Wk 47 - last week of transfers

Companion: Elder Copling
Area: Talchuano

the view from the church and i am with luis who is 18 yrs. and preparing for a mission.
he works with us like every week!by the way that is the ocean in the distance you see

chileno peso

view of the ocean at night

sounds like the fam is doing well!! congrats taytor! keep hitting bombs my man!

it is crazy how time flys by! i love it how the gospel in our lives can bring us the most happiness of it all though. we had our investigator that we felt wasnt quite ready to be baptized yet this past week so carlos will be baptized this next week so he understands the importance of some commandments. he has good desires its just it is hard for him to understand at times. but all will be good!!!

I am just loving the mission. i swear this week went by soooo fast. this past week we had stake conference so it was sweet. our mission president spoke in all of them and we had a seventy that came and spoke. elder urra the seventy talked about the sabbath day and how important it is. the sabbath day really is a gift to us from our heavenly father. he was a very powerful speaker and i loved his talk. 

they talked about tithing and how that is a way God tests our faith. it was a wonderful session. another thing elder urra talked about is why we go to church and how we should prepare ourselves to go. he said if we dont go to church with the question how am i going to improve this week we could be wasting some time while we sit in church. 

it was a powerful talk and the conference that we had with the mission with dallin h. oaks where he said that the church is going to focus more on the sabbath day for the next year. i was thinking how i could sanctify sunday more. i thought about it and i realized i did some things on sunday before the mission that were things in the grey area. with all the elders in our house we all promised to never ever again watch the super bowl on sunday. although it was hard for me to do i made the the promise too. there are many ways that we can sanctify the sabbath day and i just want you guys to find something that we can to better to keep the sabbath day holy.

i love you guys and i hope you have a wonderful week!!!!

elder smoot

Wk 46 - A Sea Lion kinda week

Companion: Elder Copling
Area: Talchuano

my trainer is now my zone leader and i had splits with him

looking at all the sea lions

These pics i took this morning and it was awesome to go out on the edge of the ocean and see these sea lions making noise!! they were so big and fat! flippin gorditos! yeah it was pretty cool!! so this week i got a few stories that are pretty cool!

To start off on thursday we had zone conference and it was way good! they talked about having the faith to find people! so the president of the mission gets up and says so we are going to work on our faith right now!! so there was 2 zones there and he says we are going to ask 2 missionarys to go out on the street right now and bring a person in to teach. i was a little caught off guard and i got this feeling like oh boy i feel like he is going to say my name. sure enough he calls my name and my comp so we go out and the rest of the missionaries stayed and prayed on their knees that we could find someone! we also had 15 min to do it so no pressure right!? we go out and start talking to as many people as we could and at one point we were running to talk to some people and sure enough the last minute we found a young boy about 20 years old who agreed to come in the church and sit down in front of 40 ish missionaries and to receive a message. it was insane. i seriously felt like my adrenaline was pumping through my body like crazy. it was a cool story and the zone conference was sweet!

so here is the other story that happened yesterday. so we were knocking on doors and we see this house that was pretty nice and so we yell haaaallloooo!! thats how you do it here and a old guy walked out and he was pretty nice. he told us he was a jehovah witness and just so you know that when someone says they are a jehovah witness they always reject us. that is seriously what they teach in their church is to reject those mormons. but this guy let us in his house and we sat down and we shared a powerful message of the restoration with using the bible and he would ask a question and we would answer him with using the bible. we also bore powerful testimony of the restoration and i knew without a doubt that this guy had felt that it is true. i looked straight at him and said i know that you have felt the spirit during this time and he answered and said yes i have. the thing was is he is a pastor for his church i am sure because of how nice his house was. but still he said i am sorry but i cant accept this message and he said can you guys go now? we told him to finish with a prayer and told him to ask if the book of mormon is true. he said he would and during his prayer he didnt say anything about the book of mormon and we asked him why he didnt ask and he said i dont need this in my life and he finished up and we left. i know this guy didnt accept the gospel but i know he knows its true. maybe one day he will come around in the future. it was a powerful testimony strengthener for me.

it was a great week and it just reminded me of how blessed i really am. i love you guys and i hope you guys have a wonderful week. you guys are always in my prayers.

the house that i live in.

yes it is pretty nice. one of the nicest that i have had

where the other elders study and sleep

Wk 45 - Fishy Week

Companion: Elder Copling
Area: Talchuano

my comp fell asleep on the bus

so i guess ill tell you what happened this week. so it was thursday i think where we were contacting some people in the street and we start talking to this guy and we noticed he was really drunk and he just asked us for money. so my comp told him hey man we cant give you money im sorry and he said its ok but i have a present for you guys. so it kinda of caught me off guard and he took a fish out that was pretty big and stuck in my comps hands and i was laughing and he looked and me and i was like no man im good dont worry! haha he just said no its for you and i thought crap i dont want to put that in my hand! he took out another fish and stuck it in my hand too. he also gave us some other sea food that i have no idea what it was like a clam and some other thing. anyway we took some pics and gave the fish to an investigator and we washed our hands at her house too. haha it was pretty funny. 

i got another story that happened yesterday. after church we went to lunch and we had an asado or a bbq. i ate so much meat and it was way good too!! we go back to the house for weekly planning and i start feeling kinda sick in the stomach and i go to the bathroom a few times and i thought yeah now its time to work so i am going to work. the thing is i had dirahria(however you spell that) and i left to work and we got not too far from the house and i stopped and looked at my comp and i told him bro we got to go back to the house. yep it really happened. i told myself before the mission that i would never let that happen to me but it definitely happened! i still kinda feel sick but i will be all right. 

I really am enjoying my time here though. our investigator that had a baptism date for the 18th fell because he came to church and he told us hey guys i am bored. i am going to leave and we bore our testimonies and told him he wouldnt be able to be baptized this week if he didnt stay at church. he understood and still left. we were so confused. we think it was because the members didnt really make him feel too welcome but we are not sure. we will have to go talk to carlos to see whats up. i was way frustrated yesterday but there is nothing you can do. 

i love this work and i know at times it is hard and frustrating i just think jesus had it worse.

i hope you all have a great week!!! love you all!!

elder smoot

Wk 44 - Conferencia General

Companion: Elder Copling
Area: Talcahuano

the church where i am at in the night time.
 it is cool that our church you can see from far away because it is on a tall hill.
it just sucks walking to it! haha

i felt like i was in heaven eating this sandwhich

 conferenvce was awesome and i loved it. i watched it in english because i like to listen to their actual voices

I just got say that conference was sweet!!! i cant wait to go over my notes and see what more i can learn. It was so funny how a lot talked about getting married and so image a room full of missionarys listening to that over and over again. it was pretty funny. i was thinking to myself like nah im good!! haha but looks like jenna and matt are on that so that's good!!

it sounds like the boys are doing good in baseball!! its way good to hear and i am so happy for them. 

I cant tell you how many times i felt the spirit so strongly in general conference. it was so surprising how i could focus so well. mom you know me i can't focus very well but it seemed like each talk was flippin awesome!

Something about our sector is en los cerros which is the hills where it is really high up. so at times when we have clouds the clouds are right on us so it is like we are walking through clouds. the past couple of days i have been able to feel the water in the air and it is so cool i love it. here in chile in the winter it just rains. it hasnt rained yet too hard but im sure it will! i cant wait for the rain. i know this sounds weird but i love it when it rains!

i have to say in general conference when they said rulon stacey i was like hey thats my uncle! it was cool! and about brigham i am proud of that kid and i know he will be a diligent missionary! that is a sweet mission! 

i do love this missionary work so much. i love talking to random people in the street and just cracking a joke with them and be like hey is it cool if we come by to share this message! i have no idea how but i love doing it!! 

i love this gospel. i have witnessed the book of mormon change peoples life including mine. i know if we have that eternal perspective like they talked about in general conference we can find peace in this life.

i love you all and have a great week.

elder smoot

random questions: 

* it looks like the city you are in now had a huge earthquake/tsunamy in 2010? Do you see the remains of it still?

 yeah it did but i am in the hills where a tsunamy wouldnt touch me. nothing huge that i have seen but you can see some old houses still that past through that but not too much

*does Chile celebrate Easter? 

yeah they do but it isnt as big.

*is it cooler by the ocean? 

well we are going into winter so yes it is cooler. i love it. i have to wear my sweater

*do you ever eat anything strange?

i have eaten a lot of fish here. i have eaten fried fish a lot and it is good actually