Hey family!!
Thanks a ton for the emails this week!! You guys are the best!! Dad, I love your thoughts that you give! They really are the best!! You are a champ!! Payton, I am sooo proud of you, and so excited to hear about your call! President Vahovick's # is 807-937-5502. He and Sister Vahovick are wonderful! Get in tight with them because I think they will let you guys stay at there place when you come up! haha It is a beautiful ranch and he has horses and toys and 120 acres! Dad, we can come back up and hunt on his property! It is sooo beautiful! If you can’t get through to him you can call the Heslers. They are crazy, but great! There # is 807-223-5161. Try the Vahovicks first! haha They are great!
I loved the cabin pics! It looks like Marissa is in a lot of the pictures i get..... (: hahahaa Looks like fun stuff! Mom I will go to the dentist this week. Sorry I just keep putting it off! I hate spending so much money on dumb stuff! You’re the best Mom(:
So Dad, I am sooo glad your home! haha For some reason I was worried about your trip all week! I’m glad it wen well and you had a lot of fun! You would love to ride through Ontario! It is really pretty here!! So get this!! I’m going to America today!! i am in fort frances right now to email and just about to cross the border for the first time in 20-something months! haha I have to do district meeting here in International Falls! It’s the only area in the mission that is in the states, so I will teach it there and Kenora will listen over the phone. So we are doing P-day here and an exchange tonight and the meeting tomorrow! The drive here this morning was beautiful!! This part of Canada is sooooooo pretty! There are so many trees and lakes and wildlife! it is neat stuff!
So this week was a pretty good one! Training a new missionary is so funny! hahah It is a blast though! Elder McDanel is as hick as it gets! hahah He cracks me up! But this week we had lots of good, funny, sad, terrible, stuff happen. Missions are such a crazy roller coaster! At the beginning of the week we listened to a zone meeting over the phone, and it was terrible! We didn’t hear much, but we saved 8 hours of driving, so it was worth it! Elder Leonard called and said hello. He called the assistants and got our #. He dropped his girlfriend and is doing great in school. He’s a great kid. His dad is still a mission president and he said it was fun because he went and helped with the training!
We went street contacting this week and all kinds of funny stuff happened but we found some good people! There were two pretty college girls and I told Elder McDanel to do the talking. haha He walked up and stuttered like crazy and got out just a couple words! It was soooo funny! haha Then we tried to talk to this big guy that was walking slow. He walked past and without looking back, put his hand up and flipped us off and just kept it there forever, while he walked away. Of course Elder McDanel just couldn’t stop laughing. Then we talked to this couple and called them later in the day and the guy had turned the girl in for something and so she was in jail! And she was the more interested one. Then we ran into two drunk, pure Canadians sitting in their lawn chairs! The Canadians from the movies are for real! haha These guys were spitting images! Every other word was eh or hoser. Well, that’s the crazy, funny stuff. This week was really good!
We have been working super hard and we found a lot of good new people. Tara and Trent dropped us though. That was super depressing! We were so excited about them! But Joe is doing okay. He bailed on church this week and so we will have to see what happens! Gerald, a man that came to church the first week with his daughter, is amazing!! He is soooo good and he really desires to make changes in his life! We taught him the third lesson this week, The Gospel of Jesus Christ and invited him to baptism again. He brought out the concern that he wasn’t ready and he didn’t feel like he knew enough. He then told us that he’s praying but he doesn’t really need to because he really wants these things to be true! haha We also found out that his family has been anti-ing him. The Spirit was super strong when we taught him and we invited him to a date. He sat in silence for a bit and then said, “Yes, lets do it!” He is so great and we are eating supper with him and his girl at President Vahovick’s tomorrow night! It should be great! He has a lot of addictions to overcome, but he knows he wants to and needs to and so hopefully we can help him do it! The date is September 10th! Hopefully all goes well! So Friday night we were on a high! We had found some great people and Gerald had set a date, and it was all great! We were expecting a ton of people at church and every member that was in the branch was planning on taking people. And then Sunday night and Saturday, everything fell apart! Gerald was up all night sick. Voltan called us at 5 in the morning and woke us up to bail for him and his family so I couldn’t get back to sleep. Joe’s phone wasn’t working and he didn’t show and Desmond had told his family and they told him we weren’t Christians and went off. Everyone else didn’t show. I talked to Desmond in the morning and helped resolve some of his concerns and him and his 3 kids were the only ones that came! I had to lead music and it was a bunch of songs I’d never heard before! I was so confused I couldn’t even spell my name in the air! It was a rough day! We don’t have a teacher for the second hour and so I taught it again without preparing. It went pretty okay though. It was crazy. All of our appointments fell through and so we tracted the rest of the day. Desmond had a great time though and so that was sooo good because he was going to drop us and then he came to church and had a good time!
The branch is so small and they just lost their biggest family this week!! But man, are they good fellow-shippers! There is such a good spirit in this branch!! Things are going great though! I feel such a horrible time crunch though! We HAVE to find some more solid members for them before I leave! Thank you so much for your fasting and prayers!! You are all wonderful! Payton, I am so excited for you and I can’t wait to hear the news!! I love all of you so much! I have the best family ever! Mom, I was wondering if you could do me a favor! Please tell Belatu and Edilyn I say hello! Thanks a ton! Have a great week!
Love Elder Smith
