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