Elder Wesley Smith's Letter # 8-August 12, 2011

Como estan! Voy a escribirles sobre mi semana y que ha pasado...

Entonces this week has been probably one of my favorites so far, for one, thanks Mom and Dad for those donuts and Brummers if you’re reading this, super thanks for the pie it was soo good. You're way too nice to me. Tell jean Paul and Grace I say congratulations!

Also, this week I found out I got my $250 ticket taken off so whooo that’s like 50 more cali burritos I can afford when I get home! Another cool thing is I got to go to the Mexican consulate this week, for my visa, all the way to Salt Lake and that was a pretty awesome bus ride. And even better than that is that I got MY TRAVEL PLANS!!!!!!

So here’s how its going to happen on Monday, August 22, I wake up at 6 to take a shuttle to the Salt Lake airport and then my flight leaves at 9:55 and we arrive at Mexico City at 3:00 and my next flight for Merida leaves at 5:05 and I arrive in Merida at around 6:50 so whoop whoop I get to have a lay over in Mexico City for 2 hours so mom and dad you really should send me a go phone with international minutes so I can call you during that time, or at least have dad send me what he thinks is the best idea for me to call you guys because he’s pretty good at the whole traveling thing.

So, if any of my friends or family who are reading this if you want to talk to me one last time for possibly 2 years you should go to my house at what ever time 3 in Mexico City is in San Diego’s time and we can have one last sayonara!

I promise I’ll be happy to hear from you, so all of those of you who have written me thank you, and those of you who haven’t I’m disappointed, nah you're still alright but I do wanna hear from you guys more. *Cough* Brian, Nigel, Garrett, Karch, and etc. haha but seriously.

I heard Karch and Tucker got their mission calls. Tell them I am super proud of them. I didn’t hear where exactly in Brazil Tucker’s going and I still don’t know if Karch is Spanish or English in Fort Lauderdale, because if its Spanish there are quite about 4 other elders on my floor that are going Fort Lauderdale Spanish speaking.

The sacrifice you guys are making is 100 percent selfless but I can tell you right now, as hard and discouraging as it can be, it is worth it and it has already changed my perspective on life in general for the better. As it stands I’m still only in the MTC, but I promise the people in our missions are worth it ,and we are called to our specific missions for a purpose, I’ve heard plenty of cool mission call stories so, I’m going to share one I heard from one of the many devotionals. I heard this from a Mission President’s wife, when they were serving in Colombia.

There was a young man who was waiting on his mission call, but it didn’t matter, he knew he was going to Japan because he was already fluent in Japanese and that was where his father went. However to his surprise when his call came it said Colombia, Bogota Spanish-speaking mission. He knew that that could not be right so he resubmitted his form to the First Presidency; they reviewed it and decided that he definitely needed to serve in the Bogotá Mission. He was extremely disappointed but he still went with it. While in Bogotá he was horrible at Spanish and wasn’t getting a single baptism, he was still 100 percent sure his mission call was wrong. One day about 22 months into his mission he still hadn’t gotten a single baptism and was extremely discouraged. While at a train station an old Japanese man walked up to him and in Japanese asked him if he knew about this book and handed him a book of Mormon. And in Japanese he started telling him how he was a missionary, the old Japanese man invited this young missionary back to his home that evening. When they show up to this old man’s home they found about 65 Japanese family members and friends of this old Japanese man, all sitting and waiting to hear this missionary’s message. All of who couldn’t speak Spanish. The young missionary found that this man had received his book of Mormon from a missionary in Japan. He showed the missionary the testimony written inside of the book. To find out to his astonishment that it was his father who had given the old man that particular book of Mormon over 30 years ago. And ever since then, the old man had moved to Colombia, and has been teaching his family about what he had read. But he had no idea where to find the missionaries until, the day he saw this one missionary who coincidentally knew Japanese. The old man and his family were all eventually baptized.

Ever since I’ve been here I’ve heard probably about 30 stories that have the same underlying theme, that mission calls are not just for the convenience of where missionaries are needed, but are calls by inspiration on where the people need that particular missionary. And if you don’t get a single baptism or if you get 100 just know the most important convert you get is yourself. I’ve already concluded that if I don’t get a single baptism, my mission would still be the greatest blessing in my life so far, because the knowledge I’ve already gained from it is really truly priceless. And as long as some one is slightly closer to Christ’s example that’s all that’s truly important to me.

Well, that’s about all I gotta say about that,

I love and miss you all more than all of the Elder Smith’s in the MTC,

Elder ESMIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIT

Ps I can’t really think of any you can send me but thanks any way, one more thing, tell Dad to ask if any of the other Smiths were in the MTC, because I swear I recognized someone here from that family reunion in Zion’s canyon and this person also coincidentally had the last name Smith. Sooo bye