"It's almost Christmas! I can't believe I've been here in Chile for this long. It's been surreal being here during Christmas time. I love all the cool experiences I have had this past week. It's times when I can look back and see the big picture, that I realize I am so lucky to be serving a mission here in Chile. Ha ha, I love it!"
"Yesterday there was a really big stake Christmas activity full of choirs singing and orchestras playing Christmas music. It was so much fun and I loved hearing all the familiar songs in Spanish with lots of people singing who were excited to be participating. I loved meeting all the people that came and seeing how much the people loved celebrating together. There is no doubt that Christmas is definitely my favorite holiday. It is the best! There are a lot of really talented people here. The whole stake center was packed and I'd say that half were not members, so it was a great missionary activity as well. We were able to pick up a couple referrals. I love how the church here focuses on missionary work. I think they should do it in every ward and every stake. There is one member named Hermana Luna. She is like fifty years old and was a missionary about 30 years ago. She is still a missionary to this day. She goes and gets referrals and is so involved in the missionary work, even though it is not her calling. She is soooo cooool! I hope I am like her when I am 50. They combined the ward choir with the stake, so it was cool to see our members representing our ward in the choir. I told the Wilchez family, who is like the most talented family in Chile, that I was in High School Musical 3 and they basically told the whole stake! After the activity, I had about 15 people come up to ask me about the movie. Ha ha, it was funny. They were all mad that I didn't participate in the choir, but Elder Opazo and I didn't know that the missionaries were invited. All of the other missionaries were in it, but I enjoyed watching anyways. It was really fun and a great experience."
"I had a cool little Christmas miracle that was special to me. At the beginning of the week, Elder Opazo and I had finished knocking every single apartment door in our sector. We were stoked. Anyways, we had an appointment cancel in the apartments, so we were walking away from them to go contacting at some houses across the street. All of a sudden, I had a strong prompting that I needed to go back and reknock the red apartments. I was arguing with myself trying to determine whether it was a spiritual prompting or not. I stopped in my tracks twice before I finally decided to tell Elder Opazo. I called up to him and told him that I felt like we should go back and knock the red apartments again. He replied exactly what I was thinking, "we already knocked those doors". I told him that I just felt like we were suppose to go there, but felt a little confused as to why. He said we should go. I said lets just knock this street and then go back and try the apartments again. So we continued on. When we were knocking at the first home, a lady came out of the red apartments and crossed the street to walk over to us. She said that we had contacted her door the other day and her husband had answered because she had been sleeping. She told us that she was interested in what we had to share and asked if it would be alright if we came over and taught her that night! Elder Opazo and I looked at eachother in shock. We went to her apartment that night and she was waiting for us. She was so receptive to the message of the restoration and could not wait to hear more. We left her with a Book of Mormon and she couldn't wait to read it. At the end of the lesson, we ended with prayer and she looks up and asks, "Why did you come to my door? Out of all the doors,why did you come here? Did you have a sign or something?" Elder Opazo related our story and she looked at me and said, "So you're the one." I'm not sure what that meant, but it felt good that the Lord had used me. I know it wasn't a coincidence. The Lord will always use his servants if we try our best and be as prepared as we can and are always obedient. It was fun to be a part of this cool little miracle."
"I went on divisions with Elder DeLong. We had a good time together and it was fun. We met a lot of cool people in his sector. He is from Minnesota, played football, loves video games, plays guitar, and went to BYU before his mission. He showed me a bunch of pictures from his mission and it was fun to get to know him better and see how he teaches people. He is a pretty cool missionary. He only has four months left to serve. Unfortunately, I slept at his pension again and got bit by a whole bunch of fleas!"
"Elder Opazo and I found out this morning that we will be companions for another change! That means that we both will be able to see the fruits of our labors and have 4 baptisms next Sunday! It will be so cool and I am excited! Also, I will be calling you on Skype, so have the computer ready! It's going to be fun to talk to you all. I have to cut this letter short, so I can have time to set up a Skype account. Christmas will be a little sad because we don't have any appointments for now. We'll just be walking along the hot streets of Chile looking for sad people like us. ha ha Hopefully we'll find something to do. It's fun to see all the Christmas lights and fun things about Christmas time here. I really love their drink. Instead of egg nog, they have cola de mono, which is like coffee milk. It's delicious! I could drink it everyday of the year! ha ha I love it!"
"I'll be missing you on Christmas day, but I know that everything is going to be great because I will get to talk to you! I have a Christmas activity on the 23rd that's going to be a blast! I'll have to tell you about it. Thanks for everything and have a fun Christmas. I'll talk to you soon! I hope you enjoy my Christmas surprise...ha ha!"
Elder Dallon Smith
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| The Zone |
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| Elder Smith and Opazo enjoying P-day at the port. |
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| Feeding fish to the Sea Lions |