Miracles Happening in Uruguay

This is such a wonderful letter from Synthia and her companion, Hermana Stokes. It's a must read - 2 stories of miracles!

Hola Familia!> Okay, so we're going to try something new and we´ll both send you our letters...so you can have the Stokes-Smoot Piriapolis letter....my companion is really funny and so you´ll be able to see a bit of her personality! We really feel like we were friends in heaven before and know that God needed us to be together here. So i´m going to tell you all one of the biggest miracles that we´ve seen on the mission. On the mission I´ve started a prayer journal. Before I pray, I write down a list of things that I want to consult the Lord on, (see Alma 37), and people that I want to pray for. Then after, I wait for impressions and listen to the Spirit. I´ve recieved some of the most beautiful and spiritual inspiration from these moments when I´ve been open to the whispers of the spirit. I´ve learned that if I feel negative feelings they are from Satan, and the encouraging feelings are from God. Anways...so I received specific revelation that I needed to start praying with Hermana Becar for a ¨family that would continue on as missionaries after we leave.¨ We began praying for this ¨family who would become missionaries¨and then Saturday morning prayed specifically for this family to come to Stake conference with us. 5 min after leaving our house we made that contact with Gustavo Alfonso in the street and Hermana Becar happened to remeber his name after talking to him 2 months ago in the street. He said he and his family would love to come to the conference and later his wife Maria and son, Pio, came with us. Then a few weeks passed and we couldn´t get a hold of them and then came our good luck charm, Hermana Stokes. Meanwhile, Gustavo had become friends with one of the less active members who we know and he´s invited him to come to church. So we visit them and they came to church last week and then Maria came to the relief socitey activity and Gustavo was starting to encourage his son to search out the truth....like a natural Stake President would do! We were so excited and returned Saturday with the intent and hope of inviting them to be baptized! We showed up with our 74 recent convert Fulgencio and he boldly testified that his baptism in the true church had changed his life! Then Gustavo, our INVESTIGATOR, proceeded to share his testimony and teach us and his son, Pio, the first lesson! Wow! We were stunned. He had read the Restoration pamphlet 3 times and him and Maria have been studying the Book of Mormon every day since we gave it to them. Gustavo totally reminds me of Dad with his multi-level marketing, entrepreneurial spirit and sweaters and he loves to be a host! Pio is 18 and doesn´t drink, smoke or do anythig "out of the commandments"! GOLDEN and Prepared! The Lord is so so so merciful and good to us. Gustavo is so precious and so excited to be BAPTIZED with Maria on the 13th of June! I´ve never met anyone so prepared. He loves every part of the church: callings, tithing, word of wisdom, self reliance and as we sat> down to eat some delicous pizza that they made us, (he used to own a Pizzeria,) he cried as he shared with us the hope that has come into his life in these past few weeks. He thanked us and told us that we are now his daughters and knows that the gospel of Christ has been restored to the Earth again, the same Gospel that Christ had when he was on the Earth! He said, ¨Now it is our turn to share this message with everyone else around us... we must continue on with this work so that all our brothers and sisters have this gospel. I was so choked up and amazed and read to him a letter I had just written him 5 minutes before in the front of his Book of Mormon....it said, ¨we´d been praying for a family of future missionaries¨and I know that God had them prepared way before! Yay!

Okay, this is now Hna Stokes, Hi Smoot family and my family. I'm going to tell you a little story about palta, or avacodos. Hna Smoot and I love avacodos, and have been desperately looking for a tree her in Piriapoles so we can have some more. Hna Becar, the missionary whose place> I took, told us of one in Barrio Country, a really big part of our area that Hna Smoot isn't really familiar with, and last Tuesday, we decided to go find it. It had been a really hard day for me, I was really down and struggling with the day, so Hna Smoot decided we would take a detour to our next apt. to find this palta. I thought she knew where she was going, but> after a few minutes it was obvious that we were both lost, and had no clue where we were. we just kept riding around, turning here and there, when we saw a women walking down the road. we stopped her and told her that we had a question that was a little weird. We then proceeded to tell her about our love for palta, and asked her if she knew of a tree that was near by. She> said no, and after we talked to her for a little bit, invited her to church, we went on our way. Without knowing it, right after she left, Hna Smoot and I both said a prayer in our hearts that we would find this palta tree. My prayer was something to the affect of "por favor Father, let us find this tree. I know it is something not very important, but it would sure help my day right now." Hna Smoot´s prayer was something like, por favor Father, help us find this tree so my companion can feel happy and we can continue to work." Right after our prayers, Hna Smoot looked across the road, and there was a palta tree! Seriously right there! we went and knocked on the door, but it was obvious no one was living there. There were bricks blocking the door and like five bills sticking out, so we went over to the neighbor's house and asked them if we could have the palta. The lady said sure, and sent her son out to help us. He climbed the tree and got three for us, then left. We were about to leave, but there was so much more palta in the tree we couldn´t settle for just three. We first tried jumping to reach it, then found a long metal bar in the back yard and tried to smack the palta down, but that didnt work either. I then kneeled down on all fours while Hna Smoot stood on my back to see if she could reach the palta, but that still didnt work, so then, Hna Smoot, in her skirt, climbed up the palta tree, and to make a longer story shorter, we now have nine palta ripining in our kitchen! it was quite a fun experience, and the rest of the day was really great! It also was such an answer to prayers, as simple as it was and as unimportant, Heavenly Father showed us his love by helping us find that palta tree.

Love, Hermana Stokes Love you all! Hermana Smoot

Easter with Eliza

Grandma and Lizzy bonding time - pure joy

This week Mary and Baden went to London and France for a long awaited trip. They came to Centerville first though to drop off my Easter gift - our little Lizzy, (Eliza), who is 2, but almost 3. They took William, our chunky 9 month old grandbaby with them. He's still nursing!!! They had a great time, but believe me when I say, I had the greatest time of all of us. I got to know my absolutely precious Eliza at 2 years old. They live in Spokane, Washington and so we get to see them about every 3 to 4 months, which is wonderful, but not as wonderful as everyday would be.

This little girl has huge brown eyes that pop right our of her head, naturally curly hair, can talk like a 5 year old and is extremely expressive in her words and facial expessions. She celebrates all the smallest parts of a day - what she wears, the color pink & being a ballerina, each book we read together, (which were a zillion), how patient she noticed that she was at a meeting I went to, her chocolate milk, even her naps. We would read a bunch of books together and then when I finally said, okay, time for a nap, she would lay down with the sweetest smile on her face and tuck both hands up by her face and close her huge eyes and go to sleep. Sometimes she would grab my neck and stick her face close to mine, so that if I opened my eyes, I could see her beautiful face right there, in all it's pureness. I knew I loved her from the moment I saw her, but to have 10 days with her and really get to experience her absolute innocent and sweet personality was the best gift ever.

When I asked her if she needed to go potty, she would always say, "no, I went last year". :) We laughed at her hysterical comments over and over. A two year old can rarely speak what goes on in their heads and it comes out so cute. It was so sweet to see how much she loves William and how much she missed him. When Grandma and Grandpa Smoot came for Sunday lunch, she launched into an hour conversation with them about how she was going to be baptized by her dad, because he had the priesthood. She knew everyone who had the priesthood and everyone that didn't. She remember, after I told her once, that Sam didn't have it, because he had to be twelve. I couldn't believe she remember that so many hours after I told her why.

I made her a little scrapbook of our time together and I think she really liked it. Before she left, she helped me add some pictures. It was such a treat and I miss her. She reminds me so much of Mary's adorable little personality, sweet and without guile, just wanting to do what she should. (Thanks Mary and Baden for being such amazing parents to our 2 little ones. We appreciate the chance to be with Eliza!)