Jan 30: Rural San Martin

HOOOOOOOLA FAMILIA Y AMIGOS

This week has been a rollercoaster .... ha-ha So Monday night we had a family home evening with some members and it was basically a big birthday party :) there was cake and everything! But Tuesday morning I had transfer :( We were in the terminal waiting for the bus and some of my members and investigators came to the terminal to send me off! It was probably the most fun part of my birthday ha-ha it was just a 45 mins ride to me new area San Martin. My new companion is Han Assis that´s from San Palo, Brazil! 

She’s super sweet and has such a big heart! But once I got to my area the problems started rolling in. I´m pretty sure I’m not even allowed to talk about what´s been going on in this little branch but let’s just say it´s a complete mess. 2 years ago, San Martin used to be a ward with about 150 people attending every week, and now we´re just a little branch, with 40 attending, if we´re lucky, and a billion less actives and some people excommunicated ..... ya. We don´t have many investigators and they haven´t had a baptism in a year and a half. It´s gonna be a lot of work in this area. 

My area is SUPER big and a lot of dirt and farms. We don´t even live in our area so we have to walk at least 30 mins to enter our area and then another 20-30 mins to our closest investigator. Let´s just say I’m crossing my fingers that I drop weight this transfer! Every day when we leave in the morning, it´s already like 100 degrees at 10 in the morning but for the past 3 days we come back to the apartment at night drenched because there´s these HUGE rain storms we´ve been having!

We have this investigator named Nicholas. Last week he just showed up in church!  He works with one of our inactive members and came to church with him. After church, we had a little lesson with him and he loves the gospel! In the first lesson, we set a baptismal date for the 18th of February and he committed to stop smoking! IN THE FIRST LESSON! We then had a lesson with him on Wednesday and talked about Joseph Smith and the Book of Mormon and invited him to read the introduction and the testimonies of the witnesses and Joseph Smith. On Sunday, he came to church again but alone this time!!! And he`s slowly smoking less and less and is already half way through with reading the Book of Mormon!!! He comes to every activity we invite him to! He lives an hour away in bus but he absolutely loves the church and the people. The poor guy has a terrible situation at home and he says when there`s people drinking and fighting, he goes to a park near his house and prays and reads the Book of Mormon!!! AHHHHHH isn`t he awesome!!!! We`re really excited for him!

This week I read a talk that`s called ¨Loving Others and Living with Differences¨ by Elder Oaks and it`s one amazing talk! Right now, we`re having a lot of problems with members that don`t get along so I’ve been studying a lot about charity and love and patience so that I can help them better. This talk is very inspired and I hope you can all take some time to read it! Here`s some quotes from the talk that I love ...

¨Seek to be Meek and avoid contention¨

¨Loving-Kindness is required, but a follower of Christ - Just like the Master - I’ll be firm in the truth. ¨

¨Kindness is powerful, especially in a family setting¨

¨For verily, verily I say unto you, he that hath the spirit of contention is not of me, but is of the devil, who is the father of contention, and he turnth up the hearts of men to contend with anger, one with another. Behold, this is ... my doctrine, that such things should be done away¨ 3 Nephi 11: 29-30

I love you all till the worlds end and more!!!!

oh, and thank you again for all the birthday emails! I’m sorry for those of you that I still haven´t responded!!! I´m getting there I promise :)  

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