Hello everyone,

It's been a super busy week for us. Whenever we have a meeting or activity, we have to drive two hours to the city called Puerto. We had to go to Puerto three times in one week for district meeting, zone conference, and for a zone activity. Needless to say, we've had a lot to do.

For our zone activity, we got to go to "The Underground River" which is the only time in our mission that we can ride a boat, but here we got to do it in a cave. It is pretty amazing to see the things that the Lord can create. We first got to see how the Lord has made a huge hole run under a mountain, and then we got to see how He can make the ocean a pretty rough place. We almost didn't get off the beach, because the huge waves kept pushing the boats back onto shore. Eventually, we were able to break through and get to the other beach where the car was parked.

The week wasn't all fun and games though; we had an amazing zone conference. In December, we set a new record in our mission for the highest baptisms in a month, but the APs and President know that we can do better. At zone conference, we focused on how we can change little things in ourselves to better help the mission. They did things a little different by having us go into a room by ourselves and "find our own sacred grove." We got to spend 30 minutes just praying and trying to listen to what the Lord would have us do. Of course on a mission we are always praying and trying to listen to the spirit of the Lord, but it's rare that we can do it alone.

I personally had an amazing experience just speaking one on one with my loving Heavenly Father. Someone later pointed out how great an opportunity it is that we can speak to an all knowing, all powerful Being whenever we need to. Prayer is something we shouldn't take lightly. I learned a lot from those 30 minutes, and I just wanted to invite all of you to take 30 minutes, by yourself, and have a conversation with the Lord. We are now using the things we learned from that experience to better ourselves to help better bring the Lord's children to him; it is a great work to be a part of.

Love, Elder Smith