Bienvenido Julio

Hola :)

Wow I can't believe today is the first day of JULY....so so so crazy. I hope everyone is loving and enjoying summertime and has some fun plans this weekend to celebrate the birth of America and the freedom we all enjoy!!! We have the incredible blessing to go to a Yankees game Friday night and then on the 4th we're going to be in a parade with the branch! (Dressing up as pioneers haha) it's going to be a fun weekend for me and Sister Smoot for sure! I'll tell you all about it next week.....but HAPPY almost 4th of JULY!!!!

This week we've been trying to help the new elders out since they're whitewashing and take them to lessons with us, especially when we visit members. Thursday we had a packed day prepared for them we saw Sis Carol, and the Maldonados and the Crumbleys and Bro King AND Sis Gaughan!! We got fed twice in one day even! Pretty good first day! On Friday we went with them to Jeven, I don't remember if I've told y'all about Jeven but he's probably our favorite member. He's SO FUNNY and he always sings us these crazy songs he's made up.....he's just awesome and kind of indescribable, but don't worry we take videos of him singing and such so someday y'all will understand. But we saw a lot of the members the rest of the week too, even went to the Fuller's AND last night we tried to play a trick on them and bring them to a "pass-off" lesson but it was really just Bro Robert's our branch mission leader......he had planned all these funny things like giving them PB&J and then giving us steak...but unfortunately a few minutes into us being there it was all blown because an elder who used to serve here had already shown them a picture of Bro Roberts. Sad day. 

Also it's been SUPER rainy here in Monticello this week. Last night we even got a flood warning. It's been a little crazy driving through it, especially yesterday we had a meeting in Ossining to meet the smith's and the drive there was super crazy. BUT the meeting was so so incredible, we already love President and Sister Smith so much!! Their 3 kids are so adorable and funny and so are they and they're just so happy to be here! The spirit was so strong and I just know that their call was so inspired and I'm so excited to serve with them!! 

 All the Hassidic Jews came up for the summer starting these week.....and wow it's crazy. I'll have to take a couple of pictures this week because I'm not sure y'all can even imagine how many Jewish people could be in one small village. It's INSANE. They are literally everywhere, and all dressed up. Walmart is always crazy packed, all these new kosher restaurants are opening......and none of them drive super well because they're from the city, it's CRAZY. Haha definitely an experience.

Well the rest of this week was pretty normal, nothing super exciting in the progression of our investigators but I know good things are to come! Oh and I almost forgot me and Sis Smoot sang in branch conference this Sunday.....and so we had never practiced with the member who was going to play the piano for us and we were super nervous. And saturday night had been the MOTAB concert at bethel woods.....and right before church starts all theses people with MOTAB nametags walk in.....and we start getting super nervous. And then when we finally sing and it didn't go super well because the member playing the piano didn't really know it, it was kind of bad. LUCKILY we found out after the meeting that the MOTAB people that had been there were actually just the stage crew. But they were still all amazing at singing and it was fun to have a few extra voices to sing the hymns with. Sometimes our small branch struggles, so it was fun to have so many voices to sing with us!

Well I think that about covers all the highlights for this week! Sorry if it wasn't TOO exciting this week but I promise a slightly better email next week, though Sis Smoot is going to a Broadway play so it might get a little crazy but I should have time! 

I love you all so much!!! Remember to choose to be happy this week :-) 

Con Amor,

Hermana Smart