Pics from this week

CINNAMON ROLLS 😍 I ate 6

This is Ana, the one who asked me to come back and baptize her :)

A Bolivian food called Salteñas that are soooooo good

The Madrid East Zone this week!

Me with my new purchase of the week... A Dominican Flag!!

Us with Raul :) he is the one that just rents one bedroom and we
eat on his ironing board!

Hump Week and Finish Strong!

Hola loved ones :)

Another week has come and gone :) and you guessed it... I'm still
loving every single second! How could you not love it when you are in
the greatest country in the world with the most awesome people of all
time?! Haha I do miss all of you though so don't worry :) we had a
pretty good week, there are a few highlights I'd like to share as long
as some thoughts I've been having recently. Here it is :)

First off, on Tuesday night we had a lesson with our friend Raul. He's
a less active who we have been working with for a while now. He has
been coming to church which is really good and also going to marriage
classes with his wife! During our lesson, we were just chatting a bit
and then Raul told us that he had something to say. About 2 weeks ago
we taught Raul about tithing and how when we pay it, the Lord will
bless us for showing our faith. During the lesson a few weeks ago, I
shared a personal experience with him and he really liked it. So, Raul
decided it was time to pay his tithing! The day after he paid it, his
boss called him into his office and basically praised him for his good
work and told him he would be having more opportunities to work and
make more money! Raul was crying as he told us about how happy he was
that the Lord had answered his prayers to keep his job and thanked me
for the experience I shared. I was so happy for him! It was so
perfect. It strengthened my testimony that when we are willing to keep
the commandments, the Lord will do his part and bless us for trying.
We got to see a miracle first hand this week and it was all thanks to
Raul and his faith :)

We taught Alexander again this week about the law of chastity and it
went really well. Once again, he already knew what it was and hasn't
had any problems with it. He told us that he went on Facebook and
liked the Book of Mormon page and a few of his friends from other
religions started to bash him super hard. So I asked if I could see
what they were saying and holy cow, these guys were going so hard on
him trying to keep him from reading and talking with us! But as I was
reading Alexander's comments back to them, I was so surprised at the
way he responded. He was calm and testified of the spirit that he
feels when he reads and he feels when he is at church with us. And he
also said that the words are bigger in the Book of Mormon so it makes
it easier to read ;) I don't think I would have kept my cool as well
as he did! I was really proud of him and we are coming up quickly on
his baptismal date :) I love Alexander!!

Some other interesting things that happened this week were...

- We were out contacting this week and a guy from Mali named Mundo
came up to us and was super friendly. He was speaking to us in English
and it turns out that he has met with sister missionaries in Barcelona
before! He only ended up asking us for money but I didn't want to give
him any so I took him into a sandwich shop and bought him a sandwich
instead :) we got his reference and are going back to teach him this
week!
- I cut 4 more people's hair this week :) I'm getting better!
- Some old Spanish lady started to hit me with her little Asian fan
thingy on the bus because I was too close to her. We were on the most
crowded bus I have ever seen/been on in my whole mission and I was so
claustrophobic haha. I told her to calm down and that I was sorry and
she didn't like that so she just continued to swear and glare at me
until I got off. I was getting shoved around by everybody though so I
don't really know what she wanted me to do!
- I ate real Mexican Food and Cinnamon Rolls this week 😍 heavenly stuff
- My little GF in the ward, Ana, asked me if I was going to be here in
February and I said probably not and she said "no not this February,
the next one in 2018" and I said that I would be at home in Utah. Then
she got all sad and said "I want you to baptize me but you can't right
now because I'm only 6. Will you come back and do it?" I wanted to die
hahaha she's so cute! Heart = Melted

I can't and don't want to believe that this week I'm hitting my 1 year
mark. It feels like just yesterday I was getting set apart! The one
thing that I have really learned and come to appreciate on my mission
is love. I now realize that without it, you have nothing. Missionary
work is love. You need to love everybody. Everyone who knows me knows
how big of a people person I am and so the mission has taken that and
just blown it out of the water :) I love these people so much, I love
every one of my companions, and I love my Savior. Before my mission I
don't know if I could say he was my best friend and the one I would
turn to, but without a doubt now he is my numero 1 :) I know I can go
to him and my Heavenly Father for anything and everything. Even though
I love you all so much and these people in Spain, they love us even
more. I am so grateful for the things I have learned and am excited to
keep on spreading this marvelous message of the gospel with everyone I
meet for another whole year!! FINISH STRONG :)

Sorry it's a long email but it was a good week :) thanks for your love
and support guys. 1 down and 1 more to go. HOLY COW! I'm excited,
nervous, happy, sad, just a little bit of everything. Today for P-Day
we went to Móstoles to play fútbol with a bunch of missionaries and it
was super fun :) oh and a BIG thanks to my wonderful mother and family
for the awesome hump day/year package!! I've got the greatest family
in the world :) I'm looking forward to this next week and the next
year! I'll talk to you all soon and you'll be hearing from me in 1
short week! Adiós :)

Con Amor,
Élder Brady Smith

Pics from this week

JUNK IN THE TRUNK CHAMPION RIGHT HERE FOLKS :) twerking pays off

Kebab security camera pic

Me and my buddy Dennison just hanging out on his balcony :)

After our hair cut session!! LOOK HOW GOOD I DID!!! Hahaha still in shock

Madrid sunsets and shotgun ear muff thingys #missionarylife

Someone started a picture line at the bus stop with passport photos
so I said why not?! Hahaha I'm a weird person :)

Going Left

Hey :):):) Hey :):):) Hey :):):)

I can't believe it's time to write again. I had a wonderful week :)
I'd like to share a few random/cool/funny highlights to get started.
First of all, do you remember the family from El Salvador in my last
area? It was Alfonso, Blanca, Kevin, and Josue. Well, they got sealed
together as a family in the Madrid Temple on Friday!!! Kevin called me
and invited me to the sealing but unfortunately we already had a few
appointments scheduled that we couldn't miss. BUT THEY GOT SEALED!!
That just makes me soooooo happy thinking about it :) and the other
funny thing is that Elder Stout let me cut his hair this week!! And
the good news is I found my new future career path hahaha!! It looks
sooooooo much better than I thought it would! I'm not bad at all :)
I'll put a picture of it at the bottom. Ok now for the good stuff :)

Alexander is doing wonderful. We taught him the word of wisdom and
once again he was completely on board with it :) so much fun to teach
someone who is so open to what the gospel has to offer. He even came
to our Minute to Win it activity on Friday and he loved it! He's quite
the character! Another cool thing this week was that we found a part
member family who just recently moved here from Honduras! The dad's
name is Carlos Madrid and he is a member as well as his youngest son
but his soon to be wife and other kids aren't. We had a very cool and
spiritual lesson with them about the importance of reading in the Book
of Mormon and going to church. They liked it so much that they came to
church with us on Sunday!! It was so fun to wake up early in the
morning and go pick them up to take them on the bus to church. I've
actually never picked an investigator up for church before so I can
finally cross that one off the bucket list :) but overall they stayed
all 3 hours and things are looking good with them, hopefully we can
help the wife and kids be baptized while I'm here!

On Friday night we had our huge Noche de Hogar/Minute to Win it
activity and holy SCHNIKES it was insanely awesome! We had some
incredible member support and everyone had a great time!! We made 10
different stations with various games and my station was the "junk in
the trunk" one. We emptied tissue boxes and put slits in the back and
made little belts to tie around a waist and then on the inside we put
8 ping pong balls! The objective was to see who could shake the ping
pong balls out the fastest and obviously I won :) all those years of
twerking and going crazy at school dances finally paid off haha! But
we had a really fun time, a lot of members came that we have never met
before. We split up the 27 page member list and each took 9 pages per
companionship and called every single person that had a number and
passed by everyone else with just addresses. So literally every single
person in the whole ward was invited by someone and it was a HUGE
SUCCESS PEOPLE :)

Sunday was bomb.com. We had 6 investigators at church which is my new
record for the mission! YIPPIE!! And on top of that, we had a
fantastic fast and testimony meeting and the spirit was definitely
present. A couple of the young men and women in the ward bore their
testimonies about EFY and that threw me back a bit, I had to hold back
some tears! The spirit was strong and once again the Holy Ghost
confirmed to me that this is the true church of Jesus Christ. I have
absolutely no doubt in my mind! The rest of Sunday we visited members
and ended the night with another Noche de Hogar in the park :) super
good Sunday and after days like that, I never want to come home haha.

That's the week folks! This upcoming week we have a lot of
appointments and member visits set up so it should be a good time :)
we received a lot of new references this last week too so we will see
how it goes meeting up and teaching those people! I hope to have new
fun things to report next week :) as for today, we were going to go to
Segovia but we missed a bus and there was some confusion so we ended
up going to the center of Madrid called SOL :) I bought some cheap
(probably stolen) authentic fútbol jerseys from my African friends on
the sides of the streets! Haha oh Madrid :) I love this city and this
country soooo much. Thank you all for the prayers, letters, and
support. I love you all and have an excellent week  ❤️  enjoy summer
while it lasts ;))

Con Amor,
Elder Smeeeeeeeffffffff

Pics from this week

Jenifer, Alexander, Elder Stout, and I :)

COKE ON COKE ON COKE and me sweating carrying it up
3 flights of stairs haha cuz no elevator in our piso

Us Elders and Shu!! And our iPads hahaha

Grandpa Smith shirt and 2 playing cards I found this morning :)

Right before we died carrying the children :) love those kiddos

Me and Ana and Daniela yesterday :)

I'm in line at H&M right now buying socks!

FamBam :):)

Hola from elder smith :) I hope you all are having a spectacular day!
Before I get started, I wanna share 2 quick little stories. First,
last week I forgot to say that President and Hermana Pack came and
inspected our Piso and I'm happy to report that we got the Celestial
Award! WOO HOO :) that means our Piso was pretty much 100% clean and
we got the highest award possible. Then we had interviews with
President and can I just that my mission president is so dope... Holy
schnikes. That guy is so spiritually in-tune it's not even funny. We
got talking about a lot of different stuff and he gave me some really
good advice for the area and other things. Oh and we don't have AC in
our Piso so it's always blazing hot and while we were talking he was
like "I feel like a missionary today with all this sweating!" And I
looked at his forehead and he had 1 bead of sweat running down his
face. By this point my whole back was completely soaked through to my
white shirt and I just smiled and said "Oh President :)" hahaha it was
classic. But then again I'm always sweating here so that's nothing
really new. The second thing is that this week we bought 36 LITERS OF
COCA COLA :) I attached a picture below. It's literally cheaper than
water here somehow so we just stocked the heck up. Probably a once in
a lifetime thing but hey, it was fun :) okay now to the important
stuff haha!!

ALEXANDER! Man I love Alexander. We taught him tithing and
fasting/fast offerings last week and it was the first time I had
taught it since Lucy, my old investigator in Talavera :/ you all
remember what happened with Lucy right? Ok good because I don't want
to get into that again. Anyways, he already knew what tithing was and
is completely on board to pay it so all we had to do was explain
fasting and fast offerings and he loved it! We invited a member named
Jenifer who is a returned missionary to come with us and she did a
great job explaining why we do fast offerings and what fasting is. She
helped so much haha and she is such a homie :) Alexander said it made
perfect sense to help other people and he would be more than willing
to fulfill one of the Lord's commandments. We also set his baptismal
date in stone for the 4th of September and he is so excited! He came
to church yesterday for the 3rd time and was participating actively in
Gospel Principles and soooooo we are just animado outta our minds for
him :) pray that he can stay strong with his commitments por favor!!

Yesterday afternoon we helped the other elders with one of their
lessons. Their investigator is named Shu and he is from Mainland
China! He comes to church every week and brings like 5 of his friends.
It's so hilarious because they don't understand anything but they love
being there! The Temple Square Sister Missionaries from Salt Lake City
were supposed to Skype us but there was a mix up and so we just ended
up doing it with our iPads. He doesn't speak any English or Spanish so
literally we just use Google Translate to talk to him and other apps
that we have and it was a super interesting lesson but we all felt the
spirit so strongly! While we were translating back and forth, Shu
handed us something to read and it said that he came to Spain all
alone, his family is in China but he knows that God is there with him.
Right before we finished, he asked us where he could get a certificate
stating that he is a Christian so it got us talking a bit (more like
typing and translating haha) about baptism. We told him that we are
his friends and if he ever needs anything, we are here for him. The
other elders were talking to him so I looked up how to write in
Chinese "Jesus loves you" and I put it on the back of a Jesus picture
I had and we gave it to him. He left with tears in his eyes and gave
us all a big hug and smile and said thanks :) it really hit home to me
that the spirit is the teacher. It literally doesn't matter what
language you speak because everyone understands the spirit. My iPad
died halfway through the lesson so it was a good thing we had 4 of us
haha! I just wish that Elder Gilbert and Elder Cole could come to
Spain with their Chinese skills and help us teach him because he is a
golden investigator! ;)

We had a bomb Noche de Hogar last night with a super awesome family.
They are from Paraguay and it's a mom with her 4 kids. These kids are
INSANE but so funny and I love them so much. We talked about the plan
of salvation and how we can live with our families again some day for
eternity thanks to the plan. I always love to give the example of
Grandpa Smith passing away in February and how I know he is just
working away in the spirit world and loving being reunited with
Grandma Smith :) it makes me so happy just thinking about it. Long
story short, the Noche de Hogar was incredible. We had super good
participation and had fun at the same time :) and another tiny piece
to the story... in Spain there is this super popular clothing brand
called "John Smith" and while I was walking by a store this week,
everything was on sale and I saw a navy blue t-shirt that said John
Smith on it in white and red lettering. So of course I went in and
bought it :) I'm wearing it right now as I type and it's so
comfortable. I miss grandpa but am glad for his example to me and now
I've got him on my shirt whenever I wanna remember him :) I will
attach a picture. This paragraph probably doesn't make sense but it
was a fun night and it ended off with us giving the kids rides on our
shoulders for like 3 miles :') we were dead when we got to the metro
station hahaha picture attached.

THERES THE WEEK FOR YALL :) miss you all tons. Love you all tons more.
Sorry I wrote a lot but it was a jam packed 5 days! Loving my mission
more and more each day. I will talk to you all next week :):):))

Con Amor,
EEEELDER SSSSMiTH

P.s. I apologize I have been getting super bad at emailing. I feel
like I lose more and more time every week... So if I don't respond
personally, don't take it personally!! I love you all sooo much :)