Week 11 -Belting and Baptisms

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 squawking noises we were making.

My mission President taught a lot of awesome stuff, but my favorite thing he talked about was the word Sesu. Sesu is a Finnish word with no direct English translation. Basically the best way to describe it in my opinion is positive stubbornness. Not just determination to stay your course, but a refusal to change course because you know you're right. That is definitely something I strive for as a missionary and as a person. No matter what goes on around me, I want to be strong and immovable in doing the Lord's work, and not only that, but I want to be doing His work with a fire about me that can't be doused. I don't speak Finnish but from what I could understand that's what Sesu means. Special thanks to everyone that sent me stuff for my Birthday! I loved everything! It definitely made my whole month. With that being said, no one send me any candy ever again, ever, period, end of discussion, no debate ever. Ever. I ate like a King and now I know why kings are usually depicted as fat cause all my gains went out the window... don't worry I'll get them back ASAP so I can go D1. That's all I've got for this week. Pday next week will probably be on Wednesday because of transfers, so it'll be a minute before I send my next email. Till then, keep serving hard and furthering the Lords work!

-Elder Smith

An awesome member took us to dinner and it was pretty good, but we felt sick after.

An awesome sign at that members house.

The scale the other day.

Before Lyndon's Baptism

After Lyndon's Baptism

Zone Conference

My mom always told me the close spots were for pregnant ladies, but I always assumed it was just an unwritten rule... not in Georgia.

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Elder Smith in South Carolina

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