Feliz Navidad!

This week was a lot of fun because we had some good activities. First we had the Christmas party as a zone in the mission home which was fun where we played games and watched a movie. We also did another zone activity in the plaza of Sullana where we sang and contacted and we had a santa for people to take pictures with. 

Other than that, I'm really excited about the work right now because it looks like we will be baptizing 3 weeks straight. We will have one this Saturday with a teenager named Luciana. Her family was less active but now her older brother is coming every Sunday and she has desires to get baptized and has already passed her interview. Next week we will baptize Edwin, who we were going to baptize earlier but he left to work in Ecuador for 2 months. He came back like 2 weeks ago and has a lot of desires and has gone to church every Sunday he's been in town. The week after we should be baptizing 2 more teenagers. 

Anyways I look forward to talking to y'all tomorrow and I love y'all!

Merry Christmas!

Elder Smith

BAPTISM

I had a pretty good first week training. My kid's name is Elder Aguirre and he's from North Lima. From what I've seen so far, he's a good missionary and has desire to work so I'm happy to be with him. 

We started off the first week of this transfer with a baptism! His name is Oscar and he's been a miracle because his life has changed so much. He has a really strong testimony and he had the opportunity to share it after his baptism. He loves to talk so he shared his for about 10 minutes haha. 

We've also found some more awesome people here and we have more plans to baptize this transfer so I'm excited. Things are going really well here and I'm enjoying my time. We've also continued doing FHEs with more families. 

Love you guys!

Elder Smith 

FHE

FHE

My new kid

Elder Calderon

Elder Calderon of the Seventy came and did a devotional for all the recent converts and all most of the Zones got to attend.

New Kid

Pics from the Mission Facebook page

Training Round 2

So it was another pretty good week and I'll have quite a few pictures to send of the FHEs we've done and pics from last week. I'm also excited because I'll be training again this transfer but let's hope that this time is a lot better than last haha. 

We will also have a baptism with Oscar this week so I'm stoked for that. He's already passed his interview and everything is ready to go as long as he stays strong this week. He's been a miracle here and he's changed his life around so it's been awesome to be a witness of that. We also have some other people who are progressing and may get baptized this transfer. 

I don't have too much more to say but have a good week!

Elder Smith 

SERVICE ACTIVITY

FHE

OTHER PICS

Watching Elf

Light the World

So this week was really good with the mini missionary and we had a good amount of success. We also had a baptism of a girl named Nicole which was a good experience. We could also have a few more this month so I'm excited. We are working with one person to help her get married and they have plans to do it soon. Oscar will have his interview this week but his date is for the 15th because we won't have church this Sunday because they have elections again... We also 2 other people that came to church and they have baptismal dates for the end of this month but it really depends on if their families can reactivate and stay active. 

Apart from that, we started off Light the World this Saturday with the day of service. We held a breakfast in the chapel for people to come and then after we went to a hospital to deliver to others. It was a really awesome and fun experience to work with the ward and see success from that. I had some good pictures to send but some reason they aren't uploading so I'll try to send them next week.

Love you guys and Light the World!

Elder Smith

Thanksgiving in Peru

So this week has been a little interesting. Long story short, I'm now with a mini missionary for the last 2 weeks of this transfer because my other companion went home for some personal problems.

So we had a lot of activities this week with a multizona and also interviews. We also gathered as a zone on Thursday to have a Thanksgiving lunch. We just shared a rotisserie chicken for each companionship and it was actually really good. I also got to drink my Dr. Pepper. 

However, we will have a baptism this week of a girl named Nicole. I'm excited for that and we should also have a baptism with Oscar next week if he can stop smoking completely because he only smokes every other day now and he's improving. 

Love you guys!  

What we wake up to every morning...

We got new mosquito nets

Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving complete with Dr Pepper

Stake Conference

This week was a pretty good week and we had some good progress. It looks like we could baptize 3 or 4 times in December but we'll have to work hard. 2 should be pretty set and the other ones will happen if we can help reactivate their families. We had good news with one of our investigators who was struggling with tobacco and he has finally decided to quit. He'll be a baptism in December as long as he passes his interview. 

This week we also had Stake Conference and an area seventy came from Ecuador which was awesome. Other than that, I had a work exchange with a new Elder named Elder Henrie which was fun. 

I'm sorry I don't have pictures to send this week because I forgot to copy them to my USB. 

Love you guys!

Elder Smith 

Week 2 with my kid

This past week was good with my kid. He's still adjusting to the mission a little bit but things are going well and getting better. We had a little trouble finding new people this week but we do have progress here. We should have a few weeks in December when we should have baptisms. 

Not too much happened other than the normal but we did have a cool experience when we were contacting outside of a store last Monday night. We went to a place where there was a good amount of people and just talked to a lot of people to get references. We talked to one family of 4 at the time and testified that families could be eternal and we ended up getting the reference for another area. The other Elders went to their house and it turns out to be a family of 8 who was super excited to hear about the Gospel. It was a good testimony builder that talking to everyone works. 

Well we will keep working hard and seeing more miracles. Love you guys and have a good week!

Elder Smith

1st Week of Training

This first week of training was pretty good but tiring. My kid's name is Elder Bejarano from Bolivia. We did have quite a bit of success in the first week which was awesome and we found some good people and put them with baptismal dates. Right now we have 14 with baptismal dates but it's looking like about 4 or 5 of them may get baptized on their actual goal. We just have to work some more with the ward and we could have a lot of success. We also got some people to finally come to church this past week and some less actives so the work has been satisfying lately. 

One of the people we found this week is a little crazy because he likes to talk a ton but he's awesome. He ran into some other missionaries in the street and wanted us to go visit him. He went to church on Sunday and he already received his answer that the church is true. He's had a rough past but he's ready to change now and he has a lot of desires to progress. 

Love you guys!

Elder Smith 

mi hijo (my son)

The first time seeing my dad since training 

I'm going to be a Dad!

So I'm writing a little early today because I'm chilling in the office all day. The reason for that is because we got our transfers and I'm training! I'm excited to train and that means I'll be in Sullana for 3 more months. It'll be crazy but I'm stoked. 

So this week was a little slow but kind of crazy and we had a zone conference with 4 zones and an Area 70. It was super good and super fun and I got to see and meet a lot of new people. 

The good news for this transfer though is that it looks like we should have 2 at least 2 baptisms. They are both kids but we are helping their families reactivate.  

Anyways, I'll get my kid tomorrow and we'll see how this first week goes. 

Have a good week and love you guys! (I have pictures to send but I'll probably have to send them next week)

Elder Smith

Pictures from the Mission Facebook page: Zone Conference and New Companion to be trained.

Lunch with trainers and new missionaries

New missionary, President and Hermana Vega and Elder Jacob Smith

Sullana Zone

Lunch at Multi Zone Conference

Multi Zone Conference 

1 Year!

We had a pretty good week but it is frustrating sometimes. We keep finding a lot of people but a lot of them are unmarried which makes it hard :(. Also, our golden investigator took off to Ecuador and might be there for 2 months or so... It's kind of sad but I hope I'm here when he comes back and we are also planning on teaching his wife soon (they're married). 

One thing we have been doing lately is having FHE's with many families and it has really helped us find new people and reactivate others. 

Something that was really cool this week was that President Nelson came to Peru and was in Lima. We watched a devotional just for missionaries and one for all the members. It was an awesome experience and we learned a lot. President Nelson also gave his talk to all the members in Spanish which was crazy. 

Love you guys and have a good week!

Elder Smith

Elder Mayuri who is a friend of Jack Lopez because he served in his ward.

Multizona

This week was pretty good and pretty fun. We had our multizona and it was good to catch up with some people and I learned a lot. 

Not too much happened this week other than the normal. We did have 2 investigators that were progressing well and had baptismal dates but moved to Lima so that kind of stinks. We also had some trouble finding some of our other investigators this week but this coming week should be pretty good. 

Have a good week! Go Astros! Love you guys!

Elder Smith