Friends and Family!!
My Blackout Year just started and it is crazy!! This is the year that for the entire year, all I do is missionary work! It’s absolutely crazy that it’s here!! You look forward to your mission your whole life and it goes so fast!! Oh, and this was the first New Year’s that I wasn’t awake to welcome it in!! ha ha I was out at 11!! But I stayed up 30 minutes more than usual, so that was new, haha!
ADDISON!!! HAPPY BIRTHDAY!! Sound like the party was a complete success!! I’m sad that I missed it!! I’d do anything to be your escort to a big party!! haha Everyone, thanks again for all of the letters and stuff! You are amazing!!
Oh and Jose, I totally forgot to tell you congrats on the baptism last week!! You are a stallion!! You are such a great kid and an example! Keep up the great work and keep smiling! Your grin could lighten anyone’s day! haha
Alright, this week has been pretty insane!! Missionary work is super stressful!! I’m getting zits again! haha This week we had 7 at church, 11 with kids that are under 8! ha ha It was crazy!! I love the families that we are teaching!! Mom, could you please send a bunch of kids CTR rings? Like 20 of the cheap ones? If it costs a lot, don’t worry about it, but after Primary all of the kids we are teaching ran to tell me and my comp that they knew what CTR means. It was so cute!! These kids are so smart! They could teach the Plan of Salvation a whole lot better than I can! hah We don’t know what to do because the kids are learning faster then the Mom!! Akon doesn’t understand some things and she has some needs we need to address, but the kids know it and learn it so fast that I think she is worried to ask questions. And when we ask questions, they want to answer! They are such an amazing family!! There date is coming up fast though!! Tonight we are teaching them how to do Family Home Evening and we are doing it at the Bishop’s home!! I am so excited, we have a great short lesson and I’m really excited to play the game we have planned with them!!! It will be a blast!!
We taught Sacapo this week and it was amazing!! We have taught the first lesson 100 times, and the other day we just questioned him!! In his broken English he taught us the whole first lesson! It was amazing! He said that he believes that Joseph Smith was a prophet, but he still has hang ups that we are trying to find!! They are so smart, but they can’t get out what they want to say a lot of the time! But we are super excited for them too!!
We have 5 baptismal dates set. Two of them haven’t come to church yet though and they both have families, as well!! We also have a lot of people close to dates!! We dropped Burt this week. That killed me, but he isn’t progressing and he wasn’t showing up to a lot of our appointments. We have so many people we are teaching that I feel like I’m loosing my mind some days!! It’s crazy!!
But yah, it’s so hard to be a missionary though. You work soo hard and you are tired a lot of the time and you are always happy and smiling and working! Some days you wake up and ya just don’t feel like being that happy! haha Or someone is a jerk and you just wanna unload on them!! haha I know I could rock some of the people that aren’t very nice to us. haha It’s been so good for me though, because I’m not aloud to loose my temper, haha I just get to smile and say, “Have a GREAT day!” haha I sooo wish that I could have been like this at home with friends and family! I know it would have been a ton easier with them to be nice! It definitely gets hard out here!! You work so hard and some days it’s so easy to get down when you don’t feel like you are seeing enough success!! Satan sure is good at what he does! It’s funny though, because my companion taught me something that I really like. ha ha Every time something horrible happens, he says “OH YA!” all excited like. haha It is his motto that if something really bad happens you’ve got something really good coming your way, haha! It really is kinda funny to see it though!! Something so depressing and bad will happen and we get to say “OH YA” a lot. I’m really gonna try to get this down!! Grandpa Smith has this same attitude. He wouldn't say “OH YA” when something bad happened, haha, but he’d just take it and get excited to fix the problem! I should have mastered this long before the mission after being around Grandpa’s great example so much!! Actually being around both Papa and Grandpa, I should have learned this! They both take what life brings and make the best of it! So I’m gonna work on it! Even though I still think Dad’s way of handling bad stuff is pretty effective, as well!! It just isn’t “mission approved” I don’t think. haha Dad, so much stuff has happened that I wish you were here to laugh about with me! I love and miss you a ton!! And let’s plan on that hunting trip here in a couple years!!
Alright, some funny stuff that has happened. The other day a man told me he lived on 666 Boulevard. My comp just stopped walking and I just wrote it down and said, “hhmm, I’ve never heard of that before, where is it? Then he turned into a dark alley and I’m still talking to him, haha! My comp grabbed me and I was all confused. It was funny, I guess 666 Boulevard is like a devil thing or something. . .went right over my head!
Other funny story, the baseball Blue Jays and the Toronto Raptors basketball team are both in Canada!! haha I had NO idea! Payt sent me that letter about it but I didn’t understand what it was talking about. So the other day a man told me he was a Raptors fan and I said something like, “woo woo an American boy” haha He gave me a funny look and walked off and my comp just died laughing! Who woulda thunk that Canadians had teams in American sports!! haha Wow! Did I feel stupid! I thought Toronto was on the east coast in America somewhere! Like I knew there was a Toronto in Canada, but I just thought they were different! It was pretty funny!
Finally I’ve decided that when I get home I am never gonna get a date because of the habits I’ve formed! I’m so used to calling people to get them to church or to set up an appointment. I can see me calling a girl and saying, "Now what would keep you from wanting to go on a date?" or "what are some reasons why it would be a good idea for you to go out on Friday?” or “Are there any reasons why that wouldn’t be able to work?” “I promise that if you make the decision to go out with me it will change your life!!” hahahaha there are so many more!! And the worst ones are when they say they can’t go! If a girl ever said she couldn’t go out with me it really wouldn’t be good!! “Girl, this decision is impacting your Salvation! We’re not just talking about making this life better but we are talking about eternity!!” haha It’ll be fun! Good thing I got forever before I gotta deal with that stuff!
I gotta go. I love you all a ton!! You are the best! Stay safe and good luck with everything. Love Elder Smith
P.S. Addi, your birthday package is getting mailed today! Sorry it’s late, but it’ll be good! Hopefully you like it!!
