Hey Family!
Man! Mom leaves town and Dad and Payt don’t email!! I see how it is!! Well, I know who loves me most! hahahaha It looks like you guys had a great week! Man, Mom you are like the crazy fun Mom! haha Ditchen’ the fam to go to Cali!! You should do it again with me next year! haha I love the pics! Be safe and don’t drive home late at night or Dad won’t be happy!!! Kinda like someone else you know did a few years ago!
Well, first off, I am wondering if Alex ever got his b-day package... I haven’t heard anything and I’m hoping it made it there!! Let me know. Second, so who IS Payt dating?? I can never tell! Marissa is a funny girl! I’m glad he’s such a champ, with such good friends!! Payt and Dad please don’t have nightmares because I didn’t get your emails. I know things are crazy and I’m sure you probably sent them and they didn’t come through! Just give Edilyn a shout out and let me know your all good and you didn’t get thrown in jail because of a crazy bachelor party or something! Let me know!
Well this week was interesting! We worked super hard and had a wonderful week!! We thought we were gonna have 7 amazing people out to church, then Sunday came and not one person showed! It was soooo frustrating!! Going to church without investigators is like going to a dance without a date. It just feels terrible!! It was just kind of a lame ending to a great week!! We are working with so many great people right now. This week we found a new Filipino house! We brought Edilyn and Roel over with us and had such a great lesson!! Edilyn is so amazing! Like she does more than you would ever dream of expecting her to do! She is the fellow-shipping champ! Whatever she touches, wants to get baptized!! It is just so neat to be around members who have that missionary work fire! We taught them again and Edilyn brought them food and committed them to church! They are so good! They had to bale on church because friends were over till 5 in the morning and Edilyn was so upset. She won’t let them miss next week! THEY ARE SO GOOD THOUGH! The two we are teaching are Derrick and Michelle and I’m super excited for them! We also found a great family and older couple this week! We are super excited about them!! Ronald and Laury still don’t have baptismal dates yet, but the are both amazing! We are teaching both of them tonight! Ronald lives with the members and he is so good!! He didn’t make it to church because the members he is living with, slept in! How ridiculous! They have a family member with them that wants to come to church, that is investigating, and they sleep through church!! aaahhhh!! Tonight we will be teaching SABBATH DAY! Fun stuff! haha Laury’s family came to her house so she couldn’t come either! She is so good! She is struggling through 2 Nephi right now and I don’t know how to answer her questions!! I just keep saying, "Um, I think that’s talking about the Savior or Second Coming, or something...." hahaha Just kidding! Man, I wish the Isaiah scriptures weren’t so close to the beginning!
We are also teaching two super smart Baptist families! Man, they know there bibles! Roger and Dana are having us over for supper this Friday and I’m nervous! He is a Baptist pastor, but he has Mormon family members. They have hard questions!! We also are teaching this couple that have his parents on a mission for the Baptist Church in Ethiopia! He grew up there! He’s a white guy, but he is so nice and humble! Like both of the young couples look like Mormon families! They are so great, and really so kind to us!! I don’t know why they are meeting with us though??? They are pretty set in there ways, but they aren’t trying to convert us, and they are really trying to learn. I have learned a ton from teachig them!! It really has strengthened my testimony, especially teaching the Plan of Salvation because it really makes sense to them! You see the wheels turning and it’s neat! Very intimidating too though, because they know the scriptures well!! It’ll be fun to see what happens with them this week!
So it really was a great week! We are teaching a lot, and this area is so wonderful!! Amie and Godwin rolled up to church in there own rig again this week! haha Seeing all the recent converts there, makes me so happy!! They are SO on fire!
So it was a great week, but the end was kinda dumb! On Saturday we drove all the way to Brandon for a baptismal interview. We got there and it didn’t work out! We didn’t get to even do any interviews! It’s so frustrating! So we turned around and came back!! We were mad, but it was ok because since we were going, the night before, on Friday, we left and went to Portage where there is a young missionary in our zone that is training. We went on exchange for the night, and I got to go out with the new Greeny and it was a blast! His name is Elder Bodily and he’s from Westen Idaho! It was his second day in the mission and we went out tracting! We set a goal to set 4 appointments and get in and teach a lesson in the 2.5 hours that we had. He was so nervous!! We have really been pushing our zone to invite more people to be baptized and so I told him to do it on a door approach! He was so nervous! I invited a couple people but it just wasn’t working out for him. But then finally he did it! It was hilarious, but sooo good! Then we got invited in and we only had 15 minutes so I told him that we would teach the first half of lesson one. We got it started and we prayed. Then the first principle in lesson one is ‘God is our loving Heavenly Father’ so I set is up perfect and say, "First, we want talk about how God is our loving Heavenly Father.” I turn to him, and he totally just says everything he knows about lesson one, in like 60 seconds. haha Seriously! In 60 seconds he said prophets, apostasy, restoration, Joseph Smith and Book of Mormon. haha It was hilarious! The investigator was a great guy and a little caught of guard, but I’m like, hey let’s roll with it! So I kinda tied it all together and we invited him to be baptized! He said yes, and set a date! hahaha It was soooo great!! We got our 4 appointments and taught our lesson! We also found a new investigator and set a baptismal date! It was so great and so fun!! I love the fire that new missionaries have! So that little exchange made our trip to Brandon (for a candy bar) all worth it!!
Missions are the best!! I’m so grateful for how blessed I am! I love all of you so much and I’m so grateful for all that you do!! Mom, I love you so much! Stay safe and have a great trip!! Payt and Dad... I still love you!! haha Please don’t have nightmares!! I didn’t wanna tell ya tha I didn’t get them, but I wanted you to know so I didn’t miss any info you sent! haha I love you all so much! Tell A-rod Happy Birthday again! Hopefully he got his package! Tell him and Addi I love them! Have a wonderful week!
Love Elder Smith
