Sacrifice brings forth the blessings from heaven...

Hello Family and Friends,

This past week our baptisms fell through. How can I explain in the best way possible.... Let’s just say it wasn't the right time of the month for the girls to get baptized, so we will be baptizing the family tomorrow. It was a bummer but I just hope this doesn't discourage them. I hope that they stay firm in their decision. We planned the baptism for Friday night because Saturday they were leaving to go to the grandma’s house for the weekend. They come back today, but since it didn't work out Friday, we marked the baptism for tomorrow. I just hope that they are all still fine after the trip, that nothing made them change their minds. We hope to baptize the mom, the two daughters and son. Family baptisms are the best! We also have some other people with potential to be baptized. We have to baptize 6 people this week to reach our goal, but I really do believe that it is possible with the Lords help. We did a fast and we are praying a lot.

Last week we spent a lot of time with the President going to all the district meetings in our zone. He came and inspected our house with Sister Fortunato, we had interviews with him, we had a personal meeting with just him and the assistants talking about our zone, and we had a meeting with him and our bishop making goals. All in all, we spent almost more time with him during the week than we spent working in our areas. But it was good!

To answer your questions: We don't have purified water in the apartment, we have to buy it. We live in a little apartment complex, reeaaalllyy small apartment. It’s pretty dry here, the roads are really dusty - only a few paved roads, which makes our house super dirty, super fast. Sooooo much dust comes in through the cracks of the doors and windows. But even though it’s dry and dusty, there are a lot of green plants here everywhere. I have seen monkeys a few times here crawling on the telephone wires like squirrels. And I've seen a few Toucans as well.

All the kids here try to talk to us in English. They just got done with a two week vacation from school, which is like our winter break, and they have a 2 month break in our winter but their summer.

Our ward is really excited about the work here. They are super supportive of the missionaries. They are so awesome! It’s so interesting to me what a difference it makes if you have an awesome bishop that dedicates his time to the mission work, the ward grows unbelievably fast, but when you have a bishop who doesn't care too much about the work, the ward stays the same with no growth. You reap what you sow. We are trying to follow the Prophets voice and work a lot more with less actives and find baptisms through them. If we don't follow this advice we show to God that we don't believe in the Prophet and we don't believe in his plan. You either do the right things because you believe, or you don't because you don't fully believe it to be true. There is no in between.

What do I do for fun on P-Days? Nothing, I sleep. I recuperate all my energy to work super hard for the rest of the week! (Of course, I have to accomplish all my chores first)

I love and miss you all! 

God Speed.

Elder Smidt X