Stoked for General Conference

Hey THERE!
First off, I didnt forget about your birthday mom I just forget to tell you....I was trying to remind myself to tell you all week and then the day came and I realized I never said happy birthday to you. so.....HAPPY BIRTHDAY you old fart!! Haha... Oh and that’s super sick that you went to a Bon Jovi concert too. You really are in love with him aren’t you!

It is really hard to write letters up here, but I will do what I can but I will definitely need some more envelopes. Sorry for asking for so many things by the way but I found more things I might need. I need more anti itch and some Neosporin. And another sharpie. And if I could get some pics of me before the mish, like football ones and other good ones, and I would like more photos of you guys too! And I need some more DVDs to burn my photos on too! And maybe some face cleanser....THANKS...

This week we actually found a little success. We organized the few investigators we have into lists and are figuring out how to be able to visit them more often and how to help them progress. We even put a fecha! It’s been a long time since that has happened here! However he didnt go to church, we stopped by his house in the morning and he wasn’t there so we will still see what happens with him in the future. But it is going better and we helped the branch figure out how to do home teaching a little bit. I hope that they will fulfill the things that we installed. Now we just need to work on the actual sacrament meeting portion of everything. So we are working hard and maybe we will see some success this change.

It’s been going great so far with Elder Tanner too. Its really hard teaching him Q'eqchi' and I really don’t know how to do it or know the language that well. But he has a great desire to learn the language and it's helping me figure out things to help him with. But we are working great together and the time goes fast working with him.

This week of work was so tiring. I forgot to wear my pedometer, but I am not joking when I say that we most likely hiked 50-60 miles this week! I have been up here for awhile and I was still super tired! So I can only imagine my companion being new up in the mountains and all. It’s getting really hot right now too. It’s starting to be the hottest part of the year and we don’t have fans to cool us down. So it’s really hot at night, hopefully we can figure something out like making fans or something. But that’s about it for the stories this week!

Well I hope you guys are stoked for General Conf. this weekend, cuz I am. We are watching it at Sacsuha, so I really hope I will be able to watch it in English because they will have a Q'eqchi' translation and a Spanish one going on. I hope there will still be enough room for us Americans to enjoy it in our own language as well.
Well I love you guys and pray that you have a great week!
Keep the Faith
Stay Strong
Love, Elder Jordan Smith

We are gonna be a great team

Hello there fam!
Well first off, about changes. I am with Elder David Allen Tanner. He is from Layton. He was in my district when I was back in Peten. He hits a year this Thursday so he is just one change behind me and he is super sweet!! So I am training right now pretty much! Just 3 changes ago I was learning this language and now as I am still learning it, I am teaching it! Super crazy! But it is going to be an awesome change with him. I am glad that I got a really good comp or else this 4th change in this area would have been really rough. But we are gonna be a great team and work hard and be able to work well together! I really can’t wait to see what the rest of this change brings for us. I sure hope I am able to do a sufficient job in teaching him and that we will find success together.

Oh and our new district is super sweet! I love all the elders in it! There is only one latino in it, so it might be rough for him since there are 7 of us gringos that are pretty tight together, but it’s going to be a fun time with the district.

So for my companion’s first day here we got mud thrown at us by some punk kids, so that was interesting to say the least. But we get that kind of stuff all the time here so we kind of just have to deal with it. Oh and when we got up here the power was out again, of course. But we are super pilas so we totally fixed it with our mad electrician skills! We fixed it with a knife too! Super legit. Haha! So we were able to have power for a branch baptism that we had. Which was super stressful by the way because President didn't show up, expecting us to do everything without letting us know. So we had to organize it all on the spot and figure out how to be able to have the interview by one of the counselors who we had to go find because they said they weren’t going to be able to come. It was super rough but we were able to pull it off.

Anyways, next, about my eyebrows….I just felt like doing it. I can’t believe you didnt notice it! I did it when I was still with Elder Howard! At least 2 months ago! Ha ha! Plus you know you love it!!

Thats super sick about March Madness! That would be so sick if BYU could make it to the final 4! And especially with the possibility of 2 MWC teams being there. We will get more respect points! Well I guess that doesn't matter too much for football since it's going independent and stuff, but still!!

Yeah I really need durable pants because these ones are so not holding up here. This place will destroy anything of quality. It’s insane. Hey if you send me some watermelon sour patch for some candy, that stuff is super good! I love chocolate but it gets ruined here so the regular candy is best. And if you can find a sweet fat, thick, polyester tie that would be nice too. Sorry I am asking for so many things, but thanks!

My thoughts on prayer are just do it. It’s that simple. There is 2 Ne 32:8-9 and Alma 37:37 and 3 Ne 18. Those are good scriptures for prayer.

Those are super cool stories about the missionaries in Japan. It is not only a tremendous blessing to us, His servants, but it is another little proof of who actually are His called servants.

Today we went to Rio Dulce, it is forever away and that is why I am writing so late. We went to the Zone Leader's house last night and we left at 2 in the morning to spend the day there visiting an old castle and stuff that is there. So that was fun, but now I am super tired from all the traveling. I will send some pics from it next week ok?

I love all you guys and I am always praying for you! Have a great week!
Keep the Faith, Kawaq lee paab'al
Stay Strong, Kawaq eerib'
Love, Nekexinra
Elder Jordan Smith, Laj Q'anjorin

Pictures of Training Meeting in Senahu!

by: Leslie Smith
We are so blessed that Hermana Torres is so diligent in documenting so much of their mission experience. Everything from zone conferences to apartment inspections. The following photos and captions were recently added to a slideshow on their mission blog (torreszion.blogspot.com) from the training conference held in Senahu for all the Senahu and Polochic missionaries on March 8, 2011. Thank you from the bottom of our hearts for capturing these special moments!

"Hungry Missionaries!"

"Very Hungry Missionaries!"

Very Happy Missionaries!

Missionary Training in Progress.

"Our wonderful missionaries in Senahu and Polochic....the best of the best!"

"Our Polochic missionaries are the "best" dressed in the mission. Here we have Elder "Daper Dan" Smith."

Just a little sidenote from home ~ those of you who know Jordan well, will recognize something dramatically different about him. The infamous "Uni" is no more! Dang! It's a sad day indeed! ;)

Mocca, Actela, and Senahu, but staying put in Santo Domingo

Hey there!!
Well for changes, I am going to be in my area for another change but I will have a new companion. So who knows what will happen with all that. Changes are always super stressful because you never know who will be your comp!!

Ok, Mom...I will call Hna Torres about my ear if I can’t go to a doctor here. But I will try this week for sure.

To answer your question, I think it would be great to have hair clippers too. But if you are going to buy one and it’s expensive, don’t. Because I don’t get a haircut very often, and its only 10 quetzales. I keep my my hair buzzed like this because of the crazy dust here. My hair turns gray if I keep it even a little long, it’s not too good. Its just way cleaner to keep it short. Have you even noticed anything else about my short hair on my head/face? Haha!(Everyone check out his pictures of a few weeks ago with Elder Bronson and with Elder Winkel....!!!! Leave a comment if you notice what's missing. We hadn't even noticed until he pointed it out. Sad day!) Oh and can you send some more pre wrap? That would be fantastic! And some athletic tape (just in case). THANKS!

Yeah the Philippines language is like an Asian language mixed with Spanish and English, it’s weird. Where is everyone else going again?? That’s super crazy that there are soooo many missionaries leaving from the ward. That is super cool!!

Just a few things from this end.
First off, a little story: We were walking down from Actela and there was a giant bee and a tarantula in the middle of the road. We thought they were fighting, but the tarantula was dead! The bee killed it and started dragging it! It dragged it like 50 meters into a hole. It was insane! I’m sad that I didnt have my camera on me for that so I guess you will have to believe me. It was crazy!

Oh just a quick little info of how much I walked on Friday this week.....10.41 miles and 23,016 steps! We went to Mocca again. We made the 5 mile hike in 2 hours! And I'm not even lying. The road/trail to get up there is practically straight up. It’s super steep. My legs were burning and I was sweating way bad. But it was a good trip. We didnt find too much success there but we were able to talk to the people we talked to last time and they are pretty interested, but it’s a long way to the church, so who knows what will happen with them.

Another thing that I found out this week is that there are numerous submerged Mayan cities that are being found! The ones that I know of are in Lake Amatitlan, Lake Atitlan, and Ayarza Lagoon. That is just so super cool and more proof of the Book of Mormon. Also a thing with the Q'eqchi' language. So in the bible it talks about Armageddon as Gog vs. Magog (translated into Good vs. Evil) In Q'eqchi' the words would be Us and Maaus. It is insane that the 'ma' is in both of these words. It shows even more proof of the truthfulness of the Book of Mormon. I love that there is physical proof along with the spiritual help that can testify to one of the truth that is contained in the Book of Mormon. I am so grateful to have that book and I know with all of my heart that prophets, inspired by God, wrote the words that are in that book.

Going up to Senahú was pretty sweet last week. It is BEAUTIFUL! The mountains are just insane; I hope to be able to go up there to serve one day. Oh and the weather is just super perfect there too. I will send you pictures of it later because this computer doesn’t have a thing to put my camera into for some reason.

Other then those few stories there really isn’t much that has happened. Just more moments of not finding success. Hopefully we will be able to find something here soon.
Well I love you all and I hope you have a great week!
Keep the Faith, Kawaq lee Paab'al
Stay Strong, Kawaq eerib'
Love Elder Smith

The Lord's hand is always in His work.

Yeah it is rough out here. But if we get too discouraged it just makes it harder. We really aren't having too much success and we haven’t had an investigator progressing or even in church for about a month now. But the branch is improving! We finally talked to President Agustin and I think he has more confidence in us and he changed everything that needed to be changed with church meetings and he even started the meeting on time. Hopefully we can continue to improve this branch and have the members help us out a little bit and we will start having success.

Yeah this area is really hard. We are persecuted pretty good too. There are people throwing rocks at the church all the time! At least it’s not like another hard area here called Canlun, where those rocks are thrown at the missionaries. But yeah, we do see our difficulties here. Hopefully we can find success. The thing is that in Santo Domingo, religion is very political and based on families. The people from our church are basically from 2 different families, the branch president's and the elder’s quorum president. So it is hard to get people to leave churches. So we are trying to work with the members to find more of those families and have them change their traditions, but it’s really hard. The most lessons with a member I have had in one week here is 3, and that is just because some kids in some families haven’t been baptized. I have only had one member actually go to one lesson with us ever in the area. So hopefully we can figure out how to motivate them to fulfill their callings as members. I do hope I see success soon though because it is wearing on me....

I haven’t done anything for my ear so far....But it really hasn’t bothered me too much. There is a hospital here in the Tinta. But I bet it is somewhat expensive. But if it starts bugging me I will check it out.

I'm fine with change of the mission president because the Lord's hand is always in His work. I know the new president will do a great job.

So this week at like 5 in the morning a big ol bird flew in the window as I was sleeping!!!! It is like a big raven thing. It landed on my leg and woke me up. And then it flew around my head for a sec so I freaked out! Then after that it flew out of the room. So that was a pretty crazy random event that happened.

Oh and then I was finally able to take a shower for the first time this week yesterday...There hasn’t been water all week!!! I don’t really understand it. We are able to get water to drink, but that’s about it. So that was rough. I took numerous baby powder baths, it takes away the odor fairly nicely! Ha ha!

I really don’t know what else to inform you all about for this week. We have kinda found a couple new people to teach....Well one, Pedro Chup. He seems to understand the importance of a prophet, but I don’t know if he will be willing to change from his church. And he lives really far away. Farther than Rosalina. He lives like 1 and a half hours from the church. So that might be a difficulty with him, but if he is able to show his faith and come to church we will be able to baptize him. So we shall see what happens with that. Hopefully it all turns out well.

Dang Lehi always loses before the championship huh! But still, they did make it way far, so I give them props. Elder Turek told me about Davies right as I was reading what you said. That sucks a lot for BYU! Hopefully we will be able to recover and not keep getting beat...Dang. Jake’s team couldn’t pull it off only because they are juniors...they probably played a senior team who knew they couldn’t lose to underclassmen, so it’s all good. Jake can probably take it next year as a senior for sure. I know he will! I love you Dad and thanks always for the sports updates!

It’s crazy that there is only 1 week left in this change. Tomorrow we are going to Senahú for a meeting so this week will go by even faster! I will most likely stay in Santo Domingo for another change, but you never know. But I feel that I will stay. Welp! I love you all and hope you all have a great week!

Keep the Faith, Stay Strong
Kawaq lee paab'al, Kawaq eerib'
LOVE, Nekexinra
Elder Jordan Smith, Laj Q'anjorin