Wednesday, September 30, 2015

A few pics from the internet of Valladolid



Just a few pictures from the internet of Valladolid...Brady's new home for at least the next 6 weeks!
The city has a population of 309, 000
Is the largest city in Northwest Spain
Is 5,140 miles away from Bountiful, Utah!!

Valladolid in relation to the rest of the country
Plaza Zorrilla

Monastery of San Bernardo

Parque del Campo Grande


Zlyd Centro Cultural Miguel Delibes

Elder Smith has Arrived

We had the great pleasure today of welcoming your son to the Spain Madrid Mission.  We spent the day together at the mission home where he received training and orientation on his missionary assignment.  We thoroughly enjoyed our time together and felt a wonderful spirit present.  We appreciate all that you have done to prepare your son to serve the Lord and for the sacrifice you are making in giving him to the Lord for a time. 

Elder Smith has been assigned to labor in
 Valladolid with Elder Peña.

We thought you might enjoy these pictures that we took in the backyard during our lunch break.

May the Lord bless you and your family in all of your endeavors.

Sincerely,

President and Hermana Pack 





Monday, September 28, 2015

Leaving the MTC

 Zone 2 with President and Sister Lovell

Spain MTC~ President and Sister Lovell

Sunday, September 27, 2015

Last Sunday with THamNer!!

One last photo with the MTC group before we head out to the field!!
 I love you both Happy domingo :) <3

Going to be a tough "see ya later" tomorrow~


Thursday, September 24, 2015

last week in the MTC:)

This morning after residency with tham :)
I'm gonna miss this kid

Elder Robles and I in the park

Elders Garrard, Kroff and Maldonado in our room


Stadium from the Outside

Selfie at top Stadium

Full View of  Stadium

Me

Zone 2
Me and Ronaldo
Soooo cool the field

The field again

The weird light bars are artificial sunlight..... haha cool and weird



HOLA everyone :)

well, my time here at the MTC is almost up!! i am both glad and sad. i am
so incredibly excited to meet my trainer and what not and very excited to
see what my first area will be like!! this friday, so tomorrow, i have my
first interview with my mission president, president pack!! i am very
excited. i met his wife, she has the thickest mississippi accent ive ever
heard but she is very sweet!! ill let you know how it goes next week!!

okay so the cool story this week was at the park (again) haha sorry i don´t
get out much, literally. my companion was a native, elder robles!! he is
24 haha so no big deal. it was so much easier to talk with people about
the gospel when you have a companion that does it for you haha!! just
kidding. he was a really big help though, we were able to give away 4
books of mormon and have some really good talks with people! nothing too
strange, he was practicing his english with me and i was practicing my
spanish with him so it worked out perfectly!

since the natives are here, sports got a lot more fun haha!! soccer is
definitely more competitive... sometimes a little too competitive. the
teachers are all natives and so are the missionaries so it gets very heated
very fast, but it´s so fun to play and try to keep up!! i look so stupid
when i play haha because they juke me out so bad but that doesn´t keep me
from trying over and over and over and over again haha!! everyone is
yelling tranquillo... which means calm because people get a little crazy.
anyways, its fun and all is well! no injuries thankfully :) we did however
get to play american football earlier this week which made my whole life so
much better!! needless to say, elder smith is probably the best quarterback
here behind elder hammond :) haha. i love that kid... just 4 more short
days with him before we are off in our own directions!! crazy how time is
flying!!

LAST THURSDAY WAS THE GREATEST DAY OF ALL TIME holy cow!!! the real madrid
soccer stadium is one of the coolest things ive ever seen. i wish i could
take every single one of you to it personally because seriously, it was
legit. i will send tons of pictures. i had so much fun!! the tour was 19
euros which is kinda expensive for just a walk around the stadium but very
much well worth it :)

thank you all so much for your love and support. it means the world to
me!! i am so incredibly happy here and know that this is where the lord
wants me right now. jesus lives and god loves every single one of us!!!
next time i email ill be in my first area... SOOO COOL :)

con amor,

elder brady craig smith

Thursday, September 17, 2015

Hola :) Week 4


Hello Everyone :) 

this week, i have an enter key that works!! praise the heavens!! so, here is the review of the week :) by the way, spain is the best country in the whole entire world :)

i would like to talk about the park this past saturday.  my companion was elder loosle from highland utah!  he is a really cool guy and he played golf for SUU!  so while we were waiting for the metro to come pick us up, there was this couple just standing there with a bunch of suit cases and they looked like natives.  i had a feeling to go talk to them, but i kinda kept pushing it away.  the metro still didn´t come, and i still didn´t talk to them.  then, the metro STILL DIDN´T COME and i STILL DIDN´T TALK TO THEM!! i had to give myself a pep talk... after 7 minutes of ignoring a feeling, i went up to talk to them... and it turns out they spoke english!! they were catholic but very receptive to the message i was trying to share them.  i talked to them about joseph smith and the restored gospel, gave them a BOM (giving someone a BOM in the MTC is the equivalent of a baptism in the real mission field, so go elder smith hehe), and they said they would look into the church!! i am so grateful that heavenly father delayed that stupid train so that i could place that book of mormon with those people and share my testimony.  it was such a good reminder to me that god really has his hand in all things.  

after that, we ended up giving out 3 more books of mormon!! it was an incredibly successful day and i was so happy :) i had more adrenaline giving out those books than ive ever had for any sports game in my whole life!! it´s weird what the mission will do to you, but i am very grateful for the things i am learning and experiencing.  on sunday, elder hammond got called on to give his talk on obedience and he did a fantastic job!! president lovell gave a really good talk and one thing he said that stuck out to me was "he´s not asking us to obey, he´s asking us to become". when i heard that i immediately started bawling!!  i can´t think of anything better than becoming like our savior jesus christ.  i am so eternally grateful for him and all that he has given me!! he is the best example we have and often times i think we forget just how much he sacrificed for us. i love the Savior so much:) 

our progressing investigators are going well and each time we teach "boris" or "sofia" i can say a little more!! its a very good feeling to be able to convey my thoughts with these spanish people.  i am not close to being able to say all that i want yet, but im definitely a lot closer than when i got here!!  dad remember when you said that provo is nice because you can see your progress with the incoming missionaries every week? yeah so this week we got native spanish speakers.  all from spain.  so this is their provo mtc.  THEY SPEAK SO FAST!! haha so its a little difficult to see my progress when its compared to them, but yeah.  its good to have them here, at meals we get to practice our spanish and during sports as well.  elder kroff and elder maldonado are actually in my room so when i wake up now all i hear is spanish being rattled off left and right hahaha but im glad because no one else gets these opportunities :) 

today in about 2 hours i will be on the metro headed for the REAL MADRID STADIUM WOOO HOOO im so excited!! it´s going to be incredible and every single missionary except for like 3 is going... it´s 3 hermanas that don´t like soccer so it´s understandable haha.  my cool experience of the week was last night... we have had some struggles in our district with homesickness in some of the elders (me kinda and others too) and some of the hermanas.  as district leader last night, i was able to give a comfort blessing to one of our hermanas!! what a cool experience!! im grateful for this gospel and the blessings that we get from it :) i love you all, thanks for the prayers!! until next week :) 

con mucho amor, 

elder brady craig smith

cool sunrise one morning :)

elder loosle and i proselyting in the park

me and hermana Johnson last p-day

cool view of Madrid :)

me and Madrid

me and some zone 2 elders :)

me and Elder Garrard at last p-day, called Mirador de Cibles :)

temple this morning at 7:30 am

basketball hoop i found abandoned and so i took it
into the room and made myself feel more at home :)

Thursday, September 10, 2015

Halfway through the CCM :)

Our investigator "Boris" AKA Hermano Delgado
Elder Garrard, Me, Hermano Delgado 
so two days ago my companion and i took our investigator boris to the
temple to teach him about eternal families and this is the selfie he
took with us!! it was so much fun and the flowers are so beautiful
there!!  boris is really my teacher, hermano delgado and he is a way cool guy. 


MADRID TEMPLE


Be Happy!

two pics of what elder hammond and i do in the bathroom when we can´t
take studying spanish anymore... haha its usually about a 10-15 minute
break where we quote tommy boy and take weird pics as you can see.
the others are from the temple session this morning... it was
incredible! this is elder beckstrom, my other best friend here who is
friends with elder benson rhees!! love you all :) enjoiii


Bathroom break for the brothers
We are so entertaining!
Elder Beckstrom and I at the temple


Hello family and
friends! it´s been another wonderful week here at the Spain CCM! the days all seem to feel the same because our routine is

the exact same everyday, but its all good. i feel a lot better about

things after this 3rd week here. i am finally used to the schedule,

waking up and going to bed (which is the highlight of my day haha)

eating, and all the study time. so there were a few cool things this

week that i´ll tell you about... as of sunday i got made the new

district leader for my district so that was really exciting!! i feel a

lot of responsibility even though we are still in the CCM to there´s

not a whole lot to do other than conduct lots of meetings and stuff.

oh well, its still an honor and im glad that the lord has enough trust

in me to let me do his work :) this last saturday we went to the park

again and my companion this time was Elder Romney from Highland, Utah.

he played lacrosse at highland and he has a twin brother who left 4

days before him to japan on a mission! so the first people we spoke

to spoke english who were from brazil, so i was instantly able to

connect with them because of the language and i told them all about my

good friend elder kyle peay!! they had never heard of the church and

they thought that it was really cool that there were missionaries all

over the world. we continued to bare our simple testimonies and we

gave them a book of mormon and promised them that if they read it,

they would feel the spirit and know of the truth of all those things.

it was awesome to do it in english for once haha! after that we didn´t

have a ton of success, passed out some pamphlets and got rejected a

lot, which is usual. and there´s not a whole lot we can do about it

because god hasn´t prepared those people yet! we came across an old

man named pedro sitting on a bench who was fascinated with taking

pictures of birds, so we talked to him for about 45 minutes haha!! we

tried to share our message with him but he explained that he didn´t

believe in god because he couldn´t see him, but that if he could take

a picture of god he would believe in him. it was very interesting, so

i handed him a pass along card with a picture of the savior on it and

he said thanks, then proceeded to tell us all about these birds haha.

finally after a while, we were just shaking our heads and saying yes a

lot because we couldn´t understand him, then we left and that was that

haha. we have 2 progressing investigators, named "boris" and
"sofia".

they are actually just our teachers here, but we committed BOTH OF

THEM TO BAPTISM which was so cool!! they both struggle with the word

of wisdom but i promised them blessings if they could resist the

temptation and they said they would do it! i was so happy!! we took

boris to the temple to teach him about eternal families and it was a

very good lesson, the spirit was very strong! i forwarded you the

pictures he took, they seemed to be very good on his nice smart phone

so enjoy everyone hehe :) last week for p day we went to a huge mall

and did some shopping, i got some new brown shoes because my other

ones are already ripping. today after lunch we are going to another

big paseo so that will be really pretty. next week we get to tour the

Real Madrid stadium and im so excited!! last sunday was fast and

testimony meeting and i couldn´t pass up an opportunity to share my

thoughts in english haha so i stood up and was the very last one. i

bore my testimony that i knew god loved each and every one of us and

then i shared the quote that mom sent me this week in the mail from

winnie the pooh... "how lucky i am to have something that makes saying

goodbye so hard". i started bawling and said how much i missed my

family and that i knew heavenly father misses us even more and that

all he wants is for us to come home. it was very spiritual and i felt

at peace when i got back to my seat. this gospel is amazing!! i love

it so very much and am grateful for all the opportunities i have to

share it with these beautiful spanish people. well, that´s about all

for this week, sorry again it´s hard to read... i will never quite

understand why spanish computers don´t have enter buttons!! anyways, i

love you all :) thanks for being the best friends and family in the

whole entire world. until next week :) con amor, elder brady craig

smith
Singing 
The CCM group 

Thursday, September 3, 2015

Week 2 Baby :)



Hello All! so i finally finished week 2 and holy cow it was hard!! but 
im still here and still going. to anyone planning on serving a
mission... it is the hardest thing i have ever done in my life without
a doubt.. but the most rewarding thing in the whole entire world!!
so, last p day we went to this place called Palacio del Rey. it was a
huge ancient castle that some king lived in... i couldn´t understand
that much because we had little headsets and the lady´s accent was
very thick but it was very beautiful. i took lots of pictures so i
will send them. it was also very reassuring to know that there is
more to madrid than 3 floors of an mtc!! i get so cooped up in here
just sitting in a classroom all day, so i take little walks up and
down the hallways to check on my friends elder hammond and elder
walster. im so glad that they are here with me! i have been making
tons of new friends too, a polynesian elder ngatai (pronounced
nah-tie) who is like 6 foot 5 and 280 pounds hahaha... he is like my
body guard. then there is elder beckstrom who went to spanish fork
high school and he was good friends with elder benson rhees so we have
gotten very close as well!! i will send pictures of all of them. my
companion is good, i have learned to love and appreciate him.
he says some really funny stuff that just makes me die of laughter
and i think we are becoming better friends every day. okay, so saturday we
went to the park to proselyte which is like the best
thing of the week next to p day because its real life experience!
so my companion was an elder who was going to
russia named elder kartchner from arizona. he didn´t know that much
spanish and neither did i so it was kinda a mess. anyways, we had a
few good conversations with people, but nothing too serious, mostly
just handed out pass along cards with pictures of the temple on them
because the temple is so beautiful!!! (by the way we go every thursday
morning to the temple and it is another highlight of the week) so when
we were walking out of the park elder kartchner saw a lady sitting on
a bench reading a book so he walked up to her and said... do you like
to read? and she said yes. so he said "here, i have a book for you"
and he handed her a book of mormon and she said thanks and that was
that!! it was easily the easiest placement of a book of mormon in all
of church history. i was amazed!! he was so bold, and he told me
later that he had been praying to just give one book away on his last
park experience. god listens!! then we got back on the metro to come
back to the mtc and there was some old guy who was a total jerk. i
was so mad. he kept saying "how come you 15 year old kids think you
know more than us about god?" then he proceeded to make fun of our
little bit of spanish that we knew and people all around the metro
were laughing at us and his jokes. i felt like crap. i was so mad
and was like there is no way that i can do this for 2 years. elder
kartchner gave me a pep talk on the way back to the mtc which made me
feel better. the whole reason i am here is to help these people
realize what they don´t have!! i just want to help them and they make
fun of us. oh well, there will come a day when everyone realizes
what´s really true and they will beg for it. obviously that guy
wasn´t quite ready yet. sundays here are hard because i miss my home
ward and my family... when mom would scratch my back all during
sacrament... mmmmm... and the girls would massage my hands too. just know
that is very much appreciated and missed!! haha but we always have
really good talks and messages. we have been teaching "investigators"
names sofia and boris. we take things slowly and really focus on
answering their questions and what not. we teach about the
restoration, the plan of salvation, the word of wisdom, the 10
commandments and lots of other stuff. so last funny story...
yesterday for sports we had a big group of us playing ultimate frisbee
in a place called the cage... it is just trashed with beer cans and
stuff and tons of graffiti... it looks dirty but it is so cool because
i love that kind of stuff! anyways, elder ngatai the huge poly was
going for a catch and ran into the cement wall with a chain link fence
on top and literally broke the wall!! he didn´t know that he did it
until we all stopped laughing because he had no clue!! then just as
easy as he smashed this cement wall he picked up and put it back
together!! it was the greatest, funniest thing of all time. i laughed
so hard!! oh and i bought some sick puma soccer shoes so i can fit in
with all the european kids that play soccer with us and kick our
trash... haha i need to get better at futbol or else this will be a
long 2 years!! for p day today we are going to a big mall called La
Gavia so that should be good, maybe i can grab some american food :)
anyways, thanks for all your love and support, i miss you all so
much!! i was blessed with the best family, friends, teachers, coaches,
and everyone else who was in my life. i love you all tons!! until
next week :) con amor, elder brady craig smith

District 2 on P Day August 27, 2015


Elder Beckstrom, Elder Smith & Elder Hammond
District 2 "Let's wear purple or pink" Day


My first companion Elder Rosenkilde
who headed to Lisbon Portugal this week


questions and answers


~Do you get our dearelder.com letters and snail mail as well as emails?
yeah i get them, not every day though. i don´t think they check the
mail every day but when they do i get like 3 or 4 at once so its nice.
you guys are so thoughtful!! 
~How are your clothes holding up?
my brown shoes are ripping... so we are
going to a big mall in like 2 hours so i might try and find some but
other than that im doing good. 
~Are you able to sleep well?
sleeping is alright... im not really
tired during the days but i maybe sleep like 7 hours every day. love
you :)
~How is the homesickness going?
the first 2 weeks i was  so homesick but this week i haven;t felt it really at all 
so thats good. spanish is okay... miss you and yes i love the thoughts :)