Hey Family!
So first off, thank you so much for the great emails and pictures! You guys are the best! I got some news today in one of my emails. Nielle Jensen is going to the Tampa Florida Mission, Spanish speaking! How crazy is that! You will have to get Papa in touch with her! It sounds like you guys had a great 4th of July! I sure do love that holiday!! Ours was pretty good! We cut our P-day short and went and helped the bishop build a play set for his kids! It was great because the play set was a beast and he was grateful for our help! It was a lot of fun too!! It was really good though because the bishop is always sooo busy, so it was great to get to know him better! He is a great guy!!
So Mom, I had an odd question for you!? I was wondering if you could try and get me into like a Paramedic course or the course to learn how to draw blood or something like that, so I can get right into something when I get home! The idea of getting home and having no plans for a couple months is making me nervous! I was just wondering if there are any kinds of courses like that, that I could jump into in the college in the city or at ISU. Thank you! You’re the best!! Also about the cavity? Would it be ok to wait? haha I get nervous about dentists here! hahaha Let me know what you think is best. I couldn’t get your true opinion from your email? So turns out I still haven't learned how to make big decisions without my mother’s approval! haha
Thank you for the update on the Newtons. I just wanted to write about a quick story. . . . Brother Newton was always so kind to me and he always went out of his way at church and activities to come and talk to me. After talking to him I always felt so good! He’s very good at building people up! But most of our conversations were about fly fishing!! We talked a lot about going out together at some point! Eventually Aaron, Dad and I finally found a day that worked and we went fishing! I don’t remember too much detail about the trip other than we had a rough day and didn't catch many fish! We forgot stuff and ran into all sorts of problems. Aaron was the only one that hooked into anything decent the whole day. He hooked a big trout and got it all the way to the boat. Dad told me to whip out the camera for a picture. I fumbled it and the fish flipped and we never got a picture and the fish was gone!! Dad and I weren’t too happy! haha But Aaron continued to fish with a big smile! Even though the day was garbage and everything that could go wrong, did! Aaron stayed happy and loved every minute of the trip! He was so good to be around because it didn’t matter what happened or went wrong, he kept a good attitude about it! Even though it was a garbage day, it was made a lot better by his optimistic attitude! Well, hopefully all goes well with there family!! Please tell him that I am so grateful for his friendship! Tell them that they are in my prayers!!
Well as far as this week goes it was pretty good!! I have tracted more in this area than in any other area! Well, I guess Selkirk is a close second! haha But we are really struggling to consistently teach people! Because of all the tracting, we are finding a lot of new people!! We have found so many great people, but we find them and get super excited about them and then they fall off the deep end!! We are working soooooo hard!! I definitely am doing everything I can to not get discouraged, but I am definitely a little frustrated! haha I have learned a lot from the frustrating things. But I am definitely ready for some blessings!! hahah This ward is just sooooooo amazing!! I can’t figure out why we aren’t seeing more success!! We have been getting people out to church every week and they get fellow shipped like crazy and then they don’t show the next week! It’s ridiculous!! This week we had everyone bail on church!! We had found a great new family and a new Spanish guy that had said the would come too and everyone bailed!! It’s frustrating cus there is so much potential, but people are so busy it’s super hard to meet with them consistently! We had such a great lesson with Mauricio this week about prayer and the sacrament! The Spirit is always there when we teach, but then after that they slept through church! hahaha aaaaahhh, come on!! He makes it out to church a lot and then when we teach the Sabbath Day and he bails! Maybe we should teach why he shouldn’t get baptized this week and see if then he will pull the trigger! He is such a great man and I love him to death, but man he’s taken his sweet time!! He will be such an amazing member once he does it!!
Our Spanish couple is good, but they are really touch and go! We found this amazing family that we are supposed to teach this week! they are pure Canadian and pretty well to do! Their dentist is a member and sparked an interest with them and when we tracted into them they said we could come back this week! Hopefully all goes well!! The Hiddodi family keeps pushing us off, Courtney too! We found a great Chinese family yesterday though!! They are so humble, kind, and smart!! I’m pretty sure China will take over the world! They have a lot going for them! haha
But things are good and I’m doing great!! I love being a missionary sooo much!! This area has taught me a lot, but one big thing it’s made me want to work on is recognizing and listening to the Spirit! I have taught so many people where they know they have felt something, but they second guess it and don’t listen to it and they miss out on so many blessings! I have also seen it with me! It’s so easy to question things or not act on a prompting! And when we don’t, I know we miss out! I’m so grateful for the gift of the Holy Ghost and I wish I was better at recognizing it more! I feel it a lot, but all too often I fail to recognize it!! I’m so grateful for the gospel! I’m so grateful for my wonderful family and all their support! I love you all a bunch!! Have a great week and keep me posted!
Love Elder Smith!!!
