Hey Mom, Dad, and Family!
How is everyone doing?? Man your letters sounded great! I love P-Days so I get to hear from you all. Dad I am glad the foot treatment went so well. That is a huge blessing! Mom I am glad you have been going to the temple so often and getting together with all the missionary parents! That sounds like so much fun. Man it is crazy that Justin and Chase leave on Wednesday.. I am glad I am not in their shoes! haha jk. I am glad I already have a couple of months under my belt. I have already been out for like 4 months! That is crazy. This week went by so fast It was crazy.. So I hear the weather back home is getting pretty cold huh? That does not sound like fun at all. Not to brag or anything, but it was 80 yesterday! :) So nice, but it gets really cold here too. It has snowed here 3 times in the past like 40 years and everyone thinks it is going to snow this year. I hope not. The humidity really does not make it fun at all, but oh well! :) Come what may and love it right? Alright well I am just going to get started on this letter.
Alright so starting out with Monday and Tuesday. Not a whole lot happened. Everyone wasn't really home and we had a lot of appointments fall through. We did see a couple of people on Tuesday though. Then we had interviews on Wednesday with our mission President. I was really excited for this! The assistance told us all to come prepared with a 20 minute lesson to give before hand with them before our interviews. So Elder W. and I thought oh it will be easy. Lets just talk about the Gospel of Jesus Christ. So we go in and we start teaching. And the situation was all about teaching people and not lessons. SO we are teaching and we noticed that they both seemed like something was on their mind. We didn't think anything of it and we kept on going. Then we asked them a question and they both answered and said that they didn't feel like they could become a member of our church. We asked why and they said they were gay... So my companion and I completely changed our lesson plan and started talking about the Family Proclamation to the World. It was good. We pretty much just told them what we believe. It was a super hard topic though! We both never thought that would happen. Afterwards the assistance told us we did a great job and said we would be really good in the situation if it ever came up.. The reason I am telling this story is because something happened the very next night. Alright so we had a referral and he lives out on the point. In the information it told us that he had served a mission in Korea. It said how he has been a member for awhile so we thought oh sweet it will be a perfect opportunity to get him to come back to church. So we go over there and start talking and we ask him if he wants to come to church. He pauses for a while and he said.... Well you won't be seeing us there. And we asked why and he said... Well I am gay.. My companion and I looked at each other and we both had a blank stare in our eyes for a moment but then we shared our message that we had just worked on with the AP'S. It really helped. Right after that we called the assistance and told them the story! We couldn't believe it. They said well it was a good thing we practiced! I hope I don't have anymore of those conversations. Alright so back to the interview with President Wall. It was a really good interview. We just talked about what is going on in Algiers and we talked about you mom and dad. He said just the way I describe you guys he can tell you both did a great job raising me. He is very right! Then we just started talking more about the mission and all of that. We talked about his promise to me about becoming a master teacher and he gave me a challenge to whenever I meet someone to learn 3 things about them just by observing or asking a inspired question. So I have been trying that and I have noticed a huge change. People like that a lot more because they can tell you are sincerely interested in them. And you only talk about them. I really have liked that. He also talked about being an ODD missionary. ODD stands for Observe, Discern, and Do it! I really like this. We all need to be ODD missionaries. Also in my interview he told me that I will be training really soon! That will be cool and fun! So that means I am probably going to be in Algiers for a long time... Like 9 months maybe. So we will see.
Then the rest of the week was great. We had a lot of good lessons and spiritual thoughts. We were able to see a lot of less active people. We had a total of 13 lessons this week. That may not sound like a lot, but that is more than what we have done for awhile!
Oh yeah another thing happened. On Friday night we went to the Emergency Room!! At 9:30! Us Elders were over working out and Elder Vaughn got his ear bud from his headphones stuck in his ear! So we called sister Wall and she told us to take him to the ER room to get it out. It took like 3 hours... We didn't get home until 12:30 and Elder Willis and I had to get up at 5 to go to the Temple the next morning. So it was a late night. Then on Saturday we went up to the Temple. We were planning on going through all 3 sessions, but we didn't make the 11 so we decided to wait for someone who was going through the 11 oclock session in the Celestial room. So we ended up sitting in the Celestial room for 2 hours. It was sooo nice. I just sat and read my scriptures and prayed and pondered. I loved it. The Temple is such an amazing place. I love going there. Everytime it is so nice to just get away from the world and just relax and be closer to our Heavenly Father. I love the Temple. It was so great. Then we came home and had a lesson.
This week has been a really good week. We have had a car the whole week and we will have it again this next week. It has been soooo nice! Well Elder W. and I have been getting along really well. He is a good kid and a we work really well together. My testimony is growing so much. Every day I learn something new. I have seen the blessings of serving a mission already. I have seen them by the safety of all of you back home. I have seen it with dads feet. I have seen it with the comfort I get every time I am a little down or things did not go the way I expected. Obedience brings blessings. I know that Prayer is real and we can talk to our Heavenly Father everyday. I know this Gospel is true. I know the Lord has prepared people for all of us to help bring in the Gospel. Mom and Dad I am so glad you both are doing so many missionary things. That makes me so happy! I am glad the rest of the family is too! We all are missionaries, I am just wearing the name tag. That is the only difference! Heavenly Father and the Spirit will help us if we just open our mouths. That is so awesome to know! Alright everyone I have a favor to ask. Will you all think of ideas to help me out with the sister I have been working with. She is not sure if she wants to come back because it brings back so many memories and it makes her feel a little depressed she said. Maybe for family night tonight all of you can think of ideas and let me know. That would be so nice. I want to make my mission every ones mission! I love all the advice!
Well my family and friends I love you so much! I hope you all are doing great! Keep up the good work and keep smilin! If anyone has any questions just let me know and I will try my best to answer them! :) Well I am doing great! The work is great! Slow, but Great! Well until next week! I love you all! :)
Love Elder Smith
PS sorry mom I have taken forever to get the pictures! I will try this week I hope!
PSS Yes I have a lot of plans for thanksgiving. I am going to hate turkey and ham by the end of it all!
PSSS Hey all of my letters are getting returned to me. Like I will send them out and then a week later they get returned. I am using the same addresses of all of them, but they are being returned.
PSSSS will you tell Ryan that I just got his emails from like October 21. So tell him to use his other account! haha!
PSSSSS I love you all sooo Much!! have a great week!
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