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.
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.
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