Last Week Of This Transfer...

Dear Family,

I’m sorry that I forgot to mention Brittany in my last emails. I also got some great letters from you too Sis!!! Thank you so much for the updates. I can’t believe that after my mission I will have 10 nieces and nephews? Is that right? freak...

By the way mom, because I had my toe worked on, it doesn’t mean that I got two days off. I still worked like any other day, I just had a couple hours taken out of my day for the actual doctor’s appointment. My companion was able to take some pics this time, HEHE. We also took a picture of some of the usual R.O.U.S.'s here. That’s right, remember the rodents of unusual size from the movie "Princess Bride"? Well they actually do exist here. These things are literally giant rats. There is a tree on the left hand side, that is about 15 feet tall. These things actually freak me out, but I heard that they aren’t vicious like normal R.O.U.S.'s. They are actually scared of people, but I have heard that their meat is really good. I couldn’t get a clear shot because it was so far away, but I will definitely try to get a clearer shot for the future.

Mom- to answer your questions…

So, as for my area, it is a lot nicer than my previous areas. Also a lot more expensive. I have to do a lot more walking, or in my situation right now, a lot more bus rides because of my toes. Mooooney, money, money, money, I just can’t keep doing this Bob! Good thing is, I turned in my receipt to the mission office, and they paid me back in full for the appointment; not for the bus rides or anything, but yeah, I got my 85 reais back, (probably like 42 dollars). I have one other companionship that lives with me in our house as well. They are kinda funny, sometimes annoying, but I love them. At first it was a little hard to get the Senior Elders respect, but after he realized I was just trying to help, not burn him or anything, he trusts me with everything.

Christmas packages--well, Sister Fortunato wants Me and Elder Cox to put all of our stuff back into our boxes and give them back to her because she wants to hand out all the packages to the missionaries. Its not that bad because I was going to wait anyways to open the boxes until Christmas but that didn’t stop me from eating the powdered donuts. Freak! With every bite I was a nervous wreck, I was crying into my pillow while eating them knowing that it would be the last time I would ever eat Hostess. My eyes glisten with tears as we speak. I also was in need of buying a new pen right when I felt a little present that was obviously a pen, so I also opened up just that present, not any other ones. But I am suuuuuuuuper sad because I lost it the next day. I have NEVER lost a pen on the mission and I just happened to lose my coolest one! I actually was really sad about that. Do you think I could somehow get another one? It was perfect.

Happy late birthday DAN!!! I hope all that time away in Colorado didn’t do more damage to your little closet problem. I know it’s not really possible for you to get worse in the condition that you are in, but hey, we all gotta hope for the best, right?

I’m fine here. Nothing new has been happening, or anything all too exciting other than that I was promoted up to the Jedi Council last Thursday, but that’s about it.

God Speed!

Elder Smidt X

Put another shrimp on the Barbie!!

Family and Friends,

Got some good smelly news and some stinky diaper news. My camera is on the fritz; every time I take a flash photo on the camera it lets off a good amount of smoke. Its kinda cool because it reminds me of one of the olden day cameras, but at the same time I know that it is not a good sign. Today the camera deleted all of the photos on my flash drive. It said "memory card error" but I know that it’s not the cards fault because it did the same thing with my last card. So I’m thinking maybe I can get a new camera, what do you guys think? Or I can just take the pictures from my companion’s camera every p-day until the end of my mission. That’s what Elder Pezzi did. I don’t know. But I have to explain some other rotten news. The bank error (stolen money) falls on us. When they ask the missionaries to bring a credit card for emergencies, it’s for issues like that. Also, I went to a real authorized foot doctor today because my foot started getting worse. The bad thing is, I have to pay for it. It’s not covered under our missionary plan. I could go to the hospital to have surgery done but that would put me out of work for a while and the president didn’t want that. I have to go back in two days... I took some cool photos of the lady using power tools on my feet like Dumb and Dumber, then I asked to take a picture with her afterwards so I gave the camera a big smile with the doctor. She thought it was pretty funny, but then the photos got deleted soon after that. I also took some photos on the bus ride, opening up my huge amount of letters that I got since we were in B.H. We picked them up, I had a cheesy smile while opening up the wonderful Halloween poster the Howard kids made for me. I loved it, but it also got deleted. Brianna Ball, I freakin love you! Thank you so much for the letter! It was so awesome to read. I have the coolest cousins, na verdade, I have the coolest family. But anyways, thank you so much. I will write you a more detailed letter.

Coley! I miss your homemade chicken noodle soup. That letter just made me hungARRRY. Don’t worry about a Christmas Gift! Really, there is nothing that I can really do with gifts on the mission. How is Romney the dog? Only have heard one sentence about him since I left home. I’m glad that the girls got to go to Les Mis. Sad I missed Russ' 1^st B-day.

Tiff, thank you so much for the wonderful details on Halloween. We had one trick-or-treater come to our apartment and we didn’t have anything so Elder Cox just gave them a piece of gum. It was kinda funny. They don’t do trick-or-treating here, but just in our apartment they were doing it. Halloween doesn’t even exist here, so I guess I just got lucky to see some trick-or-treaters.

Dad, that is awesome that you got to go camping with KJ. I really miss those days. Too bad you weren’t able to make it to our real spot, I love that place.

Congrats Heidi!!!! I am so happy that things are working out! Your new baby is so cute (I mean that in the most manly, grizzly, big bearded, lumber jack way)!

I think you mis-understood me mom. Christmas will only stink in a way that I will be away from the family. I do not regret being here instead. I do not regret giving service rather than getting presents of Cheeseburgers under the Christmas tree (even though that tradition will still continue here) and I most certainly look forward to celebrating Christmas how our Lord would celebrate it. I was just saying that I will sure miss you guys and that is the part that will stink.

We have made a lot of progress this week, talked a lot, and will continue to progress a lot. I don’t have a lot of time, but I love and miss you all!!!

P.S. This week I will have Thanksgiving dinner with a Brazilian that studied at BYU for 8 years, so he knows what’s up. Other than that, Brazil has never even heard of Thanksgiving.

God Speed-

Elder Smidt X

I'm not cryin', its just been rainin' on my face...

Dunnn dun dun dun!!!

Hey, so we did it, we baptized that family and they are super firm! The baptism was a huge success. We had 31 people there which is like half of our ward. We had a little video presentation and after the baptism when everyone was giving them hugs welcoming them to the ward, they gave the parents some church books and the kids a cd, and afterwards there were snacks and soda for everyone. It was a way cool experience to be able to see the ward helping out so much. Then yesterday we did the confirmations and I did it for my first time  (I should be embarrassed, but I always just let my companions do it or ward members). I confirmed Artur and his dad, André. It was such a neat experience. Then after the sacrament meeting more members came up to the family and gave them scripture cases, a hymn book, books of Mormon, bibles, and they gave the kids a book about the book of Mormon but like the comic book version almost (I don’t really mean comic book, but there are a lot of pictures and the scriptures are abbreviated for the kids to understand better). The members made a temple visit this week and bought all this stuff for them at the distribution center. Then later that day when we went by the house, Artur had already read the first couple pages about Joseph Smith and had a question about it, so then we started to explain some things to him when his sister asked another question and then something really neat happened. Artur turned to her, explained the whole story perfectly, detail for detail, and with such ease too, and I almost had a vision of him just serving a mission in the future explaining those exact things for another family. I didn’t have any kind of girly situation where I started crying, but I did get super excited when I saw how much they all were progressing and thinking about him serving a mission in the future.

One other blessing this week has been the rain!! It has been so stinkin hot this past week, but this week it has been raining every day. Sure, its turned a lot of the roads into mudslides, but hey, I got to use my rain coat for the first time in my mission this week. Guess who has the same rain coat...

This morning we were able to take a family to a county office to mark a wedding date. In thirty days I will be marrying a couple so that they can be baptized. I just have to stay here for the next transfer.

Yesterday was also full of spiritual growth because we helped the bishop make some visits to sick people, and this is the first bishop I’ve seen on the mission that serves purely out of love. You can feel the love that he has for the members. You know that he isn’t just doing visits because he feels obliged to as a bishop, but he does it because he wants to. How many times have we accepted a calling and said, "I accepted the calling but I was comfortable where I was".  How is that putting your heart into the work? I have been learning to not only go through the actions, but to also do the things I need to, more because I want to. I have been studying a lot on how I can be a greater missionary and have learned a lot. I do not aspire to become a "great" missionary; rather, I aspire to be a "servant".  I know that "greatness" implies my performance in relation to others. I know that the critical measure is my conduct in relation to my own abilities and in comparison to my past performance. While I fully understand and do not resent the need for statistics, numbers, and measurements, I am not motivated by the praise or recognition of men. I am motivated by my desire to give myself and all that I am and have, to the Lord and to his work however that may compare with others. I know that Jesus taught his disciples (who at times aspired to the honors of men), that "whosoever will be great among you... shall be servant of all." He said: "for even the Son of man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give his life a ransom for many." (Mark 10:43-44)

         
I've had so many cool spiritual experiences this week, I feel like Moses might have felt. Somebody put a freakin cloth over my face so that I don’t start to freak the people out around here.

God Speed!

Elder Smidt X

I'm a little concerned for your salvation and stuff...

5-11-12

Family and Friends far and wide,

This week has been excellent. Let me tell you why. We have been teaching a family this past week who have been progressing so much that I have literally seen miracles with Erika, Andre, and their two kids, Artur, and Mariana. We found them a few weeks ago and after the second visit they were all reading the Book of Mormon as a family. When we first got there, the couple was arguing a lot and planning on a divorce. The mom had a lifelong addiction to cigarettes and the dad had a drinking problem. Since they have received a testimony that the Book of Mormon is true, they haven't argued once. Since we taught them the word of wisdom, the mom hasn't let another cigarette touch her lips nor has the dad even touched a beer bottle. The whole family gave up drinking coffee that next day, and they all drank a lot of coffee. They only waited on the baptism because the mom still wasn't sure if she wanted to unite herself to this church yet. As my companion and I kept praying for miracles, we saw yet another when the next day we passed by their house. For the first time it was the mom that wanted the baptism most. She said she woke up at 5 o'clock for reasons unknown and just decided to say a pray concerning baptism. She said that as she was praying, she felt an indescribable feeling, a feeling of warmth and love and comfort, and an impression on her mind that baptism is exactly what she needed. We have it scheduled for tomorrow and it will be my first "family" baptism. I have baptized families in the past, but it never worked out on the same day. There was always somebody with doubts. I'm pretty stoked.

This week my ingrown toe nail just became unbearable, so I finally decided that I would do something about it. But I wasn't ready to just go spend a bunch of money to get it removed. So I went down the free route, and had it removed- "Not pain free". I really would have liked some numbing stuff for my toe because as the crazy lady (ex-investigator) with her knife and giant tooth picks was going to town on my toe, tearing out chunks of infected skin and nail and chopping it all up, I was only left with a red tarp to bite on to endure it. Wasn't too fun. But at least the infection, smell, and pain is somewhat gone. I included some (not all) photos of the surgery, walking in flip flops, and biting the red thing. I also included a photo of us just being cool with our shades and of us walking in the wilderness. This week we were talking in another church and told them whats up. SEM MOLEZA. Maybe next week if I have more time I will tell more about my experience there.

Thank you so much for the email Nana and Pops. That's awesome that you were able to make a visit to the good Ole Star before it got too cold. I hope you guys have an awesome trip.

Please send me Craig's address. I have a letter for him, but I lost his address. Does he have a mission office address? I would like to just have one address to send stuff to rather than changing it.

Also, I would REALLY like to have this little puzzle that I saw about the plan of salvation. There is a website called LDSpuzzles.com I think that sells the puzzles in every language. The one I saw was pretty small which would be convenient. But if its pricey, don't worry about it. Its not going to hurt not having it.

Well, Happy Birthday Jayden!!!! Sorry I missed it!

I love you and miss you all!

God Speed

Elder Smidt X