Hey everyone how’s it going? Sounds like everyone’s pretty busy up there haha! Glad to hear everyone enjoyed the 4th of July! Looks like a day of fun, fireworks, and pretty blonde girls. Atta boy Chan. As you probably noticed, I treated myself to Johnny Carinos, in memory of Mom! You’re welcome mom. haha! We ended up being there for about 2 hours, haha. We found this guy sitting next to us and taught him for about an hour. He was a lonely guy down from San Antonio and had nothing to do that night. And the waitress listened too haha! Not like any 4th of July I’ve every had!
I, as well, wanted to tell everyone hello, from grandparents, to friends, to Jay, to ward members, and everyone else! HI! Thanks family for the great pictures and your emails. You are the best! We don’t have a whole lot of time to email, but I’ll see how much I can do!
So this week was just super crazy. haha..I can’t believe that the Maluendas have already been here for a whole week! I really love their family! We started off the week well bringing the Maluendas to our baptism! We baptized this cute little girl named C. Uresti. We reactivated her family and it was a really special baptism. President Maluenda was super down because he's all about reactivation and we love to baptize so it worked out:) So good to have another great family back in the ward! They were definitely missed. So after that we had some refreshments with everyone there and then went to the Maluendas for a late night planning session. Then Monday morning, once again, we got up early to go to the mission home to teach him some stuff. They are SUPER fun to be around. Especially Hermana Maluenda. She is puro Spanish and is the sweetest lady ever! She's always so happy when we come over. It’s interesting running the ecclesiastical side of things with them because first off they don’t speak English. And second, they love to give us ALOT of responsibility. So it definitely has been a big change for us and we are a lot more busy.
So Monday afternoon we had a missionary go haywire and Elder Stevens and his comp had to drive the missionary up and then we had to deal with ‘said’ missionary who had about lost his mind. Unfortunately it was a medication malfunction and it was pretty ugly. Luckily it all buffed out. That night we went to eat with a member and to teach a referral (Emanuel) she had for us . It’s a super cool kid that we had brought to church last Sunday and came to the baptism too. He is about 24 and straight from Mexico. He's a super tight kid, but he accepted a BD and has been doing great.
Then Tuesday we had an office meeting and in the evening went and found a super cool family of 3 and set BD’s with them. I’ll keep you updated on their progress.
Wednesday we had Mission Leadership Council which took most the day.
Thursday we had Zone Conferences from 8 in the morning to 7 at night. Friday the same but in Brownsville and it was the craziest day ever. We were in the middle of giving a training and some people ran into the chapel calling for help. We ran out to see what had happen and this lady had walked into the foyer from outside. She was in hospital clothes and she was all bloody and shaking and was bawling and super jumpy. She was begging for water so we got her water and me, Elder Munsey, Elder Stevens and Hermana Maluenda sent all the missionaries back into the chapel. We got her water and some food but she was so scared and couldn't stop crying so we calmed her down and gave her a blessing. After that she stopped crying and began to explain that she was at a shelter and they took her clothes and beat her and kicked her out on the street. We got her some attention and got her cleaned up and found a friend of hers that lived in town and got her a place to stay. Then we made some calls about the shelter. It was a super wild day. Afterwards we went out to Chick-fil-a with the whole zone to try to end on a good note haha!! It was super funny! I’ll try to send a picture. But besides that everything is great!
We don’t have a baptism this Sunday, unfortunately, but the 14th we have a part member girl named Sarah. She's about 25 years old and we've been helping her parents come back to church.
I actually wanted to share that story with you all to finish up. Hopefully I didn't already tell it. But I was on exchanges with Elder Martinez (a zone leader up in Robstown) and our plans fell through so we decided to pray and after the prayer we felt inspired to go by this less active’s home. We went by and just said, "Listen brother, we need your help. God told us to come by and we know you have someone that’s ready for us." He looked around and said, "Don’t tell my wife I told you, but her daughter lives a few blocks away and I think she might be ready, my wife doesn't think so." So we went...knocked..she answered....within 5 minutes she was crying and told us that 2 days earlier she prayed to God for the first time in years and asked him to send help. And He sent it!
I LOVE member work! It’s the best! I love you all and hope you have a great week! Be safe!
Love - Elder Smith
