Hey there! How is everyone doing? From the sound of moms email y'all are doing really well. Mom and Dad and Grandparents I am glad y'all had such a great trip! That really sounds like a lot of fun! I am a little jealous;) I have received 2 post cards thus far. They look so cool! I am excited to get some more! That sounds like a really long flight! Well how is school going for all the kids? Are they liking it? How about sports? Are the Dunyon girls kicking trash as they always do? And little Boston and Carter are they scoring lots of goals? I bet they all are doing so well! I miss my little nieces and nephews! They are all so cute.
Well this week has been a really good week. We have done a lot and gotten a lot of stuff done. This week we had Zone Conference. This is a meeting with all of the missionaries in our zone and with President and Sister Wall. It was about a 6 hour meeting and it took up most of our day. It was really good to get a lot of instruction from our President. He is such a great man and you can tell he is so close to the Spirit. He talked about HOPE. He told us that we as missionaries bring hope to people. I liken this to members of the church. We all have a knowledge that no one else has. We have the answers to everything. When people see us they notice something different about us. So when we as missionaries and members of the church go around visiting and helping people out we are bringing HOPE to them. I love this. I never really realized this until I got out here. That is what we are doing. We see a lot of people who feel like they are alone, sad, and feel like everything bad is happening just to them. It is such a great feeling knowing the Gospel of Jesus Christ can help everyone out, no matter what their problem is. We see a lot of less actives and it is almost like we are their therapists, but they just need someone to talk to and trust. I really like that. Then another really cool thing that happened during our Zone Conference is we had a member of the 70 come and speak with us. Brother Bluph. (I don't know how to spell that) He was a really cool guy and you could feel the goodness in him. He gave us 2 challenges. 1. Never leave a person without helping them feel the Spirit. And 2. Never give an invitation to partake of an ordinance without having the Spirit with you. He gave a really good talk. Then after the meeting we headed back home. The traffic was soooo bad. It took us 2 hours to get back to Algiers from Metairie. Which is normally only 30 minutes. So that day was really good and really spiritual. I loved it.
Then we had our service day on Thursday. Thursdays are my favorite days because all we do is just serve people and help them out with whatever they need. So after our studies we went over to the sister we have been working with to get re-baptized. We mowed her lawn and helped her with her garden then she fed us like she always does. She made us Pork Chops and they were SOOO good. She is a really good cook. Then after that Elder Scarlet and I decided to share our favorite scriptures with her for the spiritual thought that we have started giving her again. She really enjoyed them and then out of the blue she started bawling.. She told us how she has been having a really rough time. Her neighbor (a lady we mow her lawn too) passed away. She was an old lady and they had been friends for a long time. Then with all the other stuff with her family she just broke down and asked if I would give her a Priesthood blessing. I gladly did. I don't remember anything I said in the Blessing, but she said it was one of the best blessings she had ever received. I told her it wasn't me... It was Heavenly Father. Then Elder Scarlet and I asked her if she would like to come back to Church and be baptized again. She told us she had been thinking alot about it and she has a couple concerns that she wants to talk about when we go over next time. We were soo happy!! We really think she is going to come back to church! So that was really cool!! I am really happy! All of our hard work is slowly paying off. Then after that we went and mowed the ladies lawn who's mom passed away. She was really struggling and we said a prayer with her. She is not a member so this could be an opportunity to teach her. She invited us to the funeral which was today. We all went, but we must have had the wrong time and no one was at the church when she told us. We will have to tell her that when we see her this week. Then we went and mowed another ladies lawn. It was a busy day with a lot of hard work!
Friday we had another meeting. It was our Zone Training meeting. It is just our Zone leaders who teach. It was really good. I got up and bore my testimony. I felt the spirit really strongly. They talked about how we can become better missionaries and also how we are never alone. Our older brother is always right by us. I am so grateful for our Savior.
So that was pretty much my week. It was a good week except on Saturday I started feeling a little sick.. I now have a pretty good cold. Oh well.. It is all apart of the Journey. I am not going to let it affect me. Oh so for conference we watched it at the Church. It was just the missionaries pretty much. It was one of my favorite conferences ever. I have so many pages of notes. Y'all are going to have to go on LDS.org and look them all up. They have all of the talks on there and it is really easy to find it. So Sundays are really busy days. This past Sunday we had church at 9 then we went to a lunch appointment. It was a spanish lady and she didn't speak any english so I just said HOLA haha. She served us Mexican food. It was really good! Then Sunday night we ate at the church with the Walkers family. They are the best people ever. They do so much for us missionaries. But it is kind of hard to go into our area on Sunday because our church is really far away from where we live so we bike there and then do our studies there. We sometimes get the van to go over and check up on some people.
Elder Scarlet and I have been getting along really well. I have learned a lot of patience out here already! haha Lets just say Heavenly Father has a lot of humor. He knows how to humble someone! haha. I am doing great out here though. I think Elder Scarlet is going to be leaving this transfer to somewhere else. He has been here for 9 months! So I might be staying. I would love to stay, but it is up to Heavenly Father. I love my area. I can't believe I am almost at my 3 month mark! That is crazy! Some days go by really fast, and then others go by really slow. I am loving it out here. I am killing Elder Scarlet in our contacting game. I am trying to hit 100 for the month. It should be really easy! Well I hope all is well back home. If y'all have any questions about the mission just let me know. I hope my letters are good. I just kind of get going. I try and tell some stories and spiritual insights that I am learning. So let me know! Tell everyone hi for me. I really miss y'all, but the Lord needs me right now. Actually I need the Lord right now. I have never felt so close to my Father in Heaven and my older brother before. I love being able to spread Hope with everyone. We do not teach a whole lot of people, but we are planting seeds like crazy! I feel like I am giving my best effort, but I know I can always do better. I am striving to be the best missionary I can be! I love the work. It is hard, slow, fast, hot, humid, and feels impossible sometimes, but it is so rewarding when you start to see someone change or when you make someones day. I love the people down here. They sometimes don't want to change, but they are good people. Everyone has their agency. But as long as I am doing my best I know people will start to change. I know this Gospel is the true Gospel. It is only through our Church they we can make it back to Heaven. Joseph Smith was a Prophet and the Book of Mormon is the true word of God. I am so Grateful for a living Prophet here on the earth and for the words which he spoke in conference. I love this work! I love you all! I hope y'all have a great week! Remember to pray and read! :) Love you all!!
Elder Smith
PS I love you Mom
PSS I love you Dad
PSSS I love y'all!!!'
( Fooling Around )
( Home Sweet Home )
( Driving Around In My Automobile... Ha ha )
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