Hey!!!
Wow! Another week come and gone! Thank you so much for all of the emails! You are all the best!! I love reading all of your emails so much! Payt you and your pals have the ski bum look down!! I’m very jealous, but very excited that I get all your clothes! Dad, the cupboard/bench they were sitting on looks great! I hope I got you and Grandpa’s carpenter jeans and I’m proud to say that I got your spelling jeans!! haha I also hope I can make a profit and follow the prophet the way you do! hahaha Man Dad I love and miss you soooooo much! haha Your bad spelling makes me trunky!! You all always write such great emails!! I loved hearing about our heritage. I feel so uneducated with it all! This transfer I have learned a ton about the Prophet Joseph Smith and so it was really neat to hear how close our family members were involved in the whole thing. Could you please send me a Line of Authority and also more neat stories? I’m worried about you all getting sick! Stay healthy please and keep me posted! I also have been worried about G-pa and G-ma since the accident.. How are they!? They are my most faithful letter writers and I feel terrible because I haven’t written a letter in FOREVER!!! Tell them I love them a bunch and I am so grateful for their wonderful letters! Please give me an update on Papa and Grammy! Tell them I love em and miss em a ton too! I love you all so much! Thanks for all you do!
I got some good pictures and videos of the people we teach and me eaten balute! haha So this week was crazy! I think I say that like every week but it was a good one! It started off with a birthday party at Edilyn’s! We ate great food and then they got us to eat balute! It’s a duck egg that has been left longer so that it actually has the little baby duck embryo in the egg. Filipinos love it and they love watching missionaries eat it even more! I pounded it no problem, but Elder Oberg didn’t do so well! I’ll send the video. But it was such a great night! Roel (Edilyn’s nephew) had invited a friend that is in his 20’s or 30’s named Chris. He isn’t a member and Edilyn’s daughter that isn’t a member was there too. So we rounded them all up and taught the whole group. Chris liked it but when we finished teaching we ended and I guess we chickened out on trying to get to teach him again. He recorded us eating balute and he thought it was hilarious. So we were rushing off to our next appointment, but I really didn’t wanna loose him with out setting up another appointment but I wasn’t sure how to do it with the whole crew there so I said “Alright, you think you’re so could at eaten balute, I bet you couldn’t eat 5 of those things... and Chris said “Sure I can, but I will eat 5 if you eat 2." So I said "Bets on Wednesday night, when we are here teaching again!" So we went back Wednesday and taught him the first lesson and I had to eat 2 balute, hahaha So I pounded 3 of those nasty things this week! It was great though and the lesson went good! He has a Book of Mormon and hopefully things will work out with him! Oh and I learned a neat missionary trick this week! Hot Tamales, the little red candy things, stop your gag reflex. So if you eat 3 or 4 of them, no matter what you eat, you can’t gag! haha Give it a try, it’s pretty neat! You can play with that thing in the back of your throat! haha
So the rest of the week was great too. We were worried about Amie and Godwin because they are always busy and they take a long time for us to teach them stuff but when we mentioned maybe moving the date back, they were not impressed. haha Amie said she was ready and she didn’t want to move it back. So we said ok but we had to meet with he a lot this week because we still had a ton to teach them and their interview was supposed to be Friday. It was so wonderful though because I finally felt like they were really committed this week! We met with them a lot and the lessons went so great!! I love them so much! They are wonderful and Edilyn is amazing fellowship! We finished everything and reviewed everything in one week. She is so busy with work that we had to meet with her a couple nights at 8 after she had worked the whole day! She is so great! We had some great lessons and she doesn’t read that well or remember stuff that great, so we had some really fun object lessons that helped a ton!! It’s so neat and fun when you have people with needs, and you pray about it and find ways to help them work through them! The lessons we taught really were just for Amie and godwin and the Spirit helped a ton! It was stressful, but by Saturday they were ready! Amie had some things that made it so she needed to be interviewed by President but it went great!! Both her and Godwin passed and they are both getting baptized next Saturday 7:00 PM!!! They are such amazing people and we are super excited for it!
Amie and Godwin’s interview was hilarious because they were both super nervous! They went in and got out and we started talking about the baptism. I asked her how it went and she just said good but she seemed like she was upset. It was weird, but we figured it had just been a stressful night. When she got home we talked to her on the phone and asked her what she was doing. She said her and godwin were watching a church movie we had given them and eating popcorn. She said after that they were gonna read scriptures and go to bed. That put a grin on my face, but she still seemed kinda down. I asked her if she was excited for the baptism and she said, “Well ya, but did I pass the interview?” President hadn’t told her she passed and she just figured we were talking about the baptism as if we were waiting on the final ok from President. I was like, “Amie, you passed!” She started screaming in the phone and going crazy! She said, "I’m the happiest lady in Manitoba!” It was the best! I felt super bad because I realized how we are so in the loop, but everything is so new and scary for investigators. I’m super glad I was born a member because I don’t know if I would have the guts and faith to go through the stuff a convert goes though! But it was a wonderful night!! I’m so excited for them! Hopefully all goes well this week and the baptism goes smoothly! They are so amazing and Edilyn is a powerhouse missionary! If it wasn’t for Edilyn’s help and testimony I don’t know if Amie and Godwin would be where they are!
Edilyn has such a strong testimony! She bore it in Sacrament Meeting and it was so powerful! She talked about what a blessing it has been for her to see her friends find the gospel! There weren’t too many dry eyes after her testimony. She is wonderful!!! She loves missionary work so much it’s crazy!! Amie and Godwin have grown so much it has been so neat to see! I love missionary work so much!! I can’t believe how blessed we have been to meet all of these wonderful people!! Also, on Sunday another one of our baptismal dates, Ralph came to church! He buses 45 minutes and because of the bus schedule he gets there 30 minutes early for church! He is great! He has his struggles with the Word of Wisdom, but hopefully he will be ready by the end of the month!! On Sunday he got up and bore a wonderful testimony! It was better than most of the members! It was pretty neat!!
It was such a great week!! Missions are the best!! There are so many ups and downs but it is such a wonderful blessing to be a missionary!!
Finally, I know you want an update on Mattie. She is ok, but still at the doctor a lot and her mom has gotten lots of people to ‘anti’ her lately. She still knows it’s true and we got to meet with her this week, but she has so much opposition! I will keep you posted! She is still reading and praying and loving the Book of Mormon. She is great!! we have a bunch of other great people we are working with and we keep finding great new people! We have been so blessed!
Thank you so much for all of the wonderful emails and letters! I have the best family ever! I love you all a ton! Thanks for the football update! I was getting updates on every door I knocked last night hahaha I even got let in and caught a glance of one play. It was a nothing run up the middle. I’m hoping I got the guys # right because I wasn’t very focused, hahah I love you all a ton! Mom don’t worry about sending anything else I’m doing great! You are all the best! Have a great week!
Love Elder Smith
