Pics from week 12

Elder Morris and I at Zone Conference :)

The bread that Stefan made for us.... Really good!

Elder Pena and I in our matching blue shirts... :)
Thanks to EMILY and his girlfriend on her mission in Paraguay!!

3 Months and 1 Transfer

What's up J

First transfer in the books!! Haha I did it!! It feels good to have it over, and I have good news!! I will be here in Valladolid for at least 1 more transfer, with Elder Peña! This transfer is only 4 weeks long but I'll take whatever I can get with him. He is so awesome, it's going to be so hard to say bye :( okay, so my week. It was soooo good!! I don't have my journal with me but I remember the important stuff!!

Tuesday, we went to Matapozuel to visit Stefan and his familia.  They had this really good bread cooked up for us and drinks which was very thoughtful of them, considering how little they actually have.  We got permission to have Skype with missionaries in Romania so they can understand everything, so right now we are trying to schedule a time with them and it will be great! I'm super excited! Then we taught Mabel the restoration, she's the recent convert that has kinda faded away but we committed her to come to church with us which was a big step for her! Then we went to the Tamayo Familia, which is Michael and Nicole. Michael... That kid loves to do everything that he shouldn't. He wants to be baptized but won't give up his friends, he just loves to do his own thing and it makes his mom soooo sad. They just fight and cry :( please keep them in your prayers, and we will continue our support and lessons with them. 

We ended up meeting with Michael a lot this week which means we get food too, which is always a plus haha. We have lots of good spaghetti, rice, eggs, fish, Spanish tortilla, and paella. So it's really important for me to use my exercise time wisely because we eat a lot of food! :) anyways, another girl in the branch this week got her mission call too to Barcelona which is way cool! It just flooded my mind with memories of the night when I opened my call. Never did I ever imagine that I would experience these things!! But it's super cool. Another funny cool thing was when I called Beatrice to let her know I might be leaving the area (even though it wasn't too likely), she freaked out and said "Oh no, you can't go yet! We have more things to talk about and I'll miss you!" I WANTED TO CRY!! Such a sweet lady. It made my whole transfer worthwhile that I could be a good friend to someone and just listen. Something I discovered this week is that she smokes 25 cigarettes a day :/ I challenged her to cut back and she got down to 14 but then gradually started getting back up again. I'm praying for her like none other!! 

Friday, we went to visit Stefan again because all the little kids in the house are sick because the water is bad. It's a super sad situation. We are re-teaching Stefan the lessons again because he didn't understand totally everything the first time, which is quite normal for a recent convert. After the lesson, Elder Peña and I gave blessings to every single child in the house and a bunch of the adults too. Most were blessings for the sick but a few were just of comfort. I have never felt more of a priesthood responsibility in my life!! Blessing these little sick children one by one as Stefan brought them into the bedroom was such a testimony builder to me. Holy cow the priesthood is real and I felt so honored to help the family. 

We started a new thing where we teach Preach my Gospel classes to young men and women in the ward who are planning to serve missions. So far, we have 3 people that come and it's fun! I always get to bare my testimony about missionary work and other stuff, we have a blast.  And also, the English class is a huge hit! We acquire more people every week! I forgot to mention, the Hermanas in the area both left to Madrid, but we are getting 2 new Elders! One has 15 months and the other is strait out of the MTC so that's gonna be awesome to help him!! We will pick them up from the train station on Wednesday I believe.

I want to challenge/invite everyone reading this email right now to look up the Mormon Message called 'Mountains to Climb'.  It's a little excerpt from a talk by President Eyring.  I haven't felt the Spirit this strong in my life in a long time, and I have watched it over and over.  It's my new "go-to" during a lesson because it's an instant Spirit-inviter.  How wonderful that we have a Heavenly Father that loves us enough to give us trials so we can overcome them and be better.  I never looked at it this way until I saw the video, and it's going to help us appreciate the good times that much more!

I love my Heavenly Father so much, and He loves me more than I can comprehend. This is one thing I have really come to know in my life and in my short 3 months in my mission.  He knows what he wants us to become, and it's up to us to accept His plan and let it change us for the better.  His plan is perfect and I know that to be true with all my heart.  

Have a wonderful week, I love you all!!! I feel so overwhelmed with support every Monday morning when my inbox is flooded :)  it's a very good problem to have!

Con Amor, 

Elder Brady Craig Smith

I

Pics from Week 11

English Class

Before I opened.......

After I opened

With Beatrice.... She is legit!!!

Hot Chocolate and Churros with Julio:)

Mid hair cut with Elder Galeano :)

The finished product...... Legit!!!

My new favorite graffiti.....
Interpret for yourself but I love it :)

Week 11 !!

Hello Everyone!

Wow time is moving fast! I can't believe it, I'm almost done with my first transfer! It's been different to adjust and what not, but overall I've had a ton of fun getting to new a new area, new people, and new way of life. Here are the highlights of my week :) 

On Wednesday we had District Meeting via Skype with all the other cities in our District which was good. After, we did some pass-byes and stopped in on some less actives in the branch. One of the lady's names is Mabel. She is super cool, a convert to the church but now she is inactive. I feel really sad for her because she has really bad back problems so it keeps her from doing a lot of stuff. Anyways, we had a good chat with her about how she got to meet the missionaries, the Book of Mormon, and then we bore our testimonies. She said if she needed help with anything she would call us so that's good. I think things are getting better with her and hopefully by us reaching out to her, she will want to start coming back to church.

Thursday we visited with Beatrice! Haha I love her, she is so awesome. She shared some really interesting stuff with us this time too. That morning, she woke up and said "I had this realization that my smoking is a terrible sin. I think I'll go to hell for all this." I didn't really know what to say, so I just kept listening to her. She said the first thing she ever remembers smelling was smoke because her parents were smokers. And get this, she told me she remembers smoking when she was 5 years old! She said her dad used to bring home a carton of cigarettes every week and she didn't know what else to do so she just smoked them. I didn't know what to think when she said carton, but how sad that she started at such a young age! She is such a good lady who is very religious and loves the bible and Book of Mormon too, but just can't seem to quit smoking. I picture her lungs look like they're lined with asphalt :( We left her with Alma 32 to read since she complains she has nothing to do and she called me later that night and said what else should I read? She read it super fast so I just gave her more assignments! Haha it was awesome, such an awesome lady. Later in the evening we went to visit the Familia Tamayo. This is Michael's house and his older sister, Nicole, is the one who helps us teach Michael! Long story short, we had a tiny lesson with Michael that went well, then Susan (the mom) fed us and Nicole got her mission call that day too! She is going to Manchester, England speaking English :) I was so happy for her! Now I get to help her with her English while she helps me with my Spanish!! 

Friday we had intercambios. I dropped Elder Peña off at the train station early in the morning then hung out with the branch mission leader, Julio, for 4 hours until I got my new companion for the day. Guess who I was with?! ELDER GALEANO :) my brother! I love him soooo much. Anyways with Julio, he took me to this chocolatería in Downtown Valladolid where I had the greatest thing in my whole life. It was the thickest, richest, warmest hot chocolate I've ever had. When the waitress brought it out I thought it was steaming pudding! And churros to dip in the hot chocolate. Look at the picture attached... My goodness I was in heaven. So when we got Elder Galeano, we went and contacted for a bit and it is incredible to watch him contact people. You would think he knows the people because they stop for him and shake his hand like they're his best friend! It's very cool and I'm going to be like that some day haha. He only has 1 week left before he goes home!! After medio dia, we did a bunch of pass-byes and more contacting until about 8 that night when we met with a girl in the branch named Virginia that lived in Provo for 2 years (she went to Timpview) and was in the MTC with Elder Galeano! She is really cool and we had a good chat with her. After nightly planning, Elder Galeano cut my hair! Hahaha sounds strange but he is like a professional barber. Like legit, he laid his kit out on the couch and went to town! I attached some pictures, definitely an experience I'm never going to forget! He gave me what's called a "fade". Haha I like it! 

Saturday I dropped Elder Galeano off at the bus station and he said the 3 things that I should do in my mission are 1. Love the People 2. Work Hard and  3. Be Obedient. I couldn't agree more! It was a sad hug goodbye but I think I get to see him one more time before he leaves. Julio and I got more hot chocolate and churros after while we were waiting for Elder Peña to get back to Valladolid! I love Julio, he calls me his little grandson haha it's awesome! Later that day we had a couple appointments set up but Elder Peña didn't feel too hot and I had a bad head ache so we visited one less active family and shared the Family: A Proclamation to the World with them. They are from the Dominican Republic and are super cool people, they fed us too! Then we got in bed early, Halloween is a night full of parties and drunk people here so I'm not sure how much good we would have been out on the streets.

Sunday was a good day at church, the branch is awesome! I remember how lost I felt in my first week, but now it's totally different and we have lots of solid members who like us and who are willing to help. We taught Michael Sunday night about the Plan of Salvation. He has already had all of the missionary lessons and told us he wants to get baptized, he just has a hard time thinking about leaving all his friends who aren't such a good influence on him and other stuff. But, with his sister preparing for a mission now and we are constantly at his house, we think that things are going uphill and are super excited! Oh and yeah, the mom Susan fed us food again :) 

The spiritual thought for this week came when Elder Galeano and I were walking around contacting people. He said something that I thought was really cool, "your mission call says 'Called to Serve', not 'Called to Teach'." It brought peace to my mind that we don't have to be teaching the gospel 24/7 to be successful missionaries. I hope that now I can look for more ways to serve others and be thankful for the opportunities to teach when I have them. I invite you all to look for the ways you can serve others, even if it's something small. 

Happy November and thanks for the emails, letters, prayers, and love! I have the best family and friends a Missionary could ever ask for :) Have a great week!! 

Con Amor,

Elder Brady Smith

Pics from this week

Just a cool pic of the countryside in Northern Spain

/Zone Conference in Leon a couple weeks ago.... Notice Elder Morris!

Week 4 in Valladolid

Hola Familia y Amigos :) 

Can't quite believe it's Monday again. Is the time going by as fast for you guys as it is for me?! It's a little freaky, but I'm loving it here!! Alrighty here's my week in review :) 

Tuesday, we went to visit the Family of Stefan. I was so excited to go back and be with my family away from home! We got to Matapozuel, went to the "grocery store" and bought a ton of bread, meat, and drinks to surprise them with. It felt good to serve them, give them a good meal. I'm not sure what they eat with the little money they have, so they definitely liked the sight of lots of fresh food. Right before we started the lesson, Stefan and all the other men in the house got a phone call that one of their neighbors needed help with something, so they apologized and left. Well, it's a rule that we aren't allowed to be in a house with only women, but Stefan wanted us to stay and wait for him. Haha we were stuck in a way tough situation, Stefan insisted that we were all family and nothing bad would happen. So we said okay, and when he left, we waited for about 5 minutes then decided to just teach the Restoration to the people who were there, just the kids and women. They didn't understand much and Stefan wasn't there to help translate to Romanian, but I did download the First Vision on my iPad in Romanian, so I know they understood that part which is the most important of all. After that we just said we had to leave, so it all worked out. It was a quick visit and we didn't see Stefan after that, so I felt really bad but rules are rules. Hopefully this week we can get back and have another good visit. 

Wednesday we had District Meeting in Valladolid which was very fun. Elder Peña did a good job putting it together. After, we had more intercambios, and I was with Elder Kempf from Malaga! He's a cool dude, and speaks really fast Spanish. I didn't understand him as well as I do other people but it was all okay. We went up to his area, Ponferrada, which is a 4 hour bus ride from Valladolid. I love bus rides because it gives me lots of time to think and see more of Spain. There's lots of farm land up north and it's really pretty. Once we got to Ponferrada, we had one lesson fall through so we did some contacting until it was time to go home. 

Thursday morning we had our studies, and Elder Kempf helped me a lot with my pronunciation and the Plan of Salvation lesson. It's hard to explain to people in English, and that makes Spanish just a riot too!! So he gave me some good pointers and I practiced a lot with him. Then, I had to travel 4 hours back to Valladolid by myself! A little scary but it was good, lots of time to think about life. If you know me, you know I love to day dream so it was a quality 4 hours :) and also if you know me, I get car sick so easily so it made it hard to read scriptures. After about the first 15 minutes I was ready to throw up everywhere so I had to turn on my air conditioner and chill the rest of the way. Once I got back to Valladolid, Elder Peña was there to pick me up at the station and gave me a big hug and said "I missed you, and I ate one of your donuts." I laughed so hard!!! Literally the funniest thing of all time haha. I have the best companion in the whole world :) 

Friday, we woke up and went to the train station again because we had a Trainer/Trainee Reunion in Madrid!! It was at the MTC and I was so excited to go home!! I love Madrid so much and I miss it a ton. Walking onto temple grounds again was possibly one of the greatest feelings of all time!! I saw 2 of my old maestros, it was so awesome! We received lots of good counsel about how to use our iPads effectively, how to make companionship study better, and lots of other stuff. President Pack said that all the new missionaries looked a lot more tired than the day when we left, which is so true! Walking around all day takes it out of me, and I'm so surprised at night when we get back to the Piso that my feet are still attached to my legs. They hurt so bad :( but it's all good, they still work and that's all that matters. So Friday was a little throwback, I rode the metro again and I saw a bunch of the current missionaries in the MTC! I was able to hopefully comfort them a little and tell them that it's sad to leave there but the field is awesome too. If I can do this, anyone can do this :) 

Every Saturday morning, we teach an English class en la capilla. It's a quality time! The two men, Julio and Alfredo actually have quite good English so we pick a different subject every week and then see where we end up when the time is out. It's usually really far off of where we started! The others are still working on the basics, but we have tons of fun. It's a good way to share a spiritual thought and they really seem to enjoy it! The rest of Saturday was awesome mainly because I opened my SUPER MISSIONARY package and it made my whole week! I was overwhelmed with the love from all the snacks, pictures, talks, and other stuff. Super, super cool, so thanks to everyone who helped, especially my mom!! :) Sunday was good, Stefan brought 10 family members to church and we picked up another investigator named Michael! He is 15 and his mom is inactive but older sister Nicole is active and loves to hang with the missionaries. We have eaten at their house a bunch. Michael has just a few problems we are trying to work through but Elder Peña and I have a good feeling we can get him ready to be baptized! He loves to beatbox, so whenever he sees me he shows me what he has been working on. It's so funny haha we always have good laughs together! 

Sorry there aren't a ton of way spiritual experiences this week, sometimes you have weeks like these. The spiritual thought for this week happened on Wednesday during District Conference. One of the Hermanas gave us all a picture of the Savior with a quote on the back from Gary E. Stevenson. It says "You have the Savior of the world on your side. How can you fail?" It's soooooo true! I feel like some days there was nothing that went right. We had no luck contacting, no lessons to teach, and the day feels like a failure. What's important for us to remember is that Heavenly Father is proud of us for trying. As long as we are doing our best, there's no way He will let us fail. In the end, we know who will come out on top. 

Thanks for the letters, packages, emails, and prayers. You have no idea how much it helps! Have a wonderful week :) 

Con Amor, 

Elder Brady Craig Smith

Pics from Valladolid this week

Elder Galeano and I

cool graffiti again haha 

my newest p-day purchase... and more graffiti :)

me and the family of Stefan.. he is on the far left 

more dope graffiti haha