Hey family! So to start off this letter I
want you all to know I got
called to Louisiana and they said it was
going to be hot.. Well it
snowed this past week.. So both years I have
been here in LA it has
snowed!! It was crazy cold this week. I
would guess it was colder than
Utah. And the funny thing is when it gets
cold here everything shuts
down because no one knows how to drive in
the snow or ice. So we were
on LockDown this week as well.
Well Anyway! How the heck are you all?
Thanks for the emails and
letting me know what is going on back home.
I am glad you had a fun
trip to vegas and I am glad GAT was doing so
well this week! That is
some awesome news! I am glad you liked all
of the pictures from last
night. Sister Burch is so awesome! The cups
is actually a lesson
talking about the restoration and the
Apostasy. Then I showed them a
magic trick afterwards. We ate a really good
roast at their house.
Some really good food up here in Pineville.
They hook us up! Good
luck Jaycee this Friday in the opening night
of the play. She is going
to kill it! Brake a leg ;) Then Jacs I hope
she kills it this week in
Alabama. Good luck! Hey and the D&C
challenge is pretty good. I
learned a lot from the 2 chapters we have
already read. I started 136
this morning then we had to go help someone
with a move. This should
be pretty fun. Well I am glad everyone is
happy and healthy back home.
that is all I pray for. I love you all so
much!
This week was a great week! It started on
Tuesday we went on exchanges
with our District leader. I took him to
Pineville. We saw some really
cool things happen. We were able to talk to
some new people and also
our investigators and figured out more about
their situations and
invited them to be baptized. Our most
progressing investigator named
J. has already a testimony of the Book of
Mormon, but he will not be
baptized yet. He is a deacon in the baptist
church and is an amazing
singer. He likes the other choir. We are
going to try and get him to
come and sing at our church pretty soon. He
promised us he would come
to church this upcoming week. It has been
really cool though because
we have been taking him with us to visit his
sister who is in a
nursing home and we have been having him
teach her all of the lessons.
It is awesome because that is the best way
for you to learn and to
grow your testimony is to share what you
know and have the Spirit be
there and testify both to you and also to
the person you are speaking
to. So keep him in your prayers. We are
seeing him tomorrow, Thursday,
and Saturday. Then we also saw and found a
new investigator at another
investigators house. It was a really good
lesson. We read alma 32
which talks about Faith and planting it like
a seed and if it is a
good seed then it will grow, but if it is
not a good seed then it
won't. We talked about how sometimes we have
to step into the dark to
plant the seeds, but there will be just
enough light for us to know
where to plant. Then it will grow and we
will be able to know
something is true. I hope that makes sense
because it makes perfect
sense in my head haha! :) Then that night
Elder Gosch and I and the
Sister Training leaders met with our stake
president to unify our
mission with our stake. It was a really good
meeting. We talked about
how the Small and Simple things add up to be
really big things. Pretty
awesome meeting.
Then on Wednesday morning Elder Gosch and I
left our apartment really
early to head on down to Baton Rouge for our
Mission Leader Council.
or MLC. This meeting happens once a month
with all of the Zone
Leaders, Assistants and the mission pres and
his wife. It is a full
day of meetings and I love it! Mostly
because all of my homies from
the mission are in the leadership now. Elder
White (elder willis's
cousin) Elder Andrews and a bunch of other
cool missionaries. It is
fun because our zone is so far away from the
rest of the mission so we
never get to see anyone so when these
meetings happen it is a party!
The only bad thing is after the meeting we
drive home and plan with
the sisters a meeting for Zone Training
Meeting. We only have a day to
prepare for it. So that is what we did for
the rest of Wednesday then
on Thursday we received a call from Sister
Hansen telling us our zone
was on shut down due to the SNOW! It was
barely any, but because of
how humid it is down here the roads and
everything just ice over. So
we had to contact our whole zone and let
them know that. So we planned
the whole day and then the afternoon the
lockdown was lifted so we
were able to go and teach our new
investigator and we committed him to
be baptized so it was pretty legit! He just
needs to get married and
stop smoking. He is living with a member so
it should be pretty easy
to get them married. Hopefully it will all
work out.
Friday we had our ZTM and it went Amazing!!
The Spirit was there and
everyone really enjoyed the meeting. After
ZTM I went on exchanges
with the several Elders. It was one of the
best exchanges I have ever
been on. I went with a kid named Elder Sabey
from Canada. He hooked me
up with a sweet exchange. We ate so much
food... I think I gained 10
pounds. Then the next day we played some
Ghetto basketball, went to a
members house who has over 150 guns and he
shot a fully auto AR and a
.50 Cal rifle 3 times.. It was the sweetest
thing ever!! I will send
some pics. Then Sunday was a nice relaxing
day. We didn't have to do
anything this week besides the sacrament and
it was so nice! In Elders
Quorum I had a really cool Spiritual
experience. We were talking about
work and families. I think I have a better
idea of what I want to do
when I get home for work. I will continue to
pray about it and think
about it.
This week was such a great week! I loved it!
We tracted our butts off
and had so many people slam doors in our
face. This one house we went
up and knocked on the door. A lady answered
and I said Hi Mam and she
just said not interested and slammed the
door... So we walked away and
I remembered something Elder Holland said in
a talk addressed to the
missionaries. He said please be a little
persistent! So I told Elder
Gosch we needed to go back to the door and
try again. He looked at me
funny, but said alright. So right when I
knocked again a man opened
the door and said what do you want. I just
said can we please say a
prayer with you and for your family? He said
Yes you can say your
prayer, Do you all believe in Jesus? And
answered yes we do. Then he
said... I don't think so... And Slammed the
door again! So even though
nothing happened there and we were rejected
twice I felt accomplished
because I followed a prompting. I know we
are blessed for following
promptings. So there is my funny tracting
story for the week!
Well family I love you all so much! I hope
you all have a blessed week
and enjoy every moment of every day. I love
you!
Elder Smith
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