day 26 New area Knoxville

Dear Dad,

Yeah my trainer is really cool. He is from pocotello ID. he has been here for three months but he was also in brazil for about nine months. ...he is district leader and my trainer. His name is Elder Excell. he played soccer in high school but nothing more than that. he did theater and ballet. but he's not like a fruit cake or anything. we are running every morning but sundays and i think it pretty good. so i weighed myself and im still 180!!! what the poop!!! why can't i gain or lose weight!?

Um i don't know if its twice a month but i think its just once a month. the area is really poedunk. Its called knoxville. its the capitol for the sprint car national racing! can you say(Khan voice) redneck hillbilly? we have had a few lessons but they have all been with less actives. our area has probably 20 to 30 less actives so thats what we are working on right now. tons of people are members but then they are married to people of a different faith. I can't believe how many people are like that in our ward! but yeah its really weird being out here. when i was in des moines pres. jergensen lived like two streets away from amanda and levi and i wanted so badly to run there and say hi!! haha but i really would like their email addresses so that they can be included. alrighty. thats mostly all i have to say for now. i will talk to you later. i love you dad.

love
Elder Smith.



Dear Mom,

Its ok mom. i didn't call back because when we got to the airport we boarded like 5-10 mins later. it was crazy. yeah being in iowa is really weird but really feels good. the first day we got there we went to pres. jergensens house and we had dinner and desert. it was really good. haha probably the first home cooked meal for about 3 weeks. anyway, the next day we woke up and started for iowa city for our transfer meeting. we got to the church where everyone was meeting and got seated and started the meeting. we first had some testimonies and then pres. started naming off some people. after like two or three i start thinkin when im going to be called and then he calls my name and im the very first person from my group that i came with to have my name called! i was a little scared but my companion came up and gave me a hug and we went and sat together. we went home after getting pics with each other and headed for...........Knoxville, Iowa. haha thats where i am right now. the sprint car racing capitol of the world! they were so loud and noisy. you could hear them all the way from our apartment which was about 2 or 3 miles away from it. crazy huh? well our first day went ok it was a lot different than what i expected but it was nontheless good. we talked all with less actives because about 30 people in our ward are less active so we are going around to them and trying to see what we can do to get them back to the church.

the second day we started prosoliting and boy was that hard to do in my sunday shoes! i now have blisters on the bottom of my feet where i never thought they would be. but anyway we went to this families house where he was a war veteran and she was from england or some place like that but we set up with them to have dinner tonight. im excited for that. the next day went a little better. we actually had set appointments and we followed through with those. friday was basically the same and saturday was also the same. on sunday we went to church about 8:30 to help set up. church started at 9 in this little church which is so small!!!!! holy cow! they didn't have pews they had to set up chairs! ha so small! but yesterday was good. i had to give a last min. talk about service to your neighbor and next sunday i have to give a talk on....i don't remember. haha i'll have to get with our branch mission leader and find out from him. and today is going pretty well. before we go to the library we have a member who lets us do laundry at his house which is nice and now we are at the library writing every body. oh a funny thing is is that i have to drive our car cause Elder Excell has too many tickets. so i thought that was funny.

oh yeah so if you send anything send it through the post office because anything sent to me goes to the mission office in des moines and can't be rerouted to our house because she can't do that with anything but something from the postoffice. so don't send anything from ups or fedex or something like that cause i won't get it for a few weeks. and send everything to the mission office because its easier so get cause when we transfer it takes so long to get back to me. that address is....

8515 douglas ave. #19 urbandale IA 50322.

alrighty i have to go now but i love you so much and miss you! thanks for putting pics of you and adi. haha

love
Elder smith.