Hey Family,
Well, this past week was really good. For service this week we Helped bottle milk at the dairy and then we helped a less active guy who goes by Cowboy do some fencing around his property. It was actually a lot of fun and just reminded me of all the times helping Dad fix fence. I dont think I had a very good attitude when I helped Dad though. . . There were six of us missionaries helping but only really two working haha the other ones were goofing off with the turkeys or the horses. We also had a pretty eventful Sunday. I had to speak in Sacrament meeting and to teach adult Sunday School, then we were in charge of teaching the primary for sharing time. Being in a Branch sure does help you to serve everyone. I was pretty stressed about the whole thing but it turned out to be not so bad. Well I think thats about it for this week we have to go say goodbye to an Elder in the district that's leaving!

Love Jeff

P-Day!

Doing a little service work

Family,
It was a great week for us here, but we were pretty busy with meetings. We managed to sneak in some time at the dairy, a Branch Christmas party, and even some lessons ;) The dairy was pretty good this week. We helped out with vaccinations and deworming, hopefully we were more helpful, than we were in the way. We were trying to see the First Presidency Christmas devotional last night but when we showed up to the church we found out it wasn't going to be turned on. Quite a bummer. I had brought brownies I made and some ice cream so we ate that instead. A pretty good end to the week. We have our mission Christmas party next week so that should be fun as well. Hmm I dont really know what else to say! If yall are getting snow and you dont like it send it my way! :) Merry Christmas

Love Jeff

Dear Family,
This week we had a really good time in Slaughter. We had a great time on Thanksgiving and managed to eat just enough and then some. It was super tasty. Thanksgiving was pretty good but honestly wasn't anywhere near as good as being at Grandma and Grandpa Welling's. This year I was really missing those thanksgiving rolls and Grandma's pies. We have been doing about the same as usual except a little less since we couldn't drive everywhere we wanted to. The end of every month are always tough. We aren't good at conserving both our miles or our money and by the end of the month we usually can start to notice. The weather has been way too nice and I'm really praying for some snow. If it snowed on Christmas day I would be a pretty happy camper. So far it looks like that's not going to happen. Well thanks again and I really loved the poem from great Grandpa Welling. Im going to hang it up above my desk. We had a great lesson with a young man who has been an atheist his whole life and just has started to believe in God. He prayed for the first time on Saturday night and it was just a really simple heart felt prayer. Well that is it, for us, this week! Me and my companion have been getting into the Christmas spirit. We have one Christmas Cd that we listen to over and over again and we have one 4 foot long strand of lights hanging around our door its pretty festive :) Well I love yall and have a good start of the Christmas season.

Love Elder Smith

Hey Family,
This week has been much the same as the past few weeks but it has still been exciting. The family that we have been working with is coming to church every week and are progressing! The wife and oldest daughter are getting their patriarchal blessings, the sons and father are advancing in the Priesthood so things have been really exciting. We have been doing some more service this week helping out at the dairy and in a few weeks we will probably be helping even more because he is going to be going in for a hip replacement. Its been fun to learn all about the dairy business and the perks of fresh milk has been great! Im really excited for Thanksgiving because we are going to be with a great family! Have a great week and eat lots of yummy food!
Love Elder Smith

Dear Family,
This week has been really great! The highlight of the week was seeing a family we have been working with come to church again! After church was over we set up another appointment with them and then they told us that their neighbors want to get baptized! We're really excited and can't wait to go see them again this week and continue to teach their neighbors. Another good thing about this week is that we were able to do a good bit of service. We helped a less active family at their dairy and will probably be helping them out a bit more since the Dad is going to be having hip surgery next month. And then just a few days ago we helped a family split a tree that they cut down into firewood. It was pretty disgusting to see huge grubs inside of the wood pop out as we were splitting the wood. We got a trailer full of wood and nobody lost any fingers so I would say we were pretty successful. I love doing service because it helps to remind me that every little thing that we do helps. Well this week it has been getting cold ( for here anyway) and everyone thinks we are crazy for walking around in short sleeved shirts. :) I just think it feels good outside. Plus this cold weather will probably not last very long, maybe a week. Well that's all for this week! Yall have a good week and remember the simple things. Prayer and scripture study are the only way to start a day if you want it to be a great day.
Love,

Elder Smith

Dear Family,
This week has flown by. I have a new companion Elder Condie from Springville UT. He has been out about 7 months and was companions with my companion Elder Mills while they were both in the MTC. We have been able to stay really busy this week with teaching appointments and service. The service was a highlight of the week as we got to work on a dairy farm, for a part of a day, helping to fill milk. It was pretty interesting to see how it all works. The chocolate milk that they make is soo good. The whole milk is super creamy and probably really fattening too. We also got to help them on Saturday at the Farmers market in Baton Rouge. For teaching we get to teach a couple that lives in Wyoming, so that was really awesome. The husband was the son of one of the less active members that we check up on. We have also continued to teach the less active family that we found last week and we saw them at church on Sunday! Wooo I was so excited. We have dinner with them tomorrow so that should be great as well. The weather still really hasn't changed much and I'm hoping for some cooler weather! Well I love yall and hope things are going great wherever you are!
Love Elder Smith

Hey family!
How is everyone doing? Things have been really great here in Slaughter! I didn't realize last week that I was back in Kenner for a bit :) haha. Well it has been a pretty interesting week for us here. We have two missionaries from our district going home and then three more getting transferred, so next week its going to look quite a bit different. My companion is getting transferred, so tomorrow I will find out who comes here next. The best thing about this week was meeting two new families. We have started teaching one less active family and then their nonmember neighbors. It has been really good to be able to share the gospel to these two families. They are both really receptive to us teaching them and now we just hope that they can make and keep the commitments that we give them. The part of it which brightened my spirits most was when we were leaving and their daughter who is nine offered the prayer for us. She ended her prayer asking Heavenly Father that they could see the missionaries more often. Sometimes it's easy for me to forget the impact that I can have in others lives.
Love Elder Smith

Hey yall,
This has been a rollercoaster week for us in Kenner. One highlight of the week was yesterday when the office Elders came by the apartment to give us our new truck. We were pretty excited and now we get to roll around in a 2015 Nissan Frontier. We are very lucky missionaries. Well this week we spent a good portion of time helping out members of the district with different things and also did quite a bit of service. Both Wednesday and Thursday were just full days of service. On Wednesday we helped a family clear a fence line and did a little bit of fencing to get things looking a bit better. The next day we helped an elderly man move into is new house and in the afternoon afterwards we helped a less active family do some yard work. They managed to load us up with bags of groceries before we left, which we were really grateful for, our funds usually seem to be pretty low at the end of the month. Well after those couple of days we spent some time with the less actives in the area. One elderly couple ended up getting in a car accident and we were able to give them a blessing. After that we were at the Berhnes home just giving them some company. They are both about 90 years old and their health is going downhill pretty fast. The husband has really been taking it hard because his wife's mental health has been getting worse. He struggles to take care of her and they don't have the finances to get any assistance. They are just in a rough spot for sure. The best thing about the visit with them was being able to have a prayer before we left. I could easily feel the Spirit and could tell that they both had been strengthened just enough to smile. I have really come to rely on prayer more and more as a missionary and even though sometimes we can get frustrated with the answers we seem to get or not get at first everything is always the better in the end. The most important thing is that God is perfect so when things are different than we want we just need to be patient and humble.
Love Elder Smith

Dear Family
So, it's been a pretty normal week here in Slaughter. The highlight of the week was going to zone conference. At the zone conference we watched the new church produced movie called "Meet the Mormons" It was a really well done film and was a great break from the meeting. The rest of the week went pretty normal. Oh, another great part of the week was getting 9 letters from someone in Russia haha. That was quite surprising. The mail system over there must have been pretty blocked up. The weather over here has been cooling down a little bit and it usually is just about perfect. The hottest it gets is about 80 so its been really nice. It looks like its going to stay that way for a good couple of weeks so, fall is slowing coming here. The toughest part of the week was a lesson we had with a convert (about 4 years) he is a little over 90 years old and recently his wife's mental health has been deteriorating. It has been a real struggle for him and during our lesson he just let us know that he has been doubting whether God answers prayers since his wife's health hasn't gotten any better. All that we could do was try to explain to him that prayer is more about finding out God's will for us and acting on it and isn't an avenue to try to change his mind. Its quite humbling for a 90 year old man to turn to a couple of 20 year olds for the questions that have been bothering him most. It reminded me that its not my job to try to have all the answers for everyone but is more to have the Spirit with me so that He can answer their questions. Well hopefully the fall has been pretty good for yall!

Love Elder Smith

Elder Mills' companion, Elder Smith, Elder Mills

Elder Smith and Elder Jensen

Hi Everybody,
So, there hasn't been anything too exciting going on over here. It looks like we might be getting some pretty crazy weather today, so hopefully its not too bad. It has been quite a while since we have gotten a good rain storm. This weekend was pretty good and we had a meeting with all of the missionaries in our zone. It was about an hour and a half drive to the meeting and then after the meeting we all went to Cane's for lunch and it was pretty fun.I got to see Elder Mills and the Elder that he is training. It's good to have a familiar face in the zone. One of my good friends out here is heading to Brazil tomorrow and has been waiting here to get his visa. This coming weekend we have a zone conference with the mission President and we will be watching the new movie "Meet the Mormons" they told us it's going to be a 7 hour long meeting so some of us are expecting to get ipads. I myself am a little dubious but I wouldn't be surprised either way. This week we are planning on helping a guy do some fencing on his property, so its a good thing I have had a little bit of experience with that haha. Well I hope everyone is enjoying the hunting season I know that I have been getting pretty jealous lately.
Love Elder Smith

 

Dear Family,
So, this week was pretty good. I was on exchanges with an Elder in Zachary and was able to meet a lot of people that I have only heard stories of. My first companion Elder Porter started his mission in Zachary and had lots of stories to tell me about the people here. Its always great to go on exchanges and meet new people and spend some time with a new companion for a little bit. The transfer was pretty normal and nothing too exciting happened, On Tuesday we had a district meeting which was pretty fun. To begin our transfers we had been asking everyone questions to get to know each other better, and for the last district meeting we played a game of Jeopardy, to see how many of them remembered, along with questions about church history, mission rules, and Preach My Gospel. The rest of the week flew by until Friday evening. That's when we got a call from the missionaries in Zachary telling us they had been in an accident. We spent the rest of the night with them in the ER. Thank goodness they weren't hurt, just banged up.. The car on the other hand didn't fare as well. All of Saturday we were driving them to the pharmacist, tow yard, etc and it felt like all over the Parish. Yesterday was pretty much the same as well. One of the missionaries in Zachary was supposed to be going to Brazil today and instead he has to wait another 2 weeks. He is being transferred tomorrow which means that we will be going to transfers with them. It should be fun to be able to go to transfers to see what happens and not have to worry about any changes for me! Well yall have a good week and watch out for bears!
Love Elder Smith

 Fishing pond

Jeff's Companion

Hey Yall,

Well another week has flown by and there isn't too much to report on. Last week for Pday was a ton of fun though. We went to a member in Zachary (which is about 10 minutes from Slaughter) and fished in their stocked pond. We all managed to catch like 5 fish while we were there and were able to take quite a few home to cook. Me and my companion were the last ones to leave which meant that we had to be the ones to clean and cook the fish for everyone else. After that we started exchanges with other missionaries in our district and that was pretty average. The best part of the week was that we helped a nonmember move into her new house. She is a friend of one of the members that is in our Branch and it was just a fun move. On my mission I have moved quite a few people and so we all pretty much can get things done super fast. The only bad thing is that some people are a little too careless with all of the stuff. The only misshap we had this time was as I was trying to jump into the moving truck. I was a little too confident and ended up missing it by just an inch and so I got my shins a little bruised up. Yup I'm betting this next week something crazy will happen so don't forget to read my letter to find out!
Love Elder Smith

PS Happy Birthday Grandma Smith!

Dear Family,
Well this week was a pretty exciting week. We spent most of all Monday through Wednesday going on meetings and traveling. Thursday through Saturday we spent doing just regular stuff. One couple we met this week were pretty awesome. We got to their house and when we walked in the door, it was like walking in museum. After talking for a few minutes his wife got up to get us some ice cream. He showed us around his house pointing out the several neat things that he has. Much of his displays were chess sets and then we got to one set, when he opened up the case, turned the light on and told us that this was the best one he had. He said it was worth a measly 5 million dollars!? I had never seen something so expensive before. I was shocked. He showed us the books he had written and explained what he had done to get where he was at today. He talked about meeting Mitt Romney, George Bush, Collin Powel, and just his various other friends haha. His wife was a life long member and he had just joined the church about 6 years ago. He is about 90 years old and has Alzheimer's and so he can't come to church anymore, but wow, he was definitely the richest person I have ever met. That was definitely the most interesting thing about my week! Hope yall had a good time as well!
Love Elder Smith

Enjoying work in Slaughter

Hey Mom,
How are things going. Its been a pretty crazy week. But it ended up being pretty fun. This morning we went mountain biking so that was a blast. My companion and another missionary in my district didn't want to go so it was kind of nice to have a break. IT was a pretty easy course and we didn't get into to much problems. I didn't know biking could be fun haha I was so used to just dodging cars and all sorts of crazy shenanigans in Kenner. Lets see what else. Hmm we cleaned out some dog kennels for a member this week haha it was kind of funny. I have been able to do a lot of cooking because my companion would just eat poptarts for every meal if he was left to himself. I made a cake the other day out of just the deseret food cake package thingy but it must have been kind of old because it didn't rise at all. I added some vanilla and maple flavoring to the cake and then made a maple frosting with milk and powdered sugar it was pretty delicious. Since the cake didn't rise it was super moist and more like a pound cake. I had been eating it for breakfast the past few days. It was just like a super tasty maple bar. Oh I still have the honey that I want to send home but I don't have anything to put it in. If in the package you send this wek you could put in some sort of container for the honey I will send it home for yall and Grandpa. I still have quite a bit of it. Hmm that's pretty much it I think for this week. We have a ton of meeting this week and we will be going on exchanges so we will see what happens. Thanks for the email Ill talk to you soon!
Love Elder Smith






Dear Yall,
Well sorry I didn't get to send an email last week it was a pretty crazy day. This is going to be another short email so hopefully that's ok. Next week I will do better. We went mountain biking this morning and that was just a ton of fun. We had to dodge mud and huge banana spiders and we even saw one snake. It was probably poisonous so we didn't mess with it. No one wrecked though so that was pretty good. I didn't know that riding a bike could be fun. The most excitement I got in Kenner we an occasional rouge car that we would have to avoid. Umm we had a ton of fun this week and are just trying to get the ball rolling in Slaughter because there really wasn't anything going on here when we got here. It been a slow few weeks but we are trying out best. Ill try to take some pictures this week so yall can see how awesome it is. It has been really nice being able to drive and our truck is pretty nice. Everyone here either wants to talk to us about football or hunting so it has been pretty fun. We heard the Broncos did pretty good last night. Wooo. Other than that we have just been trying to find some less actives to visit. Pretty much the whole branch here is related and half of the families are less active so its just been interesting. That's pretty much it this week!
Love Y'all

Teaching in Slaughter

My new area is called Slaughter and It covers about 900 square miles. It's about as country as it gets. There are the same amount of dirt roads as there are paved roads. It is pretty awesome being able to drive down these narrow roads and be literally surrounded by huge trees. It's a much better environment than the city. The members that I met are all super nice. The branch here gets about 50 to show up each Sunday and they pretty much are all related. The area is pretty fun and is going to be a lot different than Kenner. The ward here really wants us to help them reactivate less actives because they feel like they can't support new converts. The people here are also a lot more "local" than the members in Kenner. They all have the slow southern drawl and it is just fun. Things are really quite a bit different, but it's going to be fun! The apartment we are living in is definitely the nicest that I have seen so far. It is a little part of a members house that they are renting to the missionaries. Well that's pretty much all that has happened so far. Next week I'll be able to explain more about where I am and what I'm doing, because right now I'm still trying to get this area figured out.

Love Elder Smith

Last Day in Kenner

Dear Family,

   Well the big news for the week is that I'm finally getting transfered out of Kenner. Im pretty excited but also pretty nervous. Its going to be a big change. My companion is also getting tranfered out of Kenner so Im hoping that the two new missionaries that will be taking over will be able to stay in touch with all of the people I have seen over the past year here. Other than that it was a pretty good week. We had set a baptismal date with one of our investigators and that really all the big news for the week. We didnt get to do any exciting service. We didn't have any crazy weather. And really all that I can think about is the fact that Im leaving. haha I never thought that it would happen. It is pretty weird. Hopefully I can let yall know what and where Im going to be soon. Im praying for somewhere a little more green instead of gray! I love ya'll and keep you in my prayers!

Love Elder Smith

A few weeks ago an investigator randomly showed up to church that I havent been able to see for about 9 months. The missionaries first met him about 3 years ago. As soon as I saw him at church I went over to him and asked if we could come by and see him in the next couple of days. Well he was expecting it and so we got an appointment set. We get to our appointment and said a prayer and then after seeing how he is doing he asks "when can I get baptized?" and then laughed and said, "beat you to the punch didn't I?" haha it was pretty funny. He said that when the missionaries first met him we was smoking and just had some things in his life he had to change first. His Aunt passed away a few months ago which motivated him to quit smoking and get things figured out. So now those few months later he has quit smoking and is much more prepared to be baptized. I was pretty excited because he was one of the very first investigators I met on my mission and seeing him a year later preparing for baptism is pretty neat. So the new missionaries that come here better make sure they stay on top of things :)

The spelling and grammer is pretty atrocious sorry!

Hey Family,

You asked about my interview with President Hansen. It was a pretty short interview and he mostly just asked me about how Elder Mills is doing and what we have done to see success and where we could improve. He didn't really give me any hints for transfers, so I don't really know what is going to happen. Transfers, are next week, so I'll let you know when I find out. Things in Kenner were pretty good this week. Last Sunday we had a random investigator show up to church and were able to see him this past week. He came to church again yesterday so things are looking pretty good. We also had a part member family come and one of the investigators we had been teaching a lot this week. 

Those pictures from the reunion looked hilarious! I had completely forgotten that the reunion was this week until I checked my email. Umm lets see what is something interesting about the week. On Saturday we went to a non denominational church with one of our investigators. It was a pretty different type of service. It started out with a little rock concert of about 5 songs and then a preacher got up in the middle of the crowd and talked about the "church family" It definitely made me appreciate how much more spiritually uplifting our Sacrament meetings are. He was the one who came to church on Sunday and I gave a talk so hopefully he feels like he can come back again and that he enjoyed it. Lets see what else happened . . I got to see Elder Porter again this week. He has had a car this past transfer and has really been loving it. He think I'm going to be leaving Kenner as well but I have sort of felt that way for these past few transfers, so I really have no idea!  whatever happens will be alright. We are getting quite a few new missionaries so I might end up training again.  If I were to train I would want to stay in Kenner because I dont want to jump into a new area and try to train. Ill let you know though!
Love Elder Smith

Dear Family,
Monday, was a normal day and then on Tuesday we had interviews with President Hansen. After interviews we went on exchanges with the Zone leaders. They are spanish missionaries, so I just was along for the ride mostly. Exchanges lasted until Thursday and after that we just tried to get back into the swing of things. On Thursday we had a really great lesson with some investigators. We were talking about how God answers prayers and we just asked them a simple question of how God answers their prayers. One of them told us a story of how he was praying asking for help to get a job when he heard a "quiet voice" say "I will help you". He then went on to say that he doesn't always get his prayers answered that way and that usually he just gets either a good feeling or bad feeling after he prayers. It was a really good lesson and now we know that they know how to receive revelation. We have invited them to read the Book of Mormon and pray about it but obviously they haven't, otherwise they would have gotten an answer by now. So, we just need to instill in them a desire to know if it is true. They both are a great example of humility and they understand the scriptures really well. When they join the church they will be a great asset in helping the Ward with their missionary efforts. Friday and Saturday was similar. Sunday ended up being a little different because after church we went out with the ward members and the Stake resident "ministering" we spent about an hour figuring out who we were going to see and then were going to meet back in an hour to discuss how it went. Everyone we went to go see wasn't available so it was kind of a bummer.
Love Elder Smith

Dear Family,
Well, the beginning of this week began much like every other week, except for the end of our district meeting on Tuesday. We have six missionaries in out district. 4 Elders and 2 Sisters. The sisters had walked to the church while the four of us Elders rode our bikes (the sisters bikes were broken). When we usually end district meeting we all go to lunch somewhere nearby. As soon as we left our meeting we realized it was going to be a little difficult to get everyone to where we wanted to eat. We set up a plan, which probably wasn't the smartest ever, but it worked. We gave the sisters two of our bikes and then utilized the other two in carrying the four of us Elders. We didn't have pegs on our bikes so we ended up sitting on the handlebars haha. The bike I was on didn't have shocks on the front so it ended up being a pretty bumpy ride for my rear end. We managed to make it to Cane's without too many weird looks or without too many times of falling off. Later in the week we spent some time in contacting less actives to invite them to a musical fireside we were having at the end of the week. The next big event was on Saturday as we rode across the lake to help one of the members bosses move. It is a whole different kind of place across the lake and made me feel a little sick of being surrounded by concrete and brick for these past months. The move ended up going pretty good. The only thing was that the people we were moving were pretty wealthy and that made every piece of furniture seem to be made out of Gold. It weighed a TON. My shoulders and arms are still a little sore from the move. Yesterday we had a musical fireside but the turnout was pretty sad. This week we have interviews with President Hansen exchanges with the zone leaders and hot forecast so it should be fun!
Love Elder Smith

Dear Family
Well we had a really good week this week. We did 41 hours of service so it feels like that's all we have been doing. One of those days we spent tearing down some old sheds and in one of them was a honey bee hive. We collected all of the honey and ended up with 8 water bottles and 2 large mason jars full of honey! So, now we we have oodles and oodles of honey. It took us a couple of days to filter it all, but it tastes super good. We had an interesting lesson with one of our investigators and he seemed to be pretty upset about learning about pre-existence and what we know about the Fall. Hopefully when we see him again this week he will have prayed about what we taught him. Its been really rainy and crazy this week but we've had a pretty good time!
Love Elder Smith

Got my Flags Flying "Happy 4th of July"

After working in a hot attic

Well the big news this week is the same thing thats happened every six weeks for the past ten months. Im staying in Kenner! It's a pretty fun place and I really hope that the people haven't got sick of me yet. We tore down some sheds this week. Spent a few days in meetings and in between everything managed to teach some people. I think the most interesting thing that happened this week is that I got stung by a bee. This week we spent another good chunk of it doing service. We spent the majority of our time cleaning out two sheds of some members in the Ward and then tearing down the sheds and throwing them away.Yesterday we were there and after we had filled a 16 foot dumpster with all of the trash we started cleaning out the other shed. We knew there was a hive of bees in the shed so were being very careful with how we did things.. . not. One of the Elders grabbed a rake and just yanked the cabinet over that they were inside of. As soon as he did this the bees broke out and began to swarm around as as the Elder yelled "RUN" haha we all pretty much got stung by them and it was just pretty crazy. Elder Mills and I will have lots of time for tracting this week so hopefully we can find some new people to teach! I hope ya'll are still doing well and I hope ya know that I love and miss you!
Love Elder Smith

It's Getting Hot!

Boy is it getting hot!  We met President and Sister Hansen today which was good. He is quite a bit different from President Wall and things are probably going to change a lot. One thing he has already changed is the 1 hour we get each day to be on the computers studying and for me . . .doing family history haha So, I've worked pretty hard over the past several months but from now on its pretty much going to be up to you :) Well this week was just jam packed with service. One day we moved someone, another day we mowed someones lawn, then we cleared out someones yard of vines, mowed another lawn, helped someone build some concrete steps into their house and then ended the week by finishing clearing the one house of tree limbs and vines, and then helped this lady get paperwork together from Katrina. Interwoven throughout the week was several meetings a mission president Farewell, and a mission president welcome. This coming week I think is going to be filled with even more service as we are going to be helping another family move into the ward and also tear down a couple of broken sheds. Sure some weeks are worse than others and we often don't get to see the success we want, but nothing really compares with the awesome privilege of being on a mission and having this little black name tag on! Again, I'm reminded this week that one of the most important things that we share with the world is the knowledge that we have of God being a loving Heavenly Father. I'm grateful for the this priceless heritage and the peace it has given me in my life. 
Love Elder Smith

Dear Family/ Friends,
This was kind of an interesting week. It felt like I was on a roller coaster, going up, then down, then jerked sideways, through a loop. and now its started to slow down again. The first thing I really remember this week was going to do some service for Mary on Tuesday. We mowed her lawn, picked up some trash, and did a lot of gardening. After we were done at Mary's we got a ride with them to the church and spent the rest of the night doing family history. On Wednesday we just did out regular thing, but Thursday is when things started to pick up. We started out with district meeting and then after we went to an assisted living home to do some service. We went around inviting people to the activity room and once everyone got settled we sang a few hymns and had a little bible study with them. It was pretty fun and they all really loved us being there. They asked us if we could come back, so hopefully we can do that again. After that we started our exchanges with the zone leaders. Elder Helie came with me to Kenner while Elder Mills went to Metairie. The first thing we did on exchanges was try to go see Anthony. He had a sign on his door that said "LDS members: I no longer want to be a member please don't call or knock on my door, thank you, Anthony Ardillo" So, that was pretty disappointing. We rode our bikes around for a little bit and then finally after about an hour we went to see Mary. We reminded her about the crawfish boil and talked about being born again. The Sisters had a baptism that night so we quickly rode to the church to begin to fill up the font. We got the water going and an hour later checked the temperature and turned off the water. The baptism was planned to be at seven, but our ward mission leader, who was the one doing the baptism, didn't show up until about twenty after, after he came out of the bathroom he walked over to us and with a worried look on his face held his hands out showing us that there was only about a foot and a half of water in the font. We had no idea what happened and at this point it was already 7:30. We turned the water back on and after 15 minutes we just decided to start. So the program began and when we were ready to perform the ordinance we opened the doors to see that the water was again about a foot and a half, Bro Blair just went for it and miraculously it only took him too dunks to get him all the way under. Everyone was pretty impressed. After it was all done we watched the Testaments with a recent convert and her kids. A man from Benin Africa came in and watched some of the movie with us. I showed him my scripture case and asked him if he had kente in Benin. He said no, but we talked about fufu and just Africa in general. He said he really enjoyed the movie and said that he had never seen the life of Christ portrayed that way. He has come to church a few times but the members that were his friends just moved to Florida so we will see what happens. On Friday, the exchanges continued pretty normal. Me and Elder Mills spent Saturday morning at the temple which was a really needed uplifting day and then went to the crawfish boil that night. This morning, we went on a two hour bike ride that was mission wide. It was just for President and Sister Wall before they leave. We all had the same shirts and just rode around as districts. It was pretty fun! So, thats pretty much all that happened this week. I love yall and hope the weather wherever you are isn't as miserable as it is here :)
Love Elder Smith

Story and more

Instead of giving yall an update on the week I figured I break the monotony and write a joke that I heard this week. Forgive me if it's lame.

The Three Degrees of Hell
So just like in Heaven there are three degrees or levels in Hell. And there was a man who was so wicked and evil that he ended up going there. He dies and his spirit is welcomed to Hell by the Devil. The Devil looks pretty excited and notifies the man that he has three choices of where he can spend the rest of his time. The man looks around and notices that there are three different doors that he can choose from. The man asks Satan if he can first just look and see what each door contains before he goes in. Satan agrees. As the man approaches door number one he already notices a huge increase in the temperature. He grabs the handle and quickly opens the door before his hand gets burnt too bad. In that instant a cloud of sulfurous fumes billow through the opening. This place clearly has the most known qualities of Hell. There are pools of molten rock, great massive bonfires, and an ever present and seemingly increasing level of heat. He also notices that there are not too many people in this door so assumes it isnt a great choice and moves on. (The man also lived in Greenland so never really had a great love for the heat). He promptly shuts the door and takes a few steps to the left to investigate the next door. At first glance he notices a tiny icicle hanging from the doorknob and automatically understand what lies behind it. And just like he figured this door was the exact opposite of the door just previous. He sees even fewer people behind this door and also notices the lack of shelter from the bitter wind, instead of pools of lava there are unavoidable pools of liquid nitrogen that freeze instantly, now this man had lived in the cold before so was not too worried about the effects of these drastic temperatures. He is almost sure that he has made up his mind when he is tapped on the shoulder by the Devil and reminded of the next door. His curiosity gets the best of him and he moves on to see the last door. This time as he approaches the door he notices a loud noise which sounds like a mad storm of bees. The door is opened and this time he sees a massive crowd of people smiling and talking earnestly with everyone around them. They seem pretty happy and the only bad thing about this place is the waist level pool of sewage that everyone is milling around in. (and of course the putrid smell) The man figures he can plug his nose or just breath from his mouth instead and thinks that this door is just the thing for him. Everyone seems pretty happy anyway so it must be a good place. The man turns to Satan and tells him that his choice has been made. A devious smile barely creeps onto the Devil's face as he nods him into the room. The man enters the room and begins a conversation with a portly fellow about the obvious flaw in Satans plan. The portly man just smiles and nods since he notices the red alarm has lit up signifying an announcement. Instantly everyones smile fades into the most horrid visage that one would only expect from Satan himself. The guttural voice of Lucifer sounds over the speakers and says "Alright everyone, breaks over, back on your heads!"
Lesson these people never learned.... Dont follow the crowd

 I've been pretty excited to be able to do so much family research and to be able to find names of people in the family that I can take to the temple. We have a temple trip this weekend, so I was hoping that I could take one of the names to do the endowment but it looks like I won't be able to until Garrett does the baptism and other ordinances. We did some service this week for Mary and apparently we didn't quite do a good enough job. She got pretty upset and had just all sorts of snarky comments. I have seen her be this way with other people (she is the type that no matter what she sends her food back at a restaurant because "something" isn't right. I honestly had a hard time not getting frustrated because the lawn looked just fine. At the end of the time we were there I just had to swallow my pride and act like she was right. Now that I think about it its kind of funny bt in the moment it was pretty easy for me to get all upset. So hopefully I don't have another test of my patience like that again. Other than that things have been going pretty good. We had a lesson last night with three guys that some of the summer members referred to us. Hopefully we can teach them again and keep getting people to teach. I realized last night that it was the first time that a member has ever invited us to teach someone that they knew. So hopefully it keeps up because I know that it's the best way to help people become converted. 

Love Elder Smith

Family History Work

Dear Family,
So, this week I saw several miracles. The first has to do with family history. The past few months, starting in March I have been working on trying to find parents to Matthew Smith one of our direct ancestors. I thought that I had found the correct parents quite a while ago so, had spent the rest of my time branching off from there. I came to find out a few weeks ago that I had made a mistake at the very beginning of my search. I was pretty upset. I had spent months researching and updating that part of the tree, adding sources, merging copies, and typing out info. So, I gave up for a few weeks. Until I read the First Presidency message for the month. President Monson says "The Lord expects you and me to perform our family history work well. I think the first thing we must do if we are to perform our work well is to have the Spirit of our Heavenly Father with us. When we live as righteously as we know how to live, He will open the way for the fulfillment of the blessings that so earnestly and diligently we seek.
We are going to make mistakes, but none of us can become an expert in family history work without first being a novice. Therefore, we must plunge into this work, and we must prepare for some uphill climbing. This is not an easy task, but the Lord has placed it upon you, and He has placed it upon me.
As you pursue family history work, you are going to find yourself running into roadblocks, and you are going to say to yourself, “There is nothing else I can do.” When you come to that point, get down on your knees and ask the Lord to open the way, and He will open the way for you. I testify that this is true." If this wasn't a little personal prophetic epistle I don't know what would be. So, I tried it out. I got on my knees and asked for some help because I had run into a roadblock. So, the next day I went to work searching again. For a few days I seemed to be just pouring over the same records that I had gotten so familiar with to no avail. Until just a couple of days ago. One day after leaving the library I looked to my left and saw that the man next to me was using ancestry.com for some research of his own. I asked him a few questions about his research gave him a familysearch.org card and then he told us he knew who we were because some of his children were "Mormons" so we asked if we could come and teach him more.. he refused but as we were about to leave I noticed that he had been logged into ancestry under the "Jefferson Parish Library" I found out that the library that we go to every single day has complete access to ancestry unlike the Family History Centers limited access. The next day I logged into the account and found the correct parents. It was pretty exciting! So, I know that one of the principles President Monson was trying to teach us was that when we hit roadblocks in our lives that we just need to KNEEL down and pray and ask for help. There is something powerful about kneeling prayers. So, I know that God does indeed answer prayers and that when we are given a promise by the Prophet that it will certainly happen as long as we do what he says.
Love, Elder Smith

Elder Smith doesn't get very much mail:-(

E

District leader

I'll be staying in Kenner for another transfer for a grand total of at least 10 months. I was pretty glad about it in the end but I have started to feel like I have been here for an incredibly long time. I'm thinking that I will leave Kenner either at the end of this transfer or the one following. President made me district leader in the area over here and thats really the only news for this week. It was really rainy this week and pretty much has rained non stop since wednesday.We were given another long lecture this week about how horrible of a guy Mitt Romney was and just how silly republicans and how intelligent and powerful the democrats are. I was hoping to only spend like 30 mins at the guys house but I think he ended up talking for like 90 minutes straight. It was pretty exhausting. This past week we have been helping one of our investigators, Mary, with some odd jobs around her house. On Tuesday we worked with another set of Elders in leveling a shed, Thursday we did some yard work for her, and then yesterday we helped level the next corner of her shed and also level a corner of her deck. I have been reading a lot this week and just about have "The Promised Messiah" all finished up. Its been really good I learned a lot about ordinances and their purpose. Yesterday we watched the "Fires of Faith" with one of our members. Dad I think you were talking about it a few years ago... Anyway we watched part 1 and it was really great. It made me really appreciate the Bible more and gave me a few insights into some things about the translation. One thing that occured to me was that God intended the Bible to be read by everyone and not just the religious elite. Therefore it mostly should be easy to understand and it should be taken literally. Such as Jesus literally being the Only Begotten of the Father and other things like that. I mean its supposed to be simple and the only reason some parts of it are so confusing is change in times and errors in translations. The reformation to me is also further proof of the apostasy of the early Christian church so I know that either Joseph was the Prophet of the Restoration or everything is bunk. But I know he was so ya ! haha I hope you have a great week!
Love Elder Smith

Challenges and Change

Hey Family,
This week we spent a lot of time with one of our investigators and it has just been quite a story filled week. I think most notably was last night when we went to go visit her, as soon as we got there she was turning on her water to water the Garden and then noticed that two plants weren't getting any water, so she grabbed that hose and unbeknownst to her she had pointed the nozzle straight at my face and then she squeezed the handle to find that she had sprayed me square in the face. I had been kind of grumpy yesterday, for some reason, so It was a good moment to just laugh and I think it was Heavenly Father telling me to change my attitude! She was pretty proud of herself for being able to not get any of my clothes wet and still get to spray me. After that we ate some sandwiches with her and had a lesson about Faith.
She has some pretty big road blocks in her way to get baptized so we are really praying for a way for it to happen, She seems to want to be baptized, but is afraid of what it will mean for her family and what she will have to do to change to a different lifestyle. We had been watching or talking about stories where people have sacrificed so much to keep the commandments or follow the Prophet and she would always exclaim that these people were idiots or that it didnt make any sense for someone to do something like that, such as Abraham being willing to sacrifice Issac, the pioneers moving west, Joseph Smith and Hyrum being martyrs, and just lots of other examples. After thinking about all of these different stories I put myself in her situation and these other people. I realized that I have been able to live in a place and home where the decisions to keep the commandments has been easy. My decision to serve a mission was easy. I had not really had to face anything, compared to these other people, and had not even faced as hard of a trial as we were asking this investigator to go through in order to be baptized. It was pretty shocking and made me very grateful for the numerous blessings in my life. I was raised like Nephi with "goodly parents" unlike Nephi I even had loving siblings who never criticized my desire to serve my God but instead encouraged me and helped me. I just pray that if I ever get into a situation where my faith is tested more, that I will have the strength to follow through. And I applaud and revere those that have gone through struggles and still kept their faith intact.
Love, 

Elder Smith

Elder Mills, Elder Smith, Elder Porter, Elder Abbott

Dear Family and Friends,
This week we spent a lot of time with our investigator Mary. We did service for her on Tuesday and Im pretty sure we saw her everyday since then. She came to a baptism which she said she really enjoyed and she likes to call us her sons. She says she is our mom away from mom. She has been feeding us regularly and is just a really funny lady. I'll have to get my picture with her and send it sometime. We have invited her to be baptized but she can't decide if she wants to join. She has pretty much let it be known that she believes everything we teach her she just doesn't know if her husband will accept the things we have taught her and she doesn't want to have to follow all of the "rules" haha but honestly she would be a great asset to the ward and she already has given away about 4 Books of Mormon and has got 2 people interested in coming to church. We are planning on teaching her neighbor and the thing that has gotten Mary excited the most is doing her family history and getting their temple work done. So, I have been really grateful I have been spending so much time doing family history and figuring everything out on familysearch. 

We had zone conference this week and President Wall taught us a lot. He talked to us about vicarious blessings and that its a law in the Gospel, where the effort of one can give blessings for others. He used examples such as Christ providing the atonement, missionaries blessing their families, companions blessing companions when one is obedient and the other isn't. (he explained that our personal obedience is enough for the both of us and God will still trust us with people to teach) It was pretty awesome. It was a great week and I love teaching people about the restored gospel, because everytime I testify to others the spirit will confirm to me the things that I say and there is nothing sweeter than the witness from the Holy Ghost!
Love Elder Smith

Dear Ya'll
Last Thursday we visited a few less actives and then got a text from one of our investigators about doing service for her in the next couple of days. It should be a good time doing service for her because as far as teaching the lessons to her she has been a bit stubborn and after service she usually is more open to what we teach. On Friday we ended up doing service for her, planting a little garden on the side of her house. She planted peppers that she wants to make salsa out of, so Im glad that its going to take a while to grow because I don't know If I would be able to handle so much heat :-)) Saturday, we went to Brother Huttons house, to dig a ditch, to tie the sewer line into a shed, he has in the back of his house. I was thinking that it was going to take a day to dig but thankfully the soil here is much easier to dig compared to what it is like back west. No rocks, or hard clay, just lots of brown squishy soil. So, we got everything finished in about an hour. Sunday was a pretty crazy day. It has been getting much warmer so riding to the church has been unpleasant to say the least. But, at church, we were surprised to have one of our investigators come that we had been doing the garden for and also Anthony received the Aaronic Priesthood and ordained to the office of a Priest! He is going to start working on getting his patriarchal blessing soon and hopefully in the next couple of weeks we can go to the temple with him to do some baptisms. Umm, we had a visitor at church from Russia which was exciting :) and then a few hours later we were told that someone had just moved into our area who had been born in Russia So, just a lot of Russia the past few days it seems. Sunday night we got a text from Randy Sessum (less active) telling us he was in the hospital and would like a blessing. He is worried that he might have cancer, so we are praying that he doesn't.  It made me realize that there are other reasons we see these people and it might not be for what we think. Im sure that this trial he is facing right now will put some increased direction and focus to his life.
This week in my studies of Preach My Gospel I learned about the importance of Covenants and that as a missionary I need to focus on leading people to make and keep covenants. Whether that be members appreciating the sacrament and their baptism covenants or investigators entering the waters of baptism and beginning that new journey. I am so glad that I have been able to make covenants with my Heavenly Father and that I have the promise that as long as I do what I'm promised he will grant me Eternal life with him! I hope everyone has had a wonderful week because I have!
Love Elder Smith

New companion to train and a Challenge for us

Hey Family,
First off, on Tuesday we went down to the French Market. Wednesday we headed to Baton Rouge for transfers which was pretty fun especially since I was able to see a bunch of missionaries that I knew and got to see where they were going and what they had been up to. Elder Abbott my old companion was put in La Place so he isn't far away at all and serves with Elder White, so everybody from our MTC district have served with someone else in the district. I have never heard of that, but think its pretty cool. My new companion was Elder Mills. We spent the rest of the night getting stuff he needed and had dinner with some members at Subway. Thursday, we had to go to the bike shop to get some pieces that Elder Mills needed for his bike. When he had it shipped here it was missing some parts. We had a few lessons with some investigators which went well. Friday we did about the same thing and same with Saturday. We met with Mary who has a hard time accepting anything we say and I mean ANYTHING but I just think she does it to bother us. She is super nice and we have been helping her out with some things around her house. The other people we saw were the Conforto brothers. We watched the Joseph Smith movie with them and they seemed to like but Are pretty wary of accepting Joseph Smith as a prophet. We have talked to them about baptism, and now they both have realized they need to be baptized but have said they will probably do it in their church. So, we will be teaching about Priesthood a lot more. Umm Sunday was pretty fun. Two families invited us over for dinner and one of them was a crawfish boil! Wooo it was pretty awesome and definitely was one of the spiciest things I have ever eaten. Im glad I didn't have any sores in my mouth or chapped lips because they said its almost impossible to eat crawfish if you do!! So, plan on eating some spicy crawfish when that time comes! Today we are just going to go to the church to play some games with the district. It should be another good week coming up and I'm excited to see some new things happen in Kenner!
Love Elder Smith

PS "Brothers and sisters, can you imagine the impact if family and friends included what they are learning from their personal study of Preach My Gospel in their letters and emails to their full-time missionaries? Can you picture the blessings that will come to families when they know and understand better what their sons and daughters will be studying and teaching on their missions? Can you even begin to fathom the extraordinary outpouring of atoning grace that will be ours, individually and collectively, according to the Savior’s promise to all who bear testimony in the process of inviting souls to come unto Him—and then following up on those invitations?"
Elder Ballard

SO SHARE PMG STUDIES WITH ME PLEASE!!
Love Ya'll

My testimony

My testimony of the Book of Mormon has been present pretty much my entire life. I never really had the thought that it wasn't true. But, my testimony has changed drastically over time. The most important thing is that my testimony has grown in my Faith in the teachings about Christ. Believing the Book of Mormon is true does not do a single thing for us unless we strive to live the teachings that are in the Book. I know that the Book of Mormon testifies of Christ. The knowledge it gives me of my Savior is irreplaceable. I absolutely love the Book of Mormon. Now when talking about the Book of Mormon it's important to recognize that if we know the Book of Mormon is from God, that we know that Joseph Smith was a Prophet, and if Joseph Smith was a Prophet than Christ's true church is the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. A few days ago I bore my testimony to an elderly couple who did not believe in the Book of Mormon or Joseph Smith's calling. I told them that I knew the Book of Mormon is from God because my prayerful study of it has Always been accompanied by the Holy Ghost. They could not deny my testimony. I know they felt the Spirit testify to them because at that time it testified to me. I recently read a quote from President Hinckley in Preach My Gospel which said “Those who have read [the Book of Mormon] prayerfully, be they rich or poor, learned or unlearned, have grown under its power. … Without reservation I promise you that if you will prayerfully read the Book of Mormon, regardless of how many times you previously have read it, there will come into your hearts … the Spirit of the Lord. There will come a strengthened resolution to walk in obedience to his commandments, and there will come a stronger testimony of the living reality of the Son of God”
We should apply this in our life. I have, and it works. Its little by little but over time it is significant. The absolutely most important thing I know is that God loves us. He loves us no matter what.
Love Elder Smith

Bird House library and Elders doing service (hope they know what their doing)

Service work and teaching moments

Hey Family,
Here is an update for the week! Tuesday we had District meeting which was fun because President and Sister Wall came. They talked to us about some "deviations" they are seeing in the mission. It was good to be reminded of the mission rules and what I can work on to be a better example. Wednesday, we walked all over Kenner and had a pretty good time taking in the same sights I have seen for the past 7 months, just at a much slower pace. We found one little area where there was a very large bird house. Inside the bird house was a ton of books. This bird house had a name, it was called the chateau free library, so I decided we should put an addition in! We Added a Book of Mormon and propped it up so it looked good. Thursday, we started exchanges which was really good, because Elder Hansen from La Place came to Kenner with me and brought his bike, so I rode Elder Abbott's. We, at least, got one day of being able to ride bikes instead of walking. Friday we finished off the exchange and then went to a Zone Training Meeting where we talked more about "deviations" in the mission. It was kind of boring I'm not going to lie but afterward we did service the whole day. The first project was cleaning someones backyard of rocks! We moved two piles of rocks from inconspicuous places throughout the yard... or should I say "jungle" to one huge eyesore pile right next to the house! Haha we also cleaned up lots of dead foliage so in the process the yard began to look quite a bit different. The next project that day was painting a potential investigator''s house for the missionaries in Harahan. It was a "great" paint job because there were ten missionaries who all thought they knew what they were doing haha. Saturday we didn't have a whole lot going on so we decided to go tracting. We walked for about an hour or so not having much success. At one point an Arabic woman came to the window and just smiled at us. Im guessing she couldn't talk to us, so I just grabbed a Jesus Pass along card showed it to her and asked if we could give it to her. It was really awkward to say the least. But thankfully it didn't throw us too much off because the next house we met an elderly couple who are devout Jehovah's Witnesses. The husband talked to us for about 20 minutes at the doorway and then we asked if we could come inside. About 90 minutes later we found ourselves walking back home. They had lots of really cool things to say and we were able to bear our testimonies of the Book of Mormon and Joseph Smith and we could tell they were struggling to refute them. They were both really nice and sincere but they can't read any other religious material so its going to be hard to get them to read the Book of Mormon. We asked them to pray about Joseph Smith so hopefully they will do that so that they can know what we know. Sunday was a pretty good fast Sunday. We taught Gospel Principles and we weren't able to prepare for it but the lesson managed to go pretty smoothly. As we were getting done with church the Gerbers asked if we had any plans for dinner, we didn't so we had some yummy sweet pork that was a lot like Cafe Rio! (But not as good as Heather's)That night we stopped by the Conforto brother's home to talk to them about Joseph Smith and baptism by proper authority. At first the older Brother was really reluctant to talk to us but both of them have said that we have the spirit with us and that they really like talking to us. They are starting to accept the commitments we leave with them and that evening the presence of the Spirit was undeniable. We all left feeling pretty happy. Yesterday being transfer Monday, us missionaries were pretty stressed to hear about transfer news. We spent the day in La Place tearing out a floor in a woman's house. None of us knew what we were doing at all so it was an interesting project. We got back to Kenner and Bro Jennings asked us if we wanted dinner so we went to Subway with him and there we got the news for transfers. Elder Abbott is leaving Kenner. I think he wasn't very surprised but it seemed like we had just barely gotten to know each other. This morning President Wall called and asked me if I would train a new missionary so its going to be fun being able to help someone learn the ropes of missionary work. And it also means I will probably be in Kenner for two more transfers! It feels like home now and I have really gotten to love the people here. Kenner is always going to somewhere I care about. Right now we are getting ready to go to downtown New Orleans! Its been pretty fun! Kenner better get ready for another six weeks of me!
Love Elder Smith

Oops! Mission President caught me studying.

Visitors

Dear Family,

Well it has been an interesting and yet exciting week. On Monday, we went to the church and I practiced the piano and can almost play Come Come Ye Saints. Tuesday, we were at the church for Family History and Anthony was able to find even more people to get to the temple. He also has been trying to find out who has done the temple work on his mothers side of his family because most of it has already been done. He would like to see if he has any close relatives that are LDS. Wednesday, we visited a less active and had dinner with Anthony at a members house. Thursday, was kind of a struggle of a day because my bike broke, which left us walking around the rest of the week. At least, we weren't too far from home at the time and it only took us about half an hour to get home. But, because of that we were a little concerned about how we were going to watch conference. On Friday, it was pretty stormy, so President Wall canceled ZTM. Elder Abbott had to have a few medical tests that President Wall wanted him to take, so the Walls came to our apartment and I got to talk to them for about an hour which was a lot of fun. President Wall is just fun and was taking pictures of everything. President also talked to us about conference and reminded me to pay attention to things that I can improve on and repent of. I definitely got my answer and am grateful I paid attention. Sister Wall was a little concerned about a few things and probably wanted our apartment to be a little cleaner :) That night we saw two investigators and both lessons went really well, because we found out that both of them had been reading the Book of Mormon and that they wanted to learn more. One of them told us to come back, on Thursday, because she wanted to feed us and teach us how to cook. Saturday, we watched conference, which was great, and Elder Holland's talk was pretty awesome. Yesterday, we watched both sessions with Anthony and my favorite was Elder Perry's, because it gave me something that I want to work on. So, yes it's been a great week and we should have another good week coming up!
Love Elder Smith

Anthony's baptism

Dear Family and Friends, '
Monday, we ended up going to dinner with Bro Jennings and we talked about some of the history of the church and the importance of enduring the trials that come our way. Tuesday, we had district meeting and afterwards we went to Cane's, for lunch. Anthony, was at the church, so we invited him to lunch. After that we headed back to the church for the baptismal interview and the rest of the day we went over some things about his baptism and spent the evening at the church in the FHC. Anthony, had been spending a lot of time looking at his family history and was really excited to do the temple work for his family that he has found. I was kind of curious to see if I had any family, that didn't have their temple work done so I went into searching, thinking that I wasn't going to find anyone because all of it seemed to have been already done. Near the end of the night I realized that since 1/4 of the family branch doesn't show up because It didn't have Great Grandpa Smith married to G. Grandma Dickerson.  I looked and found the Seltzers in the Dickerson line and realized that Michael Seltzer who served and died in the Revolutionary War, had not had any of his temple work done. I figured, since I noticed it I should do the work, so, I reserved his name and printed off the sheet to take to the temple. Anthony, in the next couple of weeks, should be able to go for his ancestors and now I will be able to do the work from someone in my family, which is something I have never done. It was a really exciting night and the day I get to do the work will be even more exciting. Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday we hardly did anything, due to Elder Abbott, being sick and a rainy day Thursday. Saturday was obviously a great day and the baptism went great. He mentioned to me that it was a very spiritual experience and that he was just very grateful we had helped him out. At the end of the service, he bore his testimony and when he did, I felt the spirit testify to me that the things he was saying were true and that he also knew they were true. His testimony was simple but the words touched my heart. He said that he knew that God lived and that he loves him, he said he knew the church was the true church and that Thomas S. Monson was the Prophet of God. It was such a profound thing. A young man of 18, after only three weeks of meeting with us, was able to bear his testimony and was able to learn so much! I have been amazed at his progress. Yesterday, we had two lessons with some people we have met recently and they both are sincere about their investigation. The first lesson we had with one man was memorable for one reason. When we showed up to his house he was not there, but within a few moments he showed up. He was excited to see us and during the lesson he mentioned that usually when he goes home he takes a different road that takes him to the Lake and then he would come home a little later. Instead this day he felt like he should ride by his house. When he did, he saw us and we were able to have a lesson with him. To me, that means that God loves this man enough to lead him to learn more and also that God trusts us enough to teach him. It was a very comforting thing to realize and quite honestly it's very humbling. The lesson ended up going well and we re-committed him to read and pray about the Book of Mormon. The only thing they need to do now is study the Book of Mormon and pray about it in order to become converted. I've realized it's that simple. We just need to be sincere, have Faith and put the effort into studying and praying. All in all its been a really great week and this coming weekend will be great as well. How great of an opportunity we have to hear from the Prophet of God! I know that God loves each one of us and knows us personally. And I know that we can feel that love in greater abundance when we repent and turn to him in prayer. I love you all and hope you have a great conference weekend!
Love, Elder Smith

Trip to the Temple

Dear Family,
Well I guess I should tell you a little bit about my past week. So,Tuesday we did our regular prep day things except we had a lesson with Anthony and that evening he came to the Family History Center to do some family history work. We ended up being there until 9:15, talking about different things and when we realized the time, Anthony asked us if we could use a ride home. We had ridden our bikes to the church and Anthony drives a little Scion. So, we disassembled our bikes and tried to stuff them in his car as best we could. We ended up driving back to our apartment with his trunk open and I was just praying the whole time that my bike didn't fly out! We made it safely home, and so, did our bikes. Wednesday, I don't really remember, I think we just saw some less actives and tried contacting a few referrals. Thursday we planned for the coming week and then went about doing our regular schedule. Friday ended up being a hectic day. We were planning on going to the temple with the ward since it was a scheduled day and the members that we were going with to Baton Rouge ended up showing up just a few minutes late. We arrived at the temple at exactly 7:00 PM and the session had already started, so we helped the youth doing baptisms. Since the temple is so small and everything has to be done by appointment they don't have temple workers doing baptism work. We did the confirmations and were witnesses at the baptismal font. It was really nice to be able to help in that capacity in the temple and I really hope that I can do it again. Saturday we had service planned at a member in Metairie and we had invited Anthony to help. He gave us a ride and when we got there he ended up knowing how we should go about cleaning up the yard, so we were pretty grateful that we brought him along. About halfway through one of the sister missionaries got an allergic reaction to one of the plants so we rode all the way across the city to Harahan to get some medicine. It was a pretty crazy drive especially since we hard four Elders and an 18 year old investigator in one car. I won't go into the details but mostly I'm just glad that we made it back to the service in one piece (The roads and drivers in Louisiana are the worst in the nation) After the service we went to see a less active, then had a dinner appointment with some members. Sunday went well and the coolest part was one of the primary classes had us come in and share our testimonies and sing some songs wit them like, I Hope They Call Me On a Mission and Army of Helaman. The class was 3 four year old boys, so it was just so much fun and reminded me of my awesome nephews!
Love Elder Smith

Dear Family,
Monday was a pretty normal prep day, we went to the church and played some volleyball and ultimate Frisbee. Bro Jennings took us to dinner, like usual, which was great, and for the first time in six months we went to Cane"s.  Tuesday we saw Anthony, again, and took Bro Simmons with us. At the lesson we set a baptismal date for the 29th of March! We were pretty excited for that and he just seems ready for this change in his life. He turns 19 in a few months, so we are thinking that there is a possibility that he could go on a mission in a year or so. When we got to his apartment for the lesson we noticed that he had printed out a paper that said Daily Devotional on it and that he had photo-shopped the Mormon channel logo with angel Moroni. Later in the lesson he told us that he had ordered a triple combination, without us even mentioning that they were available. He was also excited for general conference in a few weeks! Gosh he just loves everything that we have taught him and he has shared some really cool miracles with us. That morning his mother was going into surgery on her neck and he gets really anxious for other people when he thinks they are in danger. He usually has to take medication to relieve the anxiety but that morning he told us that he had said a prayer and that his anxiety was taken away! I know that we met Anthony for a purpose and that he is going to be a great example to the rest of his family. Wednesday, we did some service moving some of the Hall's things into storage. Thursday we had another lesson with Anthony and once we were done, with what we had planned, he asked us if we could teach him something else. So, overall I'm just really excited to have the chance to be able to help Anthony start this new life and share with him my testimony of the Restored Gospel. Friday we contacted two media referrals which went alright and are planning to see them again in a few days. Satruday we went to the church again to clean and then rode our bikes to the Drakes to put down a patio for a party they are going to have. It looked pretty interesting when we were done with it and it almost didn't look like 4 missionaries did it all by themselves. :-) On Sunday, we saw Anthony at church, he asked lots of questions and continued to show how eager he is to learn more. Last night we had dinner with the Gerber's which was a really good end to the week! So, we are just getting read to start it all again this week.
Love Elder Smith

Elder Porter and Elder Smith

Elder Smith with Elder Abbott (on the right)

Small Miracles

Dear Family,
So, Wednesday we had transfers, everything got switched up, and I found out my new companion was Elder Abbott from the MTC. He is from Highland UT. We got groceries that night and he had to email his family so, we did that the rest of the evening. Thursday, we tried to go see a referral. It was pretty cold and rainy so, we rode our bikes all the way down there only to not get an answer at the door nothing unusual. We then planned for the rest of the week and I told him all that I know about Kenner and about the Ward here. We only got to see a few people and mostly just spent the time introducing Elder Abbott to the people that we see.
Friday morning was much different. As we are studying in the morning we get a call from Bishop Brown saying that there is a Muslim guy who wanted to meet him in the next two hours. Bishop couldn't make it because of school so we rode over to the church to meet the man, We introduced ourselves and found out the mans name was B*****. He has been in the US for 20 years and said that he has been on the run from his dad for the past 2 and a half years. His father is a prominent Muslim leader in Pakistan. B***** came to America to confirm that he should follow Islam. He converted to Christianity after studying lots of books. At the time the congregation (non-denomination) put his face all over their flyers so, his father found out he had converted. his father cut off his income and so now B***** is getting evicted from his apartment along with his family and to make the story a little shorter was planning on heading back to Pakistan so his family can be provided for and he would go to Sharia court. He thought the Bishop could give him the advice he needed so was a little frustrated to find two 19 year old's trying to help. We did all we could but obviously it was a pretty serious problem and I just hope that he is safe and that he appreciated what he told him. The whole time I was impressed to just talk to him about prayer and to seek God's will in all of what he was going through. It is something that I will never have to deal with and reminded me how blessed I am to live in this country and to have been raised in the family and place I was. So, that honestly put a pretty solemn mood over the rest of the day and was a pretty heavy day. We had district meeting the rest of the time so afterwards we went to see the usual's and then called it a day.
Saturday was probably one of the best days so far. In the morning we were planning to go see a media referral we received. It was for an apartment and I knew where it was so we got to the complex and then to the right door, we knocked on the door and didn't get an answer so we decided to head home. We got on our bikes and I then thought that we should take the long way home. So, we went off, after a few minutes of riding through a neighborhood, we got to the other end of the street we were on with the apartment complex where there is another complex, almost identical to the other one, just that it was about a mile away. I look at the address and realize that we had been at the wrong complex. So, we swung into the parking lot and looked for the right building. When we knocked on this door and a young man opened it who looked quite surprised to see us but nonetheless let us in. We found out more about him and realized that he was so eager to learn more and was excited and sincere about all the questions and commitments. He accepted to read and pray about the Book of Mormon, to come to church the next day, and to get baptized. It was a Miracle. The simplest thing of being prompted to go a different route home helped us to find this young man who was searching and expecting us. the next day at church he came 30 minutes early we talked for quite a bit and he told us he had read most of 1 Nephi and while at church he saw that there was going to be a fireside that night at 5, for new members and investigators, and asked if he could attend. I've never seen someone so committed to learning and progressing in my entire mission. He was the only one who we invited to show up for the fireside which President Wall (mission president) and President Stock (stake president) were talking, At the end of the meeting he told us that he had really loved it and had many of his questions answered. We have a appointment scheduled for Tuesday and we are just so excited. We also received about 5 other media referrals, which we've only got that many the past six months that I have been in Kenner. So, over all some interesting things have been happening here in Kenner and I just hope that it continues.
Love Elder Smith

Mardi Gras parades and transfers

Dear Family
I have some exciting things to tell you this week because I have been pretty busy. We had exchanges this week with the LaPlace Elders so I spent a day in there with Elder White who was in the MTC with me. We did just about the same things we do in Kenner just with different people and with a car haha. One guy that we saw was named Bro. Watkins who is blind and very talkative. He was a little surprised to find out I wasn't Elder White's regular companion but he seemed to not mind too much. At one point he was talking to us about how he feeds the missionaries every week but that this week he was broke. He told me that had to come back to LaPlace on Thursday the next week so he could feed me and Elder White and make sure that Elder Hansen went back to Kenner. Along with that when he heard what my name was he quickly gave Elder White a funny look and quietly mentioned something about the Prophet Joseph Smith which I honestly get quite a bit but it makes me smile. So, after seeing these people on exchanges I decided that everyone in Louisiana loves to talk! That honestly is one of the tough the things we have to do to make visits effective is get people to just listen to us for a second. Its really funny because some people just get so excited to talk to missionaries. After exchanges, we got back into the regular and waited patiently for Monday to come so that we could hear about transfers. Before Monday came though we had the chance to go to mass with Joshua the young guy we had been teaching. It was quite the event and to say the least made me grateful I don't have to do that every week. It was kind of sad to see the emptiness of the worship especially since it was obvious that a very select few took the service seriously and most people were just going through the motions. Obviously this isn't something that only Catholics do because there are many Mormons who seem to just go through the motions. But with a service the Catholics have which is so routine it would be easy to get stuck going through the motions...Now onto to transfers... I had a pretty good idea what was going to happen because President Wall had told me some hints, but still when Monday came we were excited. So the news is that Elder Porter will be leaving Kenner and I will be taking over the area. I think im going to be surprised of what it entails to take over an area but Im excited still. im a little sad to see Elder Porter leave after becoming good friends with him and serving with him for these first six months. Now to the craziest event of the week.... Mardi Gras. We had planned to go to the first parade that started at 8 in the morning so in order to get there we had to get up super early this morning to make it early enough to both get a good parking spot and spot to wait for the parade since some people camp out over night for their spots. Luckily everything went smoothly in the morning and we managed to get to the first parade which is called Zulu I think my companion can explain best what the whole thing was like. Plus I'm feeling a little lazy so I'm going to plagiarize a bit from him.

Mardi Gras from Elder Porters perspective

The parade begins, and there are massive floats! amazing bands! people flooding the streets! throughout the parade everybody floods the entire streets, there is absolutely no order, just get out of the way of the float as it passes by.
So the second parade was also a very big parade for the city. It was the Rex parade. Where every float is a different Greek God. They all had their individual special beads. This was a white people float so it didn't compare to the black float at all.....Black people know how to throw a party! this parade wasn't as interesting more or less we were simply standing in the mud of the streets, soaking wet and only getting excited for the good stuff. ha The costumes of this parade were also really sweet!
The final parade was the truck parade! i would have loved this one if the weather wasn't so bad! by the time this parade arrived it was down pouring rain we were extremely wet, and very very cold. so we didn't finish this parade. This parade was only diesel Tractor trailer trucks one after another railing on the horn! back to back full of people on the floats ready to throw beads, this parade lasted forever! we wish we could have stayed longer but it was just too cold to stay for all of it.
Some interesting facts about Mardi Gras. Parades have been going for the passed couple of weeks now, today was the big parades and they began at 8:00 this morning with Zulu, and it will end tonight at precisely midnight so the rest of the town can get some sleep and begin their 40 day fasts of lent! For tomorrow is Ash Wednesday for Catholics.

So, ya you get the idea I am not a huge fan of the crowds but since I was there I decided I might as well make the best of it. And now I'm just writing these emails and getting prepped for Transfer meeting tomorrow to meet my new companion.
Love Elder Smith