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
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