Monday, October 3, 2011

Last Drive to Share the Gospel


Family and Others who will be reading these letters for the next 7 weeks,
Wow this week was pretty awesome with General Conference. We truly heard some amazing talks by inspired and wonderful leaders of the church. And I was pretty sad when it was over because it’s my last conference as a missionary. This conference was actually pretty crazy because on Saturday morning they weren’t able to get the conference in English, so we went to President Galvez’s house and I got to watch the morning and afternoon sessions on a huge flat screen while sitting on a really comfy sofa so that was pretty nice. Also since we were at President’s house, we got to eat there too instead of going to KFC and Hermana Galvez always has the best food. For the Priesthood session we watched it in Spanish, but it was still pretty good and right now I am putting it on my Ipod in English so I will listen to it again tonight.
After the Priesthood session President took all us missionaries out for ice cream at Pops so that was awesome too. For the Sunday sessions they finally got it working in English at the church so that was amazing. Also there are two girls from Bountiful that are here in Costa Rica for a few months with some humanitarian thing so they were there too and actually they are the first non missionaries that I have seen from Utah in almost two years so that got me thinking about home. So all in all it was an awesome conference and I loved basically every talk and even though it got me excited for home, it gave me a super huge AMINO BOOST TO FINISH THE MISSION STRONG!!!!
Also last week we had an awesome Zone Conference with President and the AP’s. We talked a lot about how to make better plans and execute on the plans that we make and that was the subject of one of the conference talks (don’t remember who, but is was good). As a zone we are going to have a competition this month. We all brought ties and we wrote what personal goals we have for the month of October. Then we tied our ties to a ¨Title of Liberty¨ and so every time we contact a family or put a baptismal goal or baptize someone, we get to put a hole in our tie and whichever companionship has the most holes at the end of the month wins and gets a free dinner from the ZLs and President. So that will be a fun competition.
We are teaching 3 families right now. We are still working hard with Diego, Mayela and their family. We just need about 3 more weeks for all the divorce papers to finish and then they can get married and baptized. Also we are teaching a family, Juancarlos and Mireza. They are super cool, but they need to get married and Juancarlos is a little reluctant, but last lesson we left the family proclamation and committed them to read it together and pray to know if they need to be married. Also we are teaching the boyfriend of a recent convert, Marlen. His name is Carlos and they really want to get married and we are going to put a baptismal goal with him this week.
It was kind of sad this week though because a couple weeks before conference, I always like to share the story of King Benjamin talking to his people from his tower, because it’s kind of like the first General Conference ever. I basically teach this lesson to everyone--members, recent converts, less actives and investigators in order to get them excited for conference and this will be the last time that I can teach it. Actually, the last people we taught it to were Diego, Mayla and their family and for me it was a little sad, but oh well.
So I am doing really well and oh, I forgot to tell you that with the money that I have pulled out in the last little while, it has gone to help members get new scriptures, Liahona subscriptions, hymn books (because there aren’t any ward supply and so everyone basically has to bring their own) and stuff like that. There are a couple members that work in the temple and when they go, I ask them to get stuff for converts, and less actives so hopefully that is okay.
Well I hope you all have an awesome week and I can’t wait to write you again!!!!
Love, Elder Smith