I'M ALMOST IN AMERICA!!!

Greetings from Windsor, Ontario!

Let me just say that this place is sweet. I live on Riverside Drive which is exactly what it says it is. Right next to the river and across the river is AMERICA!!! I am going to attempt to send pictures in this email. I am really excited that I am this close to the US of A. Elder Wendt doesn't really care though. He is not American. He is Swiss-German/Argentinian....His mom is from Argentina, His dad is from Germany and he was raised in Switzerland. Confusing. You pronounce Wendt: Vent which makes this companion number three with a difficult name and the "Smith. That's easy to remember" jokes abound. What fun. He is super sweet and a great missionary. He has been out a year and a half and it is great to work with someone who knows what they are doing. We get along really well and I see great things in the future. (Including a trip to Germany/Switzerland to visit him. Who's in?) :):)

I am excited to be in Windsor. The city itself is pretty great. It kind of has a bad rep because across the river is Detroit: Murder Capital of the United States. But I  like it. It is older and looks exactly like I imagined Detroit to look like. Run down old factories covered in vines, little old houses and American cars everywhere. Its great. Kind of shady in some places but it just makes things fun. :) Windsor is also the warmest place in Canada or something. Apparently they never get snow and the winter is very mild. LAME!!! I came to Canada expecting snow and I feel ripped off. Oh well. There is always next year.

The ward is sweet and they feed us A LOT. If I'm not careful I will come home with a "Canadian Tire." There is a hardware store called Canadian Tire so that's what they call the fat stomach you get when you serve here. :( I'm hoping I can fend it off. Not likely. Sigh. 

As for investigators things are good. I have only met one because everyone is very busy with finals and the Christmas season but the one I have met is so great. His name is Al and he is 70 something and HILARIOUS! He is doing really well should be baptized soon. Sometime in January. He is retired and lives with his two dogs and is just a great guy. He is trying really hard to overcome his difficulties and is really changing his life. I love this part of missionary work. When it goes from being just something nice that we are telling people and turns to people understanding and having a desire to change their life. It is great. I love it. 

That is about it. Good times here in Windsor. We got to be in the Windsor Winter Fest parade with our ward. We passed out 1400 Joy to the World cards along the way!! It was sweet and great to get our name out there. We already have one request for visit viamormon.org and hopefully it is the first of many. Exciting stuff!

I am way excited to be here and to be able to see the growth in people's lives. I really love being a missionary and I am so glad I have two years to do it. I love this work and I love this gospel. There is nothing that brings more happiness than the knowledge we have and that I get to share with people. What a blessing. 

Merry Christmas everyone! Work hard and do good things!

Love, 

Elder E. Smith

P.S. My new address

3701 Riverside Drive East #202 W

Windsor, ON N8Y 4W5

Canada! 

P.P.S. My mission office address

Canada Toronto Mission

197 County Court Blvd Suite 203

Brampton, ON L6W 4P6

Canada

Please use my first name in anything sent there. :):)

P.P.P.S. I got the Christmas package from the aunts and uncles. Thanks so much!! I did not get my family one. I will tomorrow at Zone Conference though.

Luvs!!!

Transfers!

Dearest family!

Its that time again, transfers! Elder Hegemann and I got a call from President Scott last night and I am heading off to Windsor, Ontario to be a District Leader. Elder Hegemann is staying here and training a new missionary. My little boy is all grown up. :) It is a very exciting time and I am very excited to set out on this new adventure. That being said, I am going to miss Richmond Hill East very, very much. This past week I finally decided that I love it here and that I know what I am doing and I had a handle on the situation. True to form, as soon as I was comfortable, God saw fit to help me grow again. What fun. :) My new companion is named Elder Wendt and that is all I know about him. More next week. :)

So the area is really blossoming right now. Mary is doing very, very good and is all set to be baptized on the 23rd of this month. She is truly a blessing and a welcome relief from the constant struggle to find people. What a blessing. I am so glad that Elder H gets to stay and baptize her. What a great experience. We found new investigators this week. Two new investigators and two who will be investigators as soon as we set another appointment with them. Very exciting and great to see the area growing. It is awesome to see hard work pay off and to see this area go from one investigator to four with a lot of potential.

I have a new planner now and I usually look back on that to recap the week but, I don't have my old planner. Oops. Memory it is!

Monday: Regular old P-Day. Nothing sticks out in my memory.

Tuesday: Zone Meeting (not to be confused with Zone Conference which happens sometime this month. YAY!) It was really good and I learned a ton. The rest of the day.....not sure.

Wednesday: HA! I usually forget Wednesdays but not this week. This week we found two new investigators and had a super fantastic day. One was a referral from the Zone Leaders and the other from mormon.org. The Zone Leader referral is a Muslim guy who is looking for truth. Not sure if he will be baptized but he is meeting with us. The mormon.org referral is sweet. His name is Jose and he is from Venezuela. His (member) friend back home thought he would be open to a visit so got his info and requested a visit on mormon.org. Haha. He was not expecting us but let us in anyway. He is sweet and I really think he will be open to baptism. Time will tell. It was a really great day.

Thursday: My 6 month mark. I officially turned "old" and felt all reminisce-y all day. Weekly planning and finding all day to no luck. :( Good day though.

Friday: Exchanges. Really good. Learned a ton and had fun.

Saturday: Taught ESL. Taught another mormon.org referral from India. He and his friend are working on a documentary about native American culture and heard about Lamanites and wanted to learn more. He is really nice and very philosophical. The lesson basically turned into a friendly religious discussion. It was fun.

Sunday: Mary came to church and it was awesome. It was a very long day waiting for calls at night but very fun.

All in all it was a great week and a great 12 weeks in Richmond Hill East. I am going to miss it very much here but I'm sure the next adventure is just as great and I will love it too. Yay missions!! I am so happy to be serving and so grateful for the chance I have to devote these two years of my life to God. This church is true, this is God's work and He is a very real participant in it. The Lord knows each and every one of us and loves us perfectly. Everything that we go through is for our benefit and will shape us into men and women for the eternities. I know that God lives and that His son Jesus Christ lives. They love us and care for us. Put your trust in Them and never forget who you are. Work hard and do good things!!

Love,

Elder E. Smith

Hello!!

Hey. How's it going?

This week has been sweet and awesome and great. I love December and being a missionary and snow and life. Things are just good. :) :) :) We are so blessed to have the gospel and have good families and to be in this world and.....yeah. God is good. :) On to the week review.

Monday: SWEET! We rode the subway downtown and went to the CN Tower. It is the second tallest building in the world and the tallest man-made lookout in the world and I was on it!! I was terrified but it was so worth it. In the tower there is a glass floor and it is super scary. Its like you're floating. Such a neat thing. I want to come back with the family. Who's in?!? It was fun to be with other missionaries and to see Toronto. There were only two sad parts of the trip. One: we ran out of time and couldn't make it to Honest Ed's. Its this sweet store that has $4 ties. $4!!!! We are going next week before we get transferred hopefully. Two: there were Hobbit posters EVERYWHERE. I am so bummed. Everytime I see one my heart just sinks and I have to tell myself "Two years, two years, two years." It'll be there when I get back right? But other that that it was a great day! And then to top it all off we met with a new investigator and she agreed to be baptized! She is super great and we are meeting her again today. Hopefully all goes well.

Tuesday: Good day. We found a sweet new place to tract where they speak english and are nice (ish) and its great. Really good day

Wednesday:Once again. I always forget Wednesdays....poor Wednesday. I'm sure it was fun.

Thursday: We went exploring in our new area and it was great. People in Richmond Hill are really nice. We talked to a lot of sweet people and then one not as sweet. She was a Jehovah's Witness and started to tell us how we are wrong and dumb and it was lame. We got "owned" (Elder Hegemann Lingo) by another lady a few weeks ago and so this one we were a little more prepared for this time. The spirit took over and I "threw down" (EHL)  for a bit and kindly told her our purpose as missionaries and walked away. Elder Hegemann was really mad that he got beat and so we have spent the better portion of this week studying to be able to hold our own in a Bible Bash. His motto is "We don't start fights, but we don't lose them either." Its been fun. :0

Friday: Good and uneventful. Just tracting and contacting. The usual. :)

Saturday: I think I mentioned this before but now we teach English as a Second Language on Saturdays. Its fun but stressful and then to add to all that I was made building manager and am now in charge of it....I have no clue what I am doing but it is really fun and exciting. It reminds me how much I don't know about English. :) We ate something bad and spent the rest of the day close to home and tried to do what we could. Not fun.

Sunday: Generally good day. I love the ward a ton and will be very sad if I leave it.

Great week! I really love being a missionary! I hope you all are reading your scriptures and praying everyday. The Lord expects us to do the little things so we can get through the big things. My testimony of that has grown so much. If we are doing the small things that he asks, then we will receive the big blessings he wants to give us. Keep working hard. Good luck to everyone with Finals and all that. I love you and pray for you daily!

Work hard, Study hard, Pray hard. Have fun and do good things!!!

Love,

Elder E. Smith

So much to say, So little time

Hi hi!!

Life is funny. When I have all the time in the world to write, I have nothing to write about. But when I actually have things to talk about my time is limited. We are going on an adventure downtown to see the CN Tower (until recently the tallest freestanding structure in the world) so I don't have a ton of time to write. So let's get to it shall we?

First. Last P-Day we went and played football to celebrate American Thanksgiving and it was super fun. My flag football quarterback days came in handy and I threw for like six touchdowns. (be impressed) Also I am COMPLETELY out of shape and had a hard time keeping up with all the new missionaries. Sadly, no amount of exercise done for thirty minutes in a basement can keep you in football playing shape. It was rough. We ended up waddling around like old men for most of the week because we were so sore. Yay football!

Tuesday was sweet. We taught a high school student we found at the bus stop and he was really interested and wants to learn more. We're meeting with him again this week and hopefully we will have good news come next week.

Wednesday was also good. Not sure what happened. I never seem to be able to remember what happens on Wednesday. Its a problem.

Thursday was Car Fast again. Good day. Not anything too exciting. We celebrated Thanksgiving by saying how grateful we were to have a car on the other days. Haha. It was fun. Very tiring day.

Friday we got news that our area boundary was changed. It moved west two major streets. So now the church is in our area and we picked up a few exciting potential investigators. We had dinner with a member and I tried sardine paste on my pizza. It was....interesting. Worth trying once. Not sure if it is something I will keep doing. :)

Saturday was good. We went on exchanges again so I worked with my district leader.  It was fun. I also taught the English as a Second Language class that we offer as missionaries. Usually the West Elders teach it but since it is now our area we will be teaching. Its really fun and reminds me how little I know. The class is doing very well and had five new students in the past two weeks and they hadn't had any for months. Very exciting.

Sunday was a blur as usual. Chris came to church and is getting along very well in the ward. The problem is we can never teach him more than once a week because he is difficult to get a hold of. Ah missionary work. :)

Overall it was a very good week and the future of this area is very bright. We teaching a girl tonight that the West Elders found before the split that wants to be baptized! We'll see how it turns out. :) Pray for my investigators and pray that we'll find new ones! I love you and hope you are having a fantastic holiday season!! Do good things!

Love,

Elder E. Smith

Not Lame!!

Hello Family and Friends!!!

This week was totally not lame!!!! Last week went by super super fast and was lame so it was nice to have a normal, semi-productive week. So yeah. Lets get to it!

Monday night we had FHE with probably one of my favorite families in the ward. They are from Venezuela and are super awesome. They cooked us delicious food and then we had FHE and it was sweet. I love feeling like I have a family again. :)

Tuesday was SWEEEEEEET! We had leadership training for the first half of the day and it was incredible. I felt like it was made for me. There were three parts of the training and each one answered a question I had. Spooky. I loved it and it was a mission making experience. One thing we learned was how to street contact better and it was exactly what I needed. We went out that night and tried our new "moves" and it totally worked. Night and day difference from how I was doing it. I was just waiting for someone to teach me these things. Great day.

Wednesday....I don't remember it. I'm sure it was awesome. (Insert incredible experience here)

Thursday-Car Fast Day. Ladies and Gentlemen, if we didn't think President Scott was inspired before, we do now. Car Fast Day worked!! Kind of!! On Thursday we were out finding and we talked to a lady named Leslie. Good news-She wanted to meet with missionaries and came to church this Sunday. Bad news-She is Chinese. So the Chinese Elders are teaching her. She is sweet and is loving the gospel thus far. Hopefully she will be baptized. Hard not to get to teach her but what goes around comes around eh?

Friday-We spent the day helping Bro Scott rake a bajillion leaves in his backyard. I also laid down a bunch of paving stones. and just did winter prep stuff. I love serving others. Especially when he gives us food in payment. :) We also helped set up the ward craft day at the church. Yay service!!

Saturday-Exchanges. I don't know if I told you but our districts got realigned and so now we are in the Richmond Hill District. Its just us and the West Elders. Super fun. They are great. So I spent Saturday in Richmond Hill with Elder McMullin. He is sweet and it was fun. We had what I thought was a pretty successful night with 5 potentials found but came back to my area and Elder Hegemann and Elder Hunt had found 13.....good day for both areas. Lots of work to do for us. :):) Yay!

Sunday was stressful. Leslie came to our ward so we had to figure that out and we had 6 investigators there between the two companionships. Awesome. That was pretty stressful plus the speaker was a little crazy and the Sunday school lesson was on Signs of the Second Coming. Lots of "damage control" to do this week.:)

Overall it was a great week and a good return to "normal." I love being a missionary. It is so fulfilling and seriously the greatest decision I've ever made. Have a good week, pray tons, do good things!

Love,

Elder E. Smith

P.S. Congratulations to anyone who has received mission calls! Tell me where you are going!! 

P.P.S.  Happy Thanksgiving! We're having a missionary Turkey Bowl today and I'm super excited. I haven't played sports in AGES!!!

Canada Fact: Can't think of anything.....Sorry. Maybe next week.

Missionary Work Isn't All Hard

Uhhhhhhh yeah

Are we sure it has been a week? It feels like two days. Seriously. I also have about two days worth of updating to do. This letter should be awesome. :)

Nothing happend this week. Well, I shouldn't say nothing but pretty close to nothing. We did a ton of street contacting and tracting. No one wants to listen to us. Not even our investigators. We called and called and called and no one would set an appointment with us. GRRR. We had a bunch of "I'm not sure what my schedule is like. Call me tomorrow. I'll know then." Then when we call they don't answer. Its super fun. So we didn't teach at all this week. We did, however, find some people who were interested in meeting with missionaries. The sad part is that they all live out of our area. Sigh...city work.....I'll get over it. We have found investigators for every area around us but can't seem to find one for ourselves. We found a few less interested people that we are going to follow up with this week. Cross your fingers!! I really want to teach consistently. Someday. :) I love how Liam always closes his emails with "pray for my investigators." I am going to start closing with "pray that we'll have investigators."

So that is about all that happened this week. President Scott has instituted a "Car Fast" every Thursday. The idea is to get us out of the car and out finding people. We don't schedule appointments for that day and we either walk or ride the bus so that we can talk to as many people as we can. Its a great idea and is aimed toward the missionaries who teach a ton and just drive from appointment to appointment. That obviously is not a problem for us really and it just means we walk to where we tract and street contact. It was pretty fun and I am looking forward to when its snowing on a Thursday. :)  

It hasn't really snowed here yet....disappointing. We had a day last week when there were a couple tiny tiny flakes for like two minutes and that was it. Hopefully we'll get some soon and I won't regret saying this. I just love winter and snow=winter.

That really is all. Slow week makes for short email. I love you all. I hope you are having a wonderful day/week and that the odds will be ever in your favor. Or whatever :)  Read, Pray, Do good things!

Love,

Elder E. Smith

P.S. I thought of something else I want for Christmas. Scarves.

P.P.S. Pray that we'll have investigators! ;)

Canada Fact: I am kind of running out. there just aren't enough things. Did I already use the milk in bags thing? I think so. That one is really, really weird. Yesterday was "Remembrance Day" and everyone wears red poppies to support the veterans. It is a neat tradition for sure. That's not really weird but it is fact nonetheless.  

Luvs!!

Merry Christmas

Hey!

Last weeks letter was bad. I remembered like 12 things I wanted to share right as we left the library. DOH!!!! So here are a few from last week.

My misssion was made last week when I walked past a Primary class and one of the kids yelled "ELDER SMITH!!!" and ran out to give me a high five and talk to me. I loved it. I love the Richmond Hill Ward. I was walking around church yesterday and I couldn't help but smile. It is crazy how much I can love a bunch of people I hardly know.

Now on to other things. Mom had a ton of questions so I will answer them here.

Bro Scott picture story. So Bro Scott is a member in the ward that we are super close with. He has MS so once a week we go to his house and help him with stuff. He feeds us and he is awesome. We are also teaching his step-son so we spend a lot of time at the Scott house. Last night we went there for dinner and a lesson and it was good. His daughter is super funny and I mess with her like I would Emma or Mariah. Its so fun to have a sister again. So she was goofing around and putting things on my head. Hence the bird in the nest on my head. It was mildly amusing to me but everyone else thought it was hilarious. Sis Scott almost died laughing. Good times.

On the super storm front. From my perspective the storm was "Meh." We got lots of rain and some high winds one night but really nothing bad. We are very lucky. We have just heard bits and pieces of what happened elsewhere and it sounds awful. Keep those affected in your prayers for sure!  

Canada is awesome. Because we have Thanksgiving at the beginning of November, after Halloween Christmas starts. I am already singing Christmas songs. :) Hohoho! I don't have any Christmas music. Send some soon. The rules are the same for Christmas music as far as I know. Music that is uplifting, contains no romantic lyrics or overtones, and that directs thoughts to the Savior. So find some and send it. Get as much Harry Connick Jr. as you can. It won't be Christmas without my Harry :) As for things I want for Christmas there are only two. Money to dry clean my suits and sweaters. If I think of something else I will let you know.

On to the weekly update.

This week was great. I had dinner in Mexico, Columbia and lunch in China. Dinner with members is like serving a mini mission in another country. Phillipines, Venezuela, Scotland. People in this ward are from EVERYWHERE! I love it. The Chinese lunch was a resturant that had a grill in the middle of the table and you grill your own food. It was sweet and suuuuuper good. I love being a missionary.

Due to daylight savings we got to sleep in yesterday and it was heavenly. We set our alarms for 7:30 and then just set them back when we got up. I felt like a new man. Hahaha. I can't wait till Christmas because we get to sleep in then too. :)

This week I have really seen the Spirit take over. When I just do what I am supposed to and let the Holy Spirit guide, things just work out. Two examples. On Saturday night we went street contacting at the only place where there are enough people to talk to but that night it was dead. DEAD. There was one man at the bus stop and he didn't speak a lick of english. I was bummed. We had worked hard all day and we were trying to do our part but no one was there to talk to. I said a silent little prayer to ask for help and a reason to be there that night. I got the prompting to walk to the other corner and walk down the street. So I did. As we walked down that street the bus came and a man got out and I jokingly said to Elder Hegemann "There he is. That is the reason we are here." So I went up to talk to him and he shut me DOWN. Normally I would leave it and not bother him but I got another prompting to just keep talking to him. We talked a little more as we waited for the light to change and then as we walked across the street. By the time we reached the other side his attitude had completely changed. He was warm, friendly and told us that he would be calling us. He wanted to give us his number but he had just moved to Markham and didn't know it yet so he saifd he would call us. It was awesome and I was so glad that I listened to the Spirit. 

Then last night we were teaching a lesson that admittedly, we were not super prepared for. I said another silent prayer that things would go well and I got this assurance not to worry and everything would work out. As we started the lesson, I wasn't sure how it was going to go. We had never practiced this lesson and I have only taught it two other times, neither of them very well. I just went with the plan and suddenly the Spirit took over. Scriptures to share and questions to ask were popping into my head and  everthing went smoothly from subject to subject. I can't believe how well the lesson went and I was so glad that I trusted in the Spirit and followed the promptings. I am so grateful for the constant companionship of the Holy Ghost and for the chance that I have to use it everyday. What a wonderful blessing. What a wonderful week!

Tomorrow marks 5 months to the day that I left on my mission. 5 months!! It has been the longest and the shortest 5 months of my life. I am so glad that I chose to come on a misson and I am so grateful for the chance that I have to be serving the Lord for two years. I love being a missionary.

I love you all and I am so grateful for your love and support. Keep working, keep smiling, keep reading your scriptures and pray always! Do good things!

Elder E. Smith

P.S. Pictures will be coming next week via letter. My best attempts to send them have amounted to nothing so snail mail it is. :)

Canada Fact: I can't think of anything.....Oh! Ketchup Chips! They love them here. Nasty!

Luvs

Transf....TRANSFERS!?!?

Holy Jumpins!

We just started!!! I honestly can not believe that it has been six weeks. My first six weeks felt like six months. My second felt like six weeks and this past transfer felt like six days. Seriously. Where has the time gone? Wow. More on that later.

This week was a return to the real world. Haha. I spent so long having nothing to do and no one to work with and this week was a shock to my system. Going so long without an investigator made me forget how difficult it is to juggle schedules and members and GAH! Stress. We had a great week lined up with appointments and teaching and it was supposed to be awesome. I guess it kinda was but we just got bombed a lot. So much. (For those of you who are wondering, "bombed" is when you have an appointment and the investigator doesn't show up. ie: "Andy bombed", "We got bombed", etc.) So yeah. Disappointments galore. Worst news first. Andy bombed. He rescheduled twice then told us that he would call us when he wasn't so busy......which is basically the nice way to say "Not interested." Sigh. We win some, we lose some. I'm still praying that he will call us but probably not. Super bummer. Bad news next. We only taught two lessons this week depite our ten ish planned. :( Good news. We taught two lessons this week!!! So so so so much better than teaching zero. So much better. Great news. Chris came to church!!! Chris is the guy we met at Tim Horton's and he is doing well. He has had a really tough life and so the gospel is just changing everything. He loved church and he wants to come again and meet with us during the week! So exciting. I love having work to do. :)

Other great news! For the first time ever things are not changing at the transfer. I am staying in Richmond Hill and so is Elder Hegemann. I am very happy about this because I really feel like I just got here. Elder H and I get along great and we are becoming better missionaries everyday. I am so glad I get to finish his training and that we get to work together for another transfer. Super great!

Thats about it. Not a very eventfull week. I love you all and I am so grateful for the support and the love from all of you. Keep on keeping on and love every minute of this life. Choose to be happy now. Do good things!

Love,

Elder E. Smith

P.S. I got two packages this week and the apartment is now very festively and very poorly (...I'm not good at decorating) decorated for Halloween. Also I am fat from all that candy. Thanks a lot. Also on Halloween we have to be in our apartment by 6 pm. Exciting.

Canada Fact: They say "Pardon?" instead of "What?" or whatever else we say when we don't understand something. Its awesome. I love Canada.

Luvs!

YAY!

Dear family and friends!

To use missionary language, this week was flippin' fantastic! SO so so good. Where to start....OH! The beginning would be good. Tuesday: Skills and Interviews. Where we get together with our zone and learn skills while President Scott does interviews. Its the best. I love it. In my interviews with Pres. Scott we talked about my struggling area and what we have been trying and how we could see success. We talked and I got some great ideas and it was awesome. President also said that we had been laying the foundation for a great work and that it had been lain and that the time was soon that we would see the blessings. He is crazy inspired folks. The rest of the day went well and I remember none of it. :)

Wednesday: I don't know if I mentioned this but one of the members gave a a referral a while back and all we knew was what he looked like and that he hangs out at a particular Timmy's. So after weeks of camping out and trying to find him....WE DID!! We met him and his friend and both are interested and want to come to church to check things out! Two new investigators! Such a miracle. Great day.

Thursday: This day was good. We had two return appointments with people tracted into during the week and one bombed but the other went through. :D! But he just wanted to know what we believe and "wasn't interested in changing" :< Oh well. Still a good day.

Friday: Unforgettable. Seriously. I went on exchanges with the Farsi Elders and they cover the entire mission (technically the world) and I went to their area. It. Was. Awesome. We rode the subway to downtown Toronto. Skyscrapers, tons of people, the whole nine yards. We went and talked with people at University downtown and ate lunch in Dundas Square, which is essentially Toronto's Time's Square. So cool! So many people and so much fun. I was very overwhelmed but had a wonderful time. People are nice there. Weird. The rest of the day was spent going around and talking to people. They are everywhere down there. Every corner has someone to talk to. I'm so jealous. It was a super great day.

Saturday: Elder Hegemann was sick this day so the morning was spent helping him feel better. It was weird to not be out and going but it was needed. Once he was feeling better we went out tracting and found someone!! That never happens! Usually they say comeback and then bomb or aren't really interested but he said come in! His name is Andy and he is really awesome. He is from Trinidad and is looking for a church and accepted the invitation to be baptized!!!!! You can not imagine the weight that has been lifted off my shoulders. It makes all the difference to have really strong investigators. It gives you something to be excited about. I am so happy. We'll see how things go this week. The work has really picked up and things are getting exciting. Just in time for transfers. Next week. Already. Time goes so so so fast. It blows my mind. Hopefully because I am training I won't leave. I'm very much hoping to be in this area with Elder Hegemann for at least another transfer. Crossing my fingers. :)

Sunday: Uneventful but good. Ate dinner at a member's whose son is serving in the same mission as Scott Call. Small world.

I'm out of time. I love you all. Do good things!

Love,

Elder E. Smith

Canada Fact: They love green olives here. They are at subway and all the restaurants. You have to ask for black olives because they default reach for green. Interesting.

Luvs

Remember me?

Hi,

This is your son Easton. I am currently serving a full-time mission for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in the Canada Toronto Area. I have blonde-ish hair, my eyes are different colors and I am about 6' 1". I love basketball, hanging out with my friends and singing. You used to call me beasty-boo and write me an email every week to tell me how things are going with the family and to remind me how much you love me. Sound familiar? If not thats fine. I'll write you a letter anyway.

This week has been great. Well, I guess I shouldn't say the whole week has been great but the weekend was great. As of Saturday we have 3, count them, 3 investigators with 1-2 on the way. One of the three is Vince who we had form the beginning and he had been too busy to meet and then the other two are former investigators who agreed to meet with us again. The 1-2 on the way came from a rockin' week of street contacting. We got some solid phone numbers to work with and hopefully they will turn into investigators. Here's to hoping. So we taught 3 lessons this week! It was so nice. I missed teaching and I am VERY out of practice. Its kind of embarrassing how bad I am at teaching now. I had felt like I was just getting the hang of things and had the lessons down then went a month without teaching and lost that ability. Time to learn it all again and I am not complaining one bit. I love studying and learning and I'll probably learn it better this time anyway. Not a lot has happened this week big news wise other than that. We had exchanges again and my district leader came to my area and showed me a thing or two. It was a great learning experience and I am grateful for leaders who know what they are doing. He is an awesome guy and I think one of my sisters should marry him. I'm not partial. :)

It got cold overnight here. One day it was perfect fall weather and the next it was freezing windy cold. I love it but poor Elder Hegemann wasn't built for cold. I keep telling him that this isn't even bad. It is going to get much worse. We probably won't see positive numbers for months. I can't wait. :) We are going out today to get haircuts and to shop for coats and sweaters. Yay! It is going to be a busy day.

Something that impressed me in my personal study this week is the story of Nephi and Zoram. In 1 Nephi 4 it says that Zoram made an oath and "our fears did cease concerning him." It made me want to be that kind of person that when I make a promise or say that I will do something, the fears of others will cease concerning me. They will trust me to get things done. I want that for myself so that is what I am working on. I also finished the Book of Mormon this week. It was the first time I had read the whole thing and could remember when I had started. I love the Book of Mormon so much. It is such a blessing to have it and be able to read it. This time reading through I was surprised by how good the story is. I guess in the past I was just lost in the "boring" parts and couldn't see the whole picture. There were times when I was reading that I didn't want to put it down. When 10:30 would come I would be sad that I had to wait to read it until tomorrow. I really have gained a new appreciation for the Book of Mormon.

Well thats about it and we need to get going so we can get everything done today. I love you all very much and I look forward to reading how the family is doing. Make me proud and do good things!

Love,

Elder E. Smith

Canada Fact of the Week: Green Arrows are called Advanced Greens and are sometimes just blinking green lights. And red lights are bigger than yellow and green. Its like an upside down snow man. Weird.

Luvs!

OH MY GOOD GOLLY GOSHES!!!!!

Hi.

HOLY STINKIN COW!!!! 18 FOR GUYS AND 19 FOR GIRLS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! CAN YOU BELIEVE IT!?!?!?!? I CAN'T. MIND=BLOWN!

Ahem. Yeah. Conference was fantastic and I'll address that later but I just had to get that out of my system. Anyways...

Last week I decided that last few emails had sent were too much "Blah blah life is hard blah blah" and no one wants to read that so I decided to change things and proceeded to keep a mini journal of the happenings of each day. Every night I wrote three or four bullet point items to share in my emails so they would be more about what I am doing and less about how sorry I feel for myself. Genius right? So I did that all week and lo and behold, forgot the book at my apartment. Yeah. I'm the worst. I'll see what I can remember.

Monday-FHE with a member family whose daughter is basically an Chinese Kimberly Puckett. They talk the same, love the same things (if kimee still loves horses), and they even have the same glasses. It was freaky how similar they are. Great day.

Tuesday-Helped a member move most of the day. I got stung by a wasp. My hand was swollen for days. I had forgotten how much getting stung hurt. It was seriously painful. I survived though. Don't worry.

Wednesday/Thursday-These days always turn to one in my head. We had a Dear John scare. E Hegemann received an unexpected and uncharacteristically small letter from his girlfriend and he was freaking out. Poor guy. But all was well, bullet dodged etc etc.

Friday-Temple Trip!!! So worth waking up at 4 am. I had missed the temple so much and it was such a good thing. I felt so at peace and calm and it was very very needed. I love the temple. To add to the already fantastic-ness of that day after the session our zone leaders pulled out our mail! It had been a very long time since I got mail. I was richly rewarded for my wait with like five letters from Grandma, two from Dad and two from Megan. A month without letters really adds up. Boy oh boy! I was so happy on that ride home and for the rest of the day. It was such a blessed day. And we talked with this old guy from Germany who bet us that we wouldn't come back on Saturday to rake his leaves. We did and he was very surprised. He also offered us cigarettes and told us that our pastor wasn't there so it was okay. Haha. We said no. :)

Saturday/Sunday-Conference!!! Such a good conference weekend. I don't even know where to start. We spent basically the whole day at the church. There are two wards in our building, the Richmond Hill Ward and the Markham Cantonese ward and each ward has two sets of missionaries so we just spent time with them and talked and had a great time. Two of the Elders are from Hong Kong and the others are from Utah. One of them went to Hillcrest and knows Liam. We all watched conference together in the chapel with the members who don't just watch it on their computers. It was great. When President Monson got up at the beginning I knew something was up. I thought it was going to be something about temples etc but then he started talking about missionaries and I started freaking out. Talking afterward we all had thought that he was going to send us all home or something but when he announced the new ages we were all shocked. Jaw-dropping. It was all I could think about the rest of the session. I was pretty floored by the guys age being 18 and then he lowered girls to 19 and I could not believe it. This is a game changer. A few members think we'll have at least 20,000 new missionaries within a year. That would be great. Such exciting news. My hope is that this change will put a bigger emphasis on serving when you are ready. It will encourage more people (mostly girls) to serve and everyone to serve because they want to, not just because they have nothing better to do. We are going to get some amazing missionaries in the coming months and years. :) The rest of conference was fantastic! It makes me wonder what I might have been missing by sleeping and doodling through most of the sessions in the past. Is it always this amazing-inspiring-life changing-great or is it just a recent thing? I loved every second of it and I can't wait until it comes again. It might be, dare I say it, better than Christmas. It was awesome.  

Monday-Thanksgiving! Or "Fakesgiving" as I like to call it. It was a good day. We cut a ladies lawn and helped her with some other things and we're going back again to finish up and to hopefully set an appointment to teach her. Pray for us!! We might have two lessons this week! I haven't taught a single lesson since I got here and I am just dying to teach anybody. This is really exciting news. :)

It was a good week. Much better than last week. I feel a lot like the people of Alma. They prayed for help from God and he answered them not by lightening their burdens but increasing their strength to carry them. The work was the same, the results were the same but somehow it all seemed better and more bare able. God is good. So, so good. He answers prayers and gives help in simple and often unrecognized ways. I feel so blessed to be a missionary and to be able to experience His help each and every day. I want to share this with everyone and I am so excited for the people who will serve missions now that might not have before. It is the best decision I have ever made and I would not trade this time for the world. I love this gospel and I love my Saviour. What a wonderful thing it is to be a member of this church. :) I love it.

I love you all and it is so great to hear from those of you who write me. I hope everything is going well and that you are enjoying every minute of the life that you are living. Look for opportunities to serve and as always do good things!

Love,

Elder E. Smith

P.S. Canada Fact of the Week: Prepare to have your minds blown. In pretty much every country but the U.S. the letter Z is called Zed not Zee. Zed. Everyone says this but America. I feel almost betrayed. Like my life is a lie. Who knew? I didn't.

P.P.S. I love you all very much. Please keep your head up and look for ways to serve others. Be God's answer to another's prayer.

Luvs!

Hey

Hellooooooooooooo,

This week has been absolutely brutal. I thought I was exhausted before....boy was I wrong. This has been the hardest week of my mission and probably of my life. In the past three-ish months I have had a few days where we'd be out tracting for a few hours and I would come home super tired and have a tough time waking up the next day but then I would have a day of teaching and be fine. These past two weeks have been straight finding/tracting. Day in, day out. Everyday. Most mornings I feel like I can't move, let alone get started with the day. Plus this morning I woke up with a cold. Stuffy nose, sore throat, the works. Yay. I am reaching the end of my rope. That is the plain and simple truth. It is great to be a missionary. :)

All complaining and whining aside, I am doing alright. I'm sick, discouraged, tired, stressed but somehow I am still relatively happy. Once I fight through the morning and really get going things aren't so bad. Elder Hegemann and I are getting along great. Nothing builds a friendship like enduring trials. On Friday night we were "out on the town" trying to find people to talk to on the streets but we were having very little luck. We stopped at a park and sat down to take a little break and just stared at the city. Our city. Hundreds of thousands of people and we can't find one who is interested in our message. I asked him "What are we doing here?" and he said something stupid like "Taking a break" and we both just started laughing. We laughed and I felt like a normal person for the first time in a while. I realized that its okay to laugh at the seemingly insurmountable obstacles and "end of the world" trials that we all face in life. It was nice to step back and remember who I was, where I came from and truly why I was there. I am here because God wants me to be. I am here because I am needed here. Maybe not to change someone else's life, maybe to change mine. All of a sudden things didn't seem so bad because I was were I needed to be, doing the things I need to do. I am doing my best and that is all that God requires. I am so blessed to have Elder Hegemann as my companion. He is really good at seeing the big picture. He knows that he might not baptize anyone on his mission and for all he knows he may never teach anyone, but he knows that he is doing what he is supposed to be doing and that things will work out. What a great attitude to have. I think that he is training me more than I am training him.

So yeah. I'm doing okay and things are looking up. We found one person who might be interested on Saturday and we are setting up an appointment this week and we are meeting with our investigator this week as well. Hopefully next week will have more exciting news than me being really tired. We had exchanges on Tuesday and so I spent the day with one of the three Farsi missionaries in the mission and the world. Three in the entire world and they are in my district. :) I learned how to write hello and Elder Smith and also got some really good advice. It was a good time. I was so glad to get emails today. We haven't got any mail this week so it was nice to hear from home. I am so grateful for supportive family and friends. The little things you do really help me out and makes a difference.

In summation, this morning I felt really awful about everything and life stunk but after sitting down, thinking about it and getting some much needed advice and love from home, I am fine. Life is good and I feel good about the future. It is all about perspective and just taking it one step at a time. I really love P-Days. I love you all and I hope things go well for you. Do good things!

Love,

Elder E. Smith

P.S. In other news, God snapped His fingers and it is fall. We walked out the door this morning and there were leaves everywhere and most of the trees were yellow. I swear they were green last night. It has been cool the past two weeks but now it is officially fall. Like over night. I love it. :D