September 2, 2016 - It was so AWESOME!

Holla amigos y familia, 

Things here at the Provo MTC are just dandy!  I have already seen Elder Brodie Brown, Elder Josh Augenbaugh, Elder Jake Theriault, Elder Austin Simkins from BYU, Elder Jake Cottle from EFY last year, and so many other people I know. 

So my district is LEGIT. Mi companero es Elder Ibarra, he's half Mexican, but he looks como un gringo, you'd never know without the last name - jaja.  He's from Salinas, California and going to Richmond Virginia, and he's seriously cool!  We get along great, we laugh our heads off cada noche!  Our district leader is Elder Lundquist, straight outta TEMECULA, California, home of Cameron Carpenter (holla at ya boiiiiiiiiii!) So yea, he knows good ole Carp and Jonathan Segura also!  I love all the Elders en nuestro districto!  Mom remember that one future Elder going to Chihuahua, Mexico at missionary mall?  Well, HE'S IN MY DISTRICT!!!!  What a coincidence! His name is Elder Ramon and he's an OG. Anyways, the food here is bomb, all you can eat por dias! People say you get sick of it, so we'll see over the next 5 and a half weeks. (I apologize this keyboard does not allow me to put question marks or apostrophes) 

The Spanish es muy bien! It all came back super quick and I have continued to learn a lot, el don de lenguas es verdadera!  This place is seriously the coolest!  You get to hang out all day with people your age, feel the Spirit and learn so much, and also we played bball este manana, Elder Cottle and I balled these nillas up!  Seriously, this is so cool!  

I'm doing alright with the homesickness and trunkyness, not really too bad at all! I miss y'all but when you go to work and invest yourself, you begin to lose yourself - which is totally sweet! 

So today I taught mi primer lesson, EN ESPANOL! It was super scary at first, but I was tan emocionado! Nuestro investigadora se llamada Sophia. She is so sweet and kind I wanted to give her the biggest hug (but I refrained, don't worry!)😋 Her familia es de Mexico, but she is from Cali and speaks ok English. She goes to BYU and wants to know more about our church. Her family is Catholic, but she has drifted from that and doesn't know if God exists, but she said she wants to know, so I was like BOOM!  And whipped out Moroni 10:4 and shared Moroni's promise! You could tell she felt the Spirit! I then bore testimony of my conversion and then promised her that if she read El Libro de Mormon and prayed and asked Dios if it was true, that she would know for herself!  I then gave her my own Spanish Book of Mormon and Elder Ibarra and I wrote nuestros testimonios en el libro. It was soooooooooo awesome! This church es verdad ladies and gents, yo se esto!!!!!

Hope y'all have a great week, know I love ya!😍

PS... my Pday will be Tuesday so I'll email ya then!

Elder Smalley