Hey there family!! Happy early
thanksgiving! You all are looking great! It sounds like it was another great
week. Dad how are you doing? How do you feel from your surgery? I really hope
your trial can be over. I hope by the time I get back you will be able to run
and jump like you used to. That will be awesome! :) Oh and thank you mom and
dad for the amazing Hawaii package! I fixed me up some of those pancakes with
the coconut syrup this morning. It was so good. I am glad you had such a great
week and a fun trip. The house sure is looking nice! I can't believe how fast
they are putting it up. That is pretty crazy. I bet you are getting excited. I
know I would be. So I have been sending those pictures to Bryson and he said he
is moving in with us when he gets home haha! Well I am going to miss your
amazing turkey dinner this year mom, but like you said next year will be even
better!! :) It also sounds like utahs weather is freezing right now. I am sorry
to hear that! If it makes you feel any better our weather is getting pretty
cold as well. Last week it got down to freezing. That wasn't fun at all, but
guess what.. We got a car now so it doesn't matter!!! :) That is the biggest
blessing for me! :)
Alright now for my week. Well
as you can see from my title it was a great week! WE taught the most lessons I
have ever taught in a week! 32 lessons! My last highest was 20 and that was
with Elder Mellor. It just goes to show when you have a car you can teach so
much more. We can get to appointments in literally only 10 minutes when biking
it would take us 45 minutes you know? And also this week was huge. We now as
you know cover Cut Off and down in the bayous. So one day a week we go down
there and teach people. It is a ton of fun! That is where all of my stories are
going to be coming from. So you know the movie water boy? And how for his car
it is a lawn mower? Well we visit a guy who is just like water boy. He only has
a lawn mower and he drives it everywhere! They live in the Ghetto in the
swamps. The longest trip he has taken his lawn mower was to covington... So
from cutoff to covington is probably a good 300 miles or so... It was
ridiculous! I feel like I am living in a movie right now with some of the
people we visit and teach. Also we passed some of the people who are in the TV
show swamp people. I thought they would live in really nice houses, but I was
wrong. They live in 2 trailers which are not that nice. A ton of people live in
trailers down here.
But as I said this week was
great. A ton of miracles happened. 2 of our investigators came to church. We
were able to meet with W.D.S. again and teach him the restoration. He is doing
so well. I am so very glad I was able to stay in Houma for one more transfer. I
don't know how next transfer will be though. It is coming up in 3 weeks. I hope
I stay with Elder Puefua so we can have some fun plans for Christmas, but who
knows.
Everyday we have been so
booked up from the morning until the evenings. It is really nice! This has
never happened before for me. We don't have time to do a lot of things.
Sometimes we have to skip lunch and dinner to get to all of our appointments.
Thank goodness for Elder Puefua who is willing to work hard and to give it his
all. We get along so well and teach very well together. Well I don't really
have any cool experiences this week except for the lawn mower guy. That was
pretty funny! Other than that everything has been going really well!
Oh yeah the most important
thing that happened this week was on Saturday. A lady I have been working with
ever since I got here went to the temple for her endowments!! SO Saturday
morning we meet at the church then us missionaries rode up with some of the
members. The temple is such an amazing place. Talk about putting the cherry on
top for the week. We went through the 1 oclock session and it was amazing. She
was so happy and excited. When she came into the celestial room she did some
huge fist pumps! it was halarious. It was so cool to see someone who is such a
good friend be able to make life changing choices to become closer to God. Also
the video was one of the new ones I have not seen yet so I absolutely loved it.
The temple truly is the house of the Lord. You can go there to get peace. Any
hardships you are going through you can go and just forget about it and become
closer to your Heavenly Father. I love it! I am jealous for you all with having
a temple so close now to go to whenever you want. Mom I am planning on joining
you with your weekly temple visits! :) We also should make it a goal to where
ever we travel in the world we should get to the temple on every trip. That
would be really cool! Well on our way back from Baton Rouge we stopped and ate
at Cracker Barrel... man that was good!! We had a great time. Then when we got
back we had a few appointments. IT was great
This past Sacrament Meeting
was one of the best Sacrament meetings I have been to. First off it was one of
my favorite families in the ward who spoke. Brother and Sister Kennedy. They
have only been married a couple of years, but they are so fun. She spoke first
on how to be totally miserable... They say that in life suffering is mandatory,
but misery is optional. We all have problems, but we also have choices. We can
choose to be happy, or we can choose to be miserable. Being miserable requires
effort. Then she went on and said how we will learn to be miserable, and on the
way, we might also learn how not to be. Then she gave us 5 steps to be
miserable, but how with our attitude we can change that and be happy. It was a
great talk. Then Brother K got up and talked about things we are grateful for.
He asked some people on facebook to tell him what they are thankful for. It was
the usual answers like my mom and dad and family and work. Then he said he made
a list for himself, but he could only come up with a list of complaints. Like
his grandfather who is very sick right now at age 94. And different hardships.
Then he gave us a new perspective on how we view things. So for his grandfather
he told us how he was able to spend 30 years with him and now this trial has
happened. So we need to get a new perspective and look at things differently in
a positive way. So it made me think of you dad and with your hardship right now
with your feet. No matter how hard it is or gets we can always be thankful for
the time and love we have been able to show to each other and that is something
I will never forget. Hopefully that all made sense! I am paraphrasing haha.
Well family happy
thanksgiving! I am so thankful for you all. I am so thankful we have a loving
family. I am thankful for trials and hardships because they make us strong and
bring us closer to our divine potential. Thank you for your love and support. I
am thankful for this Gospel. I am thankful Heavenly Father hears and answers
our prayers. I am thankful he leads us in these latter days with prophets and
apostles. I am thankful for Scriptures and the teachings in them. I am thankful
for my older Brother. Jesus Christ. Who died for all of humanity so one day we
will be able to live again as a family for the eternities. I am so thankful for
the atonement for when I mess up i'll be able to repent and be forgiven. If it
wasn't for Jesus Christ none of us would be able to enter into Heaven again
because no unclean thing can be in the presence of God. So whenever you are
having a hard day just take a step back and realize the things you are thankful
for and I promise you, you will find peace and happiness. And always rely on
our Savior. He can help us through everything. I love you guys and have a great
week! Talk to you soon! :)
Love Elder Smith
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