Jan 16: A Birthday Transfer

First thank you to those who sent me ¨Happy Birthday¨ letters and emails! This definitely is a birthday a little different but so far it´s been awesome! It´s been kinda funny because my birthday is the same day as transfers! and because I have so much time in this area I basically knew that I was going to change! And my birthday falls on the day when I leave this area and I´m in a bus all day traveling to my other area haha but we got our transfer calls yesterday and I´m gonna be leaving my area tomorrow morning to go to my new area with a new companion! So I´ll be spending my birthday in a bus haha happy 20th!! wahoooo But it´s all good because yesterday one of my favorite families in my ward threw a little birthday party for me. A bunch of elders came and there was cake and everything! Tonight we have a family home evening with another of my favorite families and it´s gonna be another little birthday party :) I couldn´t ask for better members! seriously!

Second, we got transfers!! I´m going to be headed to San Martin! It´s kinda funny because I´m going back to the same stake where I was before, which is really rare to happen to hermanas! ( THIS IS NOT THE AREA THEY CLOSED THAT KYLIE WAS IN FOR 14 WEEKS - MOM'S NOTE ) but I´m super excited! My companion is a cute girl form Brazil that has just 5-6 months in the mission. I´m really excited!

This whole week we´ve been running around like crazy visiting people! We had so many appointments! One day we went to visit one of our members named Rosa. When I came to this area 6 months ago she was super inactive. As we visited her she started coming back to church and has shared her testimony the past 2 testimony meetings! Rosa even came with the ward on the temple trip they had in December and she took out her endowments! I couldn´t be more happy with her! Her testimony is incredible! We went to go visit with her and she said she had been talking to her neighbor about the church and that we should go visit her right then! so we went with Rosa to visit her neighbor and good friend Mercedes. Mercedes loves the gospel! We´ve had 2 lessons with her and she already has a date to be baptized in February. When we asked her if she´d read the Book of Mormon she said ¨Well ya! If i´m gonna get baptized in February i´ve gotta complete those commitments!¨ ahhh i was so happy! 

Hermana Rosa and Mercedes

I hope you all have an amazing week! 

Jesus Christ lives.

The Book of Mormon is true.

and the mission is the best thing in the whole wide world!

lots of loves!

Hermana Smoot

Jan 9: A Coke drip????

This week was super fun! First we had exchanges with our sister leaders and I got to go with Hermana Starke! We ate pizza on the roof and made plans to live together at BYUI after the mission.

haha






We were also able to go visit one of our recent converts, Susanna. She´s been in the hospital for a couple weeks and this week just left intensive care and is getting much much better. But I learned something about Argentina health care when I went and visited her. idk why but the doctors had a drip of Coke a Cola going into her blood!!!! 
WHAT THE HECK? Does that make sense to anybody? haha I  was in shock when the doctor walked in and literally opened a can of Coke and dumped it into the bag thing. haha So weird! This is her and that dark bag is the Coke drip!!

! 








We also had our last Zone Meeting before the transfer and it was kinda sad. Our zone right now is awesome and these past couple months we´ve had some of the best numbers in the mission working together! 

Then today for PDay my companion and I went to the biggest soccer stadium in Mendoza! It was honestly so much fun and so cool! It was huge and they´ve had so many famous soccer players play in that stadium

This week we found this part member family, the Bustamante Family. The mom and dad are both returned missionaries and are sealed in the temple. But shortly after they got married they went inactive and none of their kids are members. the last time they went to church was 1994!!!!!! In the first lesson I let my companion pick what we should teach and we ended up reading Lehi´s Dream about the Tree of Life. We weren´t even 10 verses into the chapter and asked the mom to read and she was so chocked up it got hard for her to read. She had tears streaming down her face. The mom then attended church and it was fast and testimony meeting. She stayed for all 3 hours and after church we walked her home and she just cried and hugged us and said ¨Thank you for saving me! Thank you for bringing me back!¨ One of the best experiences I´ve had on the mission is meeting this woman and her family!

We had another family, the Villafane family that came to church this week! It´s a mom who is a member and grew up in the church but with time went inactive and married a nonmember. But she has 4 little girls and we´re teaching them and helping the mom remember her testimony. When they showed up to church and they were in their skirts and with smiles from ear to ear I literally couldn´t have been happier! They have a girl in the young women and the other 3 are in the primary and they all loved it and are so excited to come back the next week! They have a date to get baptized in February. 

The 3 of the Villafane girls with my companion and I

This morning I was studying different General Conference talks and I read 2 that were about how was can act on the invitation of Christ to ¨Come Follow Me¨, or ¨Walk With Me¨ or ¨Come Unto Me¨. How are we reacting to this invitation? How are we coming unto Christ? How are we showing to the world that we are disciples of him? One the the talks is ¨Yes, Lord, I Will Follow Thee¨ by Elder Gavarret in Nov 2016 and the other is ¨Come Follow Me by Practicing Christian Love and Service¨ By Elder Hales in the Oct 2016 conference. I invite you all to read them!!! 

I love you all so much and thank you for all the letters and Christmas cards I received for the holidays! 

Hermana Smoot

Dec. 27 Christmas in Mendoza

Talking with Kylie this past Sunday was the best Christmas present we could get.  She is happy working hard with the members of her ward.  How grateful we are for those sweet families that treat Kylie like she is one of them.  What a sweet peacefulness it brought to know that on Christmas Day she was celebrating with her sweet companion and a family who took them into their home.

A few things that Kylie told us about celebrating Christmas this year.  She and her Peruvian companion tried to share traditions that they both brought from home.  First Christmas is more like the 4th of July there - partying till early hours, fireworks and late nights!  But on January 6 they celebrate " the day of the Kings?"  This is the day the wise men came to visit Jesus and this is more like our Christmas - family, presents and reverence.  So that tradition is what her companion brought to their small apartment.  She made Kylie a traditional chicken dish, while Kylie made chocolate pie. Kylie also brought the tradition of " christmas PJs" although they did not look like PJs for our season.

Their Christmas Eve Dinner

Christmas PJs Argentina style

Christmas Eve sparklers

A missionaries humble Christmas

It was better for us to send Kylie and her companion $ for Christmas instead of gifts - to expensive to mail.  They choose to take half the money and give all the members and investigators a card and small gift.  They took the remainder and divided it in half and secretly shopped for each other and wrapped it up and put it under their little tree.  And funny thing - we never asked what they gave each other so I don't know what was in the packages.  

On Christmas Day they spent it with the Sepulvadas - her Argentina family who were so cute on the Skype call.  They told us Kylie is crazy - think they have gotten to know her?  

LOVE OUR DAUGHTER!  Seeing her was our greatest gift this year.  Hard to believe she will be home this next year.  Can't believe I'm saying this but it seems like she just left yesterday.  

Dec. 12: Baptisms and setbacks

YES  - We had a baptism.  We were teaching this kids mom for a long time! His mom, Natalia, was a member but went inactive for a long time but when she started coming to church again the church didn`t have her records. So, we get to teach her everything again and she gets to be baptized again! She`s not married to the man she`s living with and he doesn`t want anything to do with the church but he has respect for what we do. Natalia and her 2 smallest kids, Clara and Nacho, have been coming to church every week for about 3 months and the kids love it! Nacho turned 8 almost a month ago and said ¨Hermanas, I`m 8 now, when can I get baptized? ¨ ahhhh he`s so cute!!!!  The day of his baptism Hna Duran and I were at the church at 7am because it takes FOREVER to fill up the baptismal font because it`s super slow. But it all went downhill when the warm water wasn`t working. So, we had to fill up buckets of hot water from the kitchen one by one and dump it into the font. Then there wasn`t hot water at all and we resulted to boiling water and then dumping it in hahaha it was really all in vain cause poor little Nacho was dying when he got in the font and it was ice cold hahah I DON`T GET IT! Despite that he came out of the font with a smile ear to ear and happy as can be and didn`t complain once!!! His dad (the guy that doesn`t want anything to do with the church) came to the baptism and then to the confirmation on Sunday and stayed for the classes!!! And he said he liked it and was starting to schedule what day we could come by when he`ll be there :) ahhhh Nacho is the cutest little boy but the biggest example for his family!

Eliana, who was another one of our investigators that had a date to get baptized and came to the Capilla Abierta and everything dropped us this week. She`s been having complications with her boyfriend who is living with her and he doesn`t like that she`s been talking with us. She said for a little while while she sorts stuff out, she can`t listen anymore. ah NOOOOOO!!! literally broke my heart!

With 2 other of our investigators, Santiago and Mercedes (the 2 cute little kids) they were supposed to have their baptism this upcoming Saturday but their mom said that she doesn`t feel that their ready. :( noooooo and so we have to work with them a little more! 

SCRIPTURE

My scripture thought this week is a talk from Pres Utchdorf from the women’s conference in October ¨Fourth Floor, Last Door¨ it`s one amazing talk and I invite you all to go read it this week!!! Here`s some quotes from the talk:

¨Sometimes it’s not easy to develop faith in spiritual things while living in a physical world. But it is worth the effort because the power of faith in our lives can be profound¨

Faith means that we trust not only in God`s wisdom but that we trust also in His love. It means trusting that God loves us perfectly, that everything He does - every blessing He gives and every blessing He, for a time, withholds - is for our eternal happiness¨

¨Just because we can`t hear something doesn't mean there is nothing to hear¨

¨Perhaps to increase faith, we need to listen differently¨

con mucho mucho amor 

Hermana Smoot

The small Relief Society of the Mendoza Ward

Nacho and Hermana Duran and I

Nov. 21 : Half way done and the earth shook!

¡¡¡¡¡¡¡WHAT IN THE WORLD I HAVE 9 MONTHS IN THE MISSION!!!!!!

ya hands down the weirdest feeling. there`s a tradition with sister missionaries that once you hit 9 months you have to take a pregnant picture haha

To address the Argentina earthquakes. Yes we've been having a couple earthquakes lately. nothing to big and it`s not doing any damage just a little shaking. The biggest one was yesterday and we were walking in the street and all day it had been super cold and really windy. We heard the windows shake of the house we were walking by but didn`t really think it was anything. Then a guy ran outside and asked if we felt the earthquake and if we were okay. uh we were a little confused haha but we turned it into an opportunity to share the gospel ;) 

This past week we had another capilla abierta that went really well. :) But this week we`re getting ready for one in our chapel so it`s gonna be a really busy week. 

We also did some service this week painting the gates for one of our members! We made a huge stake for lunch because it was the day i hit 9 months! So much fun!!

We have this new investigator named Eliana and she`s awesome! her friend gave her a book of Mormon and just came home. She`s reading everything we assign for her and she says it all makes sense, it`s just hard to believe it. So we`re really trying to focus on the praying aspect.

This Christmas season the church has a program called ¨25 ways. 25 days¨ to help us spread the light of Christ to everyone for the 25 days leading up to Christmas! It`s one amazing program!!! I really hope you will all take this chance and us it! Everyday from the 1st of December to the 25th you have 1 thing of service to do everyday. please oh please do it!!!! I promise that it will make this Christmas more special!

sorry i didn`t write much this week. 

but i still love you all!

Hermana Smoot

November 14: Lots of Investigators

This week was so weird! We had a special training with our President of the mission about Christmas and the new video that will be coming our end of November! It is absolutely incredible! There´s a programs of ¨25 ways in 25 days¨ and it´s acts of service we get to do every day from the first of December to the 25 to help others feel more than just the light of Christmas, but the light of Christ. I WANT YOU ALL TO DO THIS PROGRAM!!! I promise it´ll bring a whole new ¨light¨ to your Christmas season :)

We had exchanges with our sister leaders which was way fun! I got to spend a whole day with Hna Rendon from Columbia. We started the mission together and it was so fun to see her again! She´s awesome! 

Saturday we had another Capilla Abierta and it was super successful! the members were helping out a ton and now we get to prepare for one in our chapel! So we´re working our butts off to visit a lot of the less actives and get invitations to everyone! 

The sister on the left is Hermana Gonzales who trained me - the sister on my right is who I am training now, Hermana Duran at our last Capilla Abierta

Yesterday was our wards Primary Program and I got the opportunity to accompany on the piano all the songs. I was so happy! 

INVESTIGATORS

We had 5 investigators come to church (which is huge) and our zone of 8 companion ships found 146 new investigators this week! I pretty sure we set a record in the mission! Lots and lots of work but it´s showing. We have 2 investigators that are brother and sister. 9 and 10 year old Santiago and Mercedes and they´re just the cutest things! They read their scriptures every night together and say their prayers and they came to church and he had on a cute little button up shirt and she had on a little skirt! ah it was adorable! 

We have another investigator Natalia and her attendance is so constant at church that her son was able to participate in the Primary Program this past Sunday! it was so cute and she was so proud of him. 

SCRIPTURE

23 Therefore, blessed are they who will repent and hearken unto the voice of the Lord their God; for these are they that shall be saved.

 24 And may God grant, in his great fullness, that men might be brought unto repentance and good works, that they might be restored unto grace for grace, according to their works.

 25 And I would that all men might be saved. But we read that in the great and last day there are some who shall be cast out, yea, who shall be cast off from the presence of the Lord;

 26 Yea, who shall be consigned to a state of endless misery, fulfilling the words which say: They that have done good shall have everlasting life; and they that have done evil shall have everlasting damnation. And thus it is. Amen.

i love you all so so much! 

con todo mi amor y mas

Hermana Smoot

Kylie in front of the "Hill of Glory" outside Mendoza

Nov. 7: American Food Finally

MY WEEK

 We found this restaurant that is owned by 2 guys from southern California and they sell food just like the states! They even have WING WEDNESDAY!!!!! WHAT????? We went as a whole zone (half of which are gringos) and went and had all you can eat wings! I guess you could say we were a pretty happy group of missionaries haha :)

Friday I was so so soooo sick! I literally didn´t leave my bed all day and I was throwing up for 24 hours. It was miserable. Saturday was a little better and we went to some appointments but we didn't knock doors or anything. Only left the apartment when we had to. But now I´m all fine!  

¨Mi hijita¨ is ¨my daughter¨ in Spanish! There´s this thing in the mission that when you train, the missionary you train is your ¨daughter¨. Because the mission is like a mini life. Pero si, i´m training!!! and it is so much fun!!! My hijita is from Peru and is a ball of fun! She is so ready to learn and is so excited! I love it! After every lesson, or talking to someone in the street she asks what she can do better and is always asking questions! Her name is Hna. Duran. I´m super excited to be working with her! Right now we don´t have much to do but knocking doors because we don´t have many investigators but it´s makes good time to get to know her :) haha 

In our ward I will be accompanying the primary program! We had a practise this week and it was so cute! ah i love little kids! and their cute little singing voices are just precious :) During the practise we were listening to one of the kids give his little part talk thing and one of the older boys sitting next to me hit himself in the face with a book!!! I was a little taken back and started laughing and asked him what he was doing and he said ¨What? I´m tired.¨haha and all the leaders just started laughing! oh my kids are so funny!

INVESTIGATORS

This week we passed by a less active that i had never met. When we got there she was the happiest person on the planet to see missionaries! literally! I have never even seen an active member that happy and that willing to let us into her house! She told us to sit down and she ran into the kitchen and brought me a glass of milk and Oreos and said ¨I lived in the states and i know you gringos love oreos and milk¨ ah I about died! then she introduced us to her 2 little kids and said She wanted them to be baptized. They already say their prayers (in the right way) morning and night and know basically about the gospel. I about fell out of my chair when this happened!

Our new investigator - (not really)

SOMETHING FUNNY

I got pooped on by a bird last Monday. ya kinda put a downer on my day haha

We had our stake conference and the 2nd counselor is in our ward and was sharing a personal experience about his 2 sons. The older son asked his little brother if he was going to go on a mission. The younger one said yes. Then the older asked again ¨Are you going because you want to?¨ and the younger one who´s 11 years old said ¨I´m going because i don´t want to be a rat¨ hahahaha 

SCRIPTURE

or actually quote from conference haha

¨Don´t concentrate on the things that aren´t important¨ -Elder Bassett of the 7

Yo se que Cristo vive

le quiero muchisimo

Hermama Smoot