Week #20- A New Year

Monday, January 7, 2013

Hey!

I'm glad to hear that everything is going good at home. Here in Pomona everything is still good. We get busier every week and everything seems to get a little easier every week which is really nice. This Saturday is transfers so I will find out if I stay in Pomona or if I leave. I really hope I stay at least one more. I really like Pomona, and this next transfer we have a few baptismal dates. I guess we will just have to wait and see. Nothing too interesting happened this week. We just taught and tried finding people to teach. Our lessons we had this week all went really well and we had good reactions by everyone we taught. They all invited us back which is a good sign. This week we knocked on a door and a born again Christian opened it, and he just started bashing our church and told us we were going to hell. It was super interesting! It's a good thing Elder Nielsen was there because I was about a minute away from punching him. He started pointing at me, trying to make me say their Christian prayer with him. I was super frustrated, and Elder Nielsen just said, "I hope you have a nice day," and walked away. I don't know how he did it. I was super mad. It took everything I had not to react or say anything. There is no point in trying to bash with him so I have learned that it's best just to get out of there before you do get upset. I feel super bad for that guy because he is so lost, and that experience also shows me how true our church really is. I am so blessed to have a testimony of the truthfulness of this gospel. I wish more people were more willing to listen to our message because it is so true. All the missionaries in our ward also sang at the Stake baptism this Sunday. It was super fun to see the excitement in all the 8 year olds' faces. Oh, we have a family in the ward that wants to come up for Christmas in 2014. Haha! I told them you would love to have them and that they were always welcome. It's the family that let me skype on their computer. They're really awesome! Haha! it was their idea. This New Years I went on exchanges with Elder Alvarenga and all we did was eat. On holidays it seems like all people want to do is feed us. It's always good food but it's horrible because it's so much food. I feel a 100 pounds heavier every holiday. It's good. The people here are really good to us. It was a good week! Tell Blake good luck, and I hope everyone has a good week.

Love, Elder Ryan Smith

Week #18 & #19-Christmas Call

Tuesday, December 25, 2012

Ryan skyped with his family, so no letter this week or the next. He looked great!

Week #17- The Real Meaning of Christmas

Monday, December 17, 2012

Hey!

 

That's exciting to hear that it's been snowing a lot. I see snow sometimes when I look at the mountains. They're really far away though. Was there any basketball games this week? That's good that there is a lot of work happening in Salmon! It's a good time to have a lot of work! We are staying busy. We are finding more investigators, and we are planning on having a lot of poeple we are teaching commit to a baptismal date. We are teaching some people right now that actually seem like they have a real desire to learn because they are doing the things we are asking them to do. Hopefully, it can build to something more. The work here is busy. The ward I'm in has had 3 baptisms since I got here. It's crazy. There are 8 missionaries assigned to one ward, and with the big rush of new missionaries, there might be more than 8 in the ward. This week we had our mission Christmas party and it was a lot of fun. For the party missionaries just do skits or talents. I guess it was kind of a talent show. I didn't do anything. It was fun to just watch. That lasted almost the whole day, and yes, I did receive the packages. Thanks! This week I also taught my first English class. I didn't know it would be so hard to teach English, but it is really hard. I taught them the months. It was kind of funny! Now I know what I sound like when I speak Spanish to them. I just found out that this next year church is going to be moved to 11 instead of 9. I can't wait. I feel like it is really going to help for investigators coming to church. At least, I hope it makes a difference. Well, if I don't get to write until after Christmas, I hope everyone has a good Christmas, and I hope everyone remembers that the real reason why we have Christmas is remembering the birth of Christ; the best gift we have ever been given. Thank you all so much for everything you have given me.

 

Love Elder Smith

PS I need Stetson's address.

Week #16- Christmas Messages

Monday, December 10, 2012

Hey!

 

It sounds like everything is going good in Salmon. That's good that Derek's team is winning and that he is playing well. Tayler is going on a cruise? Where? That's really cool! I'm glad that Olivia had a good birthday. Did she have any friends come over or was it just a family thing? That's great that you have a little family getting baptized. I hope that the missionaries keep it up in Salmon! This was another good week. We are starting to get pretty busy. This week we found 5 new investigators and we have a lot of potentials for this coming week. We are teaching this one house that has 9 people in it, but we are only teaching 3 of them. We hope that the other 6 will come and listen today when we teach the three. All we can do is invite them; it's their decision to listen or not to listen. That's the hardest part sometimes, you just want to make them come listen. We found a new investigator yesterday and his name is Arturo. He is really cool and he seemed to be really excited to listen to us again. One thing we have been doing is knocking on doors and asking if they would like to hear a Christmas messsage about Christ. It's been working really well. I love Christmas!! And after we share a Christmas message almost all of the people have invited us back to teach them. All it takes is one lesson where they can feel the spirit and learn that us Mormon guys are just like them, and we're not too weird. That's one thing I have tried working on is relaxing when I talk in Spanish. When you're relaxed, they're relaxed, and it makes everything go better! It's been a good week. Another thing we have started doing is Insanity. It's a DVD workout and a member in the ward does it with us every morning. He has all the different DVDs for it. It's pretty hard and it keeps me in shape which is really good. We wake up at 5:30 and we work out tell about 6:45, it's pretty insane. I like it. Well, got to go. I hope you have a good week.

Love Elder Smith

Week #15- Investigators, Food, and Fun

Monday, December 3, 2012

Hola!

 

Things here have been speeding up. This week has definitely been the most busy. We taught more lessons and got more investigators this week than any other week, and we got someone to commit to a baptismal date. That was exciting! I hope everything works out with her, and she keeps that desire to be baptized. With the good, you also have the bad. We had to drop an investigator this week because she wasn't progressing. It was really sad. I hope I don't have to do that anymore on my mission. If they would just do what Moroni said (Moroni 10 verses 3-5), we wouldn't have to drop them. It's been raining a lot here. The rain is your worst nightmare when you have to bike everywhere you go, but biking has been a great blessing. I can already feel my left knee getting stronger. Our Heavenly Father definitely knows what's best for us and where we need to be. Slowly but surely my Spanish is getting better! I finished my first transfer and I'm staying with my companion and in the same area. I love Pomona. The ward is really nice and always willing to help. Where I'm serving is pretty poor, and it's not a super clean place, but there are some rich places. The rich part of Pomona is where the sister missionaries serve. Most families live in tiny apartments with 1 room and 1 bathroom but there are some that rent just a room out in someone's house. It just depends if they have a job or not. You always see people collecting plastic bottles out of trash cans because that's the only way they can get money. It's super hard for people to find jobs right now. We don't eat out a lot. I usually do my own cooking for lunch, and dinner we usually have somewhere to eat. Whenever I eat at member's houses or investigator's houses, you plan on beans, rice, tortillas, and eggs-that's definitely what I have eaten the most. Their beans and rice and tortillas are not the same as the ones we had at home. I don't know if I feel like I'm in a different country, but I have been thrown into a completely different culture. When you walk the street most the people on the street speak Spanish, but you still have a little English. It is definitely different. Dodge ball went well. We had 6 kids that weren't members and 3 of them are now getting taught by the missionaries. There was also a lot of youth in the ward that showed up. I wish I would have been better at inviting my friends to activities. It really does help. Just inviting your friend is an easy way to do missionary work and it can be effective. It's been a good week.

Love Elder Smith

Week #14-Thanksgiving

Monday, November 26, 2012

Hey!

 

It's been a good week. We are starting to get busier, and we already have more appointments planned for this next week than we have ever had. I'm really excited! We got two new investigators this week and we have a lesson with them tomorrow. I'm kind of nervous because the first lesson we had with them I couldn't understand much. They're from El Salvador so they always throw in words that only people from El Salvador know. They also use a lot of slang so its really hard to understand them. I'm surprised how many people I have met from other places. I thought most the people I would talk to would be from Mexico but that is not the case. Most are from Mexico but not all. I am starting to understand the language a lot better. I'm having some conversations with members and less actives, and I kind of know what they are saying when they talk. They try to keep it pretty simple for me whitch makes it nice. For Thanksgiving this year we had 2 appointments, one at 4 and one at 6. They were great. It was very nice of them to invite us to be a part of their family for a day. I ate way too much food. I've come to the conclusion that they think missionaries can't get full so they keep throwing food on your plate. It's such good food but its so hard to eat it all because they give you so much. Thank goodness for my bike. :) There was not a turkey bowl. It's kind of sad not even soccer, but that's ok, we were pretty busy. I did get Grandma's card so tell her thank you for me. I'm going to try writing her. I don't think I will have time this P-day because President told all the missionaries that they were going to clean their apartments so that will probably be an all day project. Last Friday we had a mission conference, and this one guy from BYU talked to us, I forget his name. I have it written down in my notes. He gave a great talk. He talked about the 12 tribes of Israel and how it fits in with missionary work. I learned a lot. It's been a pretty good week. I can't wait to here how Derek's first game is going to go. What does Derek say? Does he think they are going to have a good team? I can't believe Jake is home. That's cool that Joey gets to see him before he leaves. I have not got a letter from Stetson yet. Oh, and I can e mail other people now if you want to tell them. My Mission President said as long as I email home and him, I can e mail friends and family. So tell Stetson he can email me, and I can respond back.

 

Well I am thankfull for all of you, and I hope you have a great week. Oh, tell people not to send letters to the mission home anymore. Send letters to:

615 N. Erie St apt#209

Pamona CA, (sorry, I don't know the zip, but its online)

Every time I get transfered I will have to tell you my new address so people can write to me.

Are you forwarding this to Hallie Procsh? Thank you. I'm trying to write her too, but it will probably be next week. Today is pretty busy with cleaning and everything.

Love Elder Ryan Smith

Week #13-Investigators and Tim Tam Slams

Monday, November 19, 2012

Hey!

 

It's been a good week, and I can't believe its already another P-day. The weeks go super fast. It sounds like you guys are staying busy also which is really good. It's nice when you are busy. I hope Blake starts feeling better! It would stink to not be able to breathe and have surgery again. That's not fun! Derek made the team-that's good. Hopefully, they can get something to work for them this year. Did Jordan not try out? Derek will have a good season. I don't think they will be able to have him ever leave the game. That's good that Jedd came out this year, that will really help a lot. Are you going anywhere for Thanksgiving this year or are you staying home? This week was another slow week. We didn't have too many lessons. Hopefully things can pick up. We are working hard and being obedient so I know things will start to pick up; it just takes time. We have a lot of appointments with less actives this week so hopefully we can get some names from them. It was a good Sunday though. We had 3 investigators at church on Sunday and a less active family and a less active sister at church. That was cool and kept us busy. Our three investigators that were at church really want to get baptized. A mom and her 2 oldest sons are old enough to get baptized. There are also 2 other sons who are not old enough yet. The boyfriend and father won't let them though. We are hoping something happens. I don't know what but hopefully something good. They really want to. They come to church every week. We had some good lessons with them this week. On Saturday it was a rainy day. We got really wet it was horrible! We taught the familia Canarae (that's the family that wants to get baptized) that day so I thought it would be fun to have tim tam slams before our lesson since it was a yucky day! They really enjoyed that. I got pictures of them; it was a lot of fun! I can't believe it-they think it's so cold, and it's so nice! All I wear is short sleeve shirts and people think we are crazy! but it's not cold. It doesn't feel like Christmas is coming up. There isn't any snow; it's weird! You know that sweater we bought for me? It's a sweater vest, so I have 2 sweater vests and I don't have a sweater which is ok. I don't need anything more than a sweater vest; it doesn't get cold enough. The dodge ball tourny isn't until the 1st of December. I think it will be good! We still have a couple weeks to get the youth excited for it. This week I had my first day away from my trainer and it was with another missionary who has only been out the same amount of time as me. It was Elder Trauntvein! It was weird. I really had to step it up because we were in my area, so I needed to know where everything was and do most of the talking. It went good. I found out that I know a little more than I thought, but I definitely still have a lot to work on. For Christmas if I could have some toothbrushes and toothpaste, a pad lock, maybe some candy and coolaid mix. That's all I really can think of and some money so I can send some stuff home. That would probably be good. I don't really know what I need.  Thanks for everything you have all done for me. I hope you have a great Thanksgiving.

Love Elder Ryan Smith

 

Can you send my e mails to jprox@centurytel.net for me? Thank you.