Ferrolllllllllllllllllllllll!

HI FAM!

Well it was a good first week here in Ferrol :) not gonna lie, I miss
B3 quite a bit. Like last Monday night after p day was over and I had
finally finished all the goodbyes, I got home to piso and just went on
the balcony and cried for a while. It was a really hard goodbye to all
those awesome people. And a couple times this week I have felt like
that too, just crying cuz I miss it but I know Ferrol is where I'm
supposed to be! And I'm starting to like it more and more every day :)
it's so much different here, like in a lot of ways. But here is how
the week went!

So the people up here speak Gallego which is like Spanish/Portuguese
mixed. And it's not that hard to understand, but I can't say very much
yet haha. A couple times this week, we have been street contacting and
the people really don't want to talk to us so they start babbling in
Gallego. So for language study I've been doing Portuguese in duolingo
because there isn't a Gallego option. Hopefully it starts to pay off!
And there are a lot more Spanish people here than there are in Madrid.
Not very many South American immigrants make it up this far! The
Gallego people are funny too, when they talk, their voice tone goes up
and down a lot, it's honestly a little hard to take them seriously
haha. But the branch is solid up here, normally we have about 50
members every Sunday. Yesterday we had more visitors than real members
because of all the festivos and stuff. But I really love it so far :)
we have been down to the ocean and the ports a few times, and some of
the pueblos that our area covers are absolutely gorgeous. If you have
time, go to google maps and look up Valdoviño :) I'm really excited to
go up there haha! But Ferrol is awesome! I love it!

We have 2 really cool people that are on date to be baptized. The
first one is a lady named Hajiba from morocco who isn't Muslim! She is
already in Jacob in the Book of Mormon and has only been meeting with
the elders for 2 weeks! She has a lot of crazy stuff going on in her
life but she told us that when she reads the Book of Mormon,
everything calms down and she feels good. Hopefully things keep going
well with her! The other guy is named Carlos and he's from Ecuador. He
told us that he already knows the church is true and is willing to be
baptized, he just works a lot. He's a painter and travels to all parts
of Galicia so it's kinda hard to find time to meet with him. But other
than that, we have had some really cool street contacts and conversed
with some interested people and set lessons up for this week! We even
found a Brazilian family yesterday so maybe my Portuguese duolingo
skills will come in handy after all!! ;)

We might have struck gold with a Spanish guy named Antonio this week,
we had a super awesome spiritual lesson but I don't want to say more
just in case I jinx it haha. So when we meet up with him again, I'll
share more :) that's about all I can think of for this week. Ferrol is
a lot prettier than B3 that's for sure hahaha and my companion Elder
Simmons is a machine! He's from Park City. We get along really well :)
and my new piso is awesome. I'm just super happy where I'm at :)

Happy new year everyone, I hope we can all take time to reflect on
2016 and see how far we have come and what we need to change. Let us
all make new goals and become even better in 2017!! I love you tons
and tons! Have a fantastic week 😎

Con amor,
Elder smith