Thanksgiving

Dear Family,
Well this week really flew by.  I was really surprised by how cold it got! I have been so used to being able to ride around in a short sleeve shirt that I didn't really know how to handle the cold weather.. especially on bikes. Thankfully we were able to go buy some warmer clothing and now we feel much better prepared for some of the inevitable cold weather that we will have. But I really shouldn't be complaining because it sounds like ya'll are going to have some really cold weather in the next couple of days! Below freezing weather sounds miserable! On Wednesday we were able to visit with a less active sister who has a nonmember husband. She said that she put on Facebook that she just loves it when the missionaries come by and she said they always come by right when she needs them. Her mom had "liked" the statement and the less active sister has started to really have a desire to change her life and try to get back to church. Her goal right now is to, in the near future, be able to go to the temple and hopefully get sealed to her family. We have been really excited to see her progress and we hope one of these days she can start the habit of coming to church. Another thing that happened Wednesday was that we met with our Vietnamese lady and she gave us loads of interesting food to take home! She gave us a bag of Oriental noodles a couple bags of beans and a huge box of tangelos. WE gave the oranges to one of the members and he definitely appreciated them. We got a referral for the Mayor of Kenner Mr. Mike Yenni and we emailed and called him so hopefully in the next little while we can hear from him and see if he wants to be taught. Apparently some missionary was sitting next to him on a plane and talked to him and got his information. We have been really excited about that and it has definitely gotten some of the ward members a little more excited about missionary work.Our Thanksgiving was interesting because we didn't have a real Thanksgiving dinner. It was dirty rice, stuffed mirlitons, green bean casserole, cornbread dressings, meatballs, creamy corn, and macaroni. We also got some leftovers which was really good and had a pretty good day. It was sure odd not being around family for the Holiday, but it wasn't  too bad. Well, other than that, our week has been pretty uneventful. We are trying to find some new people to teach and have definitely been blessed with how many referrals we have gotten. we have found a couple through tracting but we really need to teach some people that are invited by members. Whoever we teach is most hesitant to come to church because they do not have a friend or someone they know o help them out and answer questions. We try the best we can but it would just work better if the members invited people they know to be taught by us. We were talking about that in coordination meeting and we feel like the missionary effort in our Ward is split in half with the missionaries teaching the peole we find and the members giving people Book of Mormons and sharing scriptures but never inviting us to teach. So that is something we are going to try to work on. We also decorated out apartment and it looks pretty sweet haha. Well that's all for this week and I love and miss everyone! Keep smilin!
Love Elder Smith