Hey party animals! You guys gotta stay outta the sun! It seems like that’s all you do anymore!!! haha Just kidding I’m super happy you get to have some relax time from work and school and the strenuous dating schedules some of you are on. HAHA! Thank you all for your emails and the pictures! I’m glad you got to fly the Texas flag for my one year. WE had a fun time here. Thank you to Chan and Kenzie for their emails. You guys are the best! Man, so there is so much to tell you all.
I’ll start with Robstown. Robstown is like the Ghetto Gotham city of Texas haha! A lot of missionaries say its the worst of one of the worst in the whole mission. A lot of.....things of the world around and lots of temptations all over. A tough place to raise kids for sure. It’s a super poor place as well and we cover a lot of country area about 15 to 20 miles each way of Robstown. Our zone is super spread out. Everyone lives like an hour or more away from us, except for one other companionship that lives in our apartment. We are surrounded by fields and I don’t think the sun has shined since I got here. It’s actually been pretty chilly. There’s like no Spanish here and I am always looking for people that speak it. I’m super worried about maintaining it and I may leave hear saying y'all. Its pretty "Texas". This week it has kept me on my toes. I’ll tell you a funny story at the end.
My companion’s name is Elder Porter from Ogden. He is a STUD! haha We have a ton of fun together and it’s a super new thing to be with a companion that knows what’s going on. It’s super cool and we had an awesome week. He's a tall kid. Like 6’ 4” and is hilarious. I’ll send you a picture soon. But all is well here in Robstown.
We have a bunch of great peeps that we are working with, one of which is getting baptized next sunday. As well we are teaching a family of 4, but the problem is, there’s 2 moms. They are both sooo sweet and we are working hard to help them be baptized. As well, we found a "great" lady on Thursday that was so sweet and we set BD’s with her and her 2 kids. The next day we came and she had bought us doughnuts and was just loving us, at first. We had brought a young couple with us and we prepped them for the lesson. But I guess we didn't realize how strong Catholic this investigator was, because we started teaching about how we shouldn't pray to saints and she got pretty upset. And the member would not leave it alone. He just kept harping on it and she began to raise her voice and the member raised his as well. He was just trying to relate to her, but she felt pretty offended. We kept jumping in but they were going at it and the wife of the member (who hadn't said a word the whole time) just shot Elder Porter the "Holy Crap" look and the investigator saw it and freaked. She asked "IS SOMETHING FUNNY?" And the sweet little member’s like “no...” and then the investigator just starts screaming "YOU THINK THIS IS FUNNY?? GET OUT OF MY HOUSE!!! And just flies off the handle. There was screaming and crying and me and Elder Porter are trying to hold it together but it got bad. She screamed at them until they left and they she kept telling us to leave. We stayed by the door and tried to apologize, but it didn't work to well. She wasn't mad at us, but was furious at the member. It was crazy. We felt soo bad and apologized to the members and she was just out in the car bawling. She is just a super innocent, sweet lady and it broke her heart. We felt super bad.
And all Elder Porter could say was, “WELCOME TO ROBSTOWN” haha. It has been a wild week but I love it here. It’s keeping me busy and on my toes. But as well there hasn't been much time where we haven't been smiling. It’s funny how happy you can be in such a sad place. We've seen it in the members as well. The gospel just makes us happy. What a blessing.
Well I hope you have fun in Mexico. Don’t get stung by stingrays of scammed by the beach venders. They’re sly as a fox. Haha I love you all! Be SAFE and have fun!! BYEEE!
Elder Smith
