and Im so grateful that I get to serve the Lord out here in Muzquiz. Love you all so much and am grateful for the support and emails.
 Elder Smith

April 16, 2018

So Moana is straight up amazing in Spanish. Very very different experience. But it is awesome non the less. Little by little I`m forgetting my english Disney and its being replaced with spanish. I cant believe its happening. Im finally becoming a Mexico missionary. So I had this really unique experience this week while visiting a member. She told us about these experiences that she is having in her house. Where she hears stuff and people talking and people walking around with daggers and knives. And as she was talking we were both kind of freaking out. So we ended up dedicating her house which had never been done, and giving her a blessing. But she said that these spirits where trying to hurt us but couldnt and so instead they hit her during the dedication. And she couldnt breath for a minute. It was a very unique experience. We left a little on edge and kind of freaking out. Very unique experience. So as far as the work goes here in Muzquiz, it is still moving slow, we are not sure what it is that we need to be changes in order to have success, but it has been really hard. Investigators are just not progressing, and the longer we keep them as investigators the harder it is to find them. Its been super hard and humbling to work through. But we are doing our best to keep our heads up. We are planning on changes some things this week, and we hope and pray that we can finally find some success. I have to apologize for the lack of pictures this week, we didnt really take any, and also we havent had a ton of time to write today, and uploading pictrues takes a really long time. Ill do better next week!!! Love you all. Have a great week and Put the lord first and he will bless you in your efforts. Elder Smith

April 9, 2018

This was a HARD week to say the least. Just as a little preface, we knocked doors this week for 22 hours ( we counted) and had basically no success... On day we knocked for 6 hours straight, with only having 6 people open the door. The people of Mexico had been so nice, I dont know what happened this week. But holy cow it was a rough experience. The Apostle Paul after being jailed and treated horribly praised God for being worthy enough to suffer for his name. I have been trying to apply that to my daily prayers, but let me tell you. After having such a long hard week I just want to have some success, but still it gets harder. This week a family we have been working with for weeks had their baptismal dates fall through because the mom doesnt want to stop drinking. It was not the kind of news you want to hear 3 days before their scheduled baptism. So now we are 8 weeks into Mexico and we have yet to have any crazy success. It has been the most humbling and hard experience of my life. And I have so much left to go. I can easily say that I will come home a completely different person. Elder Sabey was telling me just the other day that he has noticed that I have changed so much. Which I am pretty sure thats a good thing. SO This past week I got to go on exchanges with Elder Cebollero, who is from Layton Utah. He is serving in Palau ( neighboring city) It was a crazy day. We went out to Palau and had a super successful day of finding. Contacting with him was super fun. We found 11 news together in that 1 day. It was super awesome. This Pday we had the chance to hike the mountains right behind muzquiz, and after 2 and a half hours up we had some Amazing views. Love you all so muchª Elder Smith

April 2, 2018 Hakuna Matata

Sometimes life just has to go on. But on the subject of time really fast, where the heck did the month of march go? I cant even believe that time is going as fast as it is. I am working hard out here all day everyday. It was been another great week out here in Muzquiz, so lets jump on in. This week was kind of hard in terms of investigators. We didnt have the chance once the entire week to meet with Carmen and the girls( the investigators that we have who are progressing towards baptism) because they went on vacation to monclova. So we unfortunately couldnt help them progress any further the past week. It really makes me sad because I want the blessings I have for them. I know that sometimes we as missionaries seem pushy, but its really because the blessings of baptism and the gospel are so much bigger than people realize until they recieve them and are able to look back and see the difference. But reguardless we kept going forward and trying to meet with as many of our investigators as possible. We were only able to have 1 come to conference this week. Unfortunant but thats how it goes from time to time. Speaking of conference, that was such an amazing experience. The talks left me wanting so much more. I am so grateful for a living prophet that we have to guide us as well as guide the church. I know that President Nelson is called of God. He is already helping the lord hasten the work of salvation among men. I am also so happy that we get to be here serving and helping the work go forward. But on conference itself, our branch president set up a tv in another room for us in english, which was such a nice blessing. But after listening to so much in english, we left sunday and I legit could not speak coherent spanish for the life of me. I sounded like a todler or something. We met with some old investigators and they were all giving me a hard time because I wasnt making any sense. So I cant blame them. I have come to the conclusion this week, that monopoly is a game that satan made to really drive people apart. Losing 3 times in a row to Elder Sabey really makes me never want to play that game again, but we always have so much fun playing. We legit just laugh like the whole time while we play. And then I lose. So while satan can try to make us fight, monopoly will continue to be a fun little companionship bonding time. Last night in specific, I was really winning in a game, and then I decided to be nice to elder sabey and not chage him for some things. And then he made the comeback of the century. Both of us were freaking out becuase we didnt think it was possible, Maybe the lord was just trying to humble me.😂 I also got the chance this week to go on exchanges with Elder Villarauz. he is from cuidad Juarez here in Mexico, and that guy is just awesome. We had a pretty good day together. And we met some of the weirdest people of my life. Sometimes people will be really nice to missionaries, and let us come in with no intention of learning. So we just spend a little time with them. And we just met this guy who gave us some juice. And then he started talking about how there was a saguaro cactus down the street( it was a telephone pole) and talking about the photos from one of our pamphlets. But he wouldnt let us talk. He was kind of acting like a little kid. But he was a pretty nice guy. Just a weird experience. I have met some intersting people here in mexico. But its still so amazing to be here. Elder Smith

March 26th 2018

This week has been one of anxiety. Because changes have been coming up, everyone kind of starts to freak out a little bit because no one knows if they are staying or going. And I have had just about everyone tell me that Im going to the offices down in saltillo. Which I really didnt want to do right away, because we have several investigators that we are really working hard with. I want to see them through till the end. President gave us a call on sunday and Elder Sabey and I were freaking out because that usually means someone is leaving to train or to maybe to be a leader (neither thing was something we wanted). But he just ended up calling us to see how we were doing and to ask for our weekly numbers. I was freaking out like crazy as was Sabey. But we made it through. Both of us for the mean time will be staying out in the wonderful little Mexican town of Muzquiz. Pretty exciting. This week unfortunantly we had 6 baptismal days fall through. 4 of them were super promising and it was sad for them to say that they dont feel ready, but we were able to move it. They still want to be baptized and they are loving the church as well as the gospel. They are super receptive. I love working with them. Its a mom and 3 little girls. They are all super awesome. We are still out here working really hard. We had elders Cebollero and Villarauz come over from Palau and help us find some new investigators. And so we found 19 new investigators in one day. It was super crazy. Those guys are such good missionaries, its so much fun to work with them. I feel like overall Im moving forward in a really positive way. There are days when I wake up and just dont think I can do it, but after reading in the Book of Mormon, I always feel more ready tto go out and work. That book is so true. It helps me every single day, and changes my life in so many ways. Im so grateful for it and the testimony that I have recieved from it. Im also so grateful for the opportunity I have to share it with the people of Mexico. Day by day its becoming more and more of a new home to me. I love it here, and I love being a missionary, even though it can be super hard. Elder Smith