Wesley's Letter 5-6-13

Hey family,

So yep, I’m officially in Chetumal. My new area is called Morelos, and the Ward’s pretty in terms of being an interesting area, it’s not really but there is quite a bit of work, which is good. I should be finishing my mission baptizing.

The zoo is in my area, which is pretty cool. Another cool thing is that there was a baptism this week. Her name is Mari Cruz. We're going to marry her brother and his girl friend this next week and baptize them also.

So, I still don’t have the phone # yet for you but I’ll get it for you. Actually this time their going to let us do the call by Skype so I’m not sure if you’d rather do that because we can now either way. I’ll get a phone number for you if for some reason Skype doesn’t work because the internet connections here are usually pretty bad. But don’t worry I’ll figure it out by at most Friday. the phone call is going to be at around 4:00 on Sunday so you’ll know by that time I promise.

Wesley's Letter 4-29-13

Whelp the biggest news is that I just got transferred again. I’m going to Chetumal, which is bitter sweet because I will have been in all to the major cities in the peninsula before my mission is up, but sad at the same time because I really like it here in Playa. But whatever. I’m glad I got to be here for the experiences that I’ve had.

My new comp is Elder Ross and I’m going to go finish his training before I get shipped off to the US. Also mom and dad I’m going to send that package today by DHL I think so be prepared to receive it in like 3-8 days.

Hey I’m outa time but I’ll talk to you all by phone on May 10th I think but I’ll send you some more deets.

Love you all

Wesley's Letter 4-22-13

Sup FAM I’m excited to hear that I’ll be speaking the same day as the Crickmores for my homecoming.

I’m excited and sad to say that my mission is over in 7 weeks, pretty much once May is over I’m going to have 2 weeks left. Here in Playa del Carmen things go really fast, me and my comp have been working our tails off, so time keeps flying.

We have not been having too much success in terms of lessons every week but we keep on finding extremely interested people, one of the major problems with our area is that its made of these hostel time buildings.

The buildings here are called cuarterias and they’re where all the people from other parts of Mexico or Central America go to live while they stay here for about 3 months, make some dough off the tourists, then go back home and enjoy the fruits of your labor.

In the cuarterias there’s a lot of really dark stuff that goes on. There’s a lot of devil worshiping. And in a lot of them there are people that practice voodoo and also worship La Santa Muerte.

Another sad thing is that the few people that do listen to us in the cuarterias, a lot of them after teaching them for like 2 weeks, we’ll show up at their house and the room is vacant because they went back home. And for us as missionaries, believe it or not, that is actually our biggest set back in the area right now is investigators getting up and leaving out of the blue.

But besides that the work goes on.

I’m all outa time PACE
Esmit

Wesley's Letter 4-15-13

Another week another seven days closer to seeing my mommy and daddy.

Hey, go and tell Collin and Tessa congrats and that I can’t wait to meet Lillian. That’s crazy, I’m going to meet like 3 new nieces and nephews all at the same time.
wha wha?

Hey guess what? This week we had another baptism. Raul and Martha’s granddaughter got baptized so that was some cool beans. Raul is now 100% converted. He got the priesthood and they’ve started giving us all kinds of references. And from now on every Wednesday we're going to eat at their house because Martha signed her name on every Wednesday on the food calendar.

Last night we ate at their house and man does Martha know how to cook; she cooks all of the classics from here in the peninsula like a boss! So this week we’ve been working our tails off with very little success.

I’ll write you all next week.

Much love,

Smit



Sup butter cups,

Wesley's Letter 4-8-13

Sup Mom n Dad,

How you all doing? Playa is treating me pretty well.

Yeah, so this last week was pretty nutzo, we went to Merida on Tuesday to the zone leader council where President told us all of the new stuff that’s going down. It was also cool cause I got to stay with my buddy Wadsworth (my old comp from the MTC) who’s a ZL in Merida. He’s been doing pretty well.

After that on Wednesday it was our only real full day of work. Then on Thursday we had one of the most awesome baptisms I’ve had during my mission! We baptized an elderly couple name Raul and Martha. Raul had some drinking problems but when the missionaries started coming he accepted everything is now 100 percent dedicated to the Lord. During his baptism he came out of the water weeping. It really was one of the more spiritual experiences for me during the mission, seeing the conversion of Raul. When president Monson gave his talk in priesthood session about missionary work, Raul decided to drop his political party to dedicate his time to missionary work and he’s also done a lot of other really awesome things.

On Friday we had to teach that capacitation again to the zone that President had taught us. Then that night we had another baptism of the daughter (named Gabi) of a new member family. And on Saturday we had the General Conferences. I don’t know if you heard but my Mission President is now a Seventy. His was the name that President Uchtdorf couldn’t pronounce haha. But he got ordained by Elder Oaks on Sunday, so he is officially a Seventy.

So those are the highlights of this week, so stay classy,

g2g cu l8er,

E. Smith

Wesley's Letter 4-1-13

Sup Fam and Friends,

I’ve got some fun news for you! I got special transferred to the area Playa One as a zone Leader, in the beautiful paradise of Playa del Carmen! So it looks like this will be my final resting place in the mission.

Yep, so Playa is usually known for its beautiful ocean views, and in our house there’s a window where you can actually see the Caribbean and wow is the water blue! There are a ton of tourists, Americans, Europeans, and people from Central America.

Playa is also a lot more expensive to live in. One of the things I love about it here is there’s almost always a cool oceanic breeze blowing.

Yeah, my transfer was straight up out of the blue. My comp and I where in our house in Motul getting ready to leave and work for the day when they called me and said,
"Smith you have special transfers, you are going to Playa del Carmen."
It was kind of a bummer when I got it because that same week we had a lot of people we were teaching and because I love Motul and all the people I taught there.

As I was packing my stuff the ward mission leader came over and said good-bye, so I shared as much of the food I had bought that pday as I could with him.

In the bus station Elder Barrow and Haydock came and said bye to me. Then at around 1:00 I was off and I arrived in Playa del Carmen at around 8:30. My new comp is Elder Nolasco from Honduras he’s pretty hilarious.

Playa del Carmen is the place where all the missionaries in the mission want to go, and I consider myself very lucky to have the privilege of finishing my mission here. I really thought I was going to finish in Motul but it looks like the Lord had other plans for me.

It’s pretty much like opening another area, because Elder Nolasco has like a week in the area, and I have just barely gotten here. The last 2 missionaries didn’t leave too much here for us, but don’t worry well see what we can do about it.

Got 2 go
Payce