We had some good success and we will have a baptism this week!

This past week was another pretty good week. We had some good success and we will have a baptism this week! It's a funny story because I ran into some people I taught when I was in Zorritos. The mom was less active and her daughter was 9 and we weren't able to baptize her unless her mom reactivated so she could have support in the church. It turns out that she moved here to a place by Talara and we had our district conference on Sunday. She has reactivated now and her daughter got baptized and Elder Matute and I were able to get a picture with them yesterday. It also turns out that Kevin (the one getting baptized) is her cousin so that's pretty cool. 

We had a funny teaching experience with Kevin this week when we taught the Plan of Salvation. He's 14 but if you were to see him and meet him you would think he's 18 but his mind is 14 years old sometimes haha. We asked him where he thought we came and he responded, "Well when a mommy and daddy love each other very much..." It was pretty funny haha but he's awesome to teach because the lessons are fun but still spiritual. 

We also had interviews on Saturday with President Vega that went a lot better but they're still very different. I'm looking forward to a fun multizona this week though. 

Love you guys and have a good week! 

Elder Smith

This week was really awesome and not near as strange

This week was really awesome and not near as strange. We were able to have some good success in finding people and some people finally came to church. We were going to have some baptisms this coming week but the family wasn't able to make it to church. We will probably have to postpone their date for a few weeks now. Anyways, we should have at least 2 for sure baptisms this transfer! 

One is named Kevin who is a super cool teenager. We've always talked to him because he's one of our neighbors and we always see him. About 2 weeks ago we were finally able to share something with him and it went super well. He knows the church really well and he already considers himself a member. He hadn't gone to church in a long time but he was able to attend this week and wants to continue going.

The other one is a PF and is the niece of our branch president. She just moved into our area recently and her name is Valerie. We have already taught her a few times and she already seems excited for her baptismal date. 

Not too much other than that happened this week but I'm really excited for the things happening here.

Take care and love you guys!

Elder Smith

We at least saved 1 soul this week!

It was just another pretty weird week here in Talara Alta. We found some good people and it looks like we could have a good chance of baptizing this transfer and hopefully we have a few. We are still struggling with asistencia and it's been a little frustrating. We had planned for at least 5 people to come to church and we had everything planned out. We passed by all of their houses in the morning and we even had members go to pick them up. They all told us they would be there but only 1 ended up showing up. Other than that we had a list of weird things that happened this week. 

1. I gave a talk at a funeral for a woman that I had only met once for 5 minutes. It was pretty strange but I just pretty much shared my testimony about the Plan of Salvation so it wasn't too bad. 

2. We saved a cat from some mud that was stuck and we had a crowd of like 20 people watching and helping us. We at least saved 1 soul this week! We also did get a pretty good contact out of it though. 

3. My companion almost pooped his pants during a lesson so it was pretty funny. We taught Lesson 1 in about 2 minutes because he wasn't able to hold it in. Luckily, the person was nice enough to let him use their bathroom and I just taught Lesson 1 again while he was in there haha. 

4. A dog made it into the chapel on Sunday during sacrament meeting and fell asleep and started snoring during the sacrament. We thought it was just one of the old members in the branch who fell asleep and snored.

Well I hope you guys have a good week and love you!

Elder Smith

Moana :) 

Dog in the church

Pics in my area

Transfers and New Companion

This past week was awesome but it was my last week with Elder DuPaix. We got transfers and I'm with another American from Colorado named Elder Bechaver. I know him pretty well because we shared the same ward for 6 months. We've always worked well together so it should be another good transfer. 

It was another interesting week as well but we had some good success. We were finally able to help get an investigator to church and she has a baptismal date for this month. She just needs to continue attending church and then she will be ready. Getting people to church has been a big problem for us lately but we're starting to see miracles here. 

Another thing that has happened this week was President made a lot of changes to our rules. The big one that he made was that he changed the schedule and now we have to wake up at 6:30 instead of 7:30 and we have to be in the room earlier at night. Hopefully all things will work out even though it will be hard for a lot of us to adjust. 

Love you guys and have a good week!

Elder Smith