Wednesday, October 31, 2012

Wesley's Letter 10-22-12

Sorry, but I’m letting you know ahead of time that I won’t be sending any pics this time, because my camera got broken or as the Yucatecans say "ya se tiene negociado."

I’ve have to get a new camera. Sorry Mommy, but the one I’m going to be getting is one of those awesome waterproof indestructible ones that look really ugly haha.

I’m psyched to be with my new kid here in Castilla. It’s one of the poorest areas in the mission, but for whatever reason, it has some pretty awesomely paved roads. As it now stands I know all of southern Merida stretching from the east side to the west. But even though this last transfer was just kind of crossing a street, Castilla is NOTHING like Airport. Castilla is 100 percent rural like Champoton, just without the sea. It really is a pretty area. It’s pretty much another pueblo.

Yeah, but this last week went totally awesome! Me and my kid totally killed it this last week. We found 22 new investigators and 4 complete families that are all pretty excited, so we could be seeing the most successful area of my mission. But we’ll have to see because we are still in the beginning of teaching all of these people. Also, almost every person we contacted was from pure inspiration. We just got a certain feeling that we needed to talk to them. Then as we started to teach them everything began unfolding and we found out why we really needed to talk to them.

A good example of this was this week while my comp and I were waiting for some other missionaries I got the impression we should go contact some people immediately. My comp and I looked over to a street corner about a block away and saw a guy sitting there, who I thought was a street vender that went from house to house selling stuff, because he had some bags with him. But as we got closer we came to realize that he looked pretty distressed and that the bags were of clothes. As we started to talk to him he looked surprised, so we kept talking to him and found out that he had just barely had gotten out of prison because a few days prior he had had a fight with his wife and she called the cops and they sent him to prison to think things over. Once he had gotten back he found all of his stuff thrown all over the porch, and we had found him about 15 minutes later, in the deep caverns of despair, about 2 blocks from his house.

We started to explain the plan of salvation. He was sobbing in the beginning but after a few moments we calmed him down and his daughters came over to observe. We asked his daughter if she was his niece but she said, "He's my dad" he responded "was your dad" angrily. We just kept calming him down and it got to the point where he started smiling. I got the opportunity to tell him "Listen, about 3 minutes before we randomly arrived to explain to you these things, I know you had been begging for God to send you some kind of way out, some kind of miracle. We know this is not the way, nor are we the people you had been expecting as an answer to you prayers, but neither is our meeting a coincidence. Remember God’s ways are not ours and nor his thoughts ours, as the heavens are are higher than the earth so are His ways higher than ours. God has sent you an exit from your problems. The only part still up for debate is if you are going to take advantage of the opportunities he gives you."

Pretty awesome! He’s got a baptismal date in 3 weeks.

I’m outa time,
Love ya tons,
Smitty

Friday, October 26, 2012

Wesley's Letter 10-16-12

Good news family,

I am no longer in the offices! I got changed to the area right next door called Castilla Camera in southern Merida. And guess what? I’m training a new missionary named Elder Fabela From Sinaloa, he’s a pretty cool cat and I can tell that he’ll be a great missionary.

He’s actually 25, and a recent convert of 2 years. I’m super excited about all of the work I have now and that now I can dedicate myself 100 percent to just being a missionary instead of missionary and office nerd. I’d send you pics but unfortunately I have to go buy a new camera again hahahaha, sorry!

But in other good news I got to stay in the offices with Josh last night and catch up. Even though I’m not training him, I do know his new comp. It’s Elder Arellanes. He got sent to Jardines, Chetumal, or the area closest to the border of Belize. Elder Babbitt always talked about the area and how he liked it a lot.

I might not see Josh for a while but who knows?

Saturday, October 20, 2012

Wesley's Letter 10-13-12

Hey Famery,

Just letting you know that I love you and stuff.

We decided to postpone Mirsa’s baptism until this next week just to make sure she is really ready. In other news this, last week has been a lot more interesting, mission work wise.

Last night we had 2 cool lessons. First we went and talked to this one recently returned sister in the ward we were all like "YO we need some references." so she was all like “Oh well, I guess I could introduce you to some of my friends” We all then went with her boyfriend and my two companions in a “ghetto mobile” to what I think was part of someone else’s area, where we met Jenny and Landi.

They were super awesome! We scheduled a baptismal date for the 3 of November with them. When we asked them the question “When can we come back?” They pretty much told us that they wanted us to come back every day that we could, so we are planning on seeing them again today.

The next lesson we had was with a family of four that we are teaching. They were so psyched on the gospel that they decided to make us a classic Yucatecan dish of fried panuchos. For those of you that are unacquainted with Mayan cuisine it’s basically a fried tortilla with beans on the inside of it with spiced chicken, lettuce and onions. They were pretty amazing.

Then after the food we went and gave all of their kids blessings because they were all sick and I’m sure it will help their progression.

Alrighty, so once again we went to the zoo today because we wanted to bring Elder King to do something awesome for what will probably be his last pday in the offices. It was totally worth it! We saw an epic hippo fight, well mostly the baby hippo jumping all over the dad hippo and the dad got really annoyed, haha but still epic.

Alright, well in terms of office work, things are going pretty chil(lis baby back ribs) I’m now actually not 100 percent lost all the time at my job and I haven’t had a good setting straight from President for a long time so that’s good.

Yeah, so now I feel like a straight up boss of the mission, solving all the problems, awesome problems the other secretary’s had left for me and directing all of the office meetings like a boss.

One of the big bummers of being in the offices is that one as a missionary, looses a lot of momentum. It was just a lot harder to teach for a while when I got here, because while I was in Champoton I was 100 percent focused on the area and my investigators. But here I can only stay half way focused on either thing. In the offices you have 3 options, 1) being a good missionary and obeying all the rules, 2) being a good secretary and keeping everything organized or 3) having enough sleep. Ok now while being in the offices you can only choose 2 of these things. :(

So I best be off. I love you all tons and I’Il see you in 8ish months,

Much love,
Smitty























Sunday, October 14, 2012

Wesley's Letter 10-6-12

Sorry once again all the picture attachments on this email failed so I have to just resend the text. Sorry, I didn’t have any time to change it.


Supfameroony,

Good news, last week I baptized a woman named Irma and it was totally awesome sauce!

Hey guess what? Another transfer is over this next week and also this next week we have plans for baptizing another woman named Mirsa. She’s pretty cool. She was the person I told you all about a few weeks ago, the one that told us that everything we were telling her was as if we were mind reading.

Sorry, this letter might be short but it’s only because I’m going to try to go through all the pictures I had sent previously but had failed to send. So I’m sorry if this time the letter part is short.

Anyway things are going better than before. We have brighter prospects. The ward is giving us waves of references and lots of investigators are progressing towards baptism. As Harvey Dent once said "The night is always darkest before the dawn, and the dawn is coming...”

Things were going pretty tough here for a while, but now things are starting take off.

Yeah, so once again we had a CRRRRAZY week here in the offices. Literally every day this week we’ve been to immigration for my comps job.

One day we walked into the offices to find that a stray cat had come in overnight and made a real mess, so we had to clean that up before president came by.

Alright well, also this week we found a new hammock distributor for the mission for dirt cheap. (so if any one wants a new hand woven hammock just send me a letter and see what I can do.)

I’m sorry I feel that these letters have been a little more boring since I have gotten here in the offices.

All right so I’ll try to explain some of my pics now
There’s one of me playing the stand up bass, I guess you could say I’m into metal now.
There should be a pic of me and the Hermana Irma (that got baptized) in her little shop, I’m super sweaty in it because it is literally the hottest most uncomfortable place in the world in there. I do have a pic of the baptism but the one my comp has is a better quality so I’ll send you that one next week.
And just a bunch of others of me with the missionary buds.

Love you all and see you relatively soon,
Elder Smith
























Wednesday, October 3, 2012

Wesley's Letter 9-29-12

Hey Famers,

This weeks been pretty Chili’s-baby back ribs! I do have to say we’ve had our ups and downs, but the good news is that we do have a baptism planned for tonight at 8:30, for an investigator named Irma, who yesterday was convinced that she was going to wait a few more weeks before getting baptized. But after giving her a blessing, she just basically asked us what time it was going to be and we told her whenever she liked. She told us “After the Relief Society Conference” so that’s when we're having it. Right now while writing this letter I’m making a baptismal CD for everyone to watch while we're waiting.

I’m sorry my letters have been more boring lately but honestly just with the stress of being a secretary I’m not going to lie, I’m pretty exhausted, like all of the time haha. So, me being here in the offices with a white comp has literally murdered my Spanish, but I know if I get a native comp again and I am back in the field, everything will come back quick.

I don’t remember if I told you guys or not but for about the last 2 months the Mexico Distribution Center has stopped getting supplies, so there by we have also stopped getting supplies. But yeah man, it’s crazy how fast time goes here in the offices, the days literally mesh together and before you know it it’s already a week later.

Yeah, I’m super psyched to see Joshy when he comes walking through the office doors. I’ll be the one buying his new hammock for him and everything for when he gets here.

So a lot of things really do happen here I just always forget because it’s hard to remember sooooooooo much.

Alright, so last night while we were teaching a lady, we had all intentions to drop because we had literally tried everything with her, but she never went to church or read her book of Mormon. So we took out the "Be Blunt Guns" and told what’s what, (that she really needed to start to put in a real effort if she really wants to be baptized). Then the Spirit told us to give her a blessing and honestly as I said the words I didn’t feel that they were super awesome, but as I finished it up I saw that she was crying, but with a smile on her face, and it was because the words I had spoken not were meant for me, but instead were precisely what she needed to hear. I remembered a verse in Doctrine and Covenants 84:20. Go look it up and it’ll make sense why it was that a blessing was what changed everything.

Much Love,
Smitty Out

Ps I’m sorry I sent like 18 pics but the server failed so I just had to copy and paste all this again to one email, sorry pics next week.