Love me some TALAVERA

Good Day :) 😎

How you all doing? I miss every single one of you reading this email
right now. I'm extremely thankful for your influences in my life, this
week I received lots of emails from friends and family and it just
makes the week go so much more smooth! So, gracias :) Transfer calls
came last Saturday and I'll be staying in Talavera for 5 more weeks
with Elder Johnson! I'm really excited because I love it here. There's
so much work to be done and little by little, we are seeing the fruits
of our labors :) the week....

ENGLISH CLASS IS THE BOMB.COM! Seriously I don't know why, but this
week we had 3 brand new people come and they are all golden for the
gospel! One of them is a philosophy teacher, another a doctor, and the
other one I'm not sure. But they all speak very good English and seem
to have legit interest in the gospel! One of them even asked us for a
Book of Mormon and has been reading in it every day! They said that
they had seen the flyers that we put up all over town! Every time
we've had class, we have been able to share something spiritual and it
always leads into a different gospel topic, it's so great. I love
English class! Hopefully they start inviting their friends and we get
the whole capilla full :)

On another note, this week we taught Lucy a few times. The first time
we went over, we taught her the law of chastity. Don't ask me why
because I don't know, but the law of chastity is always an interesting
one to teach. People always have questions or objections. And I was
worried about teaching it to a 55 year old woman, but she took it
really well and didn't have any problems with it! The other thing we
taught her was tithing and fast offerings. This did not turn out as
expected. She kinda got the idea that after we accept everything, we
"pay" tithing to stay in the church. Like we pay for our membership.
After explaining it 3 more times, very clearly, with our branch
mission leader, she still wasn't too fond of the idea. I'll take some
of the blame because I shouldn't have saved it for the last thing to
teach. But either way I think she would have had a problem with it.
She told us that depending on how she feels after praying about it,
she would either continue with the church or stop. I was literally
speechless and my heart dropped into my stomach. I have never prayed
harder in my life than now. This church is what she needs, heck it's
what everyone needs! But prayers for Lucy would be much appreciated
this week. PLZ.

I keep forgetting this funny story about Elder Johnson every week so
I'll just tell it now... He sleepwalks and talks. A lot. It's like
funny but a little weird. Anyways, one night I couldn't sleep and so I
found my way out to the couch in the living room and when morning time
came and I went in to turn off my alarm, Elder Johnson was just curled
up like a little baby, sound asleep in my bed! It was the weirdest but
funniest thing of all time! And I can't even imagine what would have
happened if I would have stayed in my bed that night and not moved to
the couch. It must have been revelation or something hahaha. We both
got a good laugh in the morning :) and some of the rants he goes on
while he's sleeping are... Let's just say interesting. He's a good
kid.

Wednesday we had intercambios and I was with ELDER GEARIG :) it was
fun. We had a day full of lessons and it kept us busy right up until
it was time to go back to Piso. We enjoyed a night talking about high
school and all the good memories we have had and stuff. He's a good
missionary and I learned a lot from his example! I'm glad to have so
many good friends and missionaries in my mission! And luckily he
stayed in Toledo for another transfer so hopefully we get to do some
more intercambios :)

We have started to play sports every Saturday morning with the youth
here and told them all to invite friends. It was a huge success this
past week and we are excited to keep it going! We had lots of
non-members come and even a less-active! We enjoyed time playing
soccer and basketball and then were able to share a short spiritual
thought after. Hopefully we can teach some of the kids who come and a
huge S/O to the awesome members who are doing missionary work by
inviting their friends to these activities. THE WORK GOES ON :) and
Talavera is dope.

Well, that's about it for this week. It was fun, painful, spiritual,
and Spain continues to be quite the experience. I'm happy to represent
my Savior every day and I'm striving to be more like him! He is the
perfect example and I hope that we all can focus on improving our
relationship with him this week and always. Find him and love him.
When we do our part, he does his. We have his word, and he always
keeps his promises! I love this work. I hope everyone has a wonderful
week and I'll talk to you all soon!

Oh and we just found out that Elder Bednar will be coming to Madrid on
May 14th to speak to the missionaries. I AM SO STOKED ITS NOT EVEN
FUNNY :))))

Con Amor,
ELDER SMITH