Hey kuma sta ka!
I’m working on my Tagalog! haha It has been such a wonderful week! First off, Payton I’m loving the rat tail because it’ll keep the girls away till you go on a mission! hahah I died lauphing when I saw it. That’s hilarious! Hearing about Garrett gave me a big smile! That kid has so much enthusiasm! That’s the best! Between the rat tail, Garrett and the soccer flashback, you had me chuckling pretty good today Payt. When I hear the soccer story, to this day all I can think about is the free pizza I almost got. Good times!!
Dad, I’m sorry your sick! That’s no bueno! Hopefully you get feeling better! The Canadians here say that it gets so cold that you can’t get a cold cus it kills all the bacteria! I believe them! On Sunday it was in the negative 30’s and when we left for church it was negative 43 with wind chill!! The other day it was negative 10 and people walked around in swimming suits! haha Suprisingly it hasn’t been that bad though! As long as you’re covered up.
But as far as transfers go, Elder Woods and I are both staying and we are both super excited! The area is doing so well right now! We have been so blessed!! Maritess's Baptism was wonderful!! For our lunch we made waffles, bacon, and eggs with choke cherry syrup! I don’t know that Edilyn trusted us because she still made some filipino food. It was a delicious combo!! It was a blast and we had a good lesson with them after!! That day was crazy though because it snowed a ton!! We were all over for the rest of the day and got to the church just in time to fill the font!! The Baptism was soooo great! We had 3 investigators there and they loved it! It helped Amie and Godwin’s testimony a ton!! If all goes well this week they will be interviewed on Saturday and Baptized on the 12th. Maritess is such an amazing lady!! You would never be able to guess it from the pictures but she is 40 years old! Crazy ehh!? Edilyn is 38! haha They both look a lot younger than they are but Maritess looks like she’s 16! And she is hilarious! I can’t wait till you meet her! I’ll send you a video of them and our breakfast/lunch thing. Oh and Edilyn is really smart, but she just is still figuring out English grammar. She cracks me up!! I love that whole Filipino crew so much!! Edilyn cooks some good filipino food!! They are amazing!! Oh and also Belatu was at the baptism! Edilyn and her have kind of become friends because of all the events they both go to! I love and miss Belatu a ton! She is doing so good!! Her kids are so cute!! It was such a great day!
This week was just crazy though! We were sooooo busy!! We taught a ton all week and then had the baptism on Friday and then Stake Coordination was on Sunday! We got in Saturday night and after making calls and planning for the next day, it was close to 10. Then we started Stake Cor. stuff. We had to do all new stuff and it was such a pain! I felt like I was in high school with a dumb paper due the next day, but Mom wasn’t there to do it for me! haha We finished at like 2 in the morning. It was ridiculous!! We got our 4 and a half hours of sleep and then we were off to morning meetings and pounding down doors to get people up for church! We had 6 investigators to church and when we get there the whole Stake Presidency was there! I love President Baronins!!! Have you heard anything from them lately? He is sooo great! But they finally called a new bishopric!! It was way surprising! The new bishop, Bishop Cormack has 3 kids, all under 6, a job and he is in his last year of dental school!! haha How he’s gonna do it, I have no idea! But he is great!! Change was kind of exciting! Maritess's confirmation went so good! Brother Rico did it and it was a beautiful blessing! I got to stand in and it was such a neat thing to be a part of!
To cap off the week, Amie and Godwin are doing sooooooo good!! Everything Edilyn touches does well! Elder Leonard and I found Amie, but once she knew Edilyn was in our church, she has done so well!! Edilyn is such a great missionary!! She always follows up with Amie about church and her baptism and everything. It’s so great! But Amie has been struggling because she doesn’t read. Dad, I was so happy to hear about your goal because it is so needed! I’ve promised myself to never ever go a day without reading the scriptures because it makes such a huge difference. If people really read the Book of Mormon they always gain a testimony of it and if they pray about it they always get answers! It’s so neat and so important! It has been so hard for Amie because it’s hard to get a testimony from just listening to us and coming to church! This week was really neat though because she definitely felt the Spirit at the Baptism and she committed to read with her son Godwin every night. Godwin is only 10 but he reads better than his mom. So every night they have been reading and they usually only get through half a page in 10 or 15 minutes. Godwin circles all the words he doesn’t know and explains the ones his mom doesn’t know that he does know! It makes me so grateful for my education, but it is also so neat because even like that they feel the Spirit and it has helped them so much!! That Book of Mormon has a lot of circles in it! Godwin is so smart! So Alex, I don’t want any excuses for not reading your scriptures! Godwin reads them to his Mom every night! We also have had them watch lots of church movies! We dropped of like 15 and told them to watch one every night!! They are so great!! It’s crazy because Amie has a very good job and a really nice apartment and set up but she cannot read. She only has a grade 3 education and she just hasn’t worked on it. She only knows English so she can speak great but she can’t read and big words are hard for her. They are so great and I am so excited for them! It’s been so neat to see their testimony grow and so neat to see what they are doing to strengthen it! Hopefully all goes well this week and I will have good news for ya next week! But please READ YOUR SCRIPTURES! It is so easy to set aside a couple minutes every day and it makes such a huge difference!! We have been so blessed to have the education so that we can receive that spiritual strength from the scriptures!!!! The scriptures are such a great blessing!! Life is sooooo great on a mission!! I’m so grateful for all of you and all that you do for me! I love you a ton!
salamed po! (: Love Elder Smith
