Elder Smith Times Two

April 18, 2016

You know it was a good week when it flew by so fast you can't remember
anything! I'll try to remember the best I can so bear with me on this
email!

As far as our in investigators go... Carla is doing great! She's so
excited to be baptized and she's pretty much a golden investigator.
She even signed up to feed us this week! Geraldo is getting the
priesthood soon so he will most likely be baptizing her!

We kinda lost track of Joshua and he was going MIA, but we talked with
his wife Ashley and set up a time to meet with her and yesterday we
taught her and he was there too! It was super rough because the kids
were running amok and I kept loosing focus but she seemed so into the
restoration and she said she would definitely pray about the Book of
Mormon!

We finally got to teach a part member family this week. This guys name
is Ma, he is the boyfriend of a less active named Crystal. Well Ma is
a trendy dude! He's always rocking a do rag and the dopest clothes and
he's just an incredibly nice guy, even better is he is so solid! He
asked all the right questions and he spirit was so strong so he
accepted our baptismal invite for June 4th! Good guy!

Kinda a funny story, Phoenix was all stoked for church and he said he
would definitely be there, but just as every Sunday morning we don't
see him walk in. We were so confused because all signs pointed to him
attending this week. We had a lesson with him right after church and
turns out he hired an Uber driver, who couldn't find his apartment
complex so the driver called and got mad and cancelled his ride, so
thus my investigator could not attend church hahaha my life!!!

Let's see so I think one of the best parts of the week was that I got
to go on exchanges with another Elder Smith! It was way fun because we
got to go introduce ourselves as elder smith and elder smith! Some
people were way confused haha, anyways we also got to serve at an old
persons home on the exchange, which was dope because all these old
ladies were just kicking it around a big ole tv playing wii bowling
and every time we walked by they bragged to us about how good they
were playing!

Does anyone remember a few weeks ago when we had that dope Haitian
dude show up at church? Well I finally sent his record over to the
sisters and they called him up and he's way solid! He was at church
and during elders quorum he pretty much taught us about tithing! I'm
stoked for the sisters but a little bummed I can't teach him.

Well friends and family it was a quick week because we taught the most
lessons this area has seen in quite a long time, by far the most
lessons I've taught on my mission. We are loving it here, Elder Mackay
is a great companion and the lord is blessing us sooo much! I love
teaching because that's when you can feel the spirit so strongly and
we get to tell people how much the gospel will bless their lives and
by the end they are always asking "well how can I find out if this is
true?" That's the part I love because we get to introduce them to the
Book of Mormon and give them one of their own copies, then we get to
see their eyes light up and their determination to read! I was blessed
to see it more than once this week and it just reminds me I'm out here
for a reason. I love you guys, i miss you a lot, have a great week!

1) me and Elder Smith!
2) our zone, notice how overrun it is with sisters
3) Brother Massimini came back from Hershey, PA with this gorgeous
hunk of chocolate

Additonal photo of Dylan and his companion at the Chatfields last Sunday.

Holiness to the Lord

April 11, 2016

So it's been a Temple themed week, I'm not sure why, probably because
we have only 4 months until the temple open house! The hype is real
here folks! Oh and I got a new companion named Elder Mackay. He's from
Idaho and he's been out 18 months, so I got an old timer to hasten the
work here in Morrisville!

While the common theme was Temples, we focused a lot on goal setting
with our teachees. The great thing about goal setting in the temple is
to always have the goal be the Temple. How can that be a goal without
knowing about the peace and comfort we can feel in there?

Last week during conference Phoenix asked about temples so we
explained a bit and he said that would be his goal, what a kick off to
a great week! We taught Phoenix the Word of Wisdom and all he's gotta
give up is his occasional coffee. What a blessing to us! We were able
to set him with a baptismal date for May 21st and he's pretty stoked!
Carla prayed about a date for herself and she decided April 30th so we
will have to work hard to make that one but she at least has the
desire! Sadly Joshua has fallen off track a bit and it will take some
time to get him back on track. His marriage is super rough right now,
so the Rosa's plan on working with them and setting them straight.

Corbin is doing good though! He's set for baptism on May 14th which
will take some work, but he's making good steps! He's had a lot of
questions about temples since he came to church a month ago, so we
brought Brother Pray and they ended up just chatting about temples and
how the gospel blesses our lives and our families lives, we didn't
even have to teach! It's the best when a member can connect with an
investigator like that!

From my experience there's always a few investigators that are just
super shakey. This week was so great because we got to see two of our
iffy gators make strides. First Bill, who we've been taking it slow
with told us he wants us to start teaching him the PMG lessons again!
Second is Nyema, our Liberian investigator. He's a tough one, but this
week we didn't pound any principles in him, or really do anything, but
answer his questions about the Book of Mormon. We asked him what he
thought about the Book of Mormon. The lesson ended up with him telling
us he will finish the Book of Mormon in 4 weeks and make his decision
about baptism!

Our less active and recent converts all got taught about the temple.
We used "See Yourself in the Temple" by Elder Cook. They all want to
get there so bad so that's something we can work with. Sister
Benfield, the convert of a year, went to the temple for her first
endowment session this week which we were stoked about! To end it all
off right the ward did a Temple fireside, where the Carrs, who are in
charge of the temple, came and talked to us about it. I'm so excited!
Oh and the Carrs are from Centerville so I got to talk to them a
little about good ole home.

I feel so blessed to have a temple being built in my mission.
Especially right in the city for all to see! I have a feeling the work
will just explode with the temple being soon finished and it provides
a great goal for all those we teach. Hopefully soon I'll be able to go
back there myself. I love you guys, I hope you have a great week!

1) the old Morrisville squad before Sister Petrick and Elder Johnson
got transferred
2) this is that picture of Jesus I talked about a few weeks ago!

I Can't Think of a Catchy Subject Line Today

April 4, 2016

I get to stay in Morrisville! Isn't that cool? We had transfer calls
on Saturday and I get to stay, but Elder Johnson is going. We saw it
coming because he's been here for all 6 months of his mission! I'm
stoked I get to keep working here because we just keep teaching and
finding all day and it's pretty rad!

Let me tell ya it's been one gnarly week, with some solid General
Conference, wouldn't you all say? I spent one day in Philly again with
Elder Payne and everyone's so hood, it's awesome. A few days ago we
had a super solid lesson with Phoenix and we told him about general
conference and he was so stoked! Then we told him we could come to his
house and watch it with him and I think he almost fell out of his
chair! We watched Saturday Morning session with him and that was one
of the most powerful sessions I've seen. We all really enjoyed it! It
was hilarious because he brought out cut up fruit for us to snack on,
and later he mentioned that he wanted to get us a snack but he read
online we could only eat healthy things and no chocolate or candy. We
told him that wasn't true at all and he was super bummed he spent time
cutting up fruit instead of just buying a big ole bag of chips haha.
Crazy stuff they put on the internet eh?

Speaking of crazy stuff put on the Internet, Corbin's wife is really
skeptical. Not just of our church but of everything. So she said she's
been doing her own studying on the Internet and we are like ugh no
don't do that!! So she has all these outrageous ideas that we have to
clear up. Corbin is doing fine though!

We lost contact with Joshua all week, his 18 month old took his phone
haha. So between Sunday sessions we stopped by and taught him and
brought him to the last session! I think he enjoyed it, but he said he
wished there was more people watching it at the chapel, it was quite
empty.

Yesterday we pretty much stayed the whole day at the church. So we
couldn't go out to eat, but luckily I snagged some granola bars to eat
for dinner. So we smacked on those at the church, then all the sudden
Sister Benfield brings in a ton of snacks for us and Brother Massimini
brings in a ton of ice cream for us! Don't worry mom and dad, I get
taken care of here!

Well that's pretty much it, the weekend flys by when you watch 10
hours of TV. I absolutely loved conference this year. Especially
Saturday morning session. What a blessing it is to be taught by all of
our leaders twice a year! What I loved it watching it and thinking
about all my friends and family watching it in Utah and all over the
world at the same time as me. Something that Elder Anderson said stuck
out to me "knowing someone's name can make a difference". Well
everyone I guess that's all for the week, I'm excited to continue my
work here and Elder Johnson picked up a few gators for me while I was
in Philly so you'll get to hear about them next week! I love you guys,
keep reading your scriptures and praying!

1) here's us with Brother Dyott, he's a good guy
2 & 3) parx casino!!!

Easter Sundey

March 28, 2016

I hope you all had a great Atoning Thursdey, Good Fridey and most
importantly a great Resurrection Sundey! How great is it that we have
someone who would suffer so much pain and agony for us? He died for us
and all he asks is that we follow him. I feel like it's a lopsided
bargain in favor of us! It's been great to be out as one of God's
missionaries and really be focused on why we Christians celebrate
Easter. I love how much emphasis other religions put on Easter, I
really do! Christmas gets so commercialized but Easter is still
remembered so greatly! It's such a blessing for us that instead of
focusing so much on Christ's death, that we can focus more on his
resurrection. There's this awesome picture hanging up in our church of
Jesus emerging from the tomb with luscious flowing hair, it's become
my favorite picture because it portrays how happy the resurrection is
and as a result we can live again with our families!

Anywho I realized that my long emails are probably a bore to read with
a bunch of lame monotonous activity so I'll switch it up this week
with some highlights and good news and outrageous things people say
instead of day to day activity. I hope my family doesn't mind!

Joshua is progressing so well! I just love meeting with him! He now
works with Geraldo and some "hoodlums from Trenton" were bashing on
Mormons, saying we weren't Christian and Joshua said "nah we Mormons
are yo". He talks way hood and he called himself a Mormon! So we
showed him 2 Nephi 25:26 and he wants to bring it to work. Bad news,
he cut his huge floppy Afro. Good news is tonight we are starting the
stop smoking program with him, his wife Ashley and his friend Lee!

Carla is doing good, she's just got bad health, but she came to church
today and loved it! Phoenix is doing well, he's praying and loving the
Book of Mormon. Corbin is doing just fine, but he's really iffy on
holding appointments so we've been getting on his case, but we have
his daughter Gia a sweet Jesus calendar and she was so excited! She
was telling us all about how she can put her birthday in it so she can
remember and her families birthday's too! We told her to put her dads
appointments with the missionaries in it so he doesn't bail. The
Rosa's are great if anyone is wondering. Sister Benfield hit a year of
Mormon this week so we celebrated at Buffalo Wild Wings!

Last P-Day we got to hangout with the Elders in our zone and play
ball. Like four other Elders have ukuleles so we all sat around and
jammed for a while! It was so gnarly. Then we had a great specialized
training this week from President and Sister Anderson. It was full of
trainings and tons of role plays and it was actually way fun and
beneficial. I'd write more about it but all you civilians probably
wouldn't understand. We also got to double into the zone leaders area
this week so I spent a day in Philly. It's an alright place. We were
walking around this week and a few punks were sitting outside and so
as we do we said hi to them and they called us "Phony #%! white boys"
and we were like nah we the realest white boys out there so we said
"Hey you guys want to watch a video about our savior Jesus Christ?"
They watched it and I think the little hooligans hearts were softened
after because they were a little more kind. See we are the realest
white boy's! 

Alright so this week we were focusing hard on getting all the
standards, which are mission wide goals set as far as numbers go each
week. We focused real hard on investigators at church. Now we invited
EACH investigator three times. THREE. We had rides for all of them and
only Carla came. Now we worked our Mr. Macs right off our feet this
week and we couldn't have done more. I prayed hard for investigators
to be at church. Elder Johnson probably prayed harder for two at
church. Well as we know only one came, but during Priesthood this big
ole Haitian dude stood up and said "this is my first time visiting
here" so me and Elder Johnson just jumped right on that. His name is
David and his cousins a Mormon in Haiti and he just felt like coming
so we are hoping to teach him soon! Those who pray then go and work
get rewarded.

Well friends and family I ended up writing a long email anyways. I
guess I just kinda like being a missionary and sharing my experiences
with you all back home or wherever you may be. I hope you keep the
Easter spirit of joy from the resurrection throughout the year. I pray
you do. I hope you have a good week and I love you all.

1) here's a district picture, not like it's changed over the past 6 weeks
2) we are dinner at this house on Sunday. We found out they are moving
and we asked the reason. They replied "need more space, it's getting
tight for us in here." Well ladies and gentleman the backyard was the
size of the football field and their kitchen was the size of my entire
apartment