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.