January 8

Actually nothing could throw off my groove from this past week! It was super tough and Im just progressively getting more tired everyday. But the feeling of sharing the gospel and baring testimony to people is such an amazing feeling! Quickly to share a little info. Im sorry for spelling errors, I am using the area smartphone to write this, and its darn near impossible to write on this thing. Second, because I am waiting for my visa, and I could leave at anytime I am currently in a trio with two 18 monthers. One is named elder dancy and hes from Atlanta, and the other is Elder Spilsbury and get this. Hes from Mexico. Hes from the lds coloneys down there. Both a pretry good guys and we have been working hard. Spanish in practice is so much harder. I can understand a lot of the people we talk to as well as my companions. But when it comes to speaking, i find myself talking super slow and not having a very big vocab. Its really humbling to know that Im totally trash at this language. But Im learning a lot and its fun along the way. The latino community is super loving and fun. Ive met some really great people, and we had some amazing lessons this past week. For the first 5 days or so, I was still super nauseous and could hardly eat anything. Yet every house we went to, I learned w Quick that everyone just wants to feed the missionaries. Even if we just came from dinner. Im afraid Im going to offend a lot more people than I already have. That part is going to be rough. I am already in love with this mission and leaving is going to kill me when I eventually go to mexico. But Ill continue to work my hardest and try to be a good missionary. This week was a very fruitful week for my first week. We had 8 new investigators and had 2 of them come to church. With those investigators, I had some of the most spiritual moments of my life. One of our investigators is an english teacher from chile, so even though she is fluent in spanish, she asked us to teach in english. We had the chance to teach the gospel of Jesus Christ to her. And she has been reading the BoM with her family for weeks, so she has been supee receptive to our message. The spirit during the part about baptism was palpable. You could of cut it with a knife. Its amazing the calling of a missionary. When we testify of truth, the Holy Ghost is there with us to comfirm everything we say. I love it with every fiber of my being. A littlw about the area, we are currently in west jordan. And are over a spanisj branch that is really missionary focused. Both on retention as well as bringing others unto christ. They want to become a ward really bad, so we are doing everythinv we can to support amd help them through this. We have a list of like 20+ less actives that we get to visit this week. I just love going into peoples homes and just bringing a new joy into their lives. I dont have pictures really this week, other than a picture of elder spilsbury making some pepper jack cheese in our apartment. Which is actually pretty dang yummy. And one last thing. I already know one of the reasons the lord wantdx me in SLC. Three days before leaving the mtc I broke my vlasses. So being here is an opportunity to get new glasses. The gospel is true everyone. The most shared scriptures this week for us was moroni's promise in chapter 10 verses 3-5. So I invite everyone to read part of the book of mormon and take his promise. Pray about the words you read and i promise you can receive an answer in your heart. I love and appreciate you all. -Elder Smith