Monday, April 4, 2016

Peanut Butter, Conference N' Stuff

HOLA GUYS!

Not a bad week here in Talavera :) the worst parts of my emails are
definitely the beginnings because I never know what to say, so forgive
me! But anyways, I hope you all enjoyed Conference because Elder Smith
sure did :) here's what's happening in Talavera!

This week, we were not able to meet with Lucy at all. Unfortunately
she has been sick and in bed trying to get better. On Tuesday, we went
over and gave her a blessing of health and that was a super spiritual
experience. When we finished, she looked up at us with tears in her
eyes and the spirit was so strong! Even though we weren't there to
teach her anything, we all left feeling better than when we came.
We're thinking that her baptismal date will need to be pushed back a
week, but we'll see what happens. Please keep her in your prayers so
that she can get better and we can continue helping her :)

On Wednesday we had district meeting in Toledo. We did this super fun
practice where we teach the Restoration and someone stands behind us
and taps us on the head to take turns. It's supposed to represent the
Holy Ghost prompting us when to teach and how to teach with unity, but
sometimes the taps end up in awkward spots so it makes for a good
laugh. Overall, we learned how we can be more unified in our teaching
which will help our investigators feel the spirit even stronger! And
it's always a good time to be in Toledo for a few hours :) I can't
believe how many tourists are there every week when we go hahaha.
There honestly are more of them than Toledo natives! But nevertheless,
it's fun to be with the district and getting to know each other
better! Later that night, we passed by a little Latino shop and were
just looking around and guess what I found... PEANUT BUTTER :) so I
asked the lady how much it was and turns out that she has met with the
missionaries before! (The peanut butter was super cheap too, so that's
a bonus) I gave her a card with our number and she said she would be
interested to talk a bit more. And she needed some help with her shop
so she'll call us for a nice service opportunity :) moral of the
story... Well there isn't one hahaha but I found peanut butter and a
future investigator so I was happy :)

Friday, we visited the Fuentes Family :) the dad is the 2nd counselor
in the branch and the mom is the Young Women's President. They have 2
kids, Taty and Johnny, who are super fun as well. They live in a
pueblo about an hour out of Talavera, so we took a bus to get there.
The mother made some of the most incredible food that I have had in my
time in Spain. It was to die for! Super good meat, potatoes, salad,
holy cow. It was so yummy. Later on Friday night, we had the regular
Noche de Hogar with the branch. The branch here honestly just feels
like a big family, I love it so much :) We played a game at the end
and I'm not even going to try and explain it over email because it
won't make any sense. But, it was the most fun thing I have done in my
whole mission! I have never laughed harder in my life! To celebrate a
good day, Elder Johnson and I got ice cream before we came in to go to
bed haha. So worth it.

CONFERENCE... I'll be honest that I get a bit trunky when conference
time rolls around. I miss laying around the house with the Fam and
being a bit lazy. But hey, I only have 2 more on the mission and then
I'll be home ;) I'm so thankful for a living prophet who leads and
guides our church today! Although his messages may have been short,
they were sweet and profound. My favorite thing that President Monson
said was "If we choose Christ, we will have made the correct choice."
It reminds me of our purpose as missionaries, to invite others to come
unto Christ. When we walk through the streets, the first thing people
see besides the shirt and tie is the name Jesus Christ on my name tag.
Immediately, they know that we are here to preach and testify of him
and his restored gospel. My love for the Savior has grown so much and
although I'll never be able to comprehend what he did for me, I can do
my best to love him and serve him by serving others. So yeah,
conference was great :) I'm looking forward to downloading the talks
and studying them again in the weeks and months that follow.

That's all I got :) a big thank you to all my supporters. Love you
guys to the moon and back! Just to finish this week... One of my
favorite quotes from one of my favorite seminary teachers, Brother
Oram..."Life is great, the Church is true, I am a child of God, and so
are YOU!" Haha have a great week everyone :)

(No clue why I put the brother Oram quote in there but yeah, I'm weird)

Con Amorrrr,

ELDER SMITH

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