LOVIN' THE NATIVES

"Preach My Gospel"

November 23, 2009

Hey Friends and Fam!!

First off if I wasn’t working so hard to gain Christlike attributes I’d have a whole lot that I would want to say to Coach Shippen and all of those other . . . I better stop there! Payt, I sent you a letter congratulating you (before I got word of the stupid last cut) but I’m going to be completely honest with you! High School basketball really isn’t that neat! ha ha I want you to go down stairs in my room and get out my snowboard and I promise that you will have the best winter ever!! And you know that you can rock any kid on that basketball team and they all know it too!! And I also know that by next years football season you are going to be the biggest beast that as ever played Skyline Football! Keep your head up and don’t let it get you down at all! You have an amazing family, great friends, cute girls all over you and NOW, a very nice snowboard! ha ha Life doesn’t get better I promise you! I have some great stories to prove it! You’ve got it made and you are too good for basketball anyways!!

Alright, first off, tell the grandparents that they are all soooo amazing! Grammy, thank you so much for the great letter and Papa, I’m praying for you!! I know that you’ll handle all this surgery stuff like an old pro because you are one! I look up to you so much for all that you’ve been through! Grandpa and Grandma, you are amazing!! I love all of your letters so much! Grandpa, your letter on graph paper made my week!! It was so great!! And family!! Wow, thank you so much for all of the letters!! They were all so great!! The drawings from Payt finally got here and I love them sooo much!! Payt, can you please make another one that has the whole Plan of Salvation!! Make it the size of my scriptures so that I can use it in lessons!! That would be sooo great if you could do that but I love the ones that you already sent!! They are sooo great!! So thank you all soo much! Thanks to Chelsea, Heather and Whitney too! All the letters are great! Sorry I don’t write back often, I have NO time!!

Okay, story time! This was the best week ever, but it had some downers too! First off, we set a baptismal date for a man named Robert and he is so good! So hopefully that goes well! The average baptisms for a whole mission here is four so the fact that I’ve been part of one and we are setting so many dates is so great! We’ve been so blessed!

Also, get this! We met a man named Bert and scheduled an appointment. He wasn’t there and this happens a lot so we forgot about him! We have so many investigators that we don’t have time to mess with those that aren’t interested. I don’t know if that’s good or bad, but we totally just forgot about Burt. A week later we were eating at McDonald’s and we see Burt! He runs over and sits by us and tells us how sorry he is that he missed our appointment and he has been thinking about us all week! Turns out, the night before our appointment, he had gone out for pizza and a man came to rob the pizza store with a machete! So he’s robbing it and Burt sits there and just keeps eating his pizza! ha ha But the owner of the store fights off the robber with a pizza pan and another worker locked the door so they are all locked inside with the robber with the big machete! ha ha So all this is happening and Burt keeps eating his pizza! Then the cops burst in and tell everyone to get on the ground and drop everything on the ground. So Burt has to drop his pizza on the ground and get down. Then the cops get the robber and take him, but they ask Burt for a statement so he gives them one and they get his name. Well they find that there is a warrant for him so they hall him off to jail after he helped them! He was in jail for a week and that’s why he missed our appointment! ha ha A bunch of other stuff happened that he told us about and we just ate with him while he told us this crazy story. He’s a really funny native man and through the whole story I’m busting’ up!! He was really mad that he had to throw down his pizza! ha ha But after he told us his story in McDonald’s we totally related the gospel to his life and his experience. I don’t even remember how but it was amazing and believe it or not we all felt the Spirit in McDonald’s!! We then committed him to be baptized and he set a date. He’s been at all the appointments since! He’s so great and he is way excited about the baptism date!! In Preach my Gospel it says to look for families with a recent death or birth, but me and my comp think that they should add recently out of jail, and recently jumped to it too! ha ha

The people here are sooo humble and I love the natives so much! There are so many people from all over the world too, though! We teach a couple families from Thailand with a translator and that is way fun! We also taught a man that left Columbia because people wanted to kill him! We taught him with a Spanish man in our ward that translated! We taught a crazy lady that said she has the Gift of Tongues and we are teaching a bar bouncer that is super ripped!! I’ll get a picture with him! We taught a man that is super bipolar! One day he loves us and the next day he rages! I mean, this guy can goo off! We are teaching a man named Derek who is so great and we want to set a date for him really bad but he’s just progressing really slow! We teach this guy who loves Elvis and his wife has cancer! They are really great and starting to progress! I love this! It’s so fun and exciting, but soo hard!

Tim got confirmed this week and I got to stand in! That was neat. Also this week me and my companion were bound and determined to get everyone to church!! We skipped a meeting with the ward and ran around before church waking people up and getting them ready for there rides!! It was a rush! We were running like crazy from house to house!! We were expecting 17 and we had 12 show!! Two of them we weren’t expecting, so they didn’t count! But it tied the ward record. Our district got more than ever before and the President called us because he was so shocked! But even with that I was disappointed and I’m trying so hard not to be. A couple of my favorite investigators didn’t show! It’s so hard to see people not show! It’s funny because numbers don’t matter, they are good, for sure, but I need to want them for the right reasons. This week we are going to try to get even more, but we have to stay humble! It’s so easy to think that we are good when really we are nothing. ha ha We can do so much better I know it and I know our only success is because of the Lord! I love this so much, but it’s so hard to see what people go through and see them not progress! But it’s great!

Just so you know, I am super safe and completely healthy, so don’t stress!! Finally, I have one thing that I’ve learned that is so huge in this life and I’ve been taught it before by Coach Berger, ha ha ridiculous I know, but he’d always say, “Better every day" and wow it is so true! I have wasted so much time of my life not getting better! Everyday is an opportunity to grow! If you don’t learn something new or have some kind of growth, the day is wasted! I’ve learned so much out here but it is nothing compared to what there is to learn!! Everyday, we have a chance to get better and it’s so great! Take advantage of it! Set goals and achieve them! If you pick a little goal every day, just after a week you will grow so much. Check out Alma 34:32! Every day is a day to prepare to meet god! Never have a bad day! Everyday has something great about it! I love you all so much and I look up to you so much!! I am doing great so don’t worry about me and Payt, keep your head up!! Snowboarding is so fun I’m so jealous, ha ha, love it and remember how great your life is!! I love you all!! Elder Smith

Tim Jackson Baptism

November 16, 2009

Hey Friends and Fam!

So today I came to do email and it wasn’t working ha ha i thought i wasn't gonna get to hear from you! ha ha you know how i handled that hahaha but all finally worked out and it sounds like your doing great!

Ok so this week was great! haha I don’t know if you got to check my debit card lately, but I got to pay my first Canadian parking ticket! Canadian Police... firm... firm, but fair! haha But the week started out a little rocky! I woke up Tuesday and I was like deathly sick! I couldn’t breath and I was achy all over, but I got up and tried to work still but after 5 minutes, my comp had me go back to bed. I was out cold for 4 hours and woke up miraculously healed! haha My comp knew I loved potatoes, so he woke me up with potatoes and chicken nuggets with chicken noodle soup poured over the top! ha ha He is amazing! But I still haven’t felt great but we’ve been able to work everyday without anymore incidents!!

Then the week got great! Tim got baptized!! woo woo! It was way stressing though, ha ha He showed up 5 minutes late for his own baptism! He lumbered in and waved at the crowd and went to change! ha ha ha He is a huge man though and we lost the XL jumper somehow and he barley could squeeze into an XL as it was! ha ha But somehow he made it into a Large!! Me and my comp wanted to die laughing!! I’m talking super power wedge-y! But it was so amazing! It didn’t even phase him! haha He has such a strong testimony and he was so ready!! It was a great experience and me and my companion did the first lesson for the whole audience after the baptism! It went great!! His whole family was there and none of them are members, but after they asked for the missionaries to come and we gave some of them Book of Mormons! It was great!! The only bad part is that he has H1N1 so he missed church and still hasn’t gotten the Holy Ghost yet! So we are hoping he’s better by next week! But we can’t even go see him because he’s locked in! Hopefully that all goes well!

We are also teaching a family that the guy is a member and he knows 20 languages so we are lining him up to translate for us!! If we get him to help it could be huge because we are teaching a couple families who all speak other languages! So hopefully that goes good! But listen to this!! It’s crazy and hilarious. . .the man that knows 20 languages is a member but his wife isn’t and so we are trying to teach her but they are married and they don’t speak the same language!!! He knows 20 languages and he doesn’t know hers! ha ha ha What are the odds!! But they speak the UNIVERSAL LANGUAGE, I guess! ha ha ha To communicate, they use like sign language and a mixture of each other’s languages. It’s insane and I don’t know how we are gonna teach her! Her own husband can’t even talk to her!

Other funny stories, I saw my first blood trail the other day. ha ha I’ve heard it won’t be the last I see. Also my comp reminded me of Dad on Sunday because he was talking to an investigator and he said, “You said you’d be sober by church?... well, will you be sober later tonight so we can come by??" haha I died laughing because all the church members walking in heard and gave some looks. It was great!! Oh and my first super scary super great experience happened! We were street contacting and we started talking to this huge native! He was way nice and pretty interested! But then... ha ha This other big native came up and said we were blanking this and that and blanking liers and just went off on us. ha ha So I said something to him really polite like and he said some more bad stuff and then said, "dont look at me again or ill mace you!" So I turned my head away to not get maced, ha ha but I’m still talking. So I’m like looking away talking and then the native that we were talking to, to begin with starts yelling at the one that said he was gonna mace us!! He stood up for us and was like, "I’m calling you out! You aint gonna mace them, go ahead do it, I dare ya!! You aint gonna do it!!" And I’m thinking, “Hey now, he might do it! ha ha What are you thinking calling him out for us, haha! But then the native with the spray totally backed down and he was like, "Sorry bro I thought I was helping you out." And then the native that stood up for us chewed him out and talked some more trash, and the one with the spray took off! At this point I’m pretty cocky, ha ha I wanted to call the native with the spray out and be like, “Ya! Come on, we can take you!” ha ha It was way neat! After that we talked to the native that saved our life some more. I thanked him and shook his hand over and over, then we gave him a Book of Mormon. Then he told us all the fights he’d been in and showed us the scars! He had stab wounds all over his face and a scar across his neck and more stab wounds on his body and scars in his legs from getting shot by a shotgun! He was way nice and he said that in jail he turned to Jesus. ha ha It was great though! I don’t know if we will ever get to teach him more! I asked for his number, but he said he wasn’t that interested and I didn’t want to push the point with this guy, ha ha!

I’m starting to love missionary work! The first weeks were a little hard but I learn and grow so much every day!! We taught a man the first lesson and in the first vision the spirit was so strong!! Both me and my companion got a little choked up! It was really neat!! We have no problems finding people to teach or getting in their home! They even admit to feeling the Spirit and wanting what we have! The biggest problem is getting people to commit to do things!! They just can’t keep commitments!! They instantly forget how they felt and they don’t read or pray or come to church! It’s so discouraging! Every week we have like 15 people that promise that they will be at church and we get them rides and everything and they don’t show!! We have to drop so many people and find more every week because no one wants to do the work!! They know it will help them, I swear, but they are just to lazy or something! aaahhh! It’s hard! But I’m loving it! I love you all a ton and I wish you the best! Keep lots of letters coming! They are the best!! I have a quote for dad that I loved! The other day I told my comp that it stinks that I don’t even have time to write back. He told me this quote: When obedience ceases to be an irritant and becomes a quest, in that moment God will endow us with power!! ha ha I love this quote and I want to be worthy of that power!! Times can be hard, but man this is so worth it!!! I love you a ton!

Hopefully you’re getting all my emails! I got your frantic letter, but you should get 2 every week that are long and then maybe some short ones, it just depends. I’m gonna try and get the amazing Bishop’s wife to email you this week too, so hopefully that works out!! I love you all so much! Keep the letters coming! Mom your gift should be there in a week from today-ish! Love you bye!! Oh send me a recorder and tapes or something and I can send you those. I want you to send me some too!! love you bye! Elder Smith

COFFEE, TEA OR BAPTISM?

NOVEMBER 9, 2009

Friends and Family!

Hey! It was great to hear from you all! Mom I just got the blanket! You are so amazing!! This week was definitely harder for me! It hit me that tomorrow morning I wouldn't get to make my mom a cake. This has been working on me all week and it’s hard I don’t get to tell her Happy Birthday and I don’t get to tell her how amazing she is and how much I love her! This killed me most of the week! Then I realized that if this was on my mind I’d regret time wasted out here! It sounds cheesy and we have all heard it a thousand times but, love every day! You never get them back! I’ll never get my Mom’s past b-days back but I’ll never get this short two years back either! So please take advantage of everyday! Mom I love you so much! You are amazing and I sent you a present today! Hopefully you get it soon! But please forget me out here and take advantage of everything there! I’m trying hard to do the same thing here because this work is honestly amazing and I don’t want to miss a second! But wow, is it hard!

Yesterday I approached a lady and she was drunk she grabbed my face and said I was cute! This was hard on me! haha I don’t like drunk ladies making moves on me! hahah But it was pretty funny! Oh Payt, draw me a picture of that. haha I’m pretty sad because I haven’t got your pictures yet. And Mom, sorry for my crazy order and writing! Hopefully ur fixen it up alot!! haha

Another funny story.. We did service for the old folks home and they had us serve them coffee or tea haha! It’s fantastic helping the old folks, but I thought that it was kind of ironic!! haha Oh and we have a super nice investigator that had us come over to teach him! He asked why Satan wasn't killed by God and so we taught the whole Plan of Salvation and answered his question perfectly! Everything we said he would nod and say “yes.” After the whole 45 minute lesson, he said, “Ok, next time you answer my question!” haha He was just saying yes but everything we were saying was going right over his head! haha He can speak English pretty good but I guess he really doesn't understand it very well! haha It was sooo painful because he was answering questions and I though he was picking up everything good. Guess not! haha

Language is a hard barrier out here!! We have a member that knows over 20 different languages that translates for us and there are still people with languages that he doesn't know. haha It’s crazy! And get this. . . He knows 20 different languages but he doesn't know the one language his wife speaks! So they talk with a mixture of languages and sign language! It’s amazing!!

A man named Tim has decided to be baptized on Wednesday! He is so ready! He’s been getting taught for about 2 months and he’s already read the Book of Mormon. My comp found him last transfer and he was super “Anti” haha So my comp just said, “Read this and tell us if you want to know more.” He read it and prayed and he gets baptized Wednesday, which is Remembrance Day in Canada! It’s so exciting! Also, a black man named Emanuel has been taking the lessons for 9 months, off and on, and he has finally set a date for the 28th of this month!! The average number of baptisms in our mission is like 4 or something. Like it’s super low, but I get to be a part of 2 in my first month!! It’s so amazing, but I’m getting greedy! haha Me and my comp don’t like taking no for an answer!! Every rejection still hurts and we get a lot!! haha But I’ve been able to teach some of the best lessons!

The other day we were with a family of 6 and they only spoke Chinese and a little English. Their two children Platu, age 8 and Plaset, age 7 are way smart though and they translate for their parents! We’ve been doing a combo of teaching the Gospel and English! We sit on the floor with a Children's Book of Mormon with pictures and the Dad reads it out loud and asks questions about words and we try to describe them or act them out! haha It’s so fun! It feels like teaching preschool with Mom! haha They are so amazing!

We also taught a couple (Robert and Patricia) that are super interested and we had a powerful lesson with them last night. They are so good and I really hope it works out with them! It’s so hard to see amazing people that just aren’t interested! We have a family, the Garcias that are so good, but they just aren’t interested. It’s way hard because a lot of people here just don’t have much backbone or work ethic! We had 12 investigators that we set up rides for church and called them the night before and they said they'd be there and not one showed! We think its because it was in like the 50’s Fahrenheit. haha It’s so nice here its crazy!!

But being a missionary is so fantastic because at first people don’t want to listen to you but if you just smile and keep teaching you can watch them change! They see there is something different and I can tell that they want it! They just don’t want to do the work to get it! Oh, another thing, my comp is the district leader and a stud! haha But because he is a district leader I got to do transfers with the zone leaders! I got to go with Elder Shulte and he is amazing! We were instant best buds and we stayed up late chatting. haha I learned so much from him though! He’s an amazing teacher! Out here it is sooo fun and amazing! But when you’re eating or when you wake up it can be so hard! At nights I’m to tired to think of anything, haha but in the mornings and when I eat I think of the family! It’s so crazy how it’s a constant up and down!! It’s so good but it’s so hard! But please listen to me and love every day together! I’ve already promised myself that when I get home I’m doing everything I can for my family! It was so easy, I don’t know why I wasn't better when I had the chance!! I love you all so much and Mom, HAPPY BIRTHDAY!! You are soooo amazing!! I have the best mother and family in the world!!

Oh, and Dad Canada is a lot like the USA but everything costs a ton! haha and the USA and Canada dollar are the same! So a chicken sandwich and large fry are $5 instead of $3 haha, and we only get $5 a day for everything! So, no more fast food! I get a lot of Ramen and things called Sidekicks! I don’t get candy because I don’t have money! haha So we eat straight peanut butter because its cheap! haha love you by!!

Elder Smith

FANTASTIC FIRST WEEK

Kris Smith writes: Wednesday morning I was still distraught about the missing email, and I got thinking that maybe, for some reason it had been snagged in the junk mail filter. I called Cableone tech support and they helped me retrieve two emails from Chandler that he had sent nine times! I was so happy!! That's what I get for joking about Chan's two-finger typing and maybe I should improve on MY computer skills! Anyway, here you go.

Hey friends and fam!
First off, Payton, YOU ARE THE MAN!! I'M SO PROUD OF YOU!! (Highland win) It was great to hear from you all! Before I start, you need to know that I'm no longer aloud to use slang. So I can't say cool, sweet, awesome, or any of those words that I use a lot. haha It's been really hard but it will be super neat when my vocabulary is completely changed! haha Well my mission president is absolutely amazing and my area is amazing! I am in the heart of Winnipeg!! So is the President, so we get to see him all the time!! And my companion is so great!! We are like the same accept he hunts more than me and he fishes with worms! But he is really good at all sports and super athletic. He works so hard! He honestly is the perfect first companion! We teach really good together and our teaching style is pretty similar, so it's perfect!! He has already taught me so much and we have a ton of fun together!! The first night here was great though because I didn't know who my comp would be and we got to go out with some random missionaries before the next day when we would meet our trainers. That night I got paired up with Elder Nef who is the only other missionary that went to Skyline High School! woo woo! It was so fantastic!! Talk about pure luck because missionaries are spread out all over Canada and I happened to get paired up with him for this first night! In one night he taught me a ton and reminded me of the good farming people of Idaho!! We had one appointment that night and me and the other Idahoan taught the Restoration and it went so good! It was just the first lesson but we got a baptismal commitment!! It was a great way to start!! Mom, you should track down his mom Sister Nef, she is in the Hillibrant's ward. Then the next day was when I got my companion/trainer, Elder Ewell, he is so amazing, like I said earlier! haha

So the first day with my companion we just went street contacting which is way fun! The average new investigators you try to get a day is two. In a couple hours we got 8! We were splitting up and getting two at a time. We had to stay in sight and sound of each other, haha It was so great! Three of them I was able to get without any help from my companion, while I was by myself and he was behind me talking to someone else! It was a blast and he kept saying that I was alot different than the other new kids that hate talking to people. haha But we've already taught a lot of lessons and we have a baptism next week! I love the people! It's funny though because we are in the craziest part of the whole mission! I've been told to off a couple times, haha, but once you say you are a representative of Jesus Christ they're usually pretty nice haha! it's funny though because I've talked to alot of drunk people! haha But their breath smells fantastic because alot of them get drunk with Listerene mouth wash! Instead of beer bottles all over there are Listerene bottles all over, hahaha!

The Bishop here is one of the most amazing men I have ever met! He does everything for the ward and I mean it, like everything! And he feeds us great food once a week! The other day he was moving this lady and he asked for our help so we came in our suits thinking it would be quick and easy! But oh my!! We were there for close to four hours and tell Dad and Art that their ward member moves don't hold a candle to what me and my companion and the Bishop went through! I'm talking a floor of cat poop, fur and who knows what! Even human poop and urine as well! This person was the biggest pack rat in the world, like wall to wall crap and then the stuff the cat is supposed to poop on spread all over the floor! I'm pretty sure there were a ton a bed bugs as well! I want to burn my suit! It looks horrible! It was so disgusting, like honestly, I wish I could describe it to you all in person! haha I'm pretty sure that that is the reason you won the Highland game or I'm gonna see 10 baptisms this week, because the blessings gotta go somewhere! hahaha But the people here are great and honestly I can't even tell you how great this Bishop is! His moving skills remind me of Dads!! I mean this bishop does work!! And so does my companion!! It is so great because I'm surrounded by extremely hardworking people!

Oh I got to go to my first Winnipeg testimony meeting. I got to pass the sacrament because they have only two priests and that's it! And then the show began!! First off the Bishop and his wife spoke and they have the most amazing testimonies ever!! Like wow!! But then it got interesting! haha Boulevard Ward also can't touch a Winnipeg fast and testimony meeting!! haha The best was an investigator that doesn't want to get baptized because she thinks she already has been by another church. haha This definately didn't slow her down from bearing an interesting testimony in OUR church! haha She talked of her own Joseph Smith experience and about some other crazy stuff for about ten minutes, haha! The President Assistant told me "the church isn't a circus for the righteous, but a hospital for the sinners" haha! I also got to work in an old folks home a couple days ago and that was fantastic! Really sad but it makes you feel good to be helping at the same time! It's been amazing so far. It's constant ups and downs! You will teach a great lesson and really feel the Spirit and then you will have a trial of some kind! I've already grown a ton and I love it here! "Anti's" have been fun because they say I'm going to hell, haha! It's been funny because the more people tell me that, the more my testimony grows! I know this church is true and I know this is were I am supposed to be! A mission is so fun, exciting, spiritual, funny, crazy, sad and amazing!

I love you all so much and I miss you a ton!! You are all amazing! Sorry for the bad writing but I have no time! Dad, thanks for the quote and don't worry about me at all!! It's great here and so fun! I couldn't have gotten a better companion!! I LOVE YOU ALL SOOO MUCH!! Payt, good luck with basketball! Rock it!

Love, Elder Smith

NEW ADDRESS

Mail letters to:

Elder Chandler David Smith

394 Agnes #3

Winnipeg, MB R3G 1N4

CANADA

Mail Packages to:

Canada Winnipeg Mission

Elder Chandler David Smith

845 Shaftsbury Boulevard

Winnipeg, MB R3P 0M5

CANADA

PANIC P-DAY!

Friends and Family:

Hey! You have no idea what I've been through today! I thought my time ran out and I thought you wouldn't get either of my emails! I was freaking out and I'm sure my comp wants to kill me. haha We finally found a place where I could retype it to send it to you. Oh, wow I'm so happy it went through. I love you all so much and I'm gonna send it again to make sure it made it! I hate this not knowing! Today I got all of my snow gear so don't even stress. I love you all so much and things are good! I have to hurry now and go buy food! ha ha love you bye!

Elder Smith's Mom writes:

We obviously didn't get the e-mail he sent, twice! We are sure he will work out the kinks of P-day e-mailing before next Monday. . . We hope! I'm sure he is regretting not progressing beyond "two finger typing" in high school!

The family is grateful to have had a phone call from the airport before Chandler left for Canada. He called about 6 AM last Wednesday. He sounded wonderful! He was missing life in Idaho Falls and wanted details like how Skyline could have lost the Emotion Bowl and if his Dad had been fishing. Mostly he was excited to go serve the people of Canada.

There Is No Snow in Winnipeg!

Friends and Family!
I made it to Canada! woo woo! Canadian Mission President...firm...firm, but fair! hahaha just kidding. I absolutely love my mission president! He is such a great man and super nice! He likes football and fishing, so we should get along pretty well! It was great to talk to him and then he gave me a fantastic blessing!! I love him already!  Oh, and there isn't even snow here, so it cant be as cold as everybody keeps telling me! haha It's crazy though!! I'm in CANADA! 

I love you all so much and I'm so grateful for all of you! I love and miss you all so much, but this is going to be amazing! It's so exciting and I can't wait for tomorrow to meet my comp! Hopefully that goes over well! 

If you want to send me a letter, it will take a while for me to get it, haha but here is the address:

Canada Winnipeg Mission

Elder Chandler D. Smith

845 Shaftsbury Boulevard

  Winnipeg, MB R3P 0M5    

CANADA

   

I love you so much and l look forward to hearing from you!!  Good luck with everything!! Oh and sorry I cant tell you more, I'm just supposed to tell you that I'm safe and that I love you!  So, I'm safe and I love and miss you a ton!!  Good luck and kick trash on Friday Payt!!

Elder Smith