This post combines both Josh's June 9th and June 16th emails. Josh has loved his experience at the CCM but it seems his crew is ready to move on. He said they are all feeling super excited and ready for the mission field! They are all brushing up this last week on their Spanish but the real learning will come once they get out with the people. Josh and his companion, Elder Boyer were heading over to the temple and ran into a man that had recently committed to be baptized. Josh said he has never seen anyone more excited and proud to be baptized and how incredible it is to see the joy the gospel brings. A tid bit of info completely not gospel related but still very important :)... Elder Boyer went to Lone Peak High School and the quarterback from there is going to play for University of Utah next year. Rumor is he is really good! Go Utes! Elder Boyer and Elder Smith went into the city this past week proselyting and gave away a couple of Book of Mormons etc. It sounds as though in the area they were in a lot of the stores are just on the street. They decided to go into a barber shop which had no door so they just walked in and introduced themselves to the barber. He was the only one in the shop and was watching TV. They talked for a while and the barber asked the Elders to teach him so they did in their broken Spanish. The man began to sing I am a Child of God so Elder Smith (Josh) and Boyer sang along in English. The Barber fell to his knees and said he knew that what they were teaching is true. He had felt the spirit the minute they walked through the door. He asked if they could come back everyday to teach him. Josh and his companion gave the information to the local Elders so they could continue to visit him. Josh said it was an amazing experience. What a wonderful thing to have happen right before they head out to the mission field. These experiences will help Josh and Elder Boyer when the going gets tough! Josh said he is excited to be there and he believes it is the best place in the world to teach the gospel! He is absolutely right, for him it is!

This week I am feeling like I wish it was Saturday everyday. Hanna says she does too! We are missing our Josh and were excited to hear from him this next Saturday :) I have two emails to catch up on so here goes #1..... Elder Smith said time is flying by and he can hardly believe in about 3 weeks he and Elders Park, Larson and George will be on a bus heading for San Salvador, El Salvador. He is still loving the Guatemala CCM and has become really close with his Latino Missionary companion Justin Beiber. Whoops I mean Elder Sierra :) They have really enjoyed knocking on doors together and talking to the people. The people are super nice and friendly. They are very open to learning about the gospel and especially receptive to the Book of Mormon. Josh really enjoys sharing the BOM with them because it is a history of their people and that is pretty exciting! Even the kids stop and listen! So far his tracting experiences have been really positive. Let's hope El Salvador is similar! A cool fact about his companion Elder Boyer... For those of you that have seen the movie Forever Strong, which if you have not put it on your list because it is really good. Well, Elder Boyer in the words of Josh is a beast rugby player and his high school team beat Highland in the Utah State Championship. Quite the accomplishment! He does well with soccer too which as we all know is way more important!! :) Elder Smith says Guatemala City is amazing. He is surprised to find quite a lot of crazy big houses and fancy cars. I'm fairly sure this is not where most of the people live! #2..... Elder Smith has just over two weeks left in the CCM (after this email) which is crazy to me. He is getting really excited about heading out and hoping that his first area is somewhere in El Salvador rather than Belize. He is trying hard to learn the language and wants to be somewhere that will help him master it. In Belize pretty much everyone speaks English so it would be easy to not learn as much there. It was a sad week for him because his Latino roomies left for their Missions. Josh and his companion Elder Boyer had become very close with them. In Josh's words "they were awesome!" Goodbyes are always tough but part of the whole process! The rest of the Missionaries did get to go on a bus tour of Guatemala City which probably helped lift their spirits. Josh thinks the place is amazing. So many beautiful things! City Plaza was filled with birds. He has never seen so many birds in one place. The local people were feeding them. They went to an underground market where the people had set up tons of stalls selling all kinds of stuff. Things were very cheap which of course sounds good to me! Josh is studying a lot trying to master Spanish which he appreciates but he looks forward to P-days, soccer and time to chill! He sounds great. I can tell that he is getting ready for the Mission field though. Which again is all part of the process! We love Josh and continue to thank Heavenly Father for this great experience.

Well last weeks email was great. Elder Smith's opening sentence included: "I love it more and more each day!" I would have to say that so far the experience in the Guatemala MTC/CCM has been nothing less than amazing for him. It is also definitely a bonus that he gets to play soccer for hours on P-Days :) His group visited the temple this past week to talk to the members there so they could improve their Spanish. Josh and his companion Elder Boyer love the group of Spanish Missionaries they room with. He said they are the greatest companeros de cuarto of all time! Apparently one of his roomies Elder Sierra is referred to as the Justin Bieber of Honduras! :) Elder Sierra is Josh's companion on Sunday's and they get to go into the real world and teach which Josh was pretty excited about. He is getting A lot of teaching experience which will be very helpful, they teach about 3 lessons a day. Josh has been out now for a little over one month and happily I can report that he said the time is flying by. He really loves the people he has met and he thinks the CCM president is the greatest. His name is President Nicolaysen. Not sure what country he is from. It is the rainy season in Central America but Josh say's so far it hasn't been bad. It rains a little about 2pm every day then it is fine. We are grateful that his experience so far is so positive. We feel really blessed as a family that Josh is able to have this wonderful experience. We know there will be some hard times coming but for now it is all rosie in Guatemala!! We love him very much and know that Heavenly Father will look after him and allow him to have the experiences he needs to help him grow. Bye for now :)

Happy Mothers Day!

What a great week! Several emails from Josh and two phone calls. We had a full 30 mins to chat with him today and we could of gone on and on :) He had so much to tell us, it is very exciting! He loves the Guatemala CCM, I think his exact words were this place is heaven, the best place he has ever been! The CCM has a big wall around it and they have guards with rifles readily available keeping them safe. He isn't worried at all, it seems to be just the way things are there. They are surrounded with mountains and Josh said it is beautiful. Today was P-day and he played a full 4 hrs of soccer :) I believe his team are now the reigning champs! It did take a while for him to adjust to the ball though, it is smaller and heavier but all is well! He really likes his companion who is from Utah and sadly none of us seem to remember his name. whoops! They share a room with four hispanic speaking Elders that speak little English so it is difficult to communicate but today they had a breakthrough and found a few things to talk about. Josh said He has learned so much Spanish and can now teach a lesson :) yeah! They went out into the city the other day and helped clean the streets for service. It is very different but he loves it. The food at the CCM is everything he had been told and more. This makes him very happy :) They have a chef and the food is delicious. It is of course mainly hispanic food but for Josh this is great because it has always been his favorite. The missionaries have to eat all the food given them or it is considered very rude. Josh has had no problem with this whatsoever! He loves the feeling there and thinks it makes the MTC in Provo seem, well let's just say, not so good! All in all Elder Smith is the happiest I have ever heard him. We are so proud of him and know he will continue to learn and love the people there. I wish I could see him as a missionary but this is his experience and I get to let him enjoy the ride!

Elder Smith called from the airport on his way to Guatemala. He is excited and ready to go! :) There are four missionaries heading to his mission. He seems to really get on well with all of them. We are so happy for him. We all hear great things about the Guatemala MTC. It only has approx 150 missionaries at any one time and it has a really small family feel. Apparently the food is great! Josh does not know who his companion will be yet but he thinks he will have an American companion and then they room with two Spanish speaking Elders. I'm sure this will help with the language. The Temple is right next to the MTC and they will continue to be able to go once a week. What a blessing! Elder Smith is also excited about the prospect of playing soccer. He has been playing basketball at the Provo MTC which he also enjoys but his feet are ready to kick a ball around again :) Well. I will let you know when we hear from him again. Thanks everyone for all of your help and support. Eventually we will get pictures!

First photo's of Elder Smith from MTC courtesy of Elder Park (he is in Josh's district)

We love Tuesdays! Who would of thought that a boring old Tuesday could suddenly become so exciting! It's Josh's P day and we received our second email! :)  He sounds like he is still doing really well.  He really appreciates all of the letters and packages and feels quite spoiled! Thank you everyone :)  He is helping to teach a couple of spanish investigators (people interested in the church).  As you can imagine this is a challenge as his Spanish is still in the early stages!  Josh continues to learn a lot and seems really excited to go to Guatemala next week.  There he will be absolutely immersed in the language and culture. He has his flight plans and it looks like a long night of travel, leaving SLC in the evening and not arriving in Guatemala City till early next morning.  He can handle it :)  Security has been tightened  at the MTC in Provo due to some folk exercising their freedom of speech.  It's all very exciting!  Josh is quite impressed with how the MTC is handling it.  He has run into some friends from Southern Virginia University that are going to serve in various places.  It's always great to find some familiar faces among the thousands of new ones.  Josh's letters so far have been very positive and enthusiastic.  He said time is flying by.  We are so excited for him to have this opportunity.  Thanks again to everyone for your love and support! Thats it for now folks!

We got our first email from Elder Smith yesterday :)  We were all very excited!  He is doing great!  His companion is Elder Crossley from Roy, Utah.  He is going to Chile, in fact there are 11 Elders in Josh's district (turns out saying Elder Smith every time is just too long!) 7 of them are going to Chile, the other 4 are off to El Salvador.  Josh really likes his companion who is a big help with Spanish.  He said it is really neat learning a language and they are teaching someone who doesn't speak English so he is learning quickly.  The language teacher served a mission in Argentina and they are only allowed to speak in Spanish during class which takes up a large portion of the day.
Elder Nelson gave a devotional at MTC on Tuesday which was a great experience.  Fun fact...... One of Josh's roommates is named Elder Barlow who is related to Israel Barlow and turns out to be a very distant relative to our family because Mikes Dad is also related to Israel Barlow.  Cool huh!
the sad news is David Archuleta left the MTC the day before Josh got there, dang it!!!!  :)  I'm sure I will recover from this!  Ending on a good note, Josh sees Chanelle Solorio a lot :)  strange isn't it that two kids from a small town in Newburgh, Indiana end up in the MTC at the same time.  Even stranger is that out of 2000 missionaries they see each other everyday.  Well that is all the news from us today.  Very excited that Elder Smith is so happy!


 

Elder Smith at Evansville airport April 16th 2012, heading to Utah and the MTC.

INTRODUCING ELDER SMITH:

Josh was set apart as a full time missionary on April 15th by President Stanfill.  We went to the Stanfills' home.  Mike and Gwen Olivas came.  Jan Stanfill and her son Mike also shared the memories with us :)  President Stanfill gave Josh a lovely blessing with many promises of which were very comforting.  Mike Olivas and Dad participated with the blessing.  Grandpa and Grandma were on the phone! :)  It's amazing the feeling that filled the room and the special spirit we saw in Josh.  He looked so handsome :) A great night for all of us.  What a wonderful experience for the girls seeing their older brother set such a good example.  Doesn't he look like a missionary!!!!

April 7th, 2012 Josh went through the Bountiful Temple.  He is hidden in the back of the family picture.  It was a lovely day and even though snow was on the ground the sun was shining and it was beautiful.  Josh shared his day with Grandma & Grandpa, Lisa & Troy, Ryan & Torri, Krissie & Justin, Justin, Tori, Cody & Brandi, Bryant Smith and of course Mum & Dad!  Nanny was there in spirit! Thanks everyone for your support and your love.  You all helped make it a very special day for Josh.

Josh left for Utah on Monday April 16th 2012.  He spent his last couple of days as a 'free man' with his Utah family! :)  Grandma and Grandpa took him to the Provo MTC on April 18th.  They said everything went really well.  We spoke to Josh while he was traveling to Provo and he said he wasn't really nervous but very excited.  Grandma said he looked relaxed and happy when he entered the MTC.  We are so excited for Josh and we can't wait to hear all about his first companion and his first experiences as a full time missionary.  Hopefully Josh's companion likes soccer!!  I suppose we should start calling Josh Elder Smith :)  That has a lovely ring to it!  We will try and remember that from here on out.  We have pictures of Elder Smith's departure, setting apart as a missionary and of his first experience going to the temple.  These will be posted shortly.  We are thrilled that Josh has decided to serve a mission and we know he will do a great job serving the people of El Salvador and Belize.  Heavenly Father has already blessed our family so much and for this we are truly grateful!  Go get um Josh ( whoops! We mean Elder Smith).

Farewell Indiana