Another Transfer Down, 7 More To Go! - 9/30/14

Hey fam! Man it sounds like a "tear"rific week back home! That is so crazy about our pool house. I can not believe it is gone. It looks so weird and different! I am so excited for the next part when they start to put it all together. It really looks like it is going to be awesome! It is going to be a pretty sweet little bachelor pad haha! Wow mom and dad I can't believe you guys got to have a turn in the cat! I bet it was a ton of fun! I loved the one video you sent. I could hear Dan, and Romonita in the back ground and then I saw dad climbing all around in the back to get a good picture! hilarious and then you mom driving the CAT. It was pretty funny when you said tell me when to stop :) And then the Ogden Temple opened up. That is so cool. It is probably so beautiful. You all probably had the best time ever! Tomorrow will be awesome getting to go through as a family for Ryan’s Birthday. PS Ryan happy early birthday! I love you bro! You will have to take some pictures of our family in front of the temple then send it on out. Well it sounds like you all had a great week back home! That is the best news I can get! I stress about you all haha:) Not too much though don't worry. Hey tell the little ones hi for me! I miss them a lot. I did a little fast for all of you this past Sunday. It was really awesome and a very spiritual day for me. You all mean so much to me. Thanks for all of your love and support. This family is the BEST!! I love you all!

Well for this week it has been pretty hectic! First off I will start off with transfers so you all can know. Mom and dad your predictions were right! I am staying here in Houma for another 6 weeks!! Surprisingly I am actually really happy. I am going to stay here with Elder Puefua and continue to finish out his training. I am very happy about that because we get along so well. I have been so fortunate to have the best companions my whole mish. So when I first got here to Houma I won't lie. I hated it. I loved Gonzales!! I was loving the members and I was only there for such a short time. I was so frustrated and mad that I got transferred here. Even ask Dan and Ryan. I would email them and tell them to pray for me to get transferred haha. But slowly after time and a lot of patience and hard work I have started to love it here. The people are awesome and the members are great! The work here is starting to pick up so much! I have some really cool stories this week to write you all. So yeah that is the news! I am staying! So Brit go ahead and send out that little picture Bri made :)

All right so starting out this week we had district meeting on Tuesday. It was a really good meeting. I love the way it is all set up right now. It goes about an hour and a half. We first start off with a hymn, prayer, spiritual thought, and then we do some role playing. After that we do what is called accountability. So I follow up on all of the commitments we made last week. So keeping areabooks updated, cleaning the apartments, cleaning the cars, and then we go over certain investigators and bring up questions so we can all think together what would be the best thing to do. After that we have an activity. Then to bring the spirit back we all stand and quote D&C 4. Then we have an instruction. I have someone from the district do this instruction and it switches off every week. Then at the end I give some instructions and encouragement. Then we close with a hymn, then prayer. It is really fun and we learn a lot. This week we had the Zone Leaders come to the District meeting to check up on how we all were doing and check up on me to see if I am doing my job right. Then after that we had our family history consultant come and teach us all how to do our family history. We all after 3 more weeks will be certified as family history consultants! I am pretty excited about it. After all of that I had exchanges with the Zone Leaders. One of my good friends Elder Murhula came with me and Elder Puefua went with Elder Hansen to New Orleans. The exchange was so awesome because Elder Murhula is from Africa. So he is black. When we would go out tracting and seeing people everyone would just come up to us and talk to us. They were like "I didn't know black people belong to your church" It was sweet! We went and saw a less active guy that I haven't been able to meet yet. Turns out he is from the same town as Elder Murhula. They both spoke the same language and all the same dialects. It was so awesome! So because of that exchange we have 5 return appointments with potential investigators. It is awesome! It was a great exchange!

Then we made some awesome progress with the N. family. W. is the only one that is really progressing right now. His family is having a hard time understanding us. We have brought the sisters with us to help, but they are still struggling. W. on the other hand is doing incredibly well! Our last lesson with him we just read from the book of Mormon to help him understand the importance of the book and why we have it. He can barely understand it. Its crazy you guys but he barely speaks any English and the language he speaks only 30 thousand people in the whole world speak it. So there is no church literature in his language. So we were joking around and I mentioned that he could translate the book of Mormon into Kuching. He paused for a second and said you know what. I could!! That would be so legit if that happened! So we gave him a baptismal date for October 18. He said he would think about it. He really wants to stop drinking coffee and tea before. He said he will be baptized though. He loves our church. He may not be able to understand everything yet, but he does understand about all of the fruits of our church. There are some great people in the Gospel and people can recognize our examples and they can fill the spirit with us when we are worthy and striving to live the Gospel. So a lot of great progress with him. We are going to see him soon again and try and explain conference. That could be a tough one because he is going to be so confused! haha :)

Then the other thing I want to talk about is this past Sunday. It was just a great Sunday full of great things and feeling the Spirit like crazy. After church we went over to the Voisins house for some red beans and rice. (it was really good!) Well after we ate we all just sat down and started talking about the Gospel and things we have learned. Then sister Voisin shared her conversion story and it just really hit home. She told us how the missionary who first started teaching her got transferred 3 weeks after they made contact. He went home and never had a baptism, but it turns out that if it weren't for him she wouldn't have joined the church. She has turned out to be probably the strongest member here in Houma. She is the best! Well she just told us how we will never know how much good we are doing. It was so awesome. I felt the Spirit so strongly and it just confirmed to me that even though I haven't baptized a single soul that I am still doing great things. It was awesome! I feel like a lot of missionary work is going to happen when I get back home. That is for sure! I am pumped for that!!

Well last night we had a sleep over with all of the elders down here. It was a ton of fun! Then this morning we all got up early and ran, then we went to the store and bought some supplies for crepes. Yeah you heard right... Crepes! We put nutella on them and strawberries. There was going to be whipping cream, but I kind of made a mistake. So we go to the store and I wasn't thinking and I bought half and half instead of whipping cream. I didn't even realize it or that there was a difference. Mom I need your help out here haha. Well anyway I poured it into a mixing bowl and I started mixing it with a hand whisk. Well 45 minutes later nothing was happening. I was getting frustrated so then I thought to look at the box I bought... It was freaking half and half instead of whipping cream... I was sooo upset. Now my arm hurt from whisking for that long haha. It was pretty funny! So our whip cream was just really liquidy.. :) Pretty yummy, but doesn't come close to your peach crepes mom! I'd like that for my first breakfast home! :) 

Well I thought you all would get a good little laugh out of that! Well that about wraps up my week. Today we are going to a gator farm. It should be pretty fun! I'll try not to get my hand bitten off like happy Gilmore. :) haha just kidding! Well everyone have a great week!!! Keep up the great missionary work! And I hope you all have been able to have a friend come to church this month. If not try harder for this next month! I love you all soo much!!! See you in 10! :)

Love Elder Smith

Magic Man! - 9/22/14

Hey family! Man it sounds like quite the week back home with all of the fun things you did. The boating experience has defiantly given me a heart attack... That is my baby haha just kidding! Boating is in our blood so I know you all did a great job and had a great time! Then another big thing with starting a new tradition with having Christmas in September. That is pretty sweet. That is going to be fun when I get back! Then the Ogden Temple dedication. I am pretty jealous about that one.. You will defiantly have to take advantage of going to that temple. I wish I could go to the temple more often! It sounds so awesome! Well I hope you all are doing really well. Keep up the good work back home! And good luck with the start of the remodel! I am soooo pumped for that! Keep me updated on some sweet pictures alright? Oh and by the way mom I really like your new hair color! It looks really good! 

Well a little bit about my week. First off today we have really had a slow start... Which I don't really like haha! That is why I am a little late today to emailing. So here is the story. We got up this morning and I decided to do some cleaning because we have apartment inspections this week. So both Elder Puefua and I got up and started cleaning. We pretty much cleaned our whole house just the 2 of us when there are 4 of us that live there.. So we did pretty much everything before we started to study. Then after our studies the other 2 that live with us took forever to get ready this morning. Usually we leave our place by 10 to go shop, wash the car, and then come to the library... Well we didn't get out of our apartment until 12.. So I am already a little upset because I like to have a lot of time on P-day to relax and not stress... So we go to wash the car and we didn't have any quarters so we go to walmart first then back to the car wash. Then we go back to our place and then finally I thought we would go to the library... Well I was wrong. They wanted to go to the post office. So after that we finally got here. I am a little sad because now we do not have enough time to go to the church and hang out with the other Elders... So today I have really learned some good ol patience! haha But now I am here and I get to talk to you guys so it just makes everything so much better! I am sooo happy now! :)

Alright enough of my vent session haha! This week has been very good! It started out with me going on an exchange with Elder Southward up in Thibodaux. Elder Puefua took over the area for a couple of days and did a great job. On our Exchange it was soo much fun. Elder Southward is one of the missionaries that was in my MTC group and was a roommate. So it was fun to hang out again. We did some really good work. We went on a faith walk (which is just walking) to Nicoles college to go do some contacting. It was cool because on the way we ran into a guy and I talked to him and we gave him a restoration pamphlet and set up a time to go visit with him. Well they went back and taught him and he is really excited and is progressing really well! But anyway we made it to the college and talked to some people. It was fun talking to people that were our age again and weren't all cajun. So then after that Elder Southward treated me to a snowball and letting me ride in his car. It was so nice to be back in a car for a day! Well that exchange went really well and we had a lot of fun!

So since Elder Puefua is still new and does not have the confidence he wants to have yet we have decided to go over to the Kennedy's house once a week to teach them a full lesson. In the lessons I just let Elder Puefua give the lesson and I just sit back and relax and help him whenever he gets caught. It was awesome! He did such a great job. It really helped him build his confidence up more. He taught pretty much the whole restoration by himself. This week we are going to do the same thing except teach the plan of salvation. It will be cool plus we got dinner! Which is very rare down here.

So now for W. D. S. We had 2 lessons with him this week and they both went soooo great! Our first one was just with him. We taught him the Word of Wisdom and he accepted to live by it. He said he stopped smoking 10 years ago and he doesn't drink. His only thing will be tea. He loves his tea haha. But he has told us he is going to stop. He really liked the idea about the word of wisdom and how it is a blessing for us and that we will receive strength for keeping it. That was awesome! Then we went back on Saturday and this time we brought the sister missionaries along with us to try and help the women in the home. It went really well. We planned on teaching the commandments, but instead W. wanted us to teach his family the word of wisdom. So we went over it again and all of them except the wife (who doesn't speak english) commited to live the Word of Wisdom. We were pretty pumped about that! Then Sunday W. and his son S.came to church. It was awesome! We are going to work with him this week on giving him a baptismal date. So keep him in your prayers!

Alright so you are probably wondering what is up with the title of this letter. Magic Man. Well So you know how David out on his mission was the candy man and he would always bring candy to church to give to the little kids? Well I decided to do something a little different. Brother Hayes has given me some magic tricks that are really simple, but really fun. So at church I showed a couple of the kids how I can make a napkin disappear in my hand. I did it and they were all so amazed! It was really funny. Then they went and told all of their friends and then pretty soon I had 20 little kids jumping all over me wanting me to show them a magic trick. They all want to try and figure it out which is really funny too! So I have about 6 tricks and they figured all of them out so I now need to find some more fun little tricks! So when I get home I will be going up against magic Brad! haha just kidding! He still gets me every time with the newspaper trick! 

Well this week has been great and very stressful. I am glad it is a beginning to a new week. There was some really dumb little member drama cases this past week which I had to take care of. I am glad it has all blown over and it is a start to a new week! Well the mission is going great! It is crazy to think that this is week six of this transfer. So next week is transfers. This crazy. I think I am going to be staying here though, but who knows! Also this upcoming week the Zone Leaders will be coming to Houma to go on an exchange with me and check on how things are going. I am excited! Well everything else is great! My companion is doing really well! I am doing really well. My testimony is continually growing. I love that part. Just this morning I was reading in the book of Mormon and there is not a doubt in my mind about the truthfulness of it. It is a great tool in helping us come closer to Christ. I love it! I love you all and I hope you have a great week! Keep up the good work!

Love Elder Smith

ps mom great job on the dive!! 

pss Don't worry... I am not stressed out on the boat! haha have fun with her! 

psss thanks mom and dad for the great letters! You both are the best and I love you.

This Week Rocked! - 9/15/14

Well this week rocked!!! How's it going family! I absolutely love Mondays! I love getting your letters and hearing how our family is doing back home. It sounds like you all are doing great and keeping super busy! That is always a good way to be. Mom I am so proud of you.... Dad told me you drove the car into the carwash! :) That is just the best news I have heard all week! And that you didn't pop the tire or scratch the rims! haha I love ya to death! Don't worry. When I get back you won't have to worry about washing your cars anymore. Dad way to go by teaching mom! haha And also that is sweet you all went to the BYU game! I have heard they have been doing so good this year so far. Hopefully they will keep it up. And man mom you were really going out of your comfort zone this week with first the BYU game, then the carwash, and then diving into the pool! You are going to have to send me that video. Well tell all of the little ones their uncle Nick says hi and that I miss them. It is going to be fun hanging out with them once I’m home. That is crazy stuff that Jacque got a cell phone! What kind did she get? Speaking of phones..... Have you all seen the new Iphone and iWatch that is coming out???? Holy smokes I am sooo pumped to get that watch!!! Some members showed us a little video about them and man they are soo sick! Hey tell Parker congrats for me. I am pumped that he is home! He is the man and I am sure he did a great job in his homecoming talk. I bet the church was packed like it was for his farewell!

Alrighty now to answer some of your questions mom and dad. Yes I am still biking a ton! I think we are averaging 20 or so a day. That doesn't sound like a lot, but try doing that in slacks and shirt and tie with a 20 pound bag on your back in southern Louisiana with 100%humidity. Man it is no bueno! haha but at least it is helping me stay in shape a little bit. Not a whole lot, but a little bit! I am getting really good on the bike. I have been practicing for when we go MTN biking back home. That is going to be so much fun! 

For the Poverty down here yes there is a lot. I guess I just don't really notice it anymore. The thing that is tough about down here is a lot of people take advantage of the government. It really bugs me... People don't want to work so they just rely on the government with food stamps and social security. So a ton of people don't have jobs, yet they still have a free cell phone and 400 dollars worth of food every month. Then so many people don't have transportation and they just rely on others to do it for them. So that is what we have had to deal with for my mission. It has been actually pretty tough for me because I feel as if I am kind of a go getter and do it myself kind of a person. I also don't like having to rely on others. But then there are also a lot of really hard workers down here and people who are the opposite. Lets just say Louisiana is just a foreign country! It confuses me!! :)

Now for being District Leader. I like it. It is just some more added responsibility and having to be the good example. Which is good. I for sure am not perfect, but I know this has helped me be better as a missionary. So the main things district leaders do is they put on a district meeting once a week with all the members of the district. They last about an hour and a half. Then throughout the week I just check in with all the missionaries and see if they are doing okay and working hard. Then throughout the transfer I have to go on exchanges with other missionaries. So all the Elders of this district I go on exchanges with and just see how they are doing and see how they are doing missionary work and help them with things and show them other ways to do missionary work. They are pretty fun. I am going up to Thibodaux this week with Southward and then next week the Zone Leaders are coming down doing it with us. Exchanges last 24 hours. Then Sundays are by far the most busiest days for me as DL. So at night I collect everyone's numbers and the work they did for the week. I write them all down and then report them to the Zone Leaders. After I do that I call everyone and have a little interview with them and check on them and see if there is anything I can do to help them. Then I call the ZL's and tell them of our needs and see what I can do for them. It is pretty fun, but also kind of stressful. But I must say our district is by far the most unified district I have ever been in. We all get along so great and we all have the same purpose. So it is going really well!

Do we give a lot of blessings? hahah YES! We give tons. Pretty much whenever we go over to members homes they usually will ask for them. We gave a lot of back to school blessings. That was pretty cool. Last night we gave one at 9:30 to a member who has been struggling. Blessings are so cool and it is soo cool how they do work. It is all about faith with blessings and then the worthiness of the priesthood holder. I love blessing and I always feel such a good feeling whenever they are going on. 

And with church. We sometimes will teach Gospel Principles. We help with the sacrament and we sometimes give testimonies in Sacrament meeting when people don't show up. We only have 1 sacrament meeting so I only attend that one. This past week we didn't have any investigators come... :( that kind of sucked, but it will be better this week. I know it. So there are some of your questions answered haha.

Now for the week! We had a Specialized Training in New Orleans on Tuesday. This is a meeting with the mission President. It was a great meeting, but way tooo long. It was 9 hours..... So long haha. We learned a lot about service and missionary work in general. We pretty much covered everything in that 9 hours haha. Then after that meeting we had a dinner and that was a ton of fun! We went to Melodie Blacks. By the way people have started to post pictures on my facebook page so if you want to go and see some more pictures you can see them on my facebook page. She has been in the hospital this week so we have been going over to help her feel better. She is doing a lot better. She is awesome! And then this week we had the most teaching appointments thus far in this transfer. We had 18 lessons when last week we only had 8. It was nice! We met with our investigator family W. D. S. N. He is progressing sooo well, but his family is not... They have been having some arguments about the Gospel he says. His wife is catholic and doesn't speak English at all so it has just been hard. And his sisters are still having a hard time understanding. We have some new ideas for this week with teaching them. We are inviting them to go to an asian families home who are already members and really active for dinner and a lesson and then we are going to start bringing with us some women to teach her and be there for her support. I think it is going to work really well. W. D. S. says he knows this church is true. We committed him to live the Word Of Wisdom and he is totally doing it. He said he stopped drinking and smoking 10 years ago and he said he will give up tea and coffee easily. You can just tell how he has been prepared. We are still trying to get him a baptismal date. It is hard because he still is learning so slowly and he can only come to church every other Sunday. He wants to come every week, but his job won't allow it. Just keep his family in your prayers. I know we are!.

So for a funny story this week. About 5 weeks ago we taught this guy named N. the restoration. He stopped us and wanted us to teach him. So we did and he was sooo pumped! But then we came back the next day to teach him again and his dad told us he had run away and that he was way into drugs and all of that bad stuff. So we were like dang.... We tried to teach the dad and his sister, but we ended up talking to them for like an hour about their lives and just made friends. So we gave them our number and told them we would love to come back and help their son. So nothing happened until this week. We got a random call and it was this N. kid and he said he wanted to meet us right then and there. So we said come to the park where we were. He then told me something crazy. He said he is a prophet.... then hung up the phone. So I was a little nervous for this kid to come and meet us. Then he came and met us and he wasn't all the way there you could just tell, but anyway he goes on to say how he is a prophet and how God spoke to him and told him he is going to save the "Planet". Let me tell you again... He is going to save the Planet... Not the people on the planet, but the actual planet. So it was just a weird thing so Elder Puefua just kind of got out of the situation because it was going no where. So that was pretty weird! Oh yeah the best part is he said he baptized himself the night before. We asked him how he did that and he told us he jumped in the shower and did it that way... haha so yeah!

On Sunday President and Sister Hansen came to our Ward to speak. They did a great job. They talked a lot about member missionary work. That is key in missionary work so I hope you all will take my challenge I gave you last week with bringing someone to church. Well that about wraps up my week. I am doing great! Trying to be as healthy as I can. I can't wait to get back home and have your amazing food again mom! haha and eat healthy! That is going to be awesome! My testimony is growing like crazy. Our new vision is spread hope like wild fire. I love that! That is all we can do is spread hope! Missions are so awesome! I love it! Well you all keep up the great work back home! I love you all so much! Have a great week!! Love Ya!

Love Elder Smith

It's Been A Great Week! - 9/9/14

What is up my wonderful family! Sounds like a great week back in good old Utah. I am so proud of Janie pie pie pony for getting baptized! That is so awesome and such a big step. You guys should have her write down everything that she felt so that she will always be able to remember her baptism. I wish I would have done that because I can't really even remember mine haha. And man what little Brielle said just made my whole day!! I love her and all of those sweet little nieces and nephews! I am excited to see them all at Christmas and see how much bigger they are getting. I am excited to be able to get home and go to all of their events! All the tennis, soccer, singing and everything else. That is going to be a blast! Sounds like the rest of the family is doing really well too. That is so good! Tell Jacque Happy Late Birthday for me! She is growing up. She will probably be taller than me when I get home and be able to put a whooping on me in tennis! She already did haha. Mom and dad great job on all of the missionary work going on back home! I am sorry to hear about your friends from park city cancelling on you to go to the Temple Open house. Everyone has their agency all we can do is be their friends and help support them and encourage them. So don't get discouraged. Be happy! Because Heavenly Father knows what you are doing and he will soften their hearts soon! Alright so I have a challenge for everyone in our family. So from serving out here in Louisiana I have seen a lot of things that they are lacking. Like Home teaching. For the past year the home teaching in this ward is .7% out of 700 members... That is absolutely horrible. So my first challenge is to do your home teaching and visiting teaching. But when you go don't just take a message and ask if your families are doing good, instead actually serve them. If you notice that their lawn needs cutting then one day go and just do it. Or do some sort of service for them to help them out and to build their trust. A big part of home teaching is helping our families so that is the first challenge! So get involved! haha and the second challenge is in 1 months time I want everyone to invite a friend to bring to church or a church activity. This does not have to be awkward or weird. All you are doing is inviting. We do not need to be scared. Honestly it is not really a member’s job to do the actual teaching, but to do the inviting and then have the missionaries step in and do the teaching. That way it takes us out of being in awkward situations or loosing friendships, because if the person we invited gets offended you could just blame the missionaries! We don't care because guess what is happening to the missionary! They are getting transferred soon anyway. HaHa just kidding! If we want our message to spread like wild fire then the members have to get more involved! So that is the challenge and I hope you all will take it up and do it! Pray and ask for help to know who you should invite or after you are done reading this I know each one of us can think of someone who we could invite. That is the Spirit telling us so remember to open your mouths and let the Spirit feel it! Alright I am done now haha :)

Well now for this week! It has been a great week!! A ton has happened and so many miracles have happened. This week it was still raining like crazy! But the miracle is we never got wet! Whenever we went out to do something the rain just seemed to stop. That was very nice. So this week we were not able to teach a lot. All our plans just kept falling through. That is the only down side of this week. We were able to do some service of helping a Hispanic family move. That was fun and nice because we were able to get out of the shirt and tie for a couple hours. Haha So something new we have been really focusing on as a ward mission is changing our focus. For so many years we have been focusing on less-active family members and home teaching. We now are going to change our focus a little bit and work on the active members and especially active members with families and kids who are almost mission age. It is crazy, but down here out of the blue a super active family will all of a sudden just stop coming. So we feel we need to focus on them then it will give them a new motivation to get involved with the work. And in return it is going to bump up home teaching and young people going on missions. So our plan is for 6 weeks straight to visit every active member every week. Of course we are still going to see less active families and investigators. We have a list of 6 families. It has been great because we are gaining the trust of the members and they are starting to open up and give us referrals. That is the way missionary work should be! So I’ll let you know how that is going!

Now for our investigators. The N. family (Asian family) they are doing really well! It has been the hardest teaching them for sure because of the language barrier. But they are slowly, but surely understanding the doctrine. It was really cool though. In one of the lessons with their family last week we taught them the plan of salvation and everything just clicked for them. W. D. S. commented and said he never understands when he goes to English class, but when we teach him he said it all makes sense. That is so awesome because we know it is the Spirit and so does he. Our last lesson with him was Saturday night and we read with him 2 Nephi 31. That chapter talks about the Gospel of Jesus Christ so having faith, repenting, getting baptized, receiving the Holy Ghost, and enduring to the end. We talked a lot about baptism again with him and his sisters. He still doesn't understand why he needs to be baptized again in our church when he has already been baptized in the Baptist church. We keep going over the priesthood and he doesn't quite get it. Tonight we have an appointment with him and we are bringing a member with us that served in Cambodia so he kind of knows of his situation. We will see how it goes! PS W. and his son came to church. They love it! Especially his kid. I threw my missionary name tag on him when we were over at his house so he could be a missionary just like us and then I whispered to him things to say and he loved it and it helped him get involved with the lesson. It was awesome!

We had another investigator come to church. His name is K. He is awesome too, but he is about to move and then with L. and J. we were not able to see them this week. They had a funeral they had to go to. We are hoping this week we will be able to see them. 

On Saturday we went to downtown New Orleans for our Zone training meeting. It was a lot of fun and then after we ran down to the French market and got some beignets! It was a great day! And then yesterday at church was a great fast and testimony meeting! Brother Johnson got up and bore a great testimony and after the meeting he grabbed all of us missionaries and talked to us for like an hour about how to answer the question about African Americans and the Priesthood. It was all good insight.

I am doing great! Thank you for the "sweet" package! The peaches were all smushed! haha but they tasted great with the smoothie I make every morning! Thank you for that! Well my testimony is growing every day! I am loving the work. My companion is doing a lot better as well. He still is not too sure though. He loves visiting the members though so we are going to really focus on that! haha well I hope you all are doing great back home! I love you all and don't really miss ya! haha too much haha:) have a great week! Love ya!

Elder Smith

(Cafe DuMonde)

Wet Week! - 9/1/14

Hey there fam! How were the Fireworks last night? Did they do them still at the country club? Hopefully you all had a great time! I was thinking about that last night and how next labor day I’ll be there with you guys! So it sounds like a lot of miracles are happening back home! That is so sweet! Keep up the great missionary work. After all we all are missionaries. And mom like you said, “It is by the small and simple things that great things are brought to pass”. So true. So keep on being that great example you all are and I know lives will be changed! Mom and dad that sounds like a fun little trip you took. All of that seafood looked soo good. Lucky ducks! I haven't had any good seafood in a little while. That is one thing I miss about Gonzales. We ate like kings!!

Alright well now a little bit about my week. It was a pretty good week. A little slower because of all of this rain we are getting!! It is almost dangerous to go out and bike in it! We got sooooo soaked one day though! That was pretty fun, but then again no one wants us to go into their house soaking wet and get their furniture all wet. So we do other things like going through the area book and calling random people. It works out well. My companion Elder P. is doing a little bit better. He is still struggling with some things. We have been having some really good talks. I think he is going to stick it out a little longer. I hope so anyways! He is a great missionary and all the people really like him. I know he will do a lot of good. He is going to be fine though I think. So we have been visiting a lot of members’ homes to build trust and to get referrals from them. And the cool thing about this is we actually got a solid referral! So we went over to the Simmons home and they had invited some of their friends to come over. They knew we would be there and they were curious and came with some questions. Their names were L. and J. So first we ate dinner with them and that was pretty good. Then after that we just started right in on the restoration. L. is very interested and he said he knows he has to go half way and meet God before God will come to him. We were super pumped about that! They both did not come to church though so we were bummed about that, but we do have a return appointment at the Simmons home this Friday. So who knows? Brother Simmons works with him and is going to keep him interested. We are planning on teaching the plan of salvation this week. Speaking of the plan of Salvation... We had the best lesson with W. D. S. and his family. They are the Asian family we have been teaching. We started out with the Plan of Salvation and when we got through it W. said something really cool. He said he goes to English classes all the time to try and learn better English and every time he goes he says he just doesn't understand at all, but when we are there and when we are teaching he says it makes perfect sense and he can understand us! P. and I looked at each other and we both were pumped!! We went on to tell them that it was the Spirit! So that was a great lesson and then his sister N. said that it made sense to her too about the 3 kingdoms. She said it doesn't make sense that the people who live a good life and don't live by Christ’s example they go to hell. So that was pretty cool too! So that was about the best lessons we had this week. Another thing that we did is we dropped our investigator E. I don't like dropping people, but we just had to. He is not progressing anymore and he doesn't really care. So that kind of stunk, but oh well. We are called to find the Elect so we are going to be doing that haha. 

Well that honestly sums up my week pretty much. A lot of rain! Like Wednesday to Saturday nonstop down pour! I loved it. I wish we got this kind of rain back home. It is so much fun. And all of the thunder is so sick. Our apartment I think got hit by lightning because the other day the thunder was sooo loud it shook everything. Pictures fell off of the walls. It was pretty intense! Then a lot of member work and less active work as usual. We did go through our ward roster and we have over 730 people on it and on average only 130 people come to church. It is ridiculous. Oh well that is our job I guess!

Well I am doing great! I am just keep on keeping on. Today we have district meeting. I like the way I do district meetings haha. They are a lot of fun full of activities that get everyone involved. So wish me luck today that I don't screw it up too badly! All the missionaries here in Houma are training right now. So we have 4 companionships that are training. That is like unheard of. It is pretty fun. They all have the greenie fire! Well I hope everything is going great back home! I sure do miss you guys and I sure do love you all. I really appreciate the love and support and all of your friendships. I love you. Have a great week! Talk to you next week! 

Love Elder Smith

Ps. tell all the little ones only 11 more months until the teasing begins!!! ;) 

Pss. mom and dad I love you guys! You are my heroes!