Elder Smith in South Carolina

  Hey everyone! So this week was by far one of the most fun weeks Elder Christensen and I have had together. We started out our week at the park playing football with some locals who didn't think I could run, so they stuck me at qb.  After a short game, that mostly involved dropped passes to open receivers, I decided to remind them that sometimes white dudes in dress shoes and slacks can be fast too. After that, we focused our week on finding out which members of our ward are inactive and which ones have moved by knocking doors from the ward directory. My door approach has definitely improved since I got out here, hence the title of this week's email. We met a lot of cool people and even though it was pretty boring a lot of the time it was productive work. The majority of the rest of the week was spent inviting people to the ward fiesta that we had on Saturday night. Last minute I felt like we should invite a grey dot named Jamaal that I had only met once. Plot twist, he recent

  Hey Everyone! This week has been intense! I'm leading the area and training for anyone that's behind.  Also I'm still in Augusta, Georgia and I'm convinced I'll probably just be here my whole mission, which wouldn't be too bad. Highlights from the week: -Sister Miller fed us again and gave us Cuban sandwiches that were so good. As a wise Elder McArthur would have said "these are so good imma smack ma grandma!" (Don't worry grandma I would never smack you over a sandwich) (sorry just reread that take 2: don't worry grandma I would never smack you over anything ever) (that applies to you too Nana). -We got to play ultimate frisbee with some new friends, and while my team did lose it was super fun, and I had some nice highlight plays. -It has rained so much recently that we are more surprised when it isn't raining.  At first, we hated it, but now Elder Christensen and I are loving the rain. -In order to increase positivity, Elder Christensen

 Hey everyone! I'm so sorry this email is a week late!  It didn't send last week for some reason. I apologize sincerely and promise this week's email will make up for it probably. I promise there will be a spiritual aspect to this email but first we have to talk about pizza. Throughout my life there have been many debates about which restaurant makes the best pizza. I cannot say that I have ended that debate, but step aside Monty Python, because this Elder Christiansen and I found the Holy Grail of pizza. Sister Miller is the wife of Lyndon who was baptized a couple weeks back. We have kept in close contact with them ever since the baptism. Sister Miller believes strongly in feeding the missionaries and has had us over nearly as many times as the rest of the ward combined. This last time when we went over to her house, she promised us pizza. Now I consider myself a rather knowledgeable person when it comes to the field of pizza.  I have eaten my fair share of pizza, and I c

Hey everyone! Every week I keep thinking I'll be able to settle in and be a bomb missionary next weekend, then it's like God decides to sprinkle a little figurative hot sauce on the plate to spice up my mission. That's ok though, I like the fast pace.  It helps me keep my mind sharp, and it puts me in a lot of situations that help me learn and grow spiritually and physically.  One of the biggest lessons I have learned recently has to do with oxen being stuck in pits. In Luke 14, Jesus asks, "Which of you shall have an ass or an ox fallen into a pit, and will not straightway pull him out on the sabbath day?" I love this questions for many reasons, so I'm going to share a couple.  1. Sometimes we get so caught up in rules that we forget what it is that we are actually doing on this earth. At the end of the day a lot of things don't matter as much as we make them out to matter.  For instance, if we have let's say an ox, and it falls into a pit on the sabb

 Hey everyone! LYNDON GOT BAPTIZED! After decades of missionaries and countless prayers from his family, he finally became a member of the Lord's Restored Church. It was so cool to see him in the font. It took two men to get the job done cause he needed some help balancing and everything, because he's still recovering from his stroke. He wanted the missionaries to sing at his baptism, so we got a couple other Elders to sing Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing with us. We sang that to him a few times during lessons, and he loved it. We taught him with a Zone leader on one of those occasions and the Zone leader decided it would be cool to sign us up to sing at Zone Conference... if ever there was a move that be'eth not it. -Elder Smith 4:18 It was pretty alright though I had a lot of fun. Elder McArthur was freaking out the whole time while we practiced the day before, but he did a great job. The Sisters we sang with were way better than us too, so that made up for the guttural

 Hey everyone!  Holy Cattle guys I'm an old person! Yes it feels super different than being 18. The first thing Elder McArthur told me this morning was that I look older, so yeah it's a good day. This week went by so fast, and I don't actually have that many stories to tell, but I do have a bunch of pictures, so hopefully that will make up for it.  We had another lesson at the Kotter's with Kieron, David, Kamren, Kaiden, and Matthew, and this time instead of Dylan, we had our friend Tristain there. That was pretty awesome, and they all left with their own copy of the Book of Mormon, which we were super hyped about.  Lyndon's baptism will be this Saturday and we are super excited for it!  We know he's making the right choice and it's gonna be fun seeing him continue progressing.  Jaylin came to church again, and we made sure he didn't leave without getting a picture with us, so now y'all can finally see what he looks like. He didn't say much about

 Hey Y'all!  This week has been so different from every other week ever, but it has also been amazing. I went on exchanges twice this week which was super fun. Elder Deppe was my first exchange companion and I'm pretty sure I could have him as my companion for the rest of my mission without feeling at all even a little bit sad. He is literally the nicest guy I have ever met. We went and worked out at his gym cause he actually has one he can go to unlike certain other Elders that will remain nameless. After we worked out, I went to take a shower and when I got out there was a trail of sticky notes leading up the counter to where he had made and left me a smoothie! Definitely made my day and set the tone for the rest of the day. After that we spent our time trying to find ways to get people to come to spanish class while lightening each other's load. Once again Elder Deppe is pretty much the bomb, so I had to work to keep up with his niceness. It just so happened that on this