October 20, 2014 Email

Hey family! Sounds like you've had a little bit more of a relaxed week this time. It's cool that you're going to a Blue Man Group concert this week. I would love to be at one of those. And yes I have you guys on Facebook. So I can have you guys and some friends on, but I can't communicate with you guys other than through email. So just a heads up for messaging. 

This week was kind of a slow one for us here. We had an interesting thing going on where we only saw less actives and part member families this week. We did however get a new investigator who seems really interested in the church. We hope to get working with her and get her going. We had some of the schedules changed so we could help others with service and to try and find others who were available. Several people have a sickness going around. In fact, one of the Elders in our apartment has had stomach flu for a few days. He's being very cautious about what he eats and how much he eats so he can get rid of the flu as fast as possible. That's one reason we haven't been able to get in with several people this week. 

One miracle we had was yesterday. We were able to get in with a part member that we haven't been able to get a hold of for a while. They recently had a death in the family and have taken it pretty hard. When we arrived, we actually saw the plan of salvation pamphlet on the table. They've been going through it and the less active member helped her husband to understand it better. She is a great support to him and helps us explain some things that help her as well. We encouraged them to keep turning to God and to draw closer to him. Other than that, nothing exciting happened this week. We were going to go to this fun center center where they've got laser tag, mini golf, and go carts. But it started to rain and some people didn't want to do two rounds of laser tag. Don't know why? 

I love you all and hope to hear from you next week. You're in my prayers and I feel your prayers and love. 

Love

Elder Smith

October 13, 2014 Email

Hey Fam! It's great to hear from you. Sounds like you all had a great week and have some great plans for next week. I would strongly encourage you all to watch Meet the Mormons this week. There's a reason it had a sell out when it first went into theaters. I heard that a few theaters around the states that had sell outs, so it's great that the general authorities had the inspiration to put it out to the public. 

It's great to hear Stockton is preparing so hard for a mission. I wouldn't have been able to do what he did in Media class. Way to go bro! It's exciting to hear that cross country will be going to state. Run hard in the last race Briggz to finish the season strong and with a high bar for others to reach. Keep striving to push yourselves Stockton and Parker, in this next race and in State. I hope your getting better Mom. I haven't heard anything from ya about your eye and whether it's getting better or worse. Just curious. 

Also, I forgot to thank you guys for the package you sent for conference.  It was great and Elder Briggs loved the little notes on all the stuff. It seems pretty cool in the mountains where we hunt Dad. I actually miss the snow and the cold it brings to my face. But I'm gonna hate it for a while when I get back home from adjusting to California temperature. 

This week was an interesting week for us here. The beginning of the week started with Zone Meetings and Interviews with the Mission President on how we are doing. Interviews took up most of the day, so we were mostly at the church the whole day. The next day was slow with people not being home and/or busy with other things. He next day, we got out to a lesson and had a great experience with teaching Terri. Unfortunately, my tire got a nasty flat while we were having the lesson so we walked back home which was about 3-3 1/2 miles away. It was long but got to have a good time talking to Elder Briggs. I had to go get some more patches since I ran out patching Briggs's tire since he didn't know how it was done. Being out here teaches a lot to be prepared and to learn fast. Funny thing is is that after I got patches to repair my tire, we found that Briggs had a flat as well. So we repaired that and went about doing the work. Later that night, after a lesson with some investigators, the valve on Briggs's tire which he just patched had blown up on him. So we to go back to the bike shop again tomorrow to get a brand new tube before we can really go far. So a few days of flats and some lessons made it a pretty interesting week for us. 

I hope you all have a great week this week and a great time together. I have you in my prayers and I love you all. Talk to ya next week. 

Love

Elder Smith

October 7, 2014 Email

General Conference is a time when members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints gather to hear counsel from a prophet and the apostles.

President Thomas S. Monson; 1st Counselor Henry B. Eyring; 2nd Counselor Deiter F. Uchtdorf

Hey family! This week was hectic for us again. Plans we made seemed to go differently and we had some curve balls thrown at us to keep us crazy. We had some good visits with investigators and we will be checking up on them to see if they watched general conference. We had a few recent converts watch the general women's broadcast but we aren't certain on whether they watched the other sessions yet. We spent most of the week going around and inviting people, members and non members, to watch general conference and to have questions ready to be answered. We watched all the sessions at the church and saw a few people who weren't members and they seemed to really enjoy it. We hope that they decide to investigate more on what we are about. 

We also got the opportunity to watch the new movie, "Meet the Mormons" so we can have a good understanding of what we invite people to watch. It was great and an amazing description on what we better believe. It went into some great detail on how we show ourselves and on what we do with our faith. I would greatly encourage you to watch it when it comes out. 

The rest of the week was just fast and flew by really quick. I can't hardly remember where all the time went and when we did certain things. It just means that we're gonna have a really slow week this time around. 

I love you all and I hope you know that your letters are a huge support for me out here. Hope to hear from ya next week. 

Love 

Elder Smith

General Conference Package

Here is a little package we sent for General Conference.

Just some fun snacks and sayings!!

September 29, 2014 Email

Hey family! It's great to hear from ya this week. I guess I should have told a that I would have Monday as p-day last week. But your letter this week was great. It's cool to hear everyone is doing well up there. It seems really snowy up in Montana right now. I wonder if it'll break the record for snow fall this year. It seems most of the northern regions in America get frozen at random times of the year. It's cool to hear you all have some busy schedules with sports, hunting, and work all the time. It helps to keep you sane and just have something to do. 

This week was hectic for us. None of the plans we made when planning seemed to keep and we had several unexpected times with some people here. The beginning of the week started with some pretty nice storms and had those all throughout the week. We had some good visits and some interesting visits with potential investigators. One of them was a potential who seemed promising, yet when we went over he started to ramble on so we had to move on and visit others when Elder Briggs got a flat that we had to fix. We've been inviting others, member and non-member, to the general conference broadcasts that are happening at the stake center here. So the week has been all tossed around and we did our best to see those we needed to see. 

I love you all and I hope you know that your letters are a huge support for me out here. Hope to hear from ya next week. 

Love 

Elder Smith 

September 23, 2014 Email

Hey Fam! Sorry for the later email, I didn't get a chance to get to some WiFi yesterday cause we were at one of the parks here for most of the day then had appointments that needed to be kept.

This week was kinda slow for us out here since we had that Zone Conference with Elder Neilson. We had people reschedule on us and had some people go off the grid for most of the week. We were able to set several more lessons with our people for this week, so we're expecting some good numbers and good lessons for us. We hope to start some of our investigators on a stop smoking program that will hopefully help them toward their baptism. We also have a few others that we're working with to help them through their concerns. Other than what has happened and what will happen this week, we just have some more work to do and doing more service. We did this week, however, help clean out a garage of a hoarder. Don't get me wrong, the lady was nice and had a change of heart to get rid of some stuff, but it was so packed with things that were unnecessary and just lot of other junk. It all seemed to be a long process but we got most of it done.

Well hope to hear from you guys shortly and hope you know that I love you.

Love,
Elder Smith

September 15, 2014 Email

Hey there! As you might know, I'm emailing today because of the meeting with Elder Brent H. Neilson of the Seventy on Monday and he met with the missionaries in the south part of the mission yesterday. The meeting with Elder Neilson was great and long. The meeting started around 9 and went to about 3:30 and didn't get back home 'til about 5 with all the travel from Chico. The meeting was all focused on missionary work and how we can not just improve our teaching through study and prayer, but to grow by acting and by going out there and do the work regardless on how we may feel or how people treat us. That we need to thank God for the trials in our life rather than ask for them to be taken away from us so we could move on with our day. It taught us to trust The Lord regardless of what comes our way. While at the conference, I saw that several missionaries of my MTC District were in the northern part of the mission. All but one was there and a sister who was at the conference were in the picture here.

Like I described in my last email, we had a baptism last Saturday for Diane. She has met with missionaries for a while and her husband is a member who baptized her. She was confirmed Sunday and Elder Briggs and I had he opportunity to be a part of that as well as a new ordained Elder who will be heading on his mission here in a few weeks from now. It was a great experience to be here for and to invite her into the church.

This week we had some good experiences with our investigators showing some interest in quiting smoking and start working toward their baptismal date we have for them.  

It was cool to hear you all are doing well. It's kinda weird to have the eye injury without any cause to it being there though. You are in my prayers and I wish you the best recovery Mom. For the guys, great job in your run last weekend. Hardin isn't an easy course by any means at all, you were just lucky to run it in a bit cooler weather than in the blazing sun. I have to deal with the California heat for I believe another few months before it starts to cool down some what around here. I don't know if you've heard, but in Weed there were some huge fires there that took out about 100 homes. Most of ward is actually in that area to, so it doesn't help many people there. Hopefully winter brings the rain, or it's gonna be brutal next year for California. Hey Parker, keep working in football. I know you might not like sitting on the side lines just as much as I did. Football is a good sport for you and I know you love it, so keep working hard and show all of them that you deserve to be on that field. It's awesome to hear you got into some elk Dad. They are fun and difficult to hunt and always seem to get in the spots where you can't get a good shot in at them. Hope you have better hunting next time and hope you get into them. One other thing Mom, if you could sent out some more contacts that would be great. I love you all and wish you the best of times, even when they seem to be rough. 

Love

Elder Smith