Tuesday, May 30, 2017

Pics from this week

Cathedral on Fire 馃敟 

Zone conference :)

Follow Head Honcho

Que pasa chavales! 馃

'Twas a good semana here in Le贸n :) I don't really wanna write too much today so we will see how this email turns out!! 

Everything is looking super good for our investigator Iris (less active Jefferson's girlfriend) to be baptized the 11th of June! She is a little scared but after having a few lessons with her this week, she has realized that she needs to put her faith into practice and trust in the Lord. We did a couple fun object lessons with her this week about following the prophets and even one about faith and she loved them! We have a few more lessons to teach this week then Saturday she will be having her baptismal interview! After that she'll be in the water 馃槈

Last week I wrote a bit about our new Colombian friends Diego and Lina... well they are doing awesome, especially Lina!! She is almost 22 years old one of, if not, the most prepared person I have ever seen/found on my mission! Last Saturday we met her for the first time, and 5 days later on Thursday, she had read 180 pages in the Book of Mormon!! We went zoinkers!!! We are talking to her about baptism too and so hopefully this week we get a date with her and then we can start teaching according to that :) her brother Diego is a bit rougher around the edges but he has a good heart and is a lot more spiritual than most 19 year old teenage boys in Spain. We also met the mom of the kids this week and that was good, she loves us and thanked us for helping get her kids on the right path. Hopefully we can get back and teach her again soon!! AND, they promised to make us a "Bandeja Paisa" which is a special Colombian plate that is literally to die for 馃槱 I love Colombians so much. 

On Thursday of this week, we had zone conference with the Pack's here in Le贸n! It's always good when they are in town :) Hermana Pack focused a lot on stress in the mission and talked about urgency. Too much stress is obviously not a good thing but just the right amount helps us to recognize that we have things to improve on and keeps us constantly moving. She gave a cool example that I found interesting... it was something like 

Me + More = Christ

when it really should be 

Me + Christ = More

Lots of times we think that when we do more, Christ comes. He asks us to all we can and then when we allow him to help us and take the other half of the load, we end up doing way more. I really liked that example that she did :) so yeah, Zone Conference was good! And I got my temple recommendation renewed from President which was cool too 馃檭 

Another quick thing I noticed... after talking to some Spanish members yesterday, I realized how much they have gone through to get the church to where it is today. I am so grateful for their courageousness and desire to share the gospel even when their friends and family have completely disagreed with their decisions. Spain is such a great country. Literally the best in the whole world myyyyy goodnessssssss.

This week we have a couple of intercambios, district meetings, and baptismal interviews scheduled so it should be a busy but fun one! I am definitely being pushed right up until the end which is just what I wanted :) as铆 que no complaints from me! Love you all, have a bacano week :):):) 

Con amor,
Elder braids 

Monday, May 22, 2017

Pics from this week

We found a baseball field this week!!! First time in my whole mission!!! 馃槏馃槏

Baseballllllll


More baseballlllll #dingers

Noche de hogar with the branch... chalking the plan of happiness!

Ca帽a Con Cari帽o #dingers

Hola!!!

This week, the Lord's hand was EVERYWHERE to be found in the work here
in Le贸n!! It has been incredible to see the amount of prepared people
there are at this time. This was a great week full of miracles and
missionary work which seem to go pretty much hand in hand :) here's a
little bit about it!!

Coolest story first... we go over to teach Jefferson (less active kid)
and he was there with his girlfriend Iris (our investigator) and so we
decided to teach the restoration and it went soooooooo well, like
elder kiser and I taught with literally 100% unity. They invited us to
go back the next day and we taught the plan of salvation and law of
chastity together. At the end, we extended the baptismal invitation
and Iris was all for it!! So on the 10th of June.. if all goes well...
we should have a baptism!! We'll see though :) she has been to church
a bunch of times and loves the spirit she feels so hopefully we can
keep helping her!!

Next person... on intercambios a couple weeks ago, elder kiser
contacted this girl named Alejandra Feliz and when we got back to the
piso that night he goes "dude I just contacted our next baptism!" I
was like come on, she can't be that good!! I was wrong 馃檭 we had our

first lesson with her this week and now she has a baptismal date too!!
She said that when she comes to know that these things are true, she
will do whatever it takes to follow the Savior. There are sooooo many
prepared peeps out there, we just gotta keep looking! But for sure she
was another miracle :)

And the last cool story... like my 2nd week here I contacted this 19
year old chaval named Diego from Colombia who loves to play soccer. So
I have been calling him every week to get him to come play with us on
Saturday mornings but he never came... until this past Saturday!!
Nobody else showed up except for him and right as we were about to
leave, he came up to us and said "hey! Remember me?" We were so
shocked he came!! then he introduced us to his sister named Lina who
is like the sweetest person I have ever met in my life. She asked why
we were here and as soon as we said the word missionaries, she turns
to Diego and goes "I told you yesterday that I wanted to find a
church!" CAN YOU SAY MIRACLE?!?! Holy cow!! So we whipped out 2 copies
of the Book of Mormon and explained it, gave them a tour of the
church, and invited them to come back the next day and they did! They
came to church!! Seeing them walk in was like the greatest feeling of
all time :) we met up with them yesterday and taught the restoration
and they loved it. Soooo basically God has been treating us really
well this week... and I'm so happy to be where I am surrounded by such
wonderful people!!

Other than that, not too much new stuff to report on. But the forecast
is starting to look pretty good over here in Le贸n (missionary work
wise and weather as well... it's starting to get hot!) 馃 this week we

have Zone Conference so that means everyone will be coming down the
night before to sleep in our piso... things are gonna be crazy 馃槣 I'm

so happy here and loving life, I love each one of you and I'll see you
all soon! Peace 馃徑


Con amor,
Elder esmit

Monday, May 15, 2017

Pics from this week

Brother and Oviedo

Skrill

Preaching the good word

P-day attempt at cool jumping in front of Jesus picture 馃槑

Last skype with my fambam!!

A Danky Mother's Day

Buenas!!!

Well hello there to all my favorite people! I hope all the women in
the world had a great Mother's Day and all the missionary moms and
missionaries enjoyed their skype sessions as much as I enjoyed mine :)
I have the best mom ever. But probably the best part of the whole
skype was when dad said "im getting tired of being the only man around
here!" 馃檪 I miss you too big guy :) Also... happy early birthday to

kenna on Wednesday!! 18 baby WOO HOO!! 馃槤 Live it up! Can't wait to

start college with you!! Thanks for being the best curly haired sister
ever!! I'm gonna try and keep it short and sweet today because I
chatted a lot yesterday with the fam.

So this past week we had a pretty good lesson with one of our
investigators named Iris. She is the girlfriend of this less active
kid who we are teaching and she is super interested. We shared the
story of Ammon in the Book of Mormon with her and she loved it and
then came to church for like the 3rd time and loved that too!! So we
are hoping to talk more often with her and the kid too so they can
start living the law of chastity lol and eventually get her baptized
and yeah! She's super awesome and is always so happy when we teach her
so hopefully things go well with that! Keep them in your prayers!!

On Friday the Hermanas baptized a little family of 3 people, a mom, 16
year old son, and a 9 year old girl and it was so beautiful! One of
the best baptismal services I've seen on my mission. They were so
reverent the whole time and really understood the magnitude of the
covenant that they were making with God. On Sunday, elder kiser and I
confirmed all 3 of them in church and that was a super sweet
experience to be a part of that! They will be a great addition to the
branch here and get put right to work :) also, my favorite family from
Talavera called me this week and told me that they are moving to
LE脫N!!! Eduardo, Tati, Mar, and Esther are all coming here at the end
of June!! They found work in one of the pueblos right outside of the
city so they will be here at the end of June :) I was flipping out
with excitement when they called me. They are literally exactly what
the branch needs right now, good families make all the difference in
the world! So things here in Le贸n are going bastante bien if you ask
me :)

Today for P-Day we went to elder kiser's home, Oviedo, and hiked to
the big Christ Statue that is there. It's similar to the one in Rio de
Janeiro but not anywhere near as big. I love northern Spain. It is
absolutely beautiful 馃槏 from Galicia to Asturias to Castilla y Le贸n,

it's just all sooooo pretty. I'm gonna miss it up here so much :(
humidity, green mountain ranges, cows, weather, cleanliness of the
cities, everything. You just can't beat a country like Spain!!

Hopefully that's short and sweet enough for you guys, I love you all!
I'm grateful for the time I have had as a full-time missionary of this
church and for the rest of the time I still have left! There's lots of
work to still be done, and I'm loving every second! Have a great
week!!

Con amor,
Elder Brady Smith

Friday, May 12, 2017

Pics from this week

Valladolid homies part 1 

Valladolid homies part 2 

All the zone gathered together @ district conference! The only building in 
Le贸n that fits enough people is a giant catholic hotel :)

Conciliooooooo


Selfie with president and hermana pack by the cathedral! Repping their BYU gear!

#HighBallersCouncil

Hi

First and foremost, HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO THE WORLDS GREATEST MOTHER IN THE WHOLE WORLD (yesterday)!!!!! I miss you mom and I love you too ❤❤ Hope you had a great day!! Well this past little bit has been filled with pure, sweet, dear missionary work/life and enjoying Spain. I love this country. I love the people. I love the culture. I love everything about it! And here's how the week went! 

So it was a bit crazy as of recently cuz we had District Conference (which is like Stake Conference, but just for districts), interviews with president, lots of train rides, intercambios with the AP's, and Concilio yesterday at President and Hermana Pack's house. So yeah, it was quite the extended weekend!! A bunch of elders had to come down for exchanges and intercambios on Friday night so our piso is like trashed from so many people sleeping there, we did wayyyy too much pillow talking so we are beat tired, and then the traveling back and forth from Madrid didn't help either. We got back to Le贸n last night at 12 and had a bowl of cereal then hibernated. Crazy stuff. But with all that being said, I wouldn't trade experiences like these for anything! In district conference, we talked a lot about the importance of going to the temple and sustaining our leaders. Interviews went really well, intercambios all were very smooth, and concilio was super great yesterday. We talked about improving our teaching and lots of other mission related items. I love the Pack's. We saw them on the street Saturday night after the priesthood session of district conference right by the cathedral as they were looking for a bite to eat! Such good people :) we got a selfie with them. 

There's a foreign exchange student here in Le贸n from Arizona and she introduced us to one of her friends this week named Ali. Ali literally should be American because she speaks perfect English (with an American accent) and loves everything about the United States. It's super cool Haha but anyways, Ali has a ton of questions about the church! she was pretty blown away that such young kids like us don't do a lot of the worldly things most teenagers here in Spain do. So we taught her a little bit about what we believe in and she totally wants to know more!! She doesn't know for sure if God exists but she wants to believe and that is the best part. In Alma 32:27 it says "But behold, if ye will awake and arouse your faculties, even to an experiment upon my words, and exercise a particle of faith, yea, even if ye can no more than desire to believelet this desire work in you, even until ye believe in a manner that ye can give place for a portion of my words." Ali has the desire, so we are gonna start with that and see where it takes us! The girl has wicked awesome potential and I'm super excited to be teaching her! 

Other funny/random/cool stuff from this past little bit...
  • I got my residency renewed finally!! I was only 9 months overdue! When the lady looked at my card she was not happy hahaha. It wasn't my fault though!! 
  • Yessenia (our investigator from Honduras) made us fajitas and she did them with home-made tortillas and let me tell you people... they were literally TO DIE FOR 馃槱 she said she will teach us how to make them. I love latinos. 
  • At Concilio, we were talking about the dress and grooming standards and Hermana Pack started talking about how some of us might put on a bit of weight during our missions. So, she said we need to buy new clothes that fit us better to obey the standards and then President Pack pipes in and said, covering his mouth, "fat guy in a little coat!" HAHAHAHAHAHAHA 馃槀it was the most memorable thing of all time! It literally moved him into the #1 spot on my all time favorite people list! He said Tommy Boy is his favorite movie! I love my mission president so much! 
  • The cool guy Cesar we were teaching moved to Salamanca :/ so we passed him to the elders over there. Hopefully he gets baptized!! 
  • At district conference I saw all of my homies from Valladolid that I literally haven't seen in forever!! I miss that place so much!! I decided that this week that  the area of Castilla y Le贸n is my new home (next to Bountiful of course).

Last thought before I finish... this week in studies I came across a verse in 2 Nefi 31:12 that says "wherefore, follow me, and do the things which ye have seen me do." There are so many things that we try to do that the Savior did but yet, there are so many things we do every day that he never did. We mess up a lot. I am so grateful for his atonement and the chance we have to become clean and better every day. I honestly am striving to "do the things which I have seen him do." It's hard and I'm not perfect. But, it doesn't matter as long as I do my best and keep on getting better :) 


I think that's everything I wanted to say for this week!! Sorry it's such a girthy review but sometimes you just gotta get it all out :) today for p-day we went and ate with our friend Brandie (who we are teaching) and another girl who is studying at the University of Washington (Brandie's friend) named Hannah! We went to an old fashioned American restaurant. It was really fun :) thanks for reading this far peeps. Love you all. Cuidaros 馃槑馃徑

Tuesday, May 2, 2017

Pics from this week

Concilio last transfer :)

Steady mobbing

Mas castle action

Us with our boy Matt at Mickey D's!

Sobreviviendo like bosses

Humans!!

11 more of these bad boys then I'll be home with all of your beautiful
faces! So last week was transfers and I specifically didn't say
anything about it cuz I was worried that I would jinx it and get
separate from elder kiser... but things worked out and we got another
transfer together! We are super stoked :) this week was super good.

Honestly the highlight of last week was probably getting back in
contact with an old investigator who has been super busy working for a
while. We have been kinda sad about Julie still but when we found out
that Yessenia could meet again, it cheered us up a bit! So, Yessenia
is from Honduras and has 4 little kids and she almost got baptized in
her country! She even has a favorite hymn! But the lady she was taking
care of died (blessing in disguise) so her schedule just opened up
quite a bit :) 
we have another lesson with her tonight and we invited
our 2 best members so it should be awesome! We are really hoping to
get her and her family to church and involved with the members and
then get them to baptism :)

Friday we spent the day in Ponferrada and I went with elder tarver
from Montana :) we actually had a cool experience knocking doors... we
were passing by an old investigator and a guy named Luis answered and
my first impression of him was that he was high as a kite hahahaha.
The good herb was definitely being burned in his piso, but he loved
the prince of peace video and invited us to come back!! It was cool
because the elders in Ponferrada have been knocking doors every day
for the last transfer and haven't gotten a single reference until
then. Even if he was high, he was super nice and loved that we were
sharing a message about jesus!

The other funny thing about that intercambio was that elders kiser and
Moreno were out contacting and found a guy from Logan, Utah who served
his mission in Madrid 15 years ago! He was doing the Camino De
Santiago and promised himself that the first missionaries he saw, he
would take out to eat :) this guy was a hoot. He took us to mcdonalds
and we had a good chat! He had some of the craziest mission stories of
all time and it was super cool to meet him. It makes me miss Americans
when I talk to them haha. This guy ended up being the private pilot
for Real Salt Lake! Super fun experience.

That reminds me of another short story hahaha... one night before we
went into piso, we were finishing up our contacts after a lesson and
elder kiser stopped this lady from SLC!! she was like "no missionaries
ever stop me because I'm a sinner." So we started talking about our
beliefs and turns out.. she's been baptized but fell away from the
church because she thinks Joseph smith was a pedophile and a con
artist  and Brigham young was his "con-man". I was super sad when she
told me that 馃槶 its crazy what some people think. The Camino De

Santiago brings a lot of people through Le贸n wish lots of different
backgrounds and so it's fun to talk with them but in this case it was
just sad :(

Other than that, we are good! Happy as usual :) elder boo baby was a
little sick this weekend during transfers so that wasn't too fun. But
he's feeling better now and we have some super awesome new changes in
the zone! We are getting sister training leaders for the first time in
like over a year and the hermanas in Le贸n are now in a trio! Elder
Jones got transferred to Pontevedra (it's in Galicia, I'm super
jealous) and there were a few other things. But I'm super excited for
this transfer!! Can't believe how fast time is flying but I'm loving
every minute. I hope everyone has a great week, and I'll be skyping
soon!! Get ready momma!! :)

Love you all!  L8r 馃槑


Con amor,
Elder smith