May 26, 2014 Email

Hey there family! 

Things have been going good here. It sounds like chores are actually getting done around the house.😁 to answer Stockton's question, we bike about 15-25 miles a day depending on who we are going to visit. Keep training for sports and have a good season. It's cool to hear that you working on some things in the yard. It's going to look totally different when I get home I won't know where we live anymore.😁

We've been meeting with a whole bunch of people this week and had a good experience Saturday. There was a barbecue for the bishop's son for his graduation from college and we found out that the bishop's family was having a couple of our investigators over for the barbecue. It was a good experience for the whole family. It gave them a good time to meet with several members and to really find some good fellowshippers for them. They told us they had an awesome time and were going to church. Unfortunately, they seemed to have family coming over so they weren't able to make it out. It's a bummer but we still work with them and make them comfortable with the church. 

Transfers were yesterday and I was hoping for some predictions to be true. Elder Ewell is leaving for up north, so I'll be taking over the area for a while until my senior companion can get a feel for the area. Several new people are coming into the area and I'm going to be companions with the trainer of one of my MTC companions, so it should be interesting. Over all, things have been getting better and I'm getting better in every aspect of mission life and I have been working as best as I can. I am on my way to the missionary that I know I am to become and that The Lord has prepared me for this. I love you all and hope to hear from you next week. 

Love,

Elder Smith

May 19, 2014 Email

 

 

Hey there! Sounds like everyone has a lot going on right now. Schools getting out, the guys are going on field trips, and they have finals to deal with. It was crazy to have that stuff going on when I was graduating and it didn't even have some of that stuff piled on top of all that. It's all most done with though so you can relax and have the guys do some work. 😁 

Things have been getting better this week. We met with tons of investigators and did a butt load of service for an investagtor. We helped them with painting a room in there house with about three different colors cause the wife couldn't decide which looked better. We then helped them put down some wood tile flooring the next day and helped load up a dump run. We had a few investigators come to church this week but they all left after the first session. We still try our best and do all that we can to get them fully committed. I hope Aspen chooses to go on a mission. The mission has helped me grow so much and has drawn me closer to God than I ever thought possible. It would definitely benefit her just as it has me. 

The Lord helps us all through our lives to make the right choices and will never leave us to fight off the world and it's beliefs. Stay strong in the faith and never waver no matter what trials or afflictions come your way. 

I love you all and I keep you in my prayers always. I hope to hear from you again next week; until then, have an awesome week and have a good graduation. 

Love,

Elder Smith

May 12, 2014 Email

We had the opportunity to Skype with Mitch on Mother's Day for about an hour.  It was so exciting to see him and talk to him about his mission.  The younger boys really enjoyed getting to see him and ask him questions, it was a great day!

Here is the email:

Hey there! Happy Mother's Day! We had a slow week with our investigators and had a zone meeting here this last week. The zone has been slacking and has been a little off purpose for a while. We had that meeting and the APs had to teach it because the ZLs were dropped because of things that they were doing. It was a little tense. We had this problem before when President already had to come down here and counsel our District on obedience and our missionary purpose. It is difficult to focus on the Lord's work when you see missionaries who are not faithful at obeying the mission rules and aren't focused on what they are on a mission to do.

Aside from the zone issues, we've been meeting with most of our investigators and have really been focusing on getting lessons taught. Our investigators seem to think that we are there to hang out rather than teach them, so we've just been letting them know that we will be going over there to teach and to help them understand why we are there. So we are working and doing service for investigators to help them out and to let them know we are there to help them.

Here is a copy of that Cross-Fit Program that I've been doing. It is effective so long as you do it everyday. You do just the short divisions of the workouts for a half hour everyday.

Also, if it's not too much trouble for you guys, could you send out a few CDs of Vocal Point out here. We can have the music so long as it invites the spirit. If you could do that, that would be awesome and it would change up some of the music we have here already.

I love you all and I pray for you everyday. Keep working hard and keep looking ahead rather than back.

Love

Elder Smith

May 5, 2014 email

Hey there everyone. It's great to hear that everyone is doing good.  School seems to be going by pretty fast for the guys. Stockton is gonna become a senior and Parker will be going into high school then Brigham will be starting middle school. You're all getting old and it's weird cause I feel young out here. It's so weird to think that Parker will be going through drivers ed here this year. It's cool to hear Brigham is getting into track pretty well. He must really be excited to have summer coming up. For Mother's Day, I think Skype would probably be the best to communicate with me here. Guess you'll be going through what I had to to get my Eagle Project done on time. Just work hard and have lots of people there to help out. And happy birthday Stockton!

This week was full of busy meetings with investigators and with missionaries. We met with several investigators and picked up a previous investigator who is searching for a good religion. But regardless of all of our visits, none of our investigators made it to church yesterday. We did have three less actives show up to church and we were stoked to see them there. They all left after the first hour, but some attendance is better than no attendance. It's cool to hear that the plaque is up. Maybe I'll be getting more mail and email now
that it's up.

Many of the members here think that missionaries are doing their job when they see numbers of investigators go crazy and we have new investigators every Sunday. But there is a saying in the mission field that encourages us all to teach people, not lessons. "Numbers don't matter when you focus on the Lord's work and on the persons choice, that you respect them and don't give up on them. No effort is ever wasted." We do all we can and respect their agency. We care for them and we love them.

I expect to talk to you all on Mother's Day and I love you all.

Love

Elder Smith

What we believe. . .

What Is Agency?

Agency is the ability and privilege God gives us to choose and to act for ourselves. Agency is essential in the plan of salvation. Without agency, we would not be able to learn or progress or follow the Savior. With it, we are “free to choose liberty and eternal life, through the great Mediator of all men, or to choose captivity and death, according to the captivity and power of the devil” ( 2 Nephi 2:27)