Hey everyone!
I have only been out a week but holy cow a ton has happened. I got to South Carolina on Wednesday and stayed at the mission home with President Monson and the other new missionaries. Thursday I was given my assignment and my companion. I was assigned to..... wait for it..... hold your breath..... just kidding don't do that.... Augusta Georgia!!! My companion's name is Elder McArthur and he's an absolute stud spiritually and in any sport you can think of. The first thing we did was go visit a friend. He's a super great guy that just had double knee surgery. He was probably sleeping cause of his medication so he couldn't answer the door. Before we left I felt impressed to knock on a door across the street. No one answered the door but as we stood there we heard the sound of a basketball being dribbled. We turned and saw a man coming home from working out. His name is Jaylin and he plays ball for a junior college. He grew up playing basketball with the missionaries and said he'd love to play with us sometime. It was great to have that kind of contact on day 1 during my first contacting attempt. That night we met with Lyndon an older gentleman who recently had a stroke. He can't really talk accept saying I so we played an extreme game of charades. Despite a herculean effort, we failed miserably at understanding him even with his wife's help but all 4 of us were laughing a lot and having fun. We shared briefly about God's love and protection by telling about Samuel the Lamanite who happened to be on my tie courtesy of the one and only Nana. We ended the day at The River which is as you'd guess a river. It was so beautiful though and I will definitely be sending pics from there. Day 2 started pretty uneventfully and continued that way for a while. Towards the end of the day though we were just driving back from talking to an inactive family when I felt like we should stop and knock on a random door we were passing. It wasn't random! We met a timid fellow named Jonathan who said he's interested in meeting with us! We haven't met with him yet but I feel good about him. Day 3 we played soccer with some friends and we had a super fun time! My team won right at the end but that doesn't really matter cause I'm a missionary that doesn't care about winning. We ended that day park contacting. I got to do a contact all by myself for the first time. I talked with a nice man about his favorite football teams. He's a fan of the Falcons and the University of Georgia. He told us he's remodeling a bathroom and we got his number so we can call him and come help out sometime. As we went to leave the park, a young guy came up to us and said "so what do you guys think happens when you die?" We could tell that as the kids would say he wanted all the smoke. Or as a missionary would say he wanted to bash with us. We started by talking to him calmly and explaining firmly some of our beliefs. Then when he started pressing and I was ready to launch into instant kill mode Elder McArthur decided it was time to end our encounter. The basher asked how the Book of Mormon can be true because of the verse in Revelation y'all missionaries know the one. Elder McArthur told him no matter what we said he wouldn't change his mind and that if he wanted answers he had to pray. The basher was shocked for a second then he tried to pull us back in by saying if we had the answers to his questions we could change his mind but Elder McArthur was firm and said what we could and if he wanted more he needed to pray. The guy told us to repent after that and we told him we loved him and we'd pray for him. It was amazing. Sunday we met with Nao he's a Japanese kid going to college. He is super interested in the church and what we have to offer. During the second hour of church we met with him and the Stake president and had the greatest missionary lesson I've ever heard mainly given by the stake president who is one of the most spiritual people I've ever met. 100% could be a general authority. That's only a small bit of what we've done and I've learned so much already. Everything is super different than I thought it would be but I love being here! Thanks everyone that's been writing me! Keep working hard!
- Elder Smith
PS- the room is my apartment and I found the poker stuff in a closet. The murals are from the MTC, I snagged my favorite ones before leaving.
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