Hi

My dearest Family and Friends,

I do not know where the time is going. These past weeks have FLOWN by! I feel like I was emailing you all yesterday. Wow.

This week was great!.....I'm struggling to remember why....So much has happened and I'm not sure exactly what has happened since the last time I wrote. OH! DUH! Nicole has accepted the invitation to be baptized! She is super super great and I'm not just saying that. She has a solid testimony already and knows that everything is true. As difficult as quitting smoking etc will be for her, she knows that it is what she needs to do. I'm so excited! John is also doing wonderful. He is down to one cigarette per day and is pretty committed to being baptized on the 30th. This is like his seventh baptismal date but we feel really good about it and so does he. Pray super super hard for him. The progress for him in the last few weeks has been absolutely astounding. I love being a missionary. :)  Marguerite is still doing great. We taught her yesterday as prep for Sunday and receiving the Holy Ghost and we had planned to give her a few chapters to study. When we got there she said she wasn't sure what she was supposed to be studying so she just found some chapters in the index and had studied those. The ones she studied were THE EXACT SAME as the ones we had planned for her. We had to scramble to find some others for her and the lesson after that went well. She is amazing. Jacqueline still hasn't told her parents. School is starting soon for her and we won't be able to meet with her very often at all :( I'm worried. All we can can do now is pray and hope for the best. We are still doing a ton of tracting and OYM-ing. (OYM means open your mouth and just talk with everyone.) It is hard to do but I am slowly growing to enjoy it. Weird how that works out, eh? We met some interesting people yesterday. Our friend Kevin was talking with a man at a gas station on Sunday and he was interested so he told us to go over and talk with him. His name is Bernie and he is sweet. He is an older man from Scotland (I think) and has the remnants of an accent (because he has been in Canada so long) and boy can he talk. He just goes and goes and goes, throwing out scripture reference after reference and he talks to everyone who comes into the station. He was a Protestant and then a Catholic and now he's a Born-Again and he tells everyone his story and follows up every point with "It's pretty simple." Every. Point. It's hilarious. So Elder Dite and I have been saying it all day and laughing. We would love to teach him but I don't know if we'll ever be able to get a word in. :) We met another guy who says that if we (meaning people in general) have the truth, we should be crawling over broken glass to tell people. We told him that we had the truth and would love to share it with him and he said he was interested. We are going to contact him this week and talk with him. Both of the guys we met were extremely passionate about God and making sure everybody knew that he existed. They would be great missionaries.

We had Zone Conference this week and it was great. It was my first and I was very excited. I love being with other missionaries. It reminds me that this is all real and that my companion and I aren't the only ones. It was great but featured a little too much me for my liking. President Scott asked us all to prepare a talk and then called on us at random (by the Spirit) to speak. Of course I got called up and spoke. It was good, I guess. I was just very happy I prepared. I spoke about being exactly obedient and how it is important to be constantly striving to be better and to never lower our guard and how all 2000 of the stripling warriors were exactly obedient and all 2000 survived. Just like them, if we put in our effort and do our best, we will be blessed. I was also asked to do a musical number with four other Elders and that was fun. It was actually "I Need Thee Every Hour" which is the Hymn we sang as a family in sacrament meeting right before I left. *single tear* Memories. :) Then I was asked to give the closing prayer. It was great but next time I hope I don't get called on as much.

I am doing much better this past week and a half. It really is incredible how easy things are when we forget ourselves and just go to work. I am continually astounded by the happiness I feel when I finish a day and I haven't been thinking about myself and how I feel the whole time. I'm so grateful for that counsel. I can promise you that when we forget ourselves and take care of others, we will be taken care of. I was worried that if I forgot myself and focused on the work I would love my family less or lose the relationships or the memories but as I have truly tried to put my mission first, the memories grow fonder and the relationships grow stronger. I don't think I have missed my family and friends and Utah more than I have this week but I don't think I have loved them this much either. I have been almost overwhelmed with love the past week. I'm not sure that makes sense but just know that I love you all VERY VERY much. More than I thought possible. :) Emotions are weird. Anyways....I have a strong testimony that the Lord blesses his missionaries. He will not ask us to do anything that will be bad or will hurt us. He will bless all of us as we are obedient to His guidance and counsel. When we are converted and we put our trust in Him, He will heal us. Nothing is impossible with God and Jesus Christ on our side. I know without a doubt that it is true. I love you all very much and I hope that all goes well. Keep on keeping on and never forget who you are. Do good things!

Love,

Elder E. Smith

P.S. Hymns are great. Three of my favorite: 114 Come Unto Him, 115 Come Ye Disconsolate, 337 O Home Beloved. Not necessarily the tunes but the lyrics are great.

Czech Phrase of the Week: Neboť viz, toto je dílo mé a sláva má – uskutečniti nesmrtelnost a věčný život člověka. I'm working on it. :)

Canada Fact: They use the Old English spelling here. Favourite, Colour, Flavour, Centre, etc. Also checking is chequing.

Luvs!