Another Flat Tire! - 5/26/14

Hey there family! Man, your week sounds like it was a great week for sure! I am glad the wedding turned out so great. I am excited to see all of the video and all the pictures. (PS I have received all of the packages you have sent and also your amazing talk on me! Thanks for that!) Sounds like there were some funny moments. That story about Carter sounded very funny! I bet you and dad had some good toasts too. I am happy Ryan and Keelie are doing great and are happy. 

Well transfers are in! It is not a surprise really, but I am staying here in Gonzales with Elder Borget. I am happy about it. We get along really well. Elder Willis is staying as well, but his companion is leaving so he will be getting a new companion tomorrow. We are hoping he is cool! So not a whole lot has happened this week. I am looking back and trying to remember what has happened. All of the days start to blend together. We did have the opportunity to go up to the Temple. We helped out with the youth doing baptisms for the dead. We are not allowed to get into the water so we were the witnesses. I really wanted to do a session, but we couldn't. I heard there is a new video from the previous new video. Have you guys seen it yet? I am going to try and go this week or next. It is nice because we now are just 20 minutes away from the temple. I love the temple. You feel so good when you go there! 

We did a couple of moves this week. Some families are moving out to Utah. It was nothing too bad at all. They were actually packed and all they needed us to do was move it! That was soooo nice!! :) Hmmm.. I am trying to think what else happened. Oh yeah!! We got a new investigator. Her name is B. She is African American. She was a referral from the Glades Knight concert. We got in contact with her within the 48 hour window and have not been able to get back over there for a couple of weeks. So on Wednesday we went over there to try and see her again. She is Baptist and has a HUGE cross in front of her house. It's like 10 ft. tall. She invited us right in and we started talking. She had a lot of good questions. We taught her the restoration and it went great. She said she really wanted to come to church so we gave her a commitment to go to church. Guess what happened... She didn't come. I was pretty frustrated because she sounded so good. So we are going to go over there and talk with her again this week. Multiple times! haha She is a really nice lady. Her husband died a couple years ago and she really liked the plan of salvation. We will teach her the rest of that this week. So keep her in your prayers. Also can you guys pray for us to find some new people to teach? All the prayers we can get will help! Tracting has not had any success yet. I am really wanting to find someone who has been prepared.

On Saturday there was a baptism in the 2nd ward for a member’s son that had turned 8. Even though he is not a convert there is still just such a special feeling about Baptism. It is the first step towards eternal life. We have been so blessed to be baptized by someone having the Priesthood. And then to be able to go to church every Sunday and re-new those covenants. Our Gospel is soooo simple when you take a step back and look at it. All he asks us is to keep his commandments. All of us can do that because of the power of the Atonement. I have really loved reading in my scriptures this past week. I had the great opportunity to teach Elders Quorum on Sunday. I taught from this past conference talk from Elder Holland. "The cost and BLESSINGS of discipleship." I learned so much from this talk. If you don't remember the talk you should read it this week. It talks about what we may have to endure and the trials we may face as members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. I never had been persecuted because of my beliefs before the mission. I love what he says about how we, in a humble way, will experience a little bit of what our Savior has felt. We need to make sure we have a strong testimony of the truthfulness of this Gospel. Because one day we may be faced with someone who doesn't believe what we believe and we have been asked to defend our beliefs with courtesy and with compassion. 

Also this week we were fed every night. It is so hard to eat healthy here in the south!!! Jambalaya is not good for you if you didn't know haha. We have it so much too! Last night we went to the Hansen’s for burgers and hot dogs. It was so much fun. We played croquet and that was a lot of fun. I love the members here. They are awesome. Well that pretty much sums up the week for me. It was a good one. 

Well I hope you guys have a wonderful week! I bet the weather is starting to get nice again! Hey when is the ol MasterCraft coming out of hibernation? You guys will have a lot of fun with it this year! Well I guess this is goodbye until next Monday! I love you guys! 

Elder Smith 

P.S. Oh man I totally forgot... I was driving to a dinner appointment and right when we got there I hit a storm drain and it popped our tire from the side wall. So we look and guess what we didn't have a spare. So we have been out of a car since Saturday. We are going to try and get a new tire today! Crazy stuff haha. 

An Answer To Prayers! 5/19/14

Hey there my wonderful, amazing, athletic, competitive, travelin family! This week sounds like it was nice and busy for you all. That nice 100 degree weather in Arizona sounds pretty warm that is for sure! I'm glad you all had such a fun time down there. Good job mom and Jill for taking grandma and grandpa in cards! I bet there were some funny stories that came from that trip. Dad did you have any of your famous golf shots? Like swinging right underneath it or the impossible "top Shot". haha. I sure do miss that! That trip is always the best trip. Arizona is a perfect place to go for family trips. Did you guys eat a lava cake from Flemings for me? Well while you guys were eating like kings and queens I was scarfing down some nasty stuff... We have eaten some of the weirdest things ever. How about squirrel? Yeah pretty gross. Oh well. Hey that is awesome you guys started playing pickelball. That is so much fun. We will have to have some good matches! So when you said they are putting in a court? Did you mean in Arizona or at our house in Utah? That would be pretty sweet. 

Hey that is awesome you were able to go to Wills farewell! I bet he did a great job. He is a good kid. He will make a great missionary! But man am I glad I am where I am now instead of that position... That is pretty sweet you were able to see a bunch of my friends. Sounds like everyone is still just hanging out. Hey tell Hailey I never did get that letter! haha oh well. So Bryson emailed me this morning and told me about you mom and his mom talking. He was happy! He is afraid after the mission we are just going to go our separate ways! I assured him that is not true because the boat show is the same week he gets home! We will have to go pick out our new boat right?? ;) He is such a stud. I miss that kid. You will have to tell Jeff and Justina, Braden, and Justin hi for me. I miss that family! Oh and you can't forget about their dog Toby. Haha. That is sweet Chases mom gave the missionary moment. I actually get all of his letters. He adds me to his weekly email. He has some crazy stories that is for sure. He is a great missionary. He sent me a picture of a wolf! It was sweet! And man -67 degrees sounds pretty cold... Man it is cool hearing about all of the friends out on missions and those about to go. Missions are so good. They for sure teach you a lot really fast! Well tell everyone hello for me. 

Well now for my week. It was WWWWAAAAAYYYYY long!! haha. It just kept dragging on, but the weird thing is now I look back and it absolutely flew by! This week was a tough one for teaching. We probably had 22 lessons fall through. Everyone was so busy this week with school getting out and graduation. So it was a lot of driving around and knocking and no one being home. SOOO frustrating especially when we called them that morning to confirm the appointments. So we only had 9 lessons. I think that is probably the lowest I have had ever. This week will be a lot better on that part though. On the other hand though we have been getting fed so great! This week we have someone feeding us every night and some for lunches. Good thing I have started to run. We have been very dedicated. On Saturday we woke up at 4:45 and went running with 2 members up on a golf course in Baton Rouge. It was a 5 mile run and it was nothin. We have been running every morning just at a track. The shoes I bought have helped so much so thank you very much. This morning we got up at 5 this morning and went Disc Golfing with brother Perilloux. I am getting better! I had a 2 today on a really hard hole which is pretty darn good. But I followed it up with a 5... I have some pictures I will send to you from this morning. We had some good laughs! 

Alright starting out last week. On Monday we had our zone P-Day. We went up to Baton Rouge to the Stake Center and played basketball for 4 hours with everyone! We killed it. Elder Willis and some members could not miss. Every now and again I would throw up a 3 and drain it. That was a lot of fun. Then on Wednesday we had our Zone Service day up in Baton Rouge at the African American museum. That was really boring. There were like 30 missionaries there to do a 15 man job. So we just talked to the people. I talked about Mali and how I'd been there. There was a lady that was stunned I had been there. She was from Ghana and had been to Mali before. It was pretty cool. So that was fun. Then Also on Wednesday we had our final interviews with President Wall... He goes home on July 1st and we have interviews every 3 months. It was a really good interview. He gave me some awesome advice and he really gave me a great compliment. He said there are 3 types of missionaries. The disobedient, the good missionaries, and then the missionaries he trusts. He said most of his zone leaders he doesn't even trust, but then he went on and told me how he feels like I am a missionary he can trust. He told me he feels like he could give me any assignment and he would trust me with it. It was a nice complement. I love that guy. He will be missed. I am nervous for the new one that is for sure! We will see how it goes. 

On Saturday it was a busy day. First off waking up at 4:45 and going on a 5 mile run then we came back home and did studies for an hour. Then we had ward missionary coordination. Our mission leader really gets on my nerves... I try so hard to love him, but he just really chaps my bottom haha. He treats us like 5 year olds and if you know me that is a huge pet peeve... So after I killed him with kindness he started treating us better. That was good. After that meeting we had District meeting for another 1 1/2 hours. So I was pretty much dead after that. Then the day started getting great! A member invited us over for their sons graduation and there were a bunch of non-members. We talked a lot about what missionaries do because their son is going to the Salt Lake City East mission in July. There was a crazy lady that absolutely loved me. All she wanted to do was give me a hug... It was weird. Then they had a blow up obstacle course and all the kids wanted to race me so here I am in my church clothes running all over the place and dodging obstacles and such. It was a lot of fun.  Then after that we went and played basketball for 1 1/2 hours with non-members at the church. We played if we win we get to teach you a lesson and if we lose we will buy lunch. Guess what happened...... Yup you guessed it. We taught them a lesson! It was fun. We are going to do the same again today. Then after that we went to a members house that actually live in the other ward. We went with Elder Willis and his comp. We had steaks for dinner. Those members are probably some of my favorite people ever. The dad is a huge golfer and in their back yard they have a huge pond like the pond in the back of our AZ houses. I asked if I could rip a few drives out there. He was like for sure! It felt sooo good to hit some golf balls. I still somewhat got it! I cracked them! Today we may be going golfing with the Bishop. He offered so we may be able to go! That would be sick!!

(Faster than my bike) 

SO that was pretty much our week. We did have a very Spiritual thing happen to us. We went over to brother L. house for dinner on Friday. He just came back to the church 2 years ago. He had big problems with drugs and other things. He has really changed and cleaned his life up about 8 years ago and got married and has a son. His wife is not a member and he really wants her to become a member. So the cool thing about this Story is he has really been struggling with getting his answer. He read the book of Mormon and has taken Moroni's challenge and he has not received his answer he said. He said he has felt the Spirit before. So we talked for about an hour about his questions he has had. He has had like 6 sets of missionaries talk to him about these questions. I had a really strong feeling come over me that we should pray right then and there. So I asked him if he believes he can get his answer. He said yes. So I asked him if any other missionaries had asked him to pray right then and there with them. He said no so I asked him if he would pray and express the desires of his heart to our Heavenly Father. He agreed to do it. So we got down on our knees and he started praying. I don't think I have ever prayed harder for someone to get their answer before. During the prayer he started to cry. After his unbelievabe heart felt prayer he looked up at me and said I feel peace. I looked at him and told him that was the Spirit answering his prayers. He was so happy and so humble. He has really wanted a strong testimony to tell his wife he "Knows" it is true and not that he just believes. It was a really spiritual experience. I love it. Prayer really does work and the Spirit really does direct us what to say to others. All we have to do is listen. 

Well that was pretty much my week. I know this letter is a novel, but I am so happy. Mother’s day last week was the best thing ever! I just love my family! You guys are the best! Tell Ryan and Keelie good luck and hit a glass for me at the wedding! Keelie welcome to the best family in the world! I am a little bias if you can't tell! :) Mom and dad have a great week and remember "Worry ends where Faith begins" SO have faith that Heavenly Father will help you guys out this week with everything. Tell all my awesome little nieces and nephews I say what up! Hey have a great week alright?? Until next week! God be with y’all! :) I love you all!

Love Elder Smith

PS Mom did you get my letter I sent to you?? You should have got it the Saturday before mother’s day or the Monday afterward. I hope you did.

PSS Hey I have been craving my blue suit.. I am going to send one of my suits home. Could you send out my blue one? That would be awesome! But hey don't worry about it this week because I know you will be super busy with the wedding! Good luck! I love you!

(Graduation)

(My Apartment)

Day After Mother's Day!! 5/12/14

Hey Mom and Dad!! How are you two holding up from yesterday? I am doing terrific!! It didn't make me sad at all, just so happy I have such an incredible family. It was soo good seeing all of you guys and how great you all looked. I can't believe how big Brielle and Sophie are getting. When Sophie answered your phone mom I thought it was Jane. Crazy! I can't imagine how much bigger they will be by Christmas. Hey that is right around the corner... haha NOT! It will come so fast though. Mom you looked great and Dad you looked great. We have one good-looking family that is for sure!!

Well the hardest part about yesterday was saying goodbye. Having to press the end button. But the nice thing is it is not the end. It is still only the beginning. I am happy about that. It was nice to hear from Grandma and Grandpa as well!! I am sad I had to go right then though. Tell them hello and thank you for the post card. Tell all the family up in Logan I say “what up”. Also, aunt Jill thanks for the wishes! Tell your family hello. I can't believe David is getting married. That is crazy!! Hey Lake Powell better be the same though!! Ha ha. 

Well this week has been a great week! I went on Exchanges with Elder Willis's companion Elder Gosh. He is a good missionary. We had some fun times and good memories. Then on Saturday we went on splits with our ward mission leader and his assistant. Our mission leader is crazy ha ha. I went with him and we went and talked to a guy for 2 hours and the best part about it was he doesn't even live in our ward boundaries! Oh well. Then Yesterday was amazing. Seeing all of you guys and just talking in person. That is just the best. Mom you did a good job on staying strong. Except for that first phone call. Ha ha. I think you said hello and then started to cry :) I love ya! You guys are looking fit though that is for sure! Keep up the good work.

Today we went disc golfing again at 7. Dad thanks for the advice! I played a lot better today. After about 11 holes my arm started to hurt so I started playing pretty badly. It was fun though. I didn't see any snakes, but everyone else did. We have water moccasins here, which is very scary so I am super cautious. Then we came back and now we are at the library. After here we are actually heading back up to Baton Rouge for P-day. We are having a BBQ with all of the missionaries in our zone and probably playing basketball. Then we have dinner today. It is going to be a great day. 

Well like we said yesterday we will keep the letters short today. Just know I am happy out here and doing great! I miss you guys like crazy, but this is where I need to be. Keep on being the great Smith family that you are. I sure am blessed to have such a great family who supports me so much. Well until next Monday! I love y’all so much. Have a great day!!

Peace!!

Elder Smith

Glades Knight is a Great Missionary!! 5/5/14

Why Hello there y’all! How's it going back in good old Utah? Mom and Dad thanks for your awesome letters. You guys say I am a good writer.... Well you should see y’all!! I have got to step it up I guess. Sounds like a rough day today I mean having to go down to Arizona to the amazing weather down there and relaxin and eating the best food in the world... Man rough life right? :) haha just kidding. Dad go get a hole in one for me! :) Wow Jacque played really well! That is so sweet she already has coaches wanting her. Next is going to be Jane and Jaycee! They sure can kick my butt! Well Thanks for the update on all of the family. I am glad everything is going great! 

Well mom can you believe it is Mother day in 2 weeks??? haha just kidding it's in 1!! I just wanted to give you a little scare. We will be calling from Malosi’s cousins house. I will be on an iPad. We don't get out of church until 4 our time so I will probably be calling around 5 or something like that. Are y’all wanting to Skype again onto the big screen in the basement? I can't remember any of my passwords or anything like that so have Dan or Ryan make one up for me. It is going to be a great day that is for sure! I am excited to see everyone and talk to the newest member of our family, Keelie! New Sista coming up. Mom I am sure you have got a lot of questions so write them down. I will write some down as well. And if the little kids could be there I would love to say hello. Oh something pretty cool happened yesterday. We were over at the Alo's (Malosis cousins) and they pulled up facetime and I was able to talk to Malosi for like 5 minutes! It was a lot of fun seeing that kid again. He is the man! It just got me pumped up for next weekend. So mom is there anything you would like for mother’s day from good ol Louisiana? Let me know. 

Now for the week. It was a great week! So many fun things happened. First off something awesome happened on Tuesday. Have y’all ever heard of Glades Knight? The singer? Well she is LDS and she has a church choir based out of Las Vegas and they go around the states touring and singing. They are called the Saints Unified Choir. They came on Tuesday up to Baton Rouge for all of the stakes and it was a great tool for missionary work. The members were pretty much in charge of inviting all of their non-member friends. It was a huge turn out!! We ended up being ushers and helping them out with traffic so we were there for 2 sessions. We got there at 2 in the afternoon and didn't leave until about 12 that night. It was a long day of hard work. Well the program was at the stake center and the choir came in and everyone was clapping and singing. It was a really cool experience. So man African Americans came and it was great because they were able to hear the testimony of some very famous African Americans. People were shouting AMEN and waving their arms all over the place. It was so much fun. Our Stake ended up getting over 150 referrals and we got 7 out of that man in Gonzales. We contacted them all and we have some sweet new investigators!! So we are keeping our fingers crossed! The goal is to teach everyone in members’ homes so we can have a good fellowship. It is working out really well. So now we have like 15 investigators which is the most I have ever had. In Algiers I had maybe 5 at the most and only 1 was progressing. So the work is defiantly hastening. SO that was a really cool day. 

Elder Willis and I went on exchanges this week and it was a great time! We had a bunch of dinner appointments and we went to Outback Steakhouse to celebrate haha. A lot of fun! The first steak I have had in probably 7 months. The work here is going really well. I think there will be baptisms in the near future. It is just a matter of time. We have had a lot of success this past week with getting less active members to come to church. We had 8 less active members come to church! It was so great to see them. So yes things are going great here in Gonzales! It is not all about the baptisms ya know? It is about the small things that add up to be the big things! 

Saturday we had a meeting at 9 with the Ward council. Elder Willis and I ended our exchanges on Friday pretty late so my companion forgot to tell me about the meeting. We were in the middle of our companionship study when we looked in our planners and he just said "CRAP" It was 9:30 by the time we looked. So we arrived fashionable late.... It is kind of tough because our Ward mission leader is a very grumpy guy sometimes and man did we hear it. I was very upset because I feel like we lost the trust a little bit from the members. Then the next morning we had another meeting and I knew about it this time so we arrived 15 minutes before and I was in my seat. Then the Ward mission leader just started to drill me for some things, but I had been praying for some help and everything he said I had a great answer back to him. After the meeting some people came up to me and said wow... He was really giving you a hard time. But oh well I was able to get back on his good side. He said man Elder Smith after those answers I guess after all I don't need to call the President. So my comp and I had a nice little talk about letting each other know about appointments. It is all good though! 

So this morning we got up at 6am and went to the high school track with a recent convert named G. We ran 2 miles and did 50 tire flips for our cross fit. It was really fun. Then at 7 one of the coolest guys I know came and picked us up to go play disc golf up in Baton Rouge!! It was a lot of fun, but man do I suck at throwing a disc... I shot a 79 on 18... At least I stayed in the 70's right? haha. He told me some funny remark about how I wasn't playing all that great and then I was like well let’s get on the "real golf course" and play and see who’s talking! It was a lot of fun. The Assistants and our zone leaders came with us to play. We had a good time so we have already done a lot this morning. It is great! Next we are going to wash the car and then probably go Gator Huntin!! I am hoping so. Oh yeah and while we were playing disc golf I threw  it into a bush so I went over to grab it out. As I was walking over to it I noticed a stick moving. Yeah guess what... It wasn't a stick... It was a FREAKIN SNAKE!! It scared the living day lights out of me. I hate snacks and boy am I in the country for snakes!! You see sooo many down here it is crazy! I remember that one time when I was up at the Zaugg’s house hanging out with Lane and he got his snake and ran after me with it and boy was I just a screamin and running home! Good times.... Well that is the crazy story for the week. 

Now for a little more spiritual. We went over to this ladies house to give her a little package from Tuesday night and we went over and she invited us on in. She was really excited. So we started teaching the Restoration to her. It was so spiritual. I could tell she felt the Spirit. I know I sure did. She was asking just all of the right questions and both of us Elders had the right answers. She said she really enjoyed the choir and she felt something. When we heard this we both looked at each other and were super pumped! Then guess what... the Restoration Distraction came... Dad and Dave did y’all ever notice that? Whenever you teach the Restoration there always is a distraction. It happens everytime we teach it. Her kids came in and were just really loud and it just completely went all over the place after that. So we decided to leave with our Testimonies and a challenge to come to church. It was a really good lesson. The sad thing is she didn't come to church.... Hopefully next week. 

Well I am doing great! Sorry this letter is a novel, but it was just such a good week ya know? I am super happy today too! Well mom and dad I can't wait to talk to y’all next weekend! Hopefully all the fam can be there! Well I love y’all so much! Keep up the good work at home and continue to be the great examples you are. You never know who is watching. I know I always looked up to the example set by all of y’all. Thanks for that! Well have a great week!! Love y’all again!


Elder Smith

PS Oh yeah we had 18 lessons this week and 30 hours of service! It was Great!!!!!