Week 48 (April 17, 2017)

My new companion and little Anne :) Happy Easter Sunday!

Rauls Baptism

Hermana Parra and I went to this cute restaurant last week for lunch and we actually ate sandwiches for lunch (grilled cheese and ham!) which like never happens and strawberry orange juice that was delicious. My stomach was happy (as Hermana Parra always says :) )

Well, First off, Happy Easter yesterday!!! I hope everyone could have some fun with the family and celebrate the resurection of Jesus Christ and focus on his atonement this holiday.  Here in Peru, Easter (Pascua) doesnt really exist. In church they talked about the atonement, but it was also fast sunday, due to general then stake conferences.  And no one had cute decorations or anything. It was like it was just a regular sunday! which was a little disapointing, but to celebrate my comp and I are going to attempt to color eggs today for pday.. we will see how that goes. haha 

But dont you worry, Easter is not about eggs, and bunnies and candy, and family, its about remembering christ and remembering his sacrifice and his atonement for us! And I am SOOOOOO greatful beyond words for the sacrifice he gave to me, and to you and to all of us.  Thanks to him we can become clean and repent of our sins! and we can one day return and live in the presence of god in a perfect state! Happy and live with our families forever!! and so for that, this year and a half I am away, missing all the holidays, if christ did that for me, I can do this for him in an instant. This work is not easy, but I loved what a return missionary in our ward said: ''This is not the best to years OF your life, but this is the best 2 years FOR your life. ''  and it is absolutely true. I am learning things that I never would have been able to learn on my own in my house. And I know that all our efforts will not be wasteda and if you are serving others, you are serving god, who will BLESS you beyond belief.

This week was Transfers!!! And my comp moved to the other side of the mission in Wiesse, (by my old zone!) and the comp in her new area came here. so they basically switched places!! but my new comp is Hermana Plaza, from Colombia! and just finished her 12 week training, so she has been in the mission about 4 months with the MTC. She is 19 And she is amazing! and I am excited for what this transfer will bring! my first comp who is younger than me, and so far all my comps have been from a different country!! Ecuador, Mexico,  Paraguay, Peru, Argentina, and now Colombia! how cool is that!

Also, this saturday, (2 days ago) Raul got baptized!! which was amazing but when sunday morning at 8 am came around for sacrament meeting to be confirmed, he didnt show!!! his phone was dead and so we could not contact him. But we stopped by later and he said that he had been helping his friend (carlos) out with cooking something for a project he was working on. They are called Apollados, where you make food and then sell it for really expensive and people by it out of charity. its really interesting. But he feels bad and will be confirmed this next sunday. 

We also had a training for my comp this week with president for all the people who just finished there 12 weeks, and it was amazing as always. I love our mission president!!! he is the best.

I hope you all had a wonderful spiritual fun easter sunday, and know that I know this church is true and that this gospel brings so many blessings if we are obedient and happiness!!

I love you all,

Love Hna Smoot