Pics from this week!

An almost gross pig kiss... So close to touching hahaha

Skype with the family on Christmas Day!!

Elder Muller and I on intercambios :)

More meat, the Yubero's family gets really into their meat haha

Elder Morris and I at Christmas Zone Conference

Us elders and a Brazilian cake

Us elders and all the family Yubero's

My personal fav... What we ate Christmas Night! It weighed like 50
pounds hahaha

Christmas Review :)

Hello There :)

I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas!! It probably wasn't as good
as mine though ;) but for real, time is flying and I'm having a lot of
fun. Oh and also, a huge shout out to everyone who sent me packages,
emails, letters, and Christmas Cards! My wall is completely covered
with the Christmas Cards and it's so beautiful to look up at it and
see all the smiling faces of the people I love! Once again I felt like
I got slapped in the face with love from all my friends and family :)
Even though I wasn't able to be with my family for Christmas, it was
definitely one I'll never forget. It's been a while since I emailed so
here's a summary of everything that went on these last 2 weeks :)

First, we found another investigator and her name is Claudia. She is
from Brazil and has lived her for like 15 years so her Spanish is
really good. When we first talked to her, it was just a normal
contact, but she couldn't stop staring at my chapa. Then she told us
that her dad was a Mormon in Brazil but he passed away just a few
months ago. We have been meeting with her a lot and we set a baptismal
date with her for the 16th of January! We will have to see what
happens with her because she has some stuff in her life that we are
trying to help her get fixed, but we have lots of hope and faith. She
told us right off the bat that she doesn't like to smoke or drink,
which to missionaries is like gold because everyone here likes to do
that stuff. She has come to church with us the last 2 weeks and the
branch members have been very supportive. Before we met her, she had
been reading a Portuguese Book of Mormon that someone left in her Piso
when she moved in, and if that isn't a sign that the Lord prepares his
people, I don't know what is! She has a lot of faith and a sincere
desire to be baptized and change her life.

Christmas Eve was one of the best nights of my whole life. We spent it
with the Yubero's which means PARTY :) I've never eaten as much good
food in my life as I did that night. I legitimately want to be adopted
into their family and be a Paraguayan ( LET'S NOT BELIEVE EVERYTHING HE SAYS... 
FROM KRISTIN... HE'S NOT UP FOR ADOPTION!!) . I'm pretty sure I ate more meat
in one night that I have in my whole entire life, but I couldn't stop
because it was so incredibly good. The pictures will hopefully help
you understand why I was so stoked outta my mind when I walked in the
kitchen and saw what we would be eating :) it was delicious. Then they
brought out the cakes. Holy cow I was in heaven. We tried food from
all over the world, well mainly South America but it was from all of
the different countries! The Yubero's invited over lots of friends and
that was cool because not many of them were members. And on top of all
the food, they were playing my new kind of favorite music which is
like Spanish Reggae haha. As soon as it came on I just started dancing
and they all loved it. Seriously one of the best nights of my whole
life :)

On Christmas Day, the other Elders slept over at our Piso so we woke
up together and had breakfast then studies and did our own stuff. We
had a big lunch with a member named Manolo and his wife Rosario. She
made us some Peruvian food which I can't turn down because it's
delicious and Elder Peña just gets so happy too haha. Once again, we
ate so much food. I almost get to the point where I want to excuse
myself to the bathroom, throw up, then come back and eat more hahaha.
I remember one time at a school dance, my good friend Elder Gallagher
did that and I laughed so hard watching him gag himself in the
bathroom at Tucano's hahaha. Anyways, then I Skyped with the Fam :) I
cried quite a bit but it was so good to hear from them. I love you
mom, dad, Kenna, and Ellie! So overall this first Christmas season
away from home was a success :) only one more to go!

I'm very thankful for all the things my Heavenly Father has blessed me
with. I know he loves me and he watches out for all of his children. I
was so lucky to have my first Christmas in such a wonderful part of
Spain and I'm really going to miss Valladolid and the people here when
I have to leave. I was thinking a lot about the 2,000 Stripling
Warriors these past few weeks and how courageous they were. They never
looked back. They knew what they had to do and they did it. Thinking
about this, my dad, uncles, cousins, grandpas, church leaders,
coaches, teammates, best friends, and brothers who have all served
missions never looked back either. They set the example for me and I'm
following. It's hard, but no one ever said it would be easy. I'm very
grateful for the examples I have in my life, and especially right now
for all my friends who are out all over the world serving the Lord.

I hope everyone has a marvelous ending to 2015 we welcome in 2016 with
open arms :) talk to you all soon!!

Con Amor,

Elder Smith

Pics from this week

The youngest child/girl in the Brozovich Family (I think there are
like 6 or 7 kids) with the Llama she gave me :)

Elder Fletcher, Angel, and I after English Class!

Almost Christmas!

Hello Everyone,

I say the same thing every week but time is flying! We are so close to
Christmas, I can hardly stand it! Even in Spain the Christmas spirit
fills the air. And yeah, they might not be as receptive as the people
in Utah, but we are still seeing little miracles every day. To be
honest, it's a little sad that I won't be with my family for
Christmas, but I have another family here in Valladolid and I know
that everything is going to be okay :) here's my week!

I'll start off by telling a weird story that happened in the beginning
of a week. We were doing our weekly grocery shopping during medio dia
and got stopped by 2 guys who wanted to talk to us. They asked us what
we were doing there, two young kids in white shirts and ties was a
little weird for them I guess. Anyways, they seemed a little strange
to Elder Peña and I. They asked us about the church, where we lived
(which we don't tell people), and where we were from. As soon as I
said "Soy de los Estados Unidos", the focus immediately changed from
to the Peruvian to the American. One of them spoke English and started
to ask me all the basic questions that everyone here learns in school.
Then the other, started getting pretty close to me. He had piercings
all over his face, and then started saying "tú eres guapísimo!" It was
loud enough for other people around to stop and laugh a little. A
little weird, right? They told us to put their numbers down so we
could talk more on another day so we did. As we were walking away, the
weirder one kept calling me handsome and all this weird stuff, then
shouted "I want to eat you!" I was so scared haha but couldn't stop
laughing. I totally got hit on by 2 guys in the grocery store. Pretty
weird but kinda funny hahaha.

One thing that has been working for us is teaching English. Everyone
here wants to learn English, so that's a good way to get in the door
with a lot of people. We teach to mostly kids and then the parents
just listen. We always manage to share a spiritual thought too,
because most of the people we teach are referrals or less-actives. We
taught a family from Brazil Spanish and English which was crazy fun!
There were different languages flying left and right! I hope we can
continue to use this tool to open the hearts of the people.

My personal studies this week have been focused on the atonement and
how I can better apply it to my life. I was reading in Preach my
Gospel and in one part it says "God cannot look on sin with any degree
of allowance, and sin prevents us from living in His presence. Only
through the Savior’s grace and mercy can we become clean from sin so
that we can live with God again." This struck me pretty hard, the
atonement is something that we need to be using every day! This is
what we focused on in District Meeting on Wednesday, how we can get
our investigators and the members to feel of the important role the
atonement plays in our lives.

Thursday afternoon we went to visit the Familia Brozovich and they
live in a pueblo called Urueña. It had the coolest old castles and
stuff I have ever seen! The architecture was incredible! It was also
incredibly foggy so we couldn't see a whole lot of what else there was
to offer. Anyways, they made us a huge 5 course meal which consisted
of soup, rice and beans, chicken and more rice, beans and another
soup, then a warm apple pie. I have never been so full in my whole
life! It was delicious. They are a family from Peru and after dinner
they gave us tons of little gifts! They gave me a tiny Llama and they
helped me name it Cusco hahaha. They are such a nice family! The
oldest son in the family, Aaron, has his mission call to Bolivia! I
was super excited to tell him all about my Aunt Stephanie who served
there :) later that night we visited with Mabel, and she is struggling
with some stuff, so we didn't really share anything, we just listened
for a while. It's sad sometimes when we don't know how we can help,
but I think just listening may have been the most we could've done.

Friday we had intercambios and I was with Elder Fletcher again! It was
so much fun haha, he's like a brother to me out here! For medio dia,
we went to Hermana Fernandez's house and had some real traditional
Paella with chicken and man it was good. She invited over a less
active member named Miguel who works just below her Piso and she was
so happy to be doing member missionary work! When he left, she just
started getting so excited that he was here and she was sure that he
felt the spirit of the missionaries. It was the coolest thing to see a
member so excited about our work :) later, we met up with a lady named
Sandra, who is the mom of Nicole Ramierez! She's the one we always
hang out with. We shared a Christmas message with her and invited her
to church, but she said no because she had other stuff going on
Sunday. We set up another follow up appointment with her and hopefully
Nicole can help us figure out what she needs! Then to finish the
night, we had a meeting with Angel, the awesome guy who I love and he
loves me! I found out that he speaks 5 languages fluently, holy cow!!
We taught him the Plan of Salvation in English which was cool for a
change. He asked lots of questions and it was a good lesson! Elder
Fletcher was a good companion for a day :)

Saturday night we had a branch "Noche de Hogar" which turned out
incredible! We had lots more members than we expected there and
everyone had fun! We watched Christmas videos, had a testimony
meeting, sang songs, played games, and had treats at the end! Super
fun and everyone thanked us at the end which was the most rewarding
part of all. On Sunday we had the primary program and that was
awesome! It reminded me so much of Utah and made me miss home a little
bit! But to be honest, the songs for kids are cooler in Spanish ;)

Sorry it's another long week but there's so much stuff I don't want to
leave out of my emails. I'm having an awesome time out here serving
the people of Spain and wouldn't want to be anywhere else right now. I
know this is God's work and I'm more than willing to give him a little
bit of my time to help my brothers and sisters here come unto Christ.
Thanks for your love and support, enjoy the Christmas Season and I'll
be Skyping in 11 DAYS :) :) :)

Con Amor,

Elder Brady Craig Smith

Pics from this week

This is the ATM that's right in front of my face haha! 

Christmas trees, stocking and presents

 We played frisbee all day in the park today for P-Day :) super fun!
Okay left to right... Nichole Tamayo, Nicole Ramierez, Elder Peña,
Michael, Elder Tree, then Elder Fletcher and I

Paseo Zorilla in downtown Valladolid...Super big and really pretty!!

4 Months :)

Helloooooooooo :)

Okay I'm pretty sure I blink and another day passes by, so I'm going
to pry my eyes open with my fingers so I can maybe try to slow the
time down a bit! Holy cow! But I have good news!! The Lord loves me so
much and knows me and knows that I don't like change, so he blessed me
with 8 MORE WEEKS in VALLADOLID and 8 MORE WEEKS with ELDER PEÑA!!! I
get more time to improve my Spanish too which is a huge blessing :) I
don't think many missionaries get to spend 3 transfers with their
trainer, so I'm extremely blessed. It seems silly but I'm so grateful!
This week was a bit slow but we still managed to have fun :) aquí
está....

Tuesday we had medio dia lunch with Julio, the branch mission leader,
and his wife. She cooked us up some rice, beans, eggs, bread, meat,
rice cake, and fried bananas. Holy cow I ate so much food!! I was
stuffed, then for dessert we had fruit! It's a really common thing in
Spain to have an orange or something after the meal and it just tops
off the meal perfectly. Soooo good! Then we went to a meeting with a
less active lady named Maria B. and her husband. She was awesome!
She had cancer a few years back and loves the church, but I couldn't
quite figure out why she doesn't like to come anymore. She lived in
Utah for 5 years so she speaks English too! She works as a 911
distress phone call operator here in Spain and takes calls in English,
French, and Spanish. She's so cool! So I helped her figure out new
ways to respond to situations, it was so much fun. We literally
role-played about every situation in the book, from me being a grandma
with a cat stuck in a tree to a bus driver who crashed into 10 other
cars and couldn't get out of my burning bus. I think we can get her to
come to church with us again, but we'll see what happens! We had
preach my gospel class too that night, we did it in English for the
sake of Nichole who will be learning English here very soon :) her
testimony was very basic in her little English, but so powerful. It
strengthened mine that the Holy Ghost speaks all languages and it
doesn't matter if you understand or not because the power comes from
him.

Wednesday we had Zone Conference in León which was awesome as usual. I
got my big Thanksgiving and Christmas packages which was an awesome
treat!! Thank you so much to everyone who put stuff in them for me, it
was the greatest thing to open! The spirit of Thanksgiving and
Christmas basically slapped me in the face! Friday, we contacted for a
while and talked to some more Jehovah's Witnesses and hahaha my
goodness. I didn't really think much about how much of a role other
religions play in the world until I was out of Utah. Now, I have such
a greater appreciation for how sheltered/blessed we are! I'm pretty
sure I'd never met a Jehovah's Witness before coming to Spain. It's
pretty interesting to hear them talk about what they believe in and
then after I just pray so much and thank Heavenly Father for the
knowledge I have. Then we had a BBQ at President Yubero's house with
Luís, finally. The Yubero's are from Paraguay and let me tell you...
They know how to grill! Some of the best meat I've ever had in my
life. It was heavenly :)

Saturday we had the English Class and I talked with Angel again. He is
literally one of the coolest people I've ever met!! All he wants to do
is meet up and go for a jog! He totally likes me the most out of
anyone and we just sit down and talk about everything. It's legit!!
Then we had a meeting with Mabel, the less-active lady, and we talked
about the apostasy. The spirit was so strong when we started talking
about the need for a prophet to restore the gospel back onto the
earth. She doesn't like to talk about Joseph Smith, but this time she
opened up a little and the spirit did all the work! I don't know how
anyone can deny the spirit that they feel, especially in the First
Vision! She told us she felt something different, and we got her to
come to church with us on Sunday for the first time in a while so that
was a little victory :) she called us on Saturday night after we
received the transfers to tell us that she prayed for us so we
wouldn't leave Valladolid. Her prayers were answered! Little by little
we are working her back into church!

Sunday was a good fast and testimony meeting. The first person up to
bare their testimony was Luís! He talked about how good he feels when
he is in the church and with the missionaries. I was so proud of him!
The last 2 hours of the meetings, Elder Fletcher and I took turns
playing the piano for the primary program! Super fun and the kids are
insane! Being the Primary President has got to be equally as hard as
being the Bishop ;) the primary program is next week so the kids are
all very excited.

That's about it for the week, the work here is hard but we are seeing
little miracles every day. I know that when we are doing all that we
can and working our hardest, Heavenly Father is happy and that's all
he asks of us. I hope everyone has a great week and enjoys the spirit
of Christmas, wherever you are in the world! Until next week :)

Con Amor,

Elder Brady Craig Smith

Another little story from a personal email Brady sent today:

We have been playing frisbee in a huge park all day and we just walked
through a sketchy part of town where a kid spit on me. We were walking
to find an ATM and I saw this kid popping a wheelie on his bike and I
said wow that's cool! Then he started to follow us. Then he slammed on
his brakes and landed spit all over my back side. Elder Peña was ready
to kill him but I just calmly walked away and said to myself... He
spit on the savior, not me. Anyways, we walked back past after we got
out money taken out and the kid was sitting there waiting for us. And
he had friends. They were blown away I was from Utah and I didn't want
to speak Spanish to them. So these two teenage girls tried to grab my
hands and pull me back but I broke loose and started walking faster.
Then the same kid said what's this? Pointing to my frisbee then I said
a frisbee. He said can I try and I handed it to him, fully knowing
that he would take off running, and he did. Elder Peña yelled at him
and said give it back but I said it's not important, he needs a red u
of u $2 frisbee more than me.

When we got back to the computer lab thingy, we sat down on a bench
and right about 10 feet in front of my face is an ATM. I'm not sure
why I didn't see it before we had to go through all of that, but I
learned the importance of keeping your temper. I was a little mad then
I chilled out and just said, why am I worrying so much? Anyways, dang
ATM's hahaha. 

Pics from this week...

My mother in the mission, Hermana Seegmiller,
who goes home next week! :( We had to do the classic handshake
picture because I've never done one before haha! And Elder Morris.
Elder Kiser, and Hermana Santiago

Another Baptism picture :)

 

Elder Pena, Michael and Me

Michael's Baptism... Holy Cow what a good day!!

The last dinner (Kebab) with the other Elders, Nichole and Stefany

Us cooking our meal after church on Sunday!

Just one more with my Brother because
it was a special night!

Thanksgiving Week

Hi Everyone! 

What a week! There are so many things I wanna talk about, but first, I'd like to start off by saying Happy (late) Thanksgiving! I took some time and wrote down people and things I was grateful for, it's over 6 pages long! Only one more away from home :) Elder Peña cooked some Peruvian food for me which was alright, nothing like my Mom's stuffing though :) okay, here's the week! 

 

Sunday was Michael's Baptism!! What a perfect day. We got all dressed in our white clothes, took pictures, and then had the program. The coolest part was Michael's Mom, Susan, gave a talk on baptism. She is a less-active member that was baptized in the late 1990's I think. She was very nervous but we all assured her that she could do it. It was so simple and so profound, I know that every single person in that room felt the spirit she brought. She was in tears by the end so I told Michael to stand up and hug her and he did. How awesome! After, we proceeded to the font and then the baptism took place. First try baby :) then we confirmed him and had refreshments. Such a good night for everybody :) I am pretty sure I ended up learning more from teaching Michael then he did from listening to us! 

 

Monday night we met up with the other Elders, Nichole, and Stefany. We had one final kebab together because Stefany left for her mission to Barcelona on Tuesday! After that, we got invited to Noche de Hogar at President Yubero's house where we had hamburgers and hot dogs too, needless to say I was stuffed with food haha! We bore our testimonies on the power of missionary work and the spirit was very strong again. That's something that I've noticed in my time here, that the spirit is with us when we are testifying to the people! Superrrrrrr cool :) Tuesday we had intercambios and I was with Elder Fletcher! He's a way cool guy from Texas, and we had fun contacting and going to our appointments. We had a lesson with Susan, then after she made us "Sirviche" from Ecuador and it was SO GOOD! It was like this sauce with shrimp and I don't know how to describe it. You pour it over rice and it was the greatest thing I've ever tasted! Ecuadorians know how to cook :) 

 

Thursday or Thanksgiving, most of our appointments cancelled on us so we spent a lot of time contacting. We had a lesson with Luís, and guess what?! He asked for another blessing!! So we talked yet again about blessings and gave him the final blessing. He loves to meet with us so much and he really is a good guy, so I want to help him but there's a limit. Friday afternoon we went to visit Michael and found him in the park working out and doing parkour!! Haha easily the coolest thing of all time. He's so strong so to watch him do push ups was very entertaining :) then, being myself, I untucked my shirt and started doing them with him! It was so much fun, then we raced to see who was a faster runner and stuff! I felt like a kid again which was much needed to relieve a little stress. Then, more contacting. You can look at it as a chore or a blessing is what I've realized. You get the chance to talk with so many cool people. God has prepared the people, so we just need to find them! 

 

Saturday and Sunday were more or less the same, the Salamanca Elders had a baptism in Valladolid so we helped them prepare for that and then had English Class. One really cool guy named Angel came and had so many questions about religion and stuff, so the other Elders got his number to teach him. We always see him running in the streets and every time he stops and says "Mister Smith, how's your day?", then gives me a big hug. He invited me to go running with him sometime so I might need to take him up on it :) Sunday was Branch Conference, so basically Ward Conference for all you Utah people. After church, we cooked lunch with the other Elders in their Piso which was a blast! Then later that night, we met up with a lady named Carmen from the Dominican Republic who is a Testigo de Jehovah. She was just trying to destroy us with bible talk and finally, Elder Peña asked her to get her bible. So she left the room, then he looked at me and winked! When she came back in, he asked her to find Matthew 15:28 in her bible, but it was just a blank verse! I finally realized what was going on, Jehovah's Witnesses believe they have the same bible as the Catholics and us, but it's really not the same. So she skipped 28 and went right to 29! Elder Peña showed her up so bad, and she knew it too! When we got out of the house, I just died of laughter and he was laughing pretty good too. He told me "I don't like to do that, but she wouldn't shut up about her bible!" So yeah, it's a little hard to explain through email but it was so funny. My companion is a beast! The wink was definitely what made it all worth it though hahahahaha :) 

 

This week was awesome. I'm so grateful to be here in Valladolid doing the Lord's work. It was a little slow, but we have faith that we can find more people this week to start teaching! We have transfers this Saturday, so we'll see what happens. More than likely one of us is going to leave the area, so I'll probably have a new companion the next time I write! I'm sad but happy to have a change as well. Elder Peña will always be my father in the mission and I learned a ton from him, but there are other people that I'm excited to learn from as well :) thanks for reading this far, I know I write a lot!! I hope everyone has a wonderful week :) 

Con Amor,  

Elder Brady Craig Smith 

Pics for the Week

President Yubero's sons, Benji and

Johussen who I love sooooo much :)




Zona de León after fútbol on Friday :)



My Week :)

Hello!!

Wow what a quick week, we have p-day today because of Zone Conference.
We are in León staying in a Piso with 10 other Elders! It's crazy but
super fun, mostly because Elder Morris is staying with us so it's been
super fun to hang out a little bit. This week has been really awesome,
here are the highlights!

Tuesday, we had intercambios with the Zone Leaders because Michael had
his baptismal interview that night! I was with Elder Muller, he was
born in Argentina but graduated from Pleasant Grove! He has been out
for like 20 months so he is a beast. He replaced my fav, Elder
Galeano, so of course I like him! He had lots of good ideas on things
we can do to set goals for our area and other stuff, I learned so much
from him. We had so much fun contacting and going to our appointments,
he's just legit awesome. Like my big brother that I never had :)

I wanna talk about one experience that we had on Tuesday with
Beatrice. We went into the lesson not really knowing what to talk
about, so we verified that she read Alma 32 from the last time and she
had. She loved it! We talked in particular about verse 21 where it
talks about faith. Then, we shared "Mountains to Climb" with her and
she loved it! She is such a cool lady who wants to stop smoking so bad
but like I said in an earlier email, she smokes about 25 cigarettes
every day. During the video, the whole time I was praying in my mind
and asking Heavenly Father what I could share with her so she could
know what we were talking about was really true. My answer came right
as the video was ending, bare your testimony. I immediately started
crying. I couldn't even speak, the spirit was so strong!! I bore my
testimony about faith. I can't even explain how incredible I felt, and
I know for a fact she felt the spirit testify to her of the
truthfulness of the things we talked about. I thanked her for being a
friend to me and she knows to call me with any problems she ever has.
Holy cow, she's incredible!! As we were leaving, Elder Muller hugged
me for like 5 minutes and said "where did that come from?" Hahaha I
honestly didn't have an answer. It was the most incredible thing, I
love the constant companionship of the Holy Ghost!

Later that night we met with Luís, the guy who asks us for a blessing
every time we are together. It's cool that he realizes that we have
this priesthood to use, but we talked to him about doing his part. The
blessings won't kick in until he starts doing his part, so hopefully
we sparked something inside of him to get things going. He loves to
come to church and stuff, so hopefully we can continue to work with
him and get him re-activated. After Luís, we had Michael's baptismal
interview at President Yubero's house! We all shared our testimonies,
including Michael, and the spirit was so strong. It's been so fun for
me to see the changes in him, he is not the same kid I knew 6 weeks
ago when we started teaching him! He passed his interview so we are
all scheduled to have his baptism Sunday Night!! He asked me to do the
honors, I'm really excited!! Pictures will come this next week :)

The rest of the week was good, we met with Michael to finalize
baptismal stuff and then headed up to León for Zone Conference. We
started by playing soccer for 5 hours which was a blast, but I'm
soooooo sore!! Haha I'm getting old ;) President and Hermana Pack and
the Assistants came down to speak to us and it was incredible! We
learned a lot about how to work with Branch Presidents/Bishops, Ward
Mission Leaders, and members. It's always awesome to hear from
President Pack because he has the greatest things of all time to tell
the missionaries!! The rest of the weekend we have lots of finding
activities planned and Sunday morning, we have District Conference.
It's like Stake Conference but since there isn't a stake here in
Northern Spain, it's a bit different. Also, President Pack presides
here at these conferences and holds the keys since there is no stake
president, so it's really different from Utah. I'm still learning
about how this all works.

Anyways, I want to close by sharing something I found in personal
study this week from Elder Joseph B. Worthlin. He tells a story about
his mother after he lost a football game and she said, "Come what may,
and love it." How awesome! We can't control a lot of things, but we
can control how we react. It's something I'm still trying to learn,
there are a lot of things that seem hard to love! I know as we try to
apply this in our own lives, we will see more blessings and ultimately
be more happy. So, "come what may, and love it." Have a wonderful
week, I will talk to you all really soon!

Oh! Special shout out to my Aunt Molly and Uncle Jed for having twins
this week! I am so excited to meet Holbrook and Russell in just 20
short months :)

ConAmor,
Elder Brady Craig Smith

 

 

 

Pics from this week

It gets insanely foggy here every morning and every night,
pictures don't describe it very well but you seriously
can't see more than 10 feet in front of you!

Elder Pena, Nicole (A girl in our branch), and I one night in the street!
Nicole is legit!!

One of the many huge castles here in
VALLADOLID

Just me emailing with my folks, I love Mondays :)

The Best Week of My Life!!

Hello Family and Friends :)

This was possibly the greatest week of my life. I've never been happier, I'm absolutely loving the mission! The hard days and the awesome days, they all have a purpose and it's shaping me into the missionary and person that I know Heavenly Father wants me to be! The language is coming along nicely as well, living with a Peruvian 24/7 definitely helps :) okay, here's my week!

I forgot to mention this last week, but we got a call from a random guy named Javier who wanted to hear more about our church, so we set up a lesson with him. We taught him all about the Restoration and it was incredible!! The Spirit was so strong, especially the first vision. It was such a cool experience to me because the Spirit testified to me that it was a real event. My testimony also grew about the gift of tongues because I understood every word he said and I spoke without restrictions! My Spanish was perfect for one whole lesson and it gave me so much confidence. SOOOO COOL :):) 

Tuesday was good, we went to a lesson with this one guy who we thought was a non-member but it turned out he was! So like halfway through the lesson, I asked him if he would read and pray about the Book of Mormon to receive his answer if it was the word of God. Haha he was like "oh I already know it is. I've read it a lot." I was like what the heck why haven't we baptized you yet?! Then he told us he was a member and I got a good laugh out of it. He's a little inactive but we got him to come to church with us which was awesome! His name is Luís. Then later than night, like at 11 we got a call that the new Elders were waiting for us in the train station! So we got out of bed, changed out of our PJ's, and sprinted to the train station! They're really cool, one is Elder Tree from Montana and the other is Elder Fletcher from Texas. Elder Tree has 15 months in the mission and Elder Fletcher is fresh out of the MTC!! We are very excited to have them here :) 

Wednesday, we had district meeting which is just Valladolid, so 4 Elders and that's all! It's different than last transfer, but I like it because we are going to save lots of money from bus and train rides to the North! Elder Peña and I decided to fast as well, so after lunch we started. He stood up after and said "I saw something, you and me and someone else in a room." I was like what the heck are you okay?! Haha! But then he said the person was getting ready for baptism!! We both fasted to see the fruits of our labors, particularly for a baptism. Later that day, we went to visit Michael. We read Alma 39 with him, then invited him to ink and pray about a baptismal date for him on the 5th of December! He accepted!!! I've literally never been happier in my life!! I hugged Michael so tight and said I love you brother!! Then we got outside and I screamed sooooo loud hahaha. It was a very good day :) 

Thursday, we had a visit with another investigator named Fernando. He is cool but has a lot of questions about the gospel. He had an accident about 10 years ago that made it so he is in a wheelchair and can't use his legs at all. Anyways, he asked us about a ton of stuff like garments, gay marriage, having clean thoughts, and tithing. He has a cousin that lives in Utah and for some reason his cousin gave him garments and he was wearing them when we went over!! Haha it was the weirdest thing of all time!! So we talked about a ton of stuff, including that you can't wear those garments until you go through the temple! Our lesson was over 4 hours long!! We missed 2 other appointments because of him! Anyways, he came to church on Sunday which was good, and he said he liked it a lot. He just needs to stop wearing the garments!! Oh my goodness it's a weird situation but I kinda laughed about it. Nothing worth writing about happened on Friday :) 

Saturday we had the English class in the morning with a record of 6 people there! It's more fun now because we have more Elders from the states so it's not just one Hermana and I! I shared the spiritual thought which was a quote that mom sent me, "we love others best when we love God most" and the people loved it! So thanks mom :) we had another lesson with Luís (the guy who I thought wasn't a member), then another meeting with a guy named Manuel. He has been a friend of the missionaries for quite some time now and he loves to practice his English with me! So for the first 30 minutes, we talked about Utah in English because he is obsessed with Utah and then we taught him about faith! And I shared "mountains to climb" with him and he loved it! That video is freaking money! Anyways, he wants to come visit me in Utah when I get home so we will see how things go with him. He is Catholic but I think there is a chance that we can change him :) 

Sunday was by far the best day of the week. We got to church and went into the clerk’s office with Michael and the 2nd counselor in the branch. Michael told us he wanted to move his date up for his baptism to this Friday the 20th!!! I wanted to die of happiness!! Literally I've seen this kid change so much. I remember the first time we met him, he couldn't sit still and just loved to beat box. But now, he reads his scriptures every day and told us that he received his answer through prayer! So we will have a baptism this week for him!! The greatest part? During sacrament meeting I was sitting right next to him and he leaned over to me and whispered in my ear... "Will you baptize me?" OF FREAKING COURSE I'LL BAPTIZE YOU!! J It made me feel so good, like all the work I've done has finally paid off. Later that night we swung by his house and did a practice baptismal interview and he passed with flying colors! It's so cool to see people change with the gospel. His small but powerful testimony has changed mine so much more than I could ever imagine! I'm so very excited for him :) 

So overall, this week was amazing. I'm so very happy to be here serving the Lord in Spain! I know I'm in Valladolid for 1 person right now and I did all I could to invite him to come unto our savior, Jesus Christ. It paid off :) Heavenly Father is there and answers our questions, just like he answered Michael's. Don't be afraid to ask him for anything! This church rocks and Spain is the best. Look forward to pictures next week of a baptism :) 

Have a wonderful week, thanks for all the support! I love you all! 

Con Amor,

Elder Brady Craig Smith