"the Gospel truely brings change into lives"

Date: Mon, Sep 3, 2012 at 6:57 AM

Thanks for the pictures Dad! The picture of Nat looks like she doesn't have an arm! And I haven't heard much about the news here. People will ask if I like Obama or something like that but not too much. One investigator turned on the tv and the headline said, ''Romney's big speech'' and I really wanted to hear about it but I told him we can't watch tv, I wanted to hear about it so bad! Will I be able to vote? Nice picture of Duffy, I miss the ward!

Well I will start with a funny story. I went on splits this week with one of the zone leaders. At the start of the day on our way to lunch I felt my waistband loosen. I looked down and my belt had broken! The leather like ripped inside of the buckle part. I quickly put it into my backpack and thought no one would notice. After lunch my zone leader asked, did you forget a belt today? And I showed him what happened. It was pretty funny but now I will have to try and fix it. I have a spare but I like to only use it for special occasions.

One of our investigators Damião, is a blind man, but very cool. This week when we were talking about the ten commandments, we were talking about the second one. It says that we shouldn't make graven images or use graven images or something like that, and he said something like '' don't worry I can't see them anyway'' also one time someone asked if he was seeing the video that was a playing at an activity (they were just joking around and knew he wouldn't take it seriously) and he said that it is hard to see at night because it's dark. He loves joking around and always likes to laugh and have fun. He is great. He was baptized by one of his friends in the ward, it was pretty cool.

Cibele showed amazing faith this week. She had so much go wrong. We told her that the week of her baptism would be the hardest, she didn't believe us. She told us though that her week was worse than she could've thought. But she kept on going and she was baptized yesterday, it was awesome! Such a spiritual meeting.

This week I fasted for an investigator to be able to stop smoking. We talked to him Friday that he needs to stop. He has been slowly decreasing and was only at like part of one cigarette each day by this time. We said now he needs to stop completely. When we passed by sunday he had been two days without smoking. What a miracle! After 30 years of smoking, the Gospel truely brings change into lives. This same family already brought some of their family to visit the church yesterday. They are awesome. We have been working with them for awhile and their baptism is marked for this Saturday!  

We are trying to keep the work moving forward here in Geisel-João Pessoa. There is always so much work to do. Yesterday we had a great Stake Conference. My mission president was there and also a member of the Area Seventy. I learned alot about fulfilling our callings and supporting our leaders. When we do these things the Church grows and serves it's purpose of helping God's children obtain eternal life. 

I love you all and miss you! Hope all is going well at home! Thanks for the updates, there are awesome!

Love, 
Elder Smith