I loved talking to you on Christmas! I miss talking to people who think the same way I do. It didn't make me homesick. We spent the rest of the day at the Gomez's. We weren't allowed to knock that day, we didn't feel like doing weekly planning, and I doubt anyone else wanted to see us as bad as the Gomezs. We had a HUGE gift exchange. I have never witnessed so many thoughtful presents infused with inside jokes in my life. And I taught everyone the pictionary telephone game. We also ate a lot of food and took multiple communal naps.

 

Isn't my comp pretty!? And the girls too. Sorry I haven't been sending pictures. I keep forgetting my camera. But I promise I will eventually. Abraham is an inactive member. He comes occasionally with us. He told me he knows the Church is true but doesn't agree with all of our principles. We are trying to encourage him to go to church more faithfully and go on a mission. He would be such a great missionary!

Hahaha your trip sounds hilarious. Charles sounds like that guy on SNL, what's his name Stephen or something? The one who goes on the news portion to tell people what they should be doing in NYC. haha I wish I could go to the temple!

 

No! I like your emails. And I'm a fast reader, courtesy of you. I just meant that if you ever want me to actually think about anything you write me you should probably print it out and send it to me.

 

Good luck on your diet! I wish I could go on a diet. Or at least exercise more. But we can't have our bikes back because on of the Elders is using Sister Morley's. I hardly buy any food to help me not eat as much but people give us SO much food ALL the time that it's not working.

Hi again!

 

Emily's mission sounds really cool. And different.

 

Everyone thinks our family is very attractive. Go team!

 

Annnndd I get to spend another 6 weeks with my mission mom here in the Grove. Live on the adventures of Smith and Morley! I'm excited for 6 more weeks of happiness and ridiculousness.

Love you!

Hola!

Hmmm Jdubs. They are terrible for missionary work. If we are knocking a complex that has had jdubs recently knock there you can immediately tell because everyone is super annoyed and no one wants to listen. We usually just leave and go somewhere else.

Sergio and Diego are characters! They say some of the funniest things. We still visit them but not as often and I really miss them. One time during a lesson I sneezed really hard and got snot all over my shirt. I thought they would think it was funny and start laughing, but no. They were both horrified. For a while they couldn't talk and then Sergio finally put palm to face shaking his head and said very sadly, "That was hard to see." Haha  good times good times. They're parents are super nice too. They don't come to church right now because the mom works on Sundays and the dad needs to take care of their older son who is handicapped. But when the time changes in January I think the mom will start coming.

They were also very disturbed when they found out that we're not from California. They assured us that we can go to college here and live at their house. When my companion told them she wants to live near her family, they were like oh no problem! You can bring them here too!

Umm, I don't really know what time I will call you. I will be at the Gomez's most of that day. And I will use their stuff to contact you. I can skype. Most people call and skype at the same time so that you can hear better. Sorry I don't know what time.

This week we had a really cool ward Christmas party! Lots of people came, the food was amazing, and they had professional dancers come in and perform. It was so cool! This girl came up to me and told me she recognized me from Idaho. Apparently she lived at Hillcrest too and went to a lot of the same things I did. Now we're best friends. Also, that morning we had a Christmas party with half the mission there! We ate Korean food and watched Despicable Me. I don't know if it's just because I live under a rock but that is a really good movie.

Love you!

Hola!

Prayers in Spanish are the best! We're supposed to say all our prayers in Spanish but I don't like saying my personal ones in Spanish. (Don't tell).

Sergio and Diego Ortiz got baptized yesterday. They are 12 and 10. Sons of a less active family. You should have seen their smiles when they got baptized! It was adorable.

Champurrado is the best! I will make some for you when I get home.

Love you!

----

That week we also got a text that said: "Hi, this is Max Gomez.  Your daughter is here visiting with us.  Just wanted to say hi and thank you for raising a wonderful person.  She's been so important in our life.  She came into our life at the time when we had the most difficult moment in our lives and she's been a blessing from God." (the text included a photo of Ella, her companion, and one of Gomez daughters).

We can do whatever we think will bring people to Christ. But we never really do service because we're too busy teaching people and even when we do ask people if we can help them with something they look at us like we're crazy and say something like, " Why would I ask someone sent from God to do something for me? Also, just so you know, you're wearing a skirt. You don't go outside like that at night do you? Want a tamale?"

I didn't get to watch the broadcast either because I had a baptism. It was the only time everyone in the family and the bishop could do it. I miss the temple.

Lizbeth didn't come this week! Even though we stopped by her house two hours before and she said she would! Sigh, she better feel guilty. She is mid thirties. She is super nice and loves us to death! She is from Mexico but has lived in the States for about 8 years. She only knows a few words in English. Her husband Oscar is also super nice. He is a landscaper. She has a 13 year old son and a 4 year old son.

I know! I am so excited for Max! It is amazing how much their family has progressed in such a short time! Now we just need to convince Michelle's brother Abraham to go on a mission. Victoria got baptized yesterday. First baptism of the mission yayyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy!!!!!! It was a beautiful service. Max and Michelle spoke and they both mentioned their baby so the Spirit was very strong. Everyone was crying. Even the non members. Afterwards we went to their house to eat tamales and champurrado, which I helped them make the day before! Victoria is 9. I was going to send you pictures but one of the Elders took my camera because he wanted to clean it. (It was kinda dirty...) So you will have to wait till next week!

Our most distracting lessons are with two boys named Sergio and Diego. Ages 12 and 10. Picture two Mexican Patricks. They are hilarious!!! They are getting baptized this Sunday. So excited. Our lessons get so off topic. Highlights include: their prayers ( I can't keep from giggling during them), the fact that that every person we bring up ever they ask how that person died, and that they are closet feminists.

My Thanksgiving was very nice thank you. I ate waaayyyy too much. I was bursting! And then they made me eat this gross thing that they said was jello but I tell you it was not!!! More like devil jello! It has milk in it! And the Gomez's gave us a chocolate pie and a pumpkin pie. They were delicious. Mmmm. Sorry yours was so bad! I hope you guys feel better! Remember when I used to throw up every thanksgiving? Me and my companion were like hey! This is our first Thanksgiving without our family and then I remembered that I didn't attend last Thanksgiving really either because I was too tired to do anything except ask people what kind of shake they wanted. And you made me a vegan sugar free pie! That was so sweet! Thanks mom.

 

Ummm, apartment. It is very nice. This mission likes shopping at Ikea and Target. I don't know how to describe it. I'll send you pictures next week.

 

Another fantastic Sunday! This week we had 6 people come. Our investigator, Lizbeth came! With her family too! *freaking out ackhhjshdhhdsaj* We have been trying to get her to come to church for forever!!!! The day after I got here, October 9th, we had finally gotten everything settled and so we went out to knock doors. We knocked on her door and she invited us in to teach her. She was the very first lesson I taught. She has a really strong testimony of The Book of Mormon and she loves us a whole lot. The reason we couldn't get her to go to church is because she is super shy and she had a terrible experience with another church. They were yelling at her and hitting her on the back telling her to RECEIVE JESUS. And a lady who was supposed to be taking care of her son there kept hitting and pinching him. Isn't that terrible! So anyways, it was a struggle and she's super nervous to get baptized but I think that we can get her there. We might have to hide it from the ward though because she doesn't want anyone there... I'm just excited she came! I didn't know it was possible to be this happy.

 

Also, yesterday Max Gomez got the priesthood! So now he can baptize his daughter Victoria. Yayyy! Her date is for this next Sunday.

I am eating Thanksgiving dinner at the Hernandez family's house. I have no idea what it will be like. We had a ward thanksgiving party on Saturday and it was super fun! It was basically the same as most Mexican parties. Loud Mexican music and dancing. There was "Thanksgiving food" but it was heavily mexicanized with a lot of chile. It was really good! Basically the Mexican American tradition is to skip Thanksgiving and start celebrating Christmas waaayyyyyyy tooo early.

 

Everyday is usually a good day here, but yesterday was extra happy-making. So much goodness kept happening to us!

 

1. We are not the best at street contacting. We prefer to knock doors, so we usually just say hi and other normal stuff to people we run into. This one guy that lives in our apartment complex is always super nice to us and always asks us how we are doing and random stuff like that. Yesterday morning we ran into him on the way to our car and started talking to him. We told him we were on our way to church. He started to look really nervous and then asked if he could come with us next week. He has been having what he has called spiritual difficulties and thinks that the best thing for him would to be learn more about God and what he wants. He told us he could tell that God loved us and he wants us to teach him what we know. We were like actually, that is what we do. He was like what! No way! And then we set up an appointment. He looked so relieved! We should have asked him weeks ago! Poor thing.

 

2. Four of our investigators came to church. We felt like shepards making sure they all went to the classes they were supposed to and had friends and stuff like that. Plus we had to babysit one of the Elders' investigators. Don't ask me why. It was so hectic! I am so looking forward to the day when my investigators are my own children and I can teach them from the beginning the right what so that they know what's up.

 

3. I helped the Spanish ward coordinate when they could use the building by translating what he said into English, which another missionary translated into Korean for his ward member. I don't know why I thought this was so cool but I just love me the Garden Grove Culture Clash.

 

4. We went to a baptism for some of my companion's old investigators after church. It was so beautiful! She had taught them for a long time and was so happy for them. Watching her face was just as much pleasurable as watching the baptism.

 

5. We ran into the Ap's at that church building. Ahh they're so cool. Plus we got to see a lot of other missionaries there.

 

6. The Bowens were at the baptism. They are so nice! President Bowen even gave a short talk in Spanish. It was so cute!

 

7. The Gomez family came to the baptism. The girls were both so excited. Valerie, the one who is 7, held my hand the whole time.

 

8. We had dinner at Hermana Estudillo's house. She is an amazing cook! And super helpful and nice.

 

9. We finished off the day by having an amazing lesson at the Gomez's. You can feel the Spirit so strongly there. After our planned lesson we talked about all the little events, including their son's death that have led them and us to all be where we are now at this moment. It was amazing to see God's hand in all of our lives and even cooler that they realize that and can feel His love so strongly.

 

Love you!

Hola!

 

 

The members here are interesting. Most of them are converts and they have very strong testimonies. Testimony meeting is the best thing ever! They also really love each other and are pretty united. But at the same time this is the most dysfunctional ward I've ever been in. It's just very unorganized. Setting things for specific times is a joke. They don't care that much about rules or procedures. We told them about the white bible and they thought we were joking. Church is super fun and always exciting, but sometimes I stop and think, "Is ward council supposed to be this fun?" Probably not. So I can't decide it their version of Mormon culture is worse or better. The one thing that I do definitely like, is how much they adore missionaries. We're like angels to them. We do a million things for the ward that they are probably supposed to be doing for themselves but at the same time they take very good care of us. 

Right now my favorite family is Gomez. They are the family whose son died. We're still teaching the parents and their two girls because the girls need to be baptized. They were completely inactive before but now they go to church every week and want all the blessings of God! We've become best friends. We are at their house all the time. They are super funny. Last night we were talking about baptisms for the dead and Max was like I want their to be a whole arena of people thanking me for doing their work when I die. They'll be like Whooooohh Yeahhhh!!! I should probably start working on that. Technically they're Mexican but they both grew up here and are racist against Mexicans. Every time we go over we leave with bags of food. Max (the dad) tried to sign up to feed us every day this week but Michelle (the mom) told him that wasn't nice. They are super sassy. Especially the girls. The girls don't speak Spanish very well so we have to tell them what words mean in church. On Saturday we took them to a tour of the Newport Temple grounds. It was so cool! They want to be sealed as a family as soon as possible. They want us to come over every day but we only have time to go there every few days.

 

Thanks! Love you!

Hi  mom!

 

I did get the package! Thank you so much! You need to keep sending me stuff so that my zone knows you love me. Haha just kidding. We get mail whenever our zone leaders go to the office which is at least every Monday and Wednesday, but they also sometimes go on other random days of the week if they have a meeting or need to get supplies. On Friday night I got an envelope with a million thank you notes (yes, I counted) from women in our ward. Tell them thank you from me! I really appreciate them. Also tell them to be thankful for the ward they are in because the ward I'm in right now is SO dysfunctional! They all mean well and have amazing testimonies but because almost all of them are converts they don't quite know how to do the not spiritual stuff. I think I'm up to 6 unofficial callings now. Haha it's a party.

 

I'm glad you liked my letters! I love each of you a whole lot. Good, good, and good. Make sure to remind them that I am the most important member of the family while their minds are still young and impressionable. My mission is chill! And I know that his would be too because he's smart enough to not take things personally. He would be such a hard working missionary too! Charles has still not written me!

 

Mine and my companion's relationship gets better every week. We're still not to the point where we break out into "L! is for the way..." every time we try to have companionship inventory, like with my last companion but we have gotten to the "I'm about to tell you something that I've never told anyone" phase. So that's grand. The other day one of the Elders asked us, "Do you guys EVER fight?" We looked at each other both trying to think of a time where we had fought, but we couldn't think of anything so we just said, "We're fighting right now... telepathically" And the best part of this story is that even though transfers is next week we know that we both won't be moved because training takes two transfers and that would be like a mother abandoning her baby before she was old enough to live on her own. Her mom's name is Kari so must be a different person.

 

Yeah that first family is the Garcias/Gomez. We visited them again last night. When we teach them the spirit is always really strong but we still haven't been able to get them to go back to church. And the other family is the familia Gomez. We are teaching them because their two daughters, 9 and 7, have not been baptized. We also have become really good friends. We sit with them at church and eat dinner at their house at least once a week. When we leave they always give us food to take home too. Their daughters are obsessed with us. Whenever we try to make a return appointment with their parents, they say "Tomorrow tomorrow!!" On Sunday Victoria asked her mom if we could have a sleepover because she didn't want us to leave. They're a really cool family. Her sister lives in Orem so you may get to meet them one day if we have a reunion. The love H and M and organic food so I think you would get along.

 

 Last week was hard. We helped set up for the funeral and then we sang during the funeral, so that took up most of Tuesday. I don't think I've ever seen a dead body before so that really bothered me. Both me and my companion have been having nightmares all week about her dying so we haven't been able to sleep.

 

We got a car! A Ford Fusion. It is very nice.

 

Love you!

 

Hola!

 

Yes, I have a fantastic companion. She is very in tune with the Spirit to the point that I don't think we've ever actually taught what we planned to teach. I usually just follow her lead but I often get promptings about what to do too. And they are always the same as hers! So she calls me a good mi hija, pats me on the head, and says that that means it is definitely from the spirit. I just wish I got more promptings more often, but I guess it's something you just have to practice.

We have A LOT of investigators, but that's just because everyone is so friendly and nice here not because they want to join the church. Last week we got 15 new investigators! Which is crazy even for here. Once people understand that we want to share a message about Christ, a lot of them will let us into their house because Christ is very important to them. Especially the women will always say something like, "Oh, I always have time for Christ!" and then give us food or soda. Because white and Asian people also live here we occasionally teach one at the door. None of the Asians speak any English. And the white people are so rude! And never want to talk with us. The Hispanics are also super nice to us because we speak Spanish and we're obviously white, and we live in America. They are touched that we took the trouble to learn it.

 

The problem is that in their culture they are not good at doing things at designated times, so it doesn't matter if we're late but it also doesn't matter if they're not there. It can sometimes be hard to find people again. We have three people with baptismal dates right now. Also, our Bishop cares A LOT about his ward and is super on top of things so we are also constantly teaching inactive members.

 

All of the missionaries I've met so far are very obedient. President and Sister Bowen have set a tone of love and dedication, but they're also not super serious either. I really like this mission. I am worried about my future companions though. The other sisters I have met mean well but do not have very good people skills. I feel like this is very important for a missionary! I feel like I will constantly be having to apologize to investigators and members. Right now I love being in this companionship because we have pretty similar personalities. We like listening to people talk about theirr problems and we have become pros at gossiping with Hispanic housewives. People constantly tell us that we bring the Spirit with us and that they love telling us stories.

 

I would love to be a trainer! I think it would be fun and that I would be good at it. Which probably means that I won't get the chance to because the President will probably assign someone who doesn't want to do it.

 

Thereis an inactive couple in our ward. They haven't been going to church for at least 10 years. The bishop has been trying to find where they live and wanted us to visit them but he couldn't find their address. On Sunday night their two year old son got out to their backyard pool and drowned. The mother found him and took him to the hospital. There, they found a member who worked there and he gave the boy a blessing. He then asked for their address and gave it to the bishop. The bishop asked us to visit them on Tuesday. We didn't want to because we had no idea what to say, especially in Spanish. So we took our member friend, Claudia. She often goes to appointments with us or helps us knock. She is super crazy. her catchphrase is, "I'm Mexican so I just don't care!" We wanted to take her because she speaks Spanish fluently and she is a naturally talkative person and she always has something to say.

 

I wasn't sure how the visit went. We mostly talked to the Grandma and I didn't feel like we had helped the family much by going. But the bishop told us to go again, this time alone, so we went again on Saturday. This time we talked more with the family. They told us that they did not like anyone from the ward, especially Claudia. They said they did not like all these people who had never met them or their son, coming to their house and asking too many questions. But they do like us, who knows for what reason. They said we didn't ask questions, that we brought the Spirit with us, and that they know that God has a message for us to give them. This freaked us out because we hadn't prepared any lesson because we have absolutely no idea what they need to hear. So we shared a very simple message that we felt guided by the Spirit to say. God wanted them to know that he loved them and that his peace was available to them if they would ask for it.

 

We teach them again tonight. We were both prompted separately to speak about developing the Christ Attribute of Hope. So we will be talking about that. And then next time maybe the Plan of Salvation? I don't know. I feel like the Spirit is only allowed to give me inspiration for 24 hours at a time.

 

Teaching other people is a breeze compared to these lessons. And all the members of our ward are super nice. Hmo Torrez wants me to come back after my mission so that he can pick out my husband for me. And I joined a pregnancy pact with my companion and two other ladies in our ward. We're all going to get pregnant at the same time and breastfeed each other's babies.... I don't know, they made it sound fun.

 

Hermana Smith

 

I had to buy a bike. But they did it a really weird way where they bought it but I have to pay them back. Could you send me a $300 check. I forget who it is supposed to me made out to... I'll tell you next time.

 

I bought bike shorts to wear underneath. Riding in a skirt seems pretty normal now but at first it was weird. My area is huge! At least for this mission. And it is super big for having to ride bikes, but I think we might get a car because our bishop complained to the Mission President so then we can use that for going to far places and things outside our area. We haven't even gone to a lot of our area because it would take an hour. My area is completely flat which I like. I haven't seen any hills in my mission but right now I'm in Newport and there are hills here. I live in Garden Grove.

Yeah we have a phone which is nice. We don't use facebook, but we might in the future. I heard that everyone might get Ipads in January. Each person gets one instead of one per companionship and you get to keep it after your mission so that you'll have more incentive to keep it nice. But these might just be rumours.

 

There is a whole Spanish Speaking Stake! I think 8 wards maybe? There are two sets of elders and then me and my companion in my ward. Haha impromptu talks are the worst! We are having Zone Conference on Friday and Elder Ellis is calling missionaries from the audience to talk. Not quite impromptu but still scary! I really don't want to talk but then I remember that it's in English and it seems  realllllllllllllly reaaaaalllly easy. Haha

I'm fine. The weather is nice here and so is our apartment. I bought a comforter at Target because I was cold. It's fluffy!

I had an interesting experience this week. One night my companion and I were struggling with everything. We couldn't find any of the addresses we were looking for. Nobody was home anywhere and an apartment complex we tried to knock had been JWd so no one was interested.

 

Then my companion felt like we should go to this random member's house that was on our ward list. We didn't know who they were but we didn't know most people in our ward. We got there without any problem. Their door was open and the mother immediately let us in as if she was expecting us. She has three teenage children and we were surprised to learn that they hadn't gone to church in about a year. We started to teach them about the 4 principles of the gospel very simply. In the middle of the lesson we asked the mother to share an experience where her prayers had been answered. She replied, "Right now." And we were like yeah, you don't need to share anything too personal but yeah go ahead and share it right now. Then she said, "No, my prayers have been answered right now. I have been praying all day that someone would come and remind my family about God. Because I know I couldn't bring my children back to church by myself."

 

I love you!

Hola!

 

I am having so much fun! I'm on bike! When my mission president told me I was going to be on bike my pupils turned into bikes, he asked me if I could handle it, and I tried to say yes but I was so excited that I don't really know what came out. I get to do all my favorite things every day! Gospel it! Bike it! Spanish it! Cali it! If I sound brainwashed that's because I am!Whooo...!

 

My trainer, district, ward, zone, and new friends are all awesome. We are whitewashing so we've mostly been knocking doors and trying to get to know the members in our area. Apparently the elders that had our area before us creeped out all their investigators so they don't have any? What. Oh yeah! And they threw away the area book? DOUBLE WHAT. Who does that? Go get some help people! So anyway we've been going around visitng people telling them that 1. we're relatively normal 2. we're refreshingly female and 3. the restored Gospel is here on the earth so you should probably get baptized.

 

I can't understand my bishop. Usually my Spanish is ok and I just fill in whatever I don't understand with what I would like the person to say but with him I got nothing. He is from Panama, doesn't speak English, and apparently his mother forgot to inform him that cosonants exist. Whatever. I'm not bitter.

 

I have talked to real people now! It is so much easier.

 

Les Amo!

Hermana Smith

Hola! I'm in Cali now. My mission president is super nice. My trip was tiring. I started at 2 in the morning. On our way to the airport we drove past this huge parade of protesters. I don't understand why they were out that early.

On the plane I was super confused as to wether I should be speaking English or Spanish. Especially to people who were obviously Mexican but could speak better English than I can speak Spanish. Also I have discovered that the bad side to speaking Spanglish for a month is that I have lost track of what is English and what is Spanish. It is hard to speak only English!

Right now I'm at the mission presidents house just chilling. My companion will come and get me in 30 minutes. There are two sisters here who are waiting on their visas to go to brazil. I can understand their Portuguese! Kinda. The weather is perfect here. I really like it. I like meeting new people.

Why are there so many missionaries there! Do we really need that many? I met a lot of people going to our mission from el CCM. But they all said they were only going to be in Chicago.

Yay obra de misionero!

Love you!

El CCM is definitely more fun!!! We are never supervised here. They did not let us take a nap. And I dont´t think they have siestas. But they do eat way more for lunch than dinner. She hurt herself playing soccer and it will take a couple weeks to heal. We stopped caring because I basically died so yeah...

 

This week has been crazy! People went crazy!

 

The madness started when me and my companera went al clinica to check on her Achilles tendon. While we were sitting there talking to the doctor I started to feel really dizzy. Usually blood and stuff doesn´t bother me too badly but right then when he was talking about the bundle of fibers in her tendon I was so grossed out! The way he described it sounded so weird! I was drifting in and out and I wanted to tell them I was going to faint. (I am an expert fainter and know the signs) But I was too exhausted to do anything. When it was time to leave (I don't remember any of this but my companera told me later) I walked in the opposite direction of the door straight into a wall, hit my head on the wall, hit my head on a the frame of a painting as I fell to the floor, and then hit pretty much every part of myself on the floor. I had a HUGE dent in my forehead. When I was conscious again the first thing I thought was, " What the heck happened to my head!" and then I heard the doctor saying," you fainted." NO DUH.  Then I tried to stand up but that didn't work at all so I just lay there until my heart rate came back up. As soon as it did me and my companion started cracking up because it really was funny. Love her and her immaturity. The doctor thinks we are crazy. Correct! I think I fainted because I was dehydrated and because I was having trouble eating. Bad Ella!

 

I didn't feel faint at all afterwards but my head hurt like crazy! For the first day I lost all my Spanish and I couldn't read or write in English. But I was really happy. Too happy. I just lay on the ground all day holding my super cold hands to my head. I was so out of it that it hurt in a good way and I was like this is fun not having a brain! yay! I was scared to go to sleep because I wasn´t sure if I would wake up. But I did! And now I´m fine! And my brain came back! Yip! Yip!

 

The second crazy thing that has developed this week is that now me and my companion now say the same thing at the same time all the time! It weirds people out. Especially our investigators. Sometimes they are too weirded out to answer our synchronized questions.

 

The third crazy thing is that everyone here is secretly nuts. Me and my friends have been going along thinking that everyone is all friends and being normal and stuff like that. But this week there have been an absurd amount of people confessing their love for other people. I understand if you like other people but it is clearly against the rules to do anything about it! Three different districts that we have become friends with left on Sunday. I guess they all thought what do we have to lose? Apparently nothing. My gorgeous companion has had it the worst. She gets weird notes, people ask her for her email all the time, and we even got ding dong ditched. People be cray.

 

In other random news my district heart attacked the president´s house. And en la tienda the other day Elder Henrie offended Elder Crotzer by saying he was stronger than him. All day today they have been having different competitions of strength. I don´t try to understand.

 

The other day me and my companion were practing receiving inspiring questions. Super fun! We were just talking as ourselves but I was her investigator. She asked me about something very personal that I had been worrying about. There is no way that she would have known to ask that if she hadn´t been in tune with the Spirit. I am so lucky to have such a spiritual companion! And it also helped me understand how true it is that Jesus Christ really does know each of our hearts personally.

 

I write a lot here. This is something I wrote when I was supposed to be preparing a talk on the Atonement. Which went well by the way. This is loosely based on an experience I had a couple years ago and my love for the Atonement in general.

 

The inability to support my usual stature tears me by increments to the ground. Eyes slam shut. Legs buckle under. My arms fail to cradle my face as it levels with the floor.

 

Gravity, the thing I used to thrive against, pulls me into its dark embrace. All the previous necessities of life don´t bear significance in the exhaustive atmosphere I now inhabit. I don´t feel the pangs of hunger. I don´t hear the voices tirelessly existing outside the room. I´m unable to shed tears.

 

I do try to take a rattling breath of nourishing oxygen but I only half succeed. Mouth gapes wide. Teeth snag on carpet. Only my heart beats on as it should. Ican feel it thumping hard into the surface beneath me. As if this repetitive meeting can keep me alive.

 

My spirit knows better, one eye trained on the growing depression which is the end. I scramble to find a place in this wrecked body where I can curl up and protect what aspirations I have left.

 

But there is nowhere to hide when the black night weighs down. There is nowhere to go when gravity has made my body obsolete.

 

My soul harks back to the ways of my origin. I open a portal of heavenly prayer. I climb out of my prison, my mind with no thoughts. I clutch desperately onto the back of a lamb.

 

Its wool is blinding. Pristine and comforting to the touch. I drag the rest of my identity outside the gnawing cave. The lamb is quite small, but my spirit has been shriveled to weakness. The sweet animal holds me up in place of my nonexistent strength.

 

Oh dear Lord, thy mercy unending. Take my cares from my troubled grasp. I have been worn down to the devil´s doorstep. Only thy invitation can save me now.

 

Dear Lord, I promise to never forget thee if thou wilt become my stamina anew. I´m unable to take a step without thee. I beg thee to guide my legs and my feet.

 

I thank thee Lord for life, for opportunities. I ask that thou mend my body discarded. My spirit has gasped at the horror of evil. My only desire is to live forever in thy light.

 

Love you!

The difference between speaking Spanish and English is a lot like the difference between reading music for piano and reading music for voice. When you are playing piano you know exactly what note you are playing and it sounds off if you make a mistake. But when you are singing you have no idea where to start so you just kind of plow ahead and it ends up sounding kind of like music but not necessarily what was written. People get the general idea, nod their heads in appreciation, but walk away with a confused look on their faces. Half the time I talk I have no idea what I am saying. And I have that problem I had in Japan where I know what people are saying but I cannot say it in English. Or I can summarize and give people the general idea but I have no idea what the individual words mean. I do not understand the relationship between my brain and language at all.

We have been partying all week! Yesterday was Mexican Independence Day and they really know how to celebrate here! Everything is red, white, and green. On Saturday night they put on this crazy show for us with professional dancers and singers! So many colors! On Sunday night el Presidente let us stay up till past midnight to watch the historical Grito. Afterwards we had to go home immediately because it is tradition to shoot your gun in the air and the bullets could fall anywhere. We keep singing the national anthem. Gringos singing the Mexican anthem with the enthusiasm that only young missionaries have is side splitting. All the Latinos have been SUPER hyper. They keep serenading us en el comedor. Fireworks have been going off day and night for the last couple of days. Viva Mexico!!

It has been impressed upon me that anyone can change. No matter how far down the rabbit hole you have gone God has provided a way for you to make it back to Him. The Atonement is that powerful.

I have taken up the practice of writing out spiritual promptings in the form of letters to myself from the Holy Ghost. It is so much more helpful than just writing it down with the rest of my thoughts, like I used to do. I think it works so well because you are demonstrating your willingness to receive inspiration. Now I have quite a collection of notes from the Spirit. The most amazing thing about it is that an expression of love somehow manages to include itself in each one.

I cannot wait until I know everything there is to know. In the Book of Mormon God is constantly cutting prophets off before they say too much. It is like putting chocolate right under my nose and then taking it away before I have time to take a bite!

I am not sure if that stuff is working or not but I keep using it because it smells good.

My companion found out she has Achilles tendonitis so she cannot do anything on it or else it might rupture. Because of this we decided to go on a diet together. I love dieting! And I love not eating meat! I found out today that one of the mystery vegetables I have been adoringly eating is cactus! Who would have thought. It tastes like Zucchini. Love you!

Hola!
If I think about it rationally I understand why Mexicans illegally immigrate to America (duh market forces! Thank you Mr. Lewis), but when I sit in on the weird spongy bright green grass, breathe in the probably polluted perfectly temperature controlled air and watch lime green parrots chase each other through the palm trees, I wonder why? Why would you leave this? Then I hear another of the many gunshots and I remember that I am not really in Mexico. I'm in some weird heavily manicured version of it that has a very strong spiritual connection to heaven. Plus I hear that northern Mexico is desert. And I think that's where my friends in Illinois said their people were from.
The city is so noisy! Even at 6 in the morning when I run! There is a constant mixture of people holding down their horns FOREVER, guns (I swear some people have actual cannons), people selling things over the loud speaker like in japan, fireworks, and really loud party music. El CCM is relatively quiet. But because we´re not allowed to listen to music people are always singing or whistling. We made it a rule in my district that you have to say El CCM the musical! con excessive drama before singing any song.

Every night when it rains the roads turn into rivers and it is impossible to stay dry. By the time we get anywhere, even with umbrellas we´re already soaked through so we decide we might as well play in the rain. The puddles are knee deep and so much fun! I think I might have gotten sick from this...
One of my American friends (ex roommate) joined a Latino district because her Spanish is so good. Her parents are native speakers and she looks Latina so people speak English around her and assume she does not understand. I now officially know everything about everyone. Check that off my list.
All the elders here are so nice! It is a rule that you have to let las hermanas cut in front of you in the food line. But they´re also nice when they don´t have to be. Especially the ones in my district. I´ve been really sick this past week. I had a nasty cold and they all kept buying me tissues and random stuff a la tienda. Our district is even closer now. We listen to an illegal episode of someones life story every night before we go to bed. It is amazing how entertaining everything is when you don't have TV! I don't think they really no what to make of me. I think I'm having an identity crisis surrogated by them. One of the hermanas in my district goes to BYUI too. We want to be roommates when we get back.

El CCM has movie night every Sunday. This week we watched legacy. BEST CROWD TO WATCH MOVIES WITH EVER. We've all become so sheltered that everything, and I mean everything, comes at quite a shock to our poor little souls. Most people felt the need to cover their eyes during the kissing.

We´ve watched or listened to two of Jeffrey R Holland´s talks given to the Provo MTC in the last week. He is so strict with missionaries! He yells the whole time! I find it frightening.
I really like it here. Not just the location but what we´re doing. I´ve found something here that I realized I've been looking for for a long time now. I now recognize my feelings before I came here as anxiety. My spirit was so anxious to get here! There are so many things that I've learned here that will help me with the life I want to live after. I can see the course of my life very clearly now. Lookin great!

I have two new "investigators" now and two new teachers. They´re all so nice! My old "investigator" got "baptized"! Sarcastic whoo! One of my teachers is more like a student teacher and he doesn't speak any English so I translate what people in my class are saying and translate what he is saying for them. The problem is that he is sooo giggly and I´m super giggly so I´ll be saying something in Spanish and then he will start snickering at my broken Spanish and then I start because I really do sound ridiculous and before you know it giggle fests are happening. And no one else can understand what we are saying so they assume that I said something really funny in Spanish when really I probably said something about Jesucristo. It is bad. Rulllll bad. One time Elder grange was practicing getting to know an investigator with me. I was the investigator. he asked if I was married and here is a very loose translation of what I said:

No, I live with my boyfriend. I think he might be in the mafia because he is always trying to recruit my cat. Not that I blame him. That cat has excellent ninja prowess. Or he might be a firefighter. I have trouble telling the two occupations apart.

 

Anyways I had Hermano Hernandez on the floor slapping the tile. (Add him to my fan club) Elder Grange only could pick out a few words. His jaw was dropped. My other teacher, Hermano Castellanos, came over, palm to face, shaking his head and said, "Just because you can say it in Spanish, doesn´t mean you should." Duly noted Hermano Castellanos.

 

Ha! I know exactly what I am doing here. But thanks. You should definitely learn espanol! It is such a beautiful language! It sounds way better in hymns and prayers and everything! I want some of that salad! Making something that looks healthy or weird is a classic smith move! Cheer tryouts!? Someone obviously needs more sleep. Thank you for telling me about home! I like it. Love you!

 The hermanas in my district en el CCM today.

 My companion and me.

This is my district at the temple.

Hola! El CCM is so nice! It is so beautiful here! There are lots of palm trees and flowers and it always smells good because it rains everyday at 5:30. It feels like vacation. It is always Cardigan weather. The best kind! You can see outside the walls two mountains on either side with little colorful concrete houses. One of the mountains has a huge B on it but I have no idea what it stands for. The whole CCM is 90 acres. I live in one of the casas. Each of the casas have 6 bedrooms and bathrooms with 4 Hermanas to a room.

 

There are about 800 missionaries here right now. For every Hermana there is about 10 Elderes. There are maybe 20% Latinos attending here, everyone else is American. Very few people here speak English or Spanish. Its all Spanglish. They only teach us Gospel Spanish here but we are supposed to speak Spanish all the time so most people speak English in a Mexican accent combined with whatever Spanish they know. It feels really weird writing this letter in English. Its so much easier to spell en Espanol! The Latinos tell us that the accent we have picked up only exists en el CCM. Sad but awesome! My favorite thing to do is make up words that sound Spanish. My teacher is always yelling at me, "No es palabra!!!!" or something along those lines.

 

I have a fake investigator right now. His name is Louis Valdez. He is Catholic and super nice! it is so much easier to speak in complete Espanol to him than anywhere else. He is super fun to teach. When we´re not teaching all we do is learn gospel and Spanish. Its so relaxing. It reminds me of when I always took 3 hours to do Seminary in France. Out of any place I´ve lived Mexico City reminds me the most of France. But it is still very different from that.

 

I love my companion. She came at the same time as me and will be my companion the whole time. She is from Holiday and she went to BYU for a year. She really does look a lot like Amber except skinnier. She looks like a fashion model so I feel like I am in a continual photo shoot. Fashion shoot al comedor! Fashion shoot al bano! Clase! Y casa! She is also super nice. She is a lot like me. Classy with a crazy creep streak. She is probably type 4/1. it feels completely normal to do everything with her. She is not being very good training fro how to deal with companions. We wake up early every morning to go jogging and then play soccer or something else during our Gym time. And we eat the same. No meat and lots of chocolate. The food here is really good! Its mostly Mexican food. And they always have Nutella! They must pray about everything.

 

We also have an amazing district. We´re one of the only ones with two sets of hermanas. And then we have 7 Elderes. We have all gotten really close because we spend so much time together studying. Sometimes we get really distracted. Our teacher is great too! She just got off her mission. She worked in that Mormon Battalion Visitor Center we went to! She was embarrassed when I told her that I had been there haha. She is so cute!

 

My Branch president is nice. He is Mexican and he used to speak English but that was like 30 years ago so its really sparse. I have become his new favorite Spanish to English dictionary because he says he likes the "funny" way I explain things.

 

I had a pet snail named Romero but someone stepped on it and it died... It was so cute!

 

I got to go to the Mexico City temple today! It was beautiful. All Aztecy. And I´m told that the inside looks like the South Jordan temple. I got to see the old movie!

 

There were probably about 50 on my flight? I don´t know maybe? I am really bad at counting.

 

Her name is pronounce Joi or Hoi. Its Dutch.

 

I think I will be fine.

 

I miss you too!!

Heyyyyyy How is it going? I made it to Mexico City! Alive. Most of the people on my flight from Atlanta were missionaries. We probably were bothering the other people on the plane.The city is really pretty with lots of colors and grafitti. The MTC is really nice too. The area its in is sketch but its completely gated and closed off so it seems super safe. I am surprised by how big it is. The weather is perfect. Not hot at all. Everyone seems really nice.I already made a lot of really cool friends.I speak Spanish better than most of them. My companion looks like Amber. Her name is Sister Hoj. Love you!

 

Sister Smith