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