Week 11- First Baptism

Elder Smart, Allegandra, Augustina, Elder Black

April 18, 2011


Hello family, after we talked I got on the plane for my 9 hour plane ride. I didn´t sleep much but in the morning right before we landed I saw one of the most pretty sunsets ever. Then I got off the plane and we had to get on this little shuttle and we all didn´t fit on it so me and 4 elders, I didn´t know got in some little tiny car to drive to the mission home. We got there in 5 hours and the shuttle that i almost got on, got lost and arrived 3 ½ hours after we did. It was way lucky for me! Then we had interviews and spent the night there. We woke up the next morning and played some futbol and me being the big white kid got picked last haha but i held my own. Then in the afternoon I met my companion, Elder Black. He is from Idaho and everyone told me even before I met him that he was the best at speaking Spanish, in the whole field out of the shanky missionaries. (shanky=American) He is really cool and talks way fast. We then got on a bus for 9 hours to go to our area of Federal and it is pronounced Feder-all, not Federal like a prison. I already made that mistake. The buses here are so sweet and nice, they all have like lazy boys on them it is nice. We arrived at our pench as they are called at about 11:00 and Elder Black said it is a nicer pench than other missionaries have. To me it is ghetto and not really clean. My area is just full of poverty. It is like a combination of country and city. There are dogs everywhere and I mean everywhere. Most of them are nice, some bark but never bite, but once my companion said I almost got bit but I barely dogged it. It is crazy, everyone here wears “Toms” and here it is almost a symbol that you are poor. In the states rich people wear them. Me and Elder Black are the only missionaries here, within about two hours and I am not sure where Elder Winger is exactly? (MTC Comp) On Thursday we taught Allegandra and her daughter Augustina and we asked them to be baptized and they agreed. All I can do is bare my testimony, but Elder Black is a good teacher. He is the only person I speak English to and he translates stuff sometimes because people talk so fast. Well then on Saturday we had the baptism and it was cool. I got to baptize them I had to memorize the blessing in Spanish and now I will never forget it. On Sunday it rained really hard and people kind of used it as an excuse not to come to church and the streets are empty. So it feels like I am playing Call of Duty or something with the dogs everywhere. Since there wasn´t a lot of people in church it was good for me because I had to give a talk. I think people understood me haha. Elder Black said that he hasn´t really done service a lot because no one understands really that we don´t want to be paid or anything. I told him we need to find people and there is a member who is going to have a baby soon and we are making her a crib and the Dad of the girl having the baby invited us over for a BBQ! I am excited because all we eat at the pench is hot dogs, pasta, rice, and cereal. We are gonna shop today. (Dad) People give us fruit sometimes and yesterday we got a huge bag of oranges. They were the best I have ever had in my life!
I am sending some pictures and I will write again soon.

Love, Elder Smart!!

I will call you on Mothers day don´t worry :)

I also met Elder Hanson who went to Brighton. I can´t remember if you told me about him? I love you!