"with every trial, I know there is a reward"

Date: Mon, Jul 16, 2012 at 7:22 AM

Opa!

Andrea and Abe are moving?! That's awesome! I feel way excited and I won't even be there! When are they moving? Will they live in U.P.? Is this job going to last a while or is it just temporary? Sounds like things are going great over there in the States. Congrats to Laurel as well with the internship. I met a graphic designer on the street the other day. I told him about how my sister does the same stuff, it's cool when you can relate to people like that.

Well Brazil is.. Brazil! The language is coming along well, my next step I think is to try and lose my accent. I slowly am beggining to pick up smaller details as I liten to Brazilians talk. It is almost weird to hear English now. There is one American in our house and it is almost impossible to talk only english to him, we always break our in portuiguese or just talk portuguese all together. The gift of tongues is real! I was thinking the other day how it could be that I am sitting here in Brasil teaching the Gospel and carrying on conversations, when less than 5 months ago I was struggling to pronounce the name of my mission!

Well I usually write down a few things during the week to make sure I include in the email, here are a few.

Happy 7-11 day! I know it's late but when the 11th rolled around I just had to think of a nice slurpee. So sad that there are no 7-11's here but that's okay. 

We started teaching the first lesson to members this week as a way of finding new investigators and strengthening members. It has worked really well. We will teach the first lesson about the restoration, and then we turn the lesson over to the members and they have to teach us about the Book of Mormon and invite us to read it. It has been so awesome seeing the testimonies of our members. Then we invite them to invite one of their friends to read the Book of Mormon or talk to about the Gospel or invite the missionaries over. We have a family night tonight with a member and their neighbor's, I'm pretty excited. 

Also, we have started a family night every thursday at the chapel as a way to help members, less-actives, and non-members create friendships and be strengthened spiritually. Last week it rained but we still had 29 people and 3 investigators. It was so humbling to see how far some of the people walked in the rain just to be there for an hour. The family of our bishop lives about 20-25 min away by walking and the Bishop's wife and four kids all came under their umbrella's, I love these people. We went to pick up a less-active and he drove us there in his car. While he was driving, honking at everyone he knew (which was alot), he looks over at me and asks if I know how to drive. At the same time he was staring at me and asked me the question, I was watching the road as he almost hit a few pedestrians! I simply replied ''yes''. In my mind my response was more like, ''YA!!! DO YOU?!?!?!''. 

During a lesson this week with a man named Sandro, some cool things happened. We asked him who could pray to start and he said, ''I will''. During his prayer we had to help him a little. He is catholic and only really knows one of their prayers (it is a recited prayer). During the lesson we talked about sacrificing and Marcello, a recent-convert, told a story about how he turned down a 200$ haircut because it was sunday. (Marcello cuts hair) And now he says everyone knows he won't cut hair sunday and so the just ask him to do it other days. And at the end of the lesson, we asked Sandro again who would give the closing prayer, and he offered again! He is a funny guy. Another funny story about him, we invitied him to the family night but he said he didn't have a big enough umbrella. So I gave him mine and said he had to bring it back tonight at family night, sure enough he came! 

Well I love you all very much! So cool to hear about the great things happening over there. I have so much I could tell you all every week, so many miracles that happen here. Yes there are many trials, but the rewards outway the trials. And with every trial, I know there is a reward. Whether the reward be for me or another of God's children, there is a reward. 

I hope you all have a great week and I love you all very much! Thanks for you prayers and support, I am so grateful for all that I have. 

-Isaac Theodore Smith

P.S. A sister in the ward gave me this Harry Potter book, I told I can't read it on my mission but she still wanted me to have it to read after the mission. Pretty cool!