(Look What We Came Across!!)
(Ha Ha Just Kidding This Is What We Saw)
Well this week was another great week here in Algiers. We had some really fun and awesome things happen to us. First off I might as well talk about the highlight of the week. It happened on Saturday and Sunday. Can you guess it? Yup it was conference! All of the teachings and messages were so great. I took a bunch of notes. I noticed when you have a paper in front of you and you write down the things that come to your head when they speak to you that you feel the Spirit a lot stronger and you take a lot more from the messages. I watched all of the sessions except for Saturday mornings, but don't worry! I am planning on watching it today. I will tell you why I missed it later on. But we watched it at the church with all of the missionaries. All 15 of us just chilling in the chapel. It defiantly isn't like home when we come down in our PJ's and relax on the couch. It was really good though. I brought those snacks you sent me this week and that was awesome! Everyone sure did want to sit by me! haha. I have many favorite talks. One thing that kept on hitting me was courage and how we need to always have courage. In my mind I thought of the 5 seconds of courage we heard about in the Priesthood session. As long as you have those 5 seconds to go up and talk to someone you will not regret it. It defiantly works out here and it did when I was home too! haha I loved the talk about the truck too. Yes mom the whole time I was just thinking about my truck back home and how I would do anything to have that out here! haha I thought it was cool how he talked about how we all have loads no matter what and we need to have those loads to help us be stronger. We need to make sure all of those loads though are helping us get closer to the Savior. I had never thought of it that way. Another thing that really stuck out to me was Elder Uchdorfs talk about Gratitude. The only attitude is gratitude. We always need to be grateful for everything. Sometimes it is hard to be grateful when a door is slammed in our face or when an investigator is not willing to change. It just isn't that much fun, but we need to be grateful because Heavenly Father knows everything. He especially knows each one of us and what we need. He never will give us something we cannot overcome. I loved all of conference. Dad I was cracking up with Elder Uchdorfs talk in Priesthood session about Air force one. It just goes to show that they are normal people just like us. One talk that really applies to me out here was the talk I think by Elder Ballard. The Follow up one. I need to be better at that. And also how we need to be known as the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter day saints. Not Mormons. People down here have no idea that Mormonism is actually the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. So we have really been trying to help people understand that. Those are the talks that I can remember right now. I left my notes home so I can't remember all of them haha. I loved our Prophets talk too. He is such a sweet guy and you can tell how much love he has for others. That is yet another thing I am working on haha! Loving everyone. So that was my conference. It was great!! Just think.... Only 2 more than I am home haha! :)
So going back to Saturday morning’s session and how I missed it there is a really good reason. So a member in our branch named Sister Neilson she is a teacher at the high school down here. She had a fun run day to raise money for 2 of the students at the school who have a disorder. She asked me about 3 weeks ago if we could come and help her out. So we got there at about 6 to start setting up. So we marked out the 3.1 miles that everyone was going to run and after that they asked us if we would lead everyone in the run. This means that we would pretty much run the show haha. So the time came and the race was about to start so we announced to everyone the route and that we would be leading the race and it was funny because it was a bunch of high school kids, but we felt so old. Then the race started and we led everyone and after the first people finished we decided to keep riding around and just cheer everyone along their way. Turns out that we were the favorite part of everyones day. And I guess we made the whole thing a success. It was a lot of fun. We were able to hang out with the Neilsons and the Peays which are 2 of the coolest families in the branch. And I won't lie, but it was nice being around younger people. I had a lot of fun and that is the reason we missed the morning session, but it was for a great cause. Then Sister Neilson I guess called up President Wall and told him how awesome we are. So that made us feel really good.
This week we were fed a lot and had a lot of good appointments with people we have not been able to get into contact with for some time. Sister Walker took us out to this place called New Orleans Seafood and Spirit. I had a huge dish of shrimp scampi with a huge slice of Catfish on the top. It was so great. We for sure will have to go to this place when we come back. Then on Friday we had 2 dinner appointments. The first one they fed us tacos and then we went with brother Neil to go get Chinese food. It was a lot of fun. This week has been a lot of fun.
The only down side to this week is the progress of our investigator Brother R. We went over on Thursday to read from the Book of Mormon with him. Turns out he had been smoking a lot. He says he can stop anytime he wants and we believed him because he doesn't have any money. When we got there we asked him how it went this week on not smoking and he told us he had smoked so we asked him how he got it. He told us that he wheels around in his wheel chair and picks up cigarette butts and then takes them home and takes the tobacco out and smokes it in a pipe. So we had a big talk about that. Then he asked if we could change a light bulb in his bedroom so we did and on his wall he has a huge poster of pornography on his wall and I turned around and asked him if he remembers our talk about the Law of Chastity and he said yes and then I asked him if he would take the poster down and he said no. Then he got really mad and started saying bad things to us and saying he doesn't like to be told what to do by two 19 year olds and he said our brains must be messed up if we think that is bad so we had another 30 minute conversation about it and the whole time he was just getting mad so Elder Jenson and I left. We were super BOLD with him though. The boldest I have ever been and I told him how we do not believe in that. Elder Jenson and I have talked and prayed a lot about what we should do about this. We have talked to the other missionaries and members and we have come to the conclusion that we have taught him everything we can and now it is up to him whether or not he wants to change so we are going to tell him that this week and tell him when he is ready then he can give us a call. I just don't want to be around that stuff at all. So that was a bummer this week, but oh well. It is up to him now.
This week has been a great week though! We had a great night last night and were able to go over to a members house and just have a lot of fun with them. I will admit it was pretty tough during conference when it was showing the temple and the mountains and all of that stuff. It just made me think of home and our family and all the fun memories, but I am alright don't worry! :) Well that is about it for this week. It was a good week and I am looking forward to this next week for sure! My testimony is growing every day. I feel myself becoming more converted every day. I miss y’all, but it's only 2 years. Y’all are the best! I love y’all and have a great week!
Elder Smith
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