Hey!
It sounds like you are all doing great! Mom and Dad looking good!! haha I’m glad you guys had fun at the Moss’s Halloween Party and nobody had anything to crazy happen! Oh Payton, don’t keep hurting your arm! Get better for skiing season!! And if you’re healthy you gotta try out for basketball and mess around and throw some elbows! haha You probably won’t be healthy in time, but I was hoping you could show Zack Smith a thing or two, one more time.
So Dad, as for your question about P-days, they haven’t been too exciting. If we have spare time, we take a nap! But this week has been a really fun one for P-day. We actually left early this morning to drive to Brandon. It’s a couple hours west of Winnipeg. We are teaching the zone meeting this week, but the Brandon district has too far to drive in, so we come out here to teach it, and then we will teach it again to the rest of the zone on Wednesday. Dauphin, Portage, La Prairie and the 2 Brandon sets, will all be in here tomorrow for the meeting! Today we got to drive here, then we went bowling, ate “all you can eat” at Pizza Hut and now we are emailing! Tonight we will do an exchange here with the Brandon elders and then tomorrow morning we will teach the mini zone meeting and do interviews and teaching evaluations. Then we will bust it home for our appointments starting at 5 PM. It’s been fun and different, but it gets frustrating not having as much time in our area. It’s just the only way that it can be done with how huge the mission is! It should be a fun couple days though!
I’m excited for the zone meeting! I’ve really learned to love teaching, investigators, members or missionaries! It’s honestly addicting!! This week was another great one though! Celia is doing so good! She’s been clean for like 10 days or something now and she went to Stake Conference yesterday and a fireside last night! We found out she has also been meeting with Jehovah Witnesses. She told them about her baptism and that she knows the Book of Mormon is true! Of course they went off, but she stood up for herself. Hopefully all goes well there. She is set on getting baptized and she has been taught and is living everything now. Any ideas on how to completely get rid of the J-dubs? She knows the church is true, but they are her friends so we aren’t sure how to handle it because she can still have friends of other faiths, but just not J-dubs trying to convert her! She is doing great though and hopefully all goes well there.
This week went great though! We had tons of great appointments and set baptism dates with Amber, Ali, Rita, Alfea and we have others that are close! People feel the Spirit and are setting dates in the first lesson, but it’s just when we hit the commandments that it slows a lot of them down. We are teaching a bunch of really great people though!! If things work out good we should have a lot of baptism coming up.
We have one stubborn old lady named Margaret, that has been a J-dub for 29 years, that is now investigating. She has been coming to church and she feels the Spirit there, but she has real problems with certain doctrinal issues, because she’s been a J-dub for so long! She has a friend that was excommunicated, that is amazing though! He has a crazy story, but he is trying to get baptized again and he is trying hard to help us convert Margaret! His name is John and he is amazing!! Since he started working on getting "un-excommunicated" a couple months ago, he has read the Book of Mormon 4 times! He is an RM and he is amazing! But Margaret is sooo stubborn that all she wants to do is argue with us when we try to teach her. I’ve tried teaching her twice since I’ve been here and it is so frustrating because I can’t get two words in! And the words I did get in, I was pretty much yelling because I was sooo frustrated. But John really wants us to teach her. And she still comes to church every week! But she refuses to read the Book of Mormon. . . until this week! John made her read with him and she called us and said, “How come I’ve studied the bible for years with the Jehovah Witnesses and it doesn’t make sense at all and then I read this book and everything makes perfect sense??" Then Elder Leonard pretty much yelled into the phone, "Because it’s TRUE Margaret!!" haha She then passed the phone to John. The next day she called and said she wanted to be baptized! So we teach her Wednesday and we will see what happens!
Other crazy stuff, I had supper at a part members house where the husband is an Athiest. We had quite the debate. It was hard for the Spirit to be there because he was just plain mean. It was the only supper appointment I’ve been to where I was made fun of the whole time for believing in God. I got some shots in, but it was going no where. He just threw “Anti” at us the whole supper appointment. It’s funny because Elder Leonard just took it and enjoyed his supper. I’ve really worked hard to not argue with people because you go no where, but I had had enough with this guy! So it turned into a debate. It was good because I’m pretty sure I won! But bad because the Spirit wasn’t there and that man will never change. It was all in good fun and never got heated, but it was definitely an interesting experience! His wife is amazing though and she helped us get people to church this week!!
And get this! It was Stake Conference this week and it was the best!! I saw everybody from Waverly and Selkirk!! It was so great! Belatu is doing great the Obengs are still crazy! Everyone else is doing really good!! Emanuell is also now in our area here and he is great! He goes out and teaches with us and he has a super testimony! But get this!! Bishop Baronins is now in the Stake Presidency!! When it was announced you heard all of the Waverley Ward and the missionaries let out a gasp like they’d been punched in the gut! He will be the Bishop and the Second Counselor for the next four weeks. He is amazing!! I told him how great he was and congratulated him and he said "I don’t do anything, the Lord does everything, I just have to not get in the way!" haha He is a champ! But it’s so sad to have him gone! It’s definitely a shot to the Waverley Ward! And get this!! 29 years ago he was baptized and he had to speak in Stake Conference. When he spoke, President Oler was the 1st counselor in the Stake Presidency. 29 years later (now President Baronins) stood up to speak for his second time in stake conference, this time as the 2nd Councelor and now President Oler is once again the 1st counselor! Now if that isn’t amazing I don’t know what is!! haha President Baronins joked about how President Oler never would have guessed that 29 years later he would be up speaking again, but as the 2nd Counselor. It’s crazy! President Robison is still the Stake President! It was such a neat thing though!! I loved seeing everybody!! I have met sooo many amazing people here!! I love it here so much!! The crazy part is that I’ve now been in Canada almost a whole year! It’s insane and super scary!! Winnipeg is the best!!
I’m healthy and happy and all is well!! Stay safe and have a great week!
Love Elder Smith!
PS Tell the Baronins congrats please! Sister Baronins loves your emails!! Please tell them I’m so grateful for them and I love and miss them a bunch!! Also thank her again for my great B-day bash that she threw and tell her thanks a ton for the great apple pie! haha She’s so good to me!! Thanks!! I love and miss you guys a ton! Have a great week!
