Transfer 5, Week 1

October 20, 2010

Dear Family,

Just found out that Hna Smith and I will be companions again this transfer. Talk about getting to know a person! I am excited for the things we want to do this transfer, like help Pamela become good friends with the youth in the ward and help Vanesa get to church and continue learning.

Pamela came to seminary for the first time last night and we think she really liked it. I think this will be the spring board for her to come to a lot more activities. Juan Aranguiz taught the seminary lesson this week and he is great. I could have just sat and listened to him forever, however, a counselor knocked on the door and said the Elders still hadn´t arrived to teach some people that were waiting for the Engilsh class. We stepped out and covered for them until they got there. English class turned out to be so fun that I didn´t want to leave that either, but we went back to seminary to sit with Pamela when the Elders got there.

I read about Elder Cook´s daughter who was called as a primary president and at first it weighed her down. The primary presidency were consentrating on the problems but then they decided to focus on love, faith, and prayer. Inspiration began to come to them and they knew how to help children and families in their ward. Friction decreased.

I read another section from "Our search for Happiness" by Elder Ballard and again realized that if we focus on Christ and his atonement we will naturally be happier and a better people, with positive attitudes.

We have so much to be grateful for. I have so much to be grateful for. I know that Jesus Christ suffered for our sins and our sadness and Heavenly Father´s plan is perfect. We will all end up so happy and gain much more capacity for having passed through times of sadness and happiness and times of sacrifice. Our outlook and attitude determine our happiness and I am working to remember Christ´s example of love no matter what happened to Him and what they did to Him, especially and the end of His life.

I was feeling a bit inadequate and my comp showed me a talk by Pres Monson. In that talk I realized that Jesus called Peter (a doubter), and Paul (a persecutor) to be missionaries in His cause. I read later about Alma the Younger and realized he could be in that category as well. "The Lord calls imperfect people to teach the way to perfection." Boy does that make me feel better!

I love the Lord! I love my family!

Love Shayla

This is Hermana Smith's entry Oct. 13, 2010 :

This week has been really good, but i can´t believe it´s already the end of the transfer. We´ll know about transfers this Saturday night. I hope I don´t leave! I love this area and my companion and I are having a lot of fun together.

A lot of cool things have happened in the past couple of days. A lot of our appointments have fallen through, but we´ve ended up finding some really great future investigators. Yesterday we found ourselves teaching a peruano named Carlos on a park bench. He´s a super humble guy that has been studying for the past year and a half with Jehovah´s Witnesses. I asked him what he has to do to become a member of their church and he had absolutely no idea. Maybe that means he´s not that serious about joining with them? I think he has mostly been studying the Bible with them to deepen his knowledge. He mentioned that there are a lot of churches out there and it´s hard to know who to believe. We taught him about Joseph Smith and the restoration, gave him a Book of Mormon, and he asked us to give him 2 weeks to study up a bit. I´m and praying so hard that he feels the Spirit when he reads the Book of Mormon and that he and his wife will want us to come teach them! It will be awesome!

We finally talked to Alexandra and Jofre about getting married. We taught about marriage last night from Corinthians 7. It was a bit of a surprise actually. We weren´t really feeling like it was the moment to teach it again, so we started talking about the baptismal covenants we make from Mosiah 5. After reading verse 5 about how we promise to keep all of the commandments of God the Spirit said, "Okay, now for the transition." I was burning inside and so I went for it. Jofre seemed a little flustered once he read the chapter heading of Corinthians 7 and knew what was coming. We just laid everything out for him plain as can be and I didn´t let him justify anything (because he is a little too good at justifying not living the law of chastity). It actually went really really well, but he basically told us that he´s not ready to make the commitment yet. Phew. Patience. Patience is key. And lots and lots of prayers. One hopeful thing though is that he is definitely thinking about it and said that we will definitely be invited to the wedding. I can hardly wait for that day!

We were unsuccessful on getting Vanesa to church again. Victor´s family showed up at her house on Sunday and said they were there to celebrate her birthday. Lame! Okay, nice...ish, but she was really going to come. She even personally asked us to help her get to church. There´s still hope for this week though. And the good thing is that Victor is learning more and more. It will be nice when they are finally on the same page (where she is now, of course) and that they decide to get baptized together. Now that would be great.

We went to a ward party on Saturday night called Día de la Hispanidad. The different organizations from the ward each chose a country to represent. Of course we were asked to represent the USA. Each group had to bring a typical food from their country, set up a table, explain a bit about the country and perform a typical dance from that country. Other countries included Bolivia, Peru, Columbia, Spain and Ecuador. The dances were really cool to watch but I can tell you I was not excited to dance. We had the hardest time coming up with a dance and finally settled to do a country line dance to Cotton-eyed Joe (or whatever that song is called. It reminds me of Dillon. I think it´s kinda like his personal theme song haha.). Everyone loved it. So, so funny.

Well, those are the highlights. Hope all is well at home. Love you all!

Hna. Smith

Transfer 4, Week 6

October 13, 2010

Dear Family,

First off, happy anniversary to you!!!! 25 year mark is pretty intense!! That day was a pretty good day for five of us kids...I bet we were doing high fives together in heaven. Mom, I started a letter for your birthday last week but I couldnt finish it so I have to send it today...it will arrive a little late. I got your letters and pictures and Shalese sent me some too...they both got here the same day! I loved the pictures! I got a really nice letter from Mikayla too!!! She is going to be a great RS pres up in Idaho!!

Mom, Iĺl save all the mushy stuff for the letter but I hope you know how great you are and how grateful I am to you.

Dad thanks for the wedding day recap...that is pretty cool to hear about.

Things around here are going pretty great. Saturday we had a great ward activity...kind of a dud for the missionaries because no investigators came, but it was way fun. The six of us missionaries in the ward got cowboy hats and taught everyone the line dance to "Cotton-eye Joe"

The last two days have been really cool. On Monday we met with Monica again who is amazing...She made us breakfast and then made us cry by telling us how we always have a home at her house. Then a member took us out to lunch for kebabs. After that we went to visit a less active member whose dad is probably not going to live much longer over in Honduras. She was sleeping but we ended up sharing the Book of Mormon with a girl (26yrs old) that lives with her. It was a great lesson together and we are going to visit again tomorrow. On the way from her house to the metro we saw a woman carrying some heavy bags and offered to help. Turns out that she is a member of the Church and she had been hoping someone would stop and help her. We went back to her piso with her and shared a message with her family. Her daughterś boyfriend was there and told us that his girlfriend had mentioned that she wanted to come to church again. We are going to do a Family home Evening with them on Saturday. From there we went to visit Vanesa and Victor. She wants to be baptized soon still...just has a lot of challenges that keep her from coming on Sunday...but I bet this week will be better.

Yesterday was almost even better. We were stood up by an appointment but it was great because we found a dad sitting on a park bench reading a magazine from another church. He said he was just searching for the truth...so we talked with him for another 45mins and gave him a Book of Mormon. His name is Carlos (he is from Peru) and I think he is really going to read and study all that we left him!! From there we went and visited a family from church that is having a really rough time and we brought another sister from the ward with us to visit them who has also been having a hard time and it turns out that she had been through the same situation as this family when she was younger and her comments really helped them I think. We helped them arrange to get blessings from a brother in the ward on Saturday to help them feel better. Then we visited with Laura Chimbo who was baptized about seven months ago and she is doing great. It took her nine years to accept the gospel she says, but she has a really firm testimony and her daughter is reading the scriptures like crazy.

More big news: Last night we finally talked about the Law of Chastity with Jofre and Alexandra...a lesson that has been pending for a long time. I was a little nervous but it all came out ok. Jofre seems to be waiting to be done with school, and Alexandra told us that his mom doesn't really encourage marriage for her sons (what!!!) so we are planning to somehow teach her about the law of chastity the next time we teach her. I really hope I am is Spain for their wedding.

Today we went to the temple. I always learn something I need to do or change. The mission is a time for a lot of change. I am so grateful to be here!! Later today we are going to hunt for boots before it gets freezing cold!!!

Happy Anniversary!!!! Happy Birthday!!!!

Love Hermana Moulton

P.S. Hermana Smith says Hi

October 6, 2010

Exerpts by Hna Smith, Shayla's companion. It's neat to have a few more details as we pray and think about the work Shayla and her companion are doing.


conference was incredible! we did a lot of work in trying to get investigators there and ended up having 5 come. alexandra and jofre came! i was so happy. unfortunately they weren´t around to hear about the importance of marriage though. we had a lesson with them last week about the word of wisdom. alexandra already agrees with everything about the word of wisdom and jofre thought that basically all of it was a good idea. he´s just still hung up on there being a living prophet and now we understand a little more about why. he totally changed the evening´s subject of the word of wisdom into using scriptures to justify living with alexandra without being married to her. he started to explain to us that the scriptures say that it´s okay to live with someone before marriage as long as you aren´t having relationships with other people. definitely not true. we are praying and praying right now that he will soften his heart but he just doesn´t want to listen right now. it´s makes me frustrated because i know that alexandra believes that what we teach her is true but she can´t do anything about it right now. tonight we are going to talk about the law of chastity again and i pray that it goes well. oh i sure hope the spirit is there with us!

two other investigators that came with us are omaira and dario. they are a colombian couple and are super great. dario is one of the more profoundly spiritual thinkers i have met on the mission. he is really bright. he taught himself how to read by reading the bible.

the last woman that came with us is angelica. it was so fun. i watched the third conference session alone with her while my companion went to watch in english. i sat in between angelica with an old spanish gentleman from our ward on the other side of me with a bunch of latin ward members i´ve come to know and love. it was so fun to be there with all of them. i love these people so much!

we had some other great lessons this past week. we taught the law of chastity to pamela yesterday and it was such a spiritual lesson. teaching the law of chastity has become one of my favorite lessons to teach on the mission because the spirit testifies so strongly of it´s message. it is a privilege to teach these people of something that is so important to each of us and to watch as they make changes to live this commandment. i love seeing people repent and change! their light increases and their happiness too as they make changes to follow the laws of God. i love being here to help them along the way.

anyway, i feel rushed today as i write this and none of my thoughts are even near to being refined. sorry! i have to run. love you all. miss you mucho mucho.

hna. smith

Transfer 4, Week 5

October 6, 2010
Dear Family,

I love to hear from you! I have to read your emails later though because I don't have a lot of time...ahh.

Today we had a Hermana´s day at the mission home. It actually started two days ago with intercambios (each sister goes to work with a different sister for a day to learn from each other.) This time was different because it was a day and a half long...which means two nights. I went to Guadalajara, about 2hrs travel by metro and train, to work with Hna Kushchyan.

Hna Kushchyan is here for just six weeks on a "mini mission" but she was a great missionary and I learned a lot from her. Her parents are Armenian but she grew up in Russia where she joined the church 9 years ago. Four years ago she moved from Russia to Spain with her family. It was a hard move for her and I am sure she would like to be back in Russia if things were different, but things are the way they are and so she goes on. (That made me really grateful for the blessings of a stable home that I have).

The first year she was here she didn´t speak Spanish and she says she hardly spoke at all and it took a lot of tears and effort to learn Spanish...but it has paid off- everyone in the street thought she was from Spain (that is a huge compliment to her language abilities). Meanwhile one couple asked me if I was from Romania.

Hermana Kushchyan is a hard worker, she made me want to increase my efforts. We taught a Spanish man who joined the church as a teenager, served a mission, and then stopped going to church and/or studying the gospel ten years ago. Now he is fifty-ish and is working so hard to come back and study the scriptures to prepare to go to the temple again. We shared a lesson about the temple with him. We told a story about an investigator whose wife died but he was eventually sealed to her in the temple with their son. Hna Kushchyan spoke about wanting to do the temple work for her grandmother who has passed away. She spoke about the day when she would be able to hug her and tell her thank you for so much. The Spirit was strong in the room and I learned a greater gratitude for the temple.

(Insert from Mom: It's fun for me to see subtle changes in Shayla's english grammer. It seems to be sounding more like spanish grammer in english.)

We had a lot of time together so we got to have a few personal conversations. She made me feel pretty good about the way I contact people on the street and she said she notes that I have the spirit with me which is way nice because sometimes I worry so much about that.

She seems to feel that six weeks is pretty long...and I know how she feels because that is how I felt when I went to Mexico for six weeks. Now I can see how short that time is and how quickly it goes by. It gave me a better perspective about how quickly the mission goes by and how we need to put in all our strength while we have the chance. She is definitely putting in all of her strength.

Guadalajara is super pretty with great Spanish architecture...it is how I thought Spain would look before I got to Madrid, which looks more like New York City. We walked a lot more because they don´t have a metro system there, but it was really nice and the weather was perfect...speaking of the weather, we talked to a little old Spanish lady who would like us to visit her!!! That is the first time that has happened to me from an actual Spanish person!!! Way cool!!

Shalese, I got all of your letters so far and I wrote you last week but I still have to send it. Thanks for you letters. They always make me so happy. I am way proud of the person you are!! I still have to read your email...I am going to print it off.

Mom, I still need to read the details of the new treatment you had.

I sure love you. Wish I could write more...I got a little distracted helping the lady next to me write to her friend on Facebook. (She gave me chocolate for it)

Have a great week!!!

Love Shayla

September 29,2010

Exerpts by Hna Smith, Shayla's companion.
They shed a little more light on the investigators they are working with. Please pray for Vanesa and Betty.

vanesa has been doing well but she didn´t end up coming to church again. we have yet to find out why but i´m sure it´s related to not being able to come with her kids. we are praying and praying that she starts coming regularly. she needs to come! we are thinking about pushing her baptism date until november so she can have some more time adjusting to member life. i imagine it is a big change for people who aren´t accustomed to it. we just want to make sure that she is going to be a strong member before she ends up getting baptized. in order to do that, people need time to deepen their testimony. otherwise a lot of people end up getting baptized and end up fading away or become completely inactive. a firm testimony is essential.

we have some sad news about one of our investigators. we went to visit betty last wednesday but her sister answered the door and said that betty left because of an emergency with her brother. it was unusual that betty hadn´t called us to tell us she wasn´t going to be home. we tried for the next few days to call her but she never picked up the phone. finally she picked up the phone on monday and i asked about her brother. she then told us that her brother wasn´t really sick but that her husband had hit her and left home. i felt like i´d been hit by a truck after she said that. i didn´t really know what to do or say becuase hna. moulton and i were running to visit someone and i didn´t really have time to react. she told us that she didn´t believe in anything anymore and that she didn´t feel like doing anything. so we prayed a lot that night and on tuesday a lot of our previous plans fell through or had to be rearranged but we found the perfect moment to show up at betty´s door with ice cream and our books of mormon. we shared a wonderful message about hope related to joseph smith´s experience in liberty jail and we have plans to visit with her again. wow. sometimes i look and my life and think of the "problems" that i have and realize how blessed i have been because of the gospel. i´m glad that we get to help better betty´s life with the gospel too.

well, time is about up. thanks for the news about home. i hope you are as excited for general conference as i am! the church is true! and it is a huge blessing to be a member of it. talk to you next week.

con mucho amor, hna. smith

Transfer 4, Week 4

September 29, 2010
Hello Family,

I loved your emails. Congrats to Karin Smith, Annie Christiansen and Annie Seal . New babies are a blessing. So new and clean (in a spiritual sense) and exciting. I cant wait to meet them!

Shalese...I have gotten your letters and I just love them! I think I am more excited to know where you will go than you are. I hope you got my list of what to bring etc. Will you save my letters...I am going to make a book when I get home. That Spider man pic was way funny...I started another letter to you today...so more later.

Mom...I loved the list that you made. I like to hear things like that you picked a 24lb watermelon and that the chickens like to eat the rhines. I really loved the packet of letters I got the week before last...good job. I am glad you miss me...you better!!
Please tell Hope thank you so much for the prayers of her family...that made me feel great. Wow.

It sounds like the kids are soccer maniacs. I am afraid to play with them now...they will kill me!! (Even worse than they did before.)

We are way excited for General Conference. It is just like Christmas. Hopefully we will have a few investigators go with us.

This week we visited Omira and Dario from Colombia. Omira made us lunch. Of course it was incredible but it really hurt to eat so much. Gotta love it. Vanesa is doing well but something keeps happening with her kids that prevents her from coming to church. The goal is to help people become faithful members before they are baptized...so that they are able to live up to those commitments.

The other night we were going to pass by to visit Vanesa when we saw Kevin in the metro. Kevin is 11...he contacted us a while back. He is the only member of the Church in his family. He was there waiting for his mom at about 8:45pm and so we waited with him for a bit and played games like tick tack toe and hangman. Around 9:15pm we had him call his mom with our phone...turns out that someone gave her a ride home. We walked with Kevin halfway to his home where his older brother met us and he walked home with him the rest of the way. I feel like little opportunities to serve and look out for each other like that are miracles. We could have taken the bus instead, but we barely missed it so we took the metro and got to wait there with Kevin.

Miracles like that happen all the time...like yesterday someone had to change their appointment with us, therefore, we passed by another womanś apartment instead and it was perfect timing. This woman really needs help because of some bad stuff that had happened at her home but we were afraid that she wouldn't let us in because she feels so sad. We went by and picked up some ice-cream before. Someone had left open the main door of her building so we didn't have to ring her doorbell from outside (which would have given her another chance to say no). The icecream helped us get in her door. She seemed to feel better and recognized that we can help. We have another appointment with her on Friday.

I know that the Lord answers prayers and shows us how to do the things that seemed impossible before. It just takes a lot of trust and effort on our part.... and gratitude for the answers.

One wonderful recent convert told us that the thing that brought the Church to her attention most was when the missionaries taught her how to pray. She loves that prayer is an open two-way conversation with God. She said she wasn't sure how to pray before and that she wasn't sure what her relationship to Heavenly Father was. She is so strong. She is helping her family and helping welcome other new people at church because she knows what it is like to be new. Her name is Monica and she is so great. She has come with us to visit Alexandra and her Testimony was like fire.

Well Family, have a great week. Enjoy General Conference. I love you!!!!!! I am praying for you!
Love your extreemly cool sister and daughter, Hermana Moulton