Friends and fam!
Wow! Another week gone by already! It’s crazy how fast they go! First off, it looks like it was a great party for Kegan! What did he do to his arm and what was Madeline doing there? haha Payt, stay healthy! I’m so excited for 2 a days to be here! It’s unreal that it is that time of year! Did they start early this year? You and Kaasa tear it up and give the news papers something to talk about! But stay humble! Mom, you are amazing! Thank you so much for those scriptures! I hope they didn’t cost a ton! And thank you sooo much for the pictures! I definitely got a shot of trunkiness! Man, you guys look good on that boat! Dad, you need to tighten up the seat! It looked a little saggy! You’re looking great however! You pulled of the hat nicely! Thank you so much for the great up date every week! I love and miss you all so much! You are the greatest!
So this week was pretty crazy! It was zone conference week! It was nice because I didn’t have to prepare district meeting, but I spent half the week in Winnipeg with meetings and exchanges. I got to exchange with the Portage Elders. I went with Elder Green from Australia and it was a great exchange!! They have a man from Sudan that was a brother to the Obeng family, but he has a big language barrier so they haven’t been teaching him because they struggle with him understanding. I said I wanted to meet him on the exchange and so we went and taught him and it was the best!! I SOOOOO miss teaching people who are learning English! They are so humble and patient and it is so fun teaching so simply! The lesson went great and they are going to start teaching him more and he said he would start coming to church! It was great! It got me pretty Agnes trunky!!
Zone conference was great! Interviews went really well too and President talked to me a lot about stuff to try with stupid missionaries! It was a great week! Chris went teaching with us this week too!!! He did sooo great! I love him to death! haha He also gave us his white shirt to wash and it was nasty! haha We scrubbed it down in the shower and then washed it with our clothes. It is so amazing that Chris comes from such a rough background, but he has such a strong testimony and he has grown so much! He is such a champ!! The branch loves him too and Tyler has become good friends with him! It’s great and Chris and Karl are doing great! We are teaching Matt Lefort a lot now and he is doing really good! His brother and grandma have kinda backed off, but Matt is doing really good! He even bore his testimony this week! haha Due to what all Mormons seem to do at testimony meeting, he asked us, "So do we just go and tell people what’s going on in our life?" haha We said, “No, we talk about our testimony of Jesus Christ.” He got up and did a mix of the two! But it was great! Man, it’s so funny to get a missionary/investigator view of the church! We are a peculiar people! But it went great and it was good that he bore his testimony because we were way short on numbers because half the branch went on a temple trip to Regina! The Elders quorum president had to preside! I think if a couple more people would have been gone, I would have been in charge! I don’t know how I will be able to function when I’m not in a branch anymore though! I love this branch! They are all so great and I have learned so much! The members and missionaries here have to carry such a large load! I’ve taught the Gospel Principles class almost every week and this week we combined and taught the Gospel Doctrine class. I’ve had a lot of great teaching experiences! We speak like once a month in the branch and I’ve even taught priesthood before too! It’s going be weird to go to church when there aren’t a 1000 things to do!
Things are going great though! Still working with Lauren, Ben, Kimberly and some new people, things are good! The district is doing well but one companionship is really struggling (probably because they are disobedient!) But I have an exchange with them this week so hopefully all goes well!
I had a funny tracting story for you this week though! So we have like 2 or 3 appointments a day that usually go through and the rest of the time we are usually tracting. So we get a lot of tracting in! But in Canada they have little middle rooms that then go to the front door, so it feels like you are walking into people’s house already when you ring their door bell! It’s really weird, but its good for winter and mosquitos! So anyways, we are in a trailer park out in the boonies and they all have these, we call ‘um (awkward rooms) haha Now some people get mad when you don’t come into the awkward room and some people get mad when you do. So it’s always a little sketchy, but eventually you stop caring and just walk in. Well, we walk into this one and we ring and then look around. Turns out there is like a couch and TV and table, it was an addition to the trailer, so the doorbell was still there and we were in this guy’s new living room! haha And it was to late to get out because he was at the door, which I don’t know why it was there, but he went crazy! f-bomb this and f-bomb that! haha He was a very big man too! haha
But I’m outa time I love ya! Have a great week! You’re the best!
Love Elder Smith!!
