October 27, 2014 Email

Joseph Smith (see information below)

Hey family!

This week was interesting. Last Monday, we were at Walmart doing shopping after I had emailed you guys. We just checked out and headed for the doors when some guy came up to us asking if we were Mormon. He started asking us all these different questions about some things he has heard about and studied. At first we thought we might have someone interested in learning more. Then he started talking about some weird stuff.  We asked where he got his information and he told us, the INTERNET. Surprise, surprise. We let him rant a little while then just walked off. Like it was said in conference is month, "The Internet has no truth filter." When we were talking to him, I remembered the promise the angel Moroni gave to Joseph Smith; "...God had a work for me to do; and that my name should be had for good and evil among all nations, kindreds, and tongues, or that it should be both good and evil spoken of among all people." We stood firm in what we believe and bore our  testimonies and left. When we can't combat with our own knowledge of the gospel, we bear testimony of our spiritual confirmation from God rather than from man. That is something that people can't fight or argue against. I saw it happen and I know the personal testimony is strongest tool and power we can have of the truth. So it's been an interesting start to the week. 

Tuesday, my companion almost got hit by a car. But he's fine and just had a few things to adjust on his bike. We also had a miracle happen with an investigator that day. He says he's been having trouble with finding his answer and feeling the Holy Ghost's promptings. He told us that he had a warm feeling and a strong belief that it was the Holy Ghost with us and as he reads the Book of Mormon. We hope he makes that commitment to baptism and to show his faith. Wednesday was a slow one for us. We just did some service and had some meetings that took up most of our day. The rest of the week was normal, except for Saturday. Recently we've been getting all these rain storms around here this week and had a huge one Saturday. We actually just got out of a great lesson and it looked like it was for the first part of the day, dry. While we were in the lesson, we heard thunder roaring over us and we thought we would be caught in the rain. It wasn't until we got back on our bike that the rain just poured out of the clouds like Cooney Dam at home when it releases water. We only had not even a quarter mile to our next stop and we were completely soaked, it was that bad. We stayed inside until it all died down and had a few other sprinkles throughout the rest of the day. 

Yesterday was the Primary program for our Ward. It was as you expect a Primary program to be, lots of the kids bellowing the songs they know and were full of energy. Oddly enough though, the kids were very reverent and still while they were sitting on the seats up front. It was a good sacrament meeting and full of spirit. 

That's all I've got for ya this week. Hope to hear from ya soon. Love you all and have a great week. 

Love 

Elder Smith

Joseph Smith--As a young boy in 1820, Joseph Smith wanted to know which church was true. As he searched the Bible for help, he read that he should ask of God. Acting on this counsel, Joseph went into the woods near his home and prayed. Suddenly, a light shone above him and Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ appeared to him. When Joseph asked which church he should join, the Savior told him to join none of the churches then in existence because they were teaching incorrect doctrines. Through this experience and many others that followed, the Lord chose Joseph to be His prophet and to restore the gospel of Jesus Christ and His Church to the earth.

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