day 346

hey momma. this week hasn't been the best week we have had. it just wasn't the same. it felt so so so slow. this month feels so super slow. everything is slowing down. i think its becasuse i have been focusing on the fact that im going to be a year old in a month.

Seeing the Atkinsons the other day was a real eye opener for me to know and remember that there are people...real live people who aren't missionaries or investigators, that lead normal lives and remember me! so super humbling for me cause i have been having a tough time with beginning to be comfortable with where i was at with my mission but now i know that people care for you no matter what the situation. i love this gospel cause it requires you to change and if we're not willing to make the necessary changes for the gospel then we are not ready to be in the celestial kingdom with our Heavenly Father and our elder brother Jesus Christ. the past three months has been the hardest in my mission and i know that the lord is only testing me. and im happy for the change.

thank you mom and dad for raising me the way you did because i wouldn't be the person i am today with out you guys. i truely look up to you and see your marriage and your family and think how lucky i was to have been raised in the gospel with such a loving family.

i haven't really recieved anything from anybody but the fifes these last few months. nobody wants to write to a missionary thats been out for a year. ;) haha just kidding. i know that everyone is super busy with their lives and i have mine to focus on so its no biggy. :)

oh man, so when jon called and said we are here i was like oh this is no problem i can do this. it won't be weird or anything but then i started walking outside and i saw anna talking with her family and then it started to hit me that it was really them!! then we walked a little more and they saw us and then they all turned around and were all looking at us and i was like AAAAHHHHH. it was so weird to see them again!!! :) but at the same time it was so good!!

haha i have a funny story. so remember how i was angry about how president won't let missionaries who are this far away from the temple go to the temple for a day? well guess what he approved us to go to the nauvoo pageant on the 10th! AAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHH!!!!!!! 

anyways...thats about it for now! i love and miss you so much!!!

love,

Elder Jens Smith

day 346 Questions and Answers

Does anyone else write you or has written you? Like ward people? Grandma B? 

yeah i do receive things from the ward. and i did receive a letter from grandmother B. :) haha i like saying that. :)

What's awesome this week?  

mmm awesome this week is that we got to see the atkinsons!!!!! so super awesome!

Better with your comp  

mmm...it goes off and on. but yeah we are getting better and he is getting the hang of things around here. im kinda ready for a new place. im glad that i will be leaving this next transfer. go to a new place. being in two areas for a year is kinda hard on the whole aspect of missionaries getting comfortable with the ward and where they are at. i think i might be getting that way but yesterday i did tell our bishop that i was leaving and he was like permission denied and i was like...hmm people like me here. didn't know that. :) haha

 

 

day 340

(I didn't get why it was a day late)

hey well if they are going through iowa to get to nauvoo im just half an hour from des moines in ames. yeah its possible if they want to do that. its prolly just a little out of their ways.  (atkinson's are driving back home from the east coast)

this week has been a good one and a bad one. we had zone conference yesterday and that was so super spiritual and then today has just been miserible cause we haven't gotten along that well today and it is soooo super hot and humid!!! its horrible! :( aaaahhhhhh training is so much harder than i thought and wanted it to be. im ready to have a new place now. i am getting tired of ames. its really fun here and the members are so great but i just need a change of scenery. i wish i could be somewhere for a less amount of time. that way i don't get so comfortable. well i don't know what else to tell ya for this week. we are just getting over a really bad cough so thats not helping the situation either. im gunna be done complaining now.

thats about it for now. i hope you don't feel so lonely momma. i love you so much and have been feeling very home sick lately. lots of wishing i could be home and with you guys and playing soccer and adi. i miss my dog. anyways...i love you all and miss you and can't wait to hear from you again!

love

Elder Jens Smith

day 340 Questions and Answers

What kind of spider do you think that was?  

i have no idea what kind of spider that was!! it was huge though and i have never seen a spider living that close to a house that was that big before.

Can you believe it's 11 months!!  And christian is 8?  

holy cow i just have almost one more month and i will be out for a year and then its the down hill slide from then!! then i can actually call my self trunky! if you've been out for less than a year then your just home sick but after your out for a year then your trunky. :) haha funny. :)

Got any questions for me?  

mmm...how are your chickens doing? how many do you have now? how many eggs do you get?

What prospective members are you teaching?  Still got all your prospective baptisms?  Did R. ever get baptized?  

well so we aren't allowed to give out investegators names but we do have four baptismal dates set up. one if for the thirtieth of this month, and the other three are for the 7th of july. pretty sweet! ryan moved back to minnisota after school got out and we called him and he has started meeting with the sister missionaries there in his area and he now is going to be baptised on the 30th of this month!!!!! so crazy!!!

 

day 332

well this week went by pretty fast. we had something happen that i wish we could have been a part of back in utah. i wish they would have promoted it more if we did have it but we were able to have with us for three days "mini missionaries." they did a called to serve program and all the priests in the stake were scattered and were placed in different places and we got this big guy from mason city and this smaller guy from fort dodge. i didn't remember him but he did look familiar. his last name didn't ring a bell either. it was a pretty sweet experience. we learned a lot from them of how we were when we were 18.

oh man, i wish i could start coaching a team!! i miss soccer so much!!! 

and it looks like the smith family is getting hurt all over the place! especially on the wrists! nothing has happend to me yet so i prolly just jinxed myself with that. i will let you know what happens... ;) haha

we have 4 investigators with a baptismal date so hopefully we are able to get them to the waters of baptism! they are all so sweet!  the first one is a lady who we found while tracting and she is about 40 years old and has had some traumatic things happen to her in the past and she wants those things to all go away! her baptism is one the 23rd of this month!

the second is this man who has had some prollems and has really worked to change his life around and it all stems from the book of mormon! he has read it once already and is now re-reading it! his baptism is one the 7th of july. 

the next is a little girl who is 14 and is from a part member family. they are going great and are coming to church pretty regularly and the two sisters one who is 14 is the one getting baptised and her sister went and bore their testimonies in sacrament the week before last! it was way cool to see the transformation in them. her baptism is on the 6th of july and is going to be in utah.

the last but not least is a lady who is about 23/24. she is asian and her parents have some friends in utah who are members of the church and they went to visit them while they are in the U.S. so they went over there and their friends took this family to temple square and they absolutley loved it! they came back and the dad wants to be baptised but he only speaks mandrin chinese so they want their daughter who is the girl with the baptismal date to learn about the church and she as well wants to be baptised!! she was a student here at ISU but just graduated thats why her parents are here from china. she is going to grad school in miami in august and so we are trying to teach her and baptise her before she leaves here. so its going really well here in ames!!! i love it here and am going to be sad when i leave in a month.

thats about it for now!! i love you and miss you so much!! the first pic is of me and UTAH Dr. awesome!!!! the second is of a spider that we found while doing some service for this guy and it was just down in this little egres window place. hugh!!! thats a quarter!!! bigger than a fidy cent piece!! just a normal spider!

love

Elder Smith

Must be a spider theme week

The other Elder Smith sent home a vidyo of a huge spider too!

day 332 Questions and Answers

What does exact obedience mean to you?  

exact obedience means following the spirit to the most exactness as i can. sure there are rules of the mission and yes we much stive to keep them but the spirit is the most improtant thing to follow in this work. so there for we need to listen to the spirit every second of our lives.

Best thing that happened this week?  

best thing that happend this week was we had a family that i really really enjoy make some costa vida yesterday!!! mmmmmm so good!! it totally reminded me of home! :)

What is something that you learned this week?  

something that i learned this week is that while tracting is great the real work is in the members. yes the missionaries help a lot but the members are where its at. its about finding your friends who don't have the key in this gospel. 

Do you write in your journal? regularly?  

mmm i try really hard. there is no real excuse as to why i don't. its off and on. some weeks im pretty good and some im just horrible. :( 

day 325

well this was a quick week. yet another week passes by and it seems like a day. wow. its amazing how the lord makes time pass us by when we are doing what we are suppossed to be doing. i love this work and am so thankful for this opportunity to serve here in the Iowa Des Moines Mission! i love it!!!! i used to think that people who served in the states were not as cool as those going out of the states and still think it would be way cool to have gone out of state but i think it is so much harder here than it would be in a mission outside the US.

anyways...that is sooo cool that you talked about them in church and primary! i talked about them in sunday school. the sunday school teacher likes to ask everyone about things we have read during our scripture study but no one ever responds to that so he asked me to raise my hand and say one that i liked this week as i read cause he knows that we study every morning. so i raised my hand and told him about the same scripture that i told you! way cool!

so payden got called to a sign language mission?! thats super sweet! i think he will like sign language. we have a deaf family in our ward and i really enjoy watching them translate for them and also watch them interact with their kids. yesterday we saw them playin around before church and it was pretty neat

... and i was kinda hopin for the US to beat canada  (in soccer) but it doesn't surprise me that they only tied. hope that their new coach can pull things together and start things off good for the US team. 

oh man i miss goin fishin with nate! and i miss the puppy!!! i can just imagine sunny and adi playin and being just tuckered out. haha funny!!! miss that dog!!

  

i miss you guys so much!!! i love you too!!!

love

Elder Jens Smith

day 325 Questions and Answers

Did you get the last installment of Christian's letters? Are they funny to you?  

no i haven't gotten his letters yet. hopefully in the next few days i will.

You said in your last letter that you had 20 rooms in your apartment...does that mean every single room? like bathrooms and such? Or what did you mean?  

oh hahaha in our personal appartment! we have just one bedroom and one bathroom and one bigish living room. i will take another video and send the sd card home for you. i have a couple of videos on there for ya. they just wont fit on the comp.

What's your best day this week and why?  

best this week was being able to help this man who is going through a divorce, his kids who lived downstairs and are now kicked out of the house trashed the down stairs, and has to watch his grandchildren almost every day with re-painting and basically rebuilding his house! it feels so nice to help someone who is in need. and we heard talk about how a lady accross the street from this guys house could use some service sometime! amazing what serving other people/Heavenly Father (mosiah 2:17) can do to someone's spirit! espicially mine! loved it!

How was playing soccer last week?  

oh man it was soooooooo great to be able to touch a ball again! outside! so good! and i got a nice tan line from that now my arms don't look so pasty white! :) haha