Week 52

AREA: North Las Vegas (Goldcrest & Samoan) 
COMPANION: Elder Woffinden

I hit my year mark!  Things go by so fast!  I wish I had more time but
I don't!  Sorry!  I'm having a great time here in Vegas.  I got to go
on splits in my greenie area and saw lots of people I remember and it
was cool!  We saw lots of miracles and blessings!  Sorry for such a
short email! 😭

Love you guys and and I know Heavenly Father loves all of us!

This was my celebration to my year mark.  Haha not very exciting
especially since that was my dinner for that night! Fruit punch and a
rice crispy isn't very filling but we to many lessons to eat dinner.

Week 51

AREA: North Las Vegas (Goldcrest & Samoan) 
COMPANION: Elder Woffinden

Hey!

This week has been great!  We had lots of miracles in our area and in
the zone.  It's still weird to me that I'm a leader of almost 30
missionaries.  But it hasn't been to bad, I get to know what's
happening in the mission and help people with concerns or problems
they have.

Anyway my new area is awesome.  I cover the Goldcrest Ward (English
speaking) and the Samoan Ward!  I'm not speaking Samoan but I do cover
that Ward due to so little population of Samoan's in Las Vegas.  The
ward covers the whole valley so we cover the whole mission basically.
And the church building we meet at is out of our mission but have
permission to go there.  The funny thing is is that my sister, Amy,
and Taylor were at that Sacrament meeting for some reason but they
didn't say hi because of rules.  They did sit two rows behind me and
took a picture of me.  I had no idea they were there.  Crazy!

The Goldcrest Ward has a few ghetto areas but I'll be okay.  We find
lots of people to teach!  Lots of people out and about.

We are teaching a few people with a date.  There's an older lady we
are teaching named Shelly who is preparing to be baptized on August
12th but she is having health problem and is in the hospital.  We
visited her last night and had a lesson and gave her a blessing,
really cool visit, she is the sweetest lady.

We are also teaching a guy named Jason and he has a disability but
we've been working slow with him and brought him to a baptism that
someone had in our zone and he really liked it and said he can't wait
till he gets baptized!

Also working with a family named Michael and Mark Russum and they have
a date for late August!  They are doing great!

Overall awesome week!  Learned a lot about continuing to apply the
Gospel of Jesus Christ in all that we share.  Also recognizing the
Lords hand in your everyday lives!  Super important!  Don't rely on
your own knowledge, rely on the spirit!

Love you guys and miss you!

Seeing Elder How at a leadership meeting!

On the way to our Samoan Ward that we cover (which is out of
mission!) and it gets a bit ghetto and lots of homeless people all
over the streets living. Pretty sad.

My new Companion Elder Woffinden, he's great!  He goes home after
this transfer! Killing off another Elder!

My sister's pic of me in the Samoan ward!

Week 50

AREA: Lone Mountain   
COMPANION: Elder Michaelis 

Hey!

Sorry but I'll have to be short, it was transfers today and I am going
back to my last zone!  I'm going back to my same apartment complex but
I will be serving as a Zone leader this time!  I don't feel ready but
the Lord ahead called me so I will report to duty lol!  It's crazy, I
haven't even trained yet and that's the one thing I really wanted to
do!  But it's all good, I'll get the chance later on.

Anyway I just want to talk about what miracles I've seen in my week!
So first off, the couple that we set with a date last week (Marquan
and Misty), we saw them again a Monday night and asked if we could
come inside and have a sit down lesson.  He said said so we went in
and sat down and asked if there is anyone else in the house who is
interested in learning about Jesus Christ and he yelled upstairs and
asked if anyone else wants to go to church and 3 kids come down stairs
and sit down to listen.  The oldest is 16, her name is Ayanna and she
actually has a two year old daughter also lives with her boyfriend so
that's a little bit of a problem to solve.  And two other boys who are
12 and 10!  And we taught them the Restoration and set them all with a
baptismal date!  They love the gospel and came back the next day and
they all read and want to go to church!  But sadly they didn't end up
going to church but still lots of miracles alone just in that
household.  They unfortunately didn't come to church but they are
awesome I'm sad I don't get to continue teaching them but Elder
Michaelis is training so he has a great area to train!

We also met another guy Friday and set him with a date on Sunday night!  Really awesome last night in my area.

Also had Ruby's baptism on Saturday and it was a miracle we were able
to help her pass the interview and she passed and she was so happy on
Saturday and the members were awesome fellowshipping her and talking
to her and her Mom!  Awesome week.  We worked really hard for my last
week and saw many many miracles.  It was crazy!

Love you guys and hope you can reach out to your friends and people in
your ward to help fellowshipping them because there are a lot of
people that leave the church because of lack of people caring they are
there so involve everyone and because they are your family.  We are
all sons and daughters of God!  I love my mission and but it's going
to fast!

Love you,

Elder Smith

Ruby's baptism!

Skylar Wichert, we've been teaching her for a while and set her
with a date to be baptized on the 19th of August!  She is dating a
return missionary from Argentina and we actually found Skylar through
tract so pretty awesome!

Last district of the transfer!

On 7/11, we got free slurpees!

Exchanges with Elder Tecson!

Good meal at our apartment that we picked up from a member!

Week 49

AREA: Lone Mountain   
COMPANION: Elder Michaelis 

This week was overall really good, even though three of our major
investigators were out of town but they are back now.  We had quite a
bit success with our current investigator Ruby and found a couple
more.

Ruby is set to be baptized for the 15th of July so Saturday and we are
still preparing her for that. We have gone over everything again and
still struggling due to her 3rd grade reading level and not very good
memory.  But we received direction from our Mission President that we
can talk to our bishop and see if she is ready to be baptized and if
so we will have the interview and move forward with the baptism this
Saturday.

Then Logan, Skylar and Monique have been out of town so haven't been
able to get in with them. 😢

Then we met two new investigators on Saturday. There names are Marquan
and Misty, they are interesting.  We street contacted into them and
Marquan looks like he could drug dealer but everyone needs the gospel.
Also his GF/wife looks like she may have been a stripper at one point.
We taught them on Saturday and Sunday and when the Assistants to the
President were on exchanges with us Sunday Elder Call asked if they
want to be baptized and they said yes so they have a baptismal date.
Awesome week, we are having transfers next week so I'll find out
what's happening!


I love our Father in Heaven and his Jesus Christ!

Sorry I'm in a hurry and have to go!  Love you!

My district meeting on the 4th of July, pretty fun!  Awesome Elders!

Bored with some washable tattoos haha!  We had to be in by 6pm on
the 4th of July and Elder Michaelis got a package of cheap $1 store
items that he didn't want so I put those tattoos to good use.

4th of July BBQ with members!  Awesome family! He's my Ward
Mission leader.

Week 48

AREA: Lone Mountain   
COMPANION: Elder Michaelis 

This week was a lot better!  We were able to teach Ruby twice and a
new investigator named Logan.  Ruby is doing alright, we've been
teaching her a lot preparing her for baptism on the 15th.  She is
having a hard time with keeping information in and she needs to be
able to understand a few things before she is baptized and she forgets
everything or doesn't comprehend what we teach.  We will be making
flash cards to help her remember!  Other than that she is doing great
and coming to church every week!

Logan is a 11 year old who is a grandson of someone in our ward who is
staying here for the summer and he wants to be baptized so we set him
with August 5th.  He is a really cool kid and he's smart.  He will be
out of town for a little bit for the 4th so we will teach him when we
get back.

Our other two investigators are out of town as well till July 9th so
this week may be slower, mostly just teach Ruby this week and find.

Good week overall, and something I've been thinking about lately is
the importance of having faith as a missionary.  Without faith you
won't get anything done because God won't give you miracles if you
don't think they are ever going to come.  So it's important to have
faith in yourself and in the Lord in our everyday life.  Some ways we
can have faith is by praying for faith and staying positive and happy.

Love you guys and have a great 4th, we have some members that we are
going to to have a BBQ, should be fun then we have to be in by 6pm so
not sure what we will do?  Hope you have a great holiday!

Week 47

AREA: Lone Mountain   
COMPANION: Elder Michaelis 

So I'm not feeling so great today or the past three days.  I'm feeling
a little better today but I was sick from Thursday night to now.  I
have had a fever, cough, throwing up, sore throat, it sucks!  But I'm
hoping to feel better soon.

We had a good week prior to me getting sick.  We had a few good
lessons with Ruby and Monique.  We have a lot of potential for things
to happen next week.  We have had a couple of solid referrals we will
teach next week and a lesson set up with a couple of potentials.
Sorry for another short letter but it was a rough weekend.

Week 46

AREA: Lone Mountain   
COMPANION: Elder Michaelis 

This week was pretty typical nothing to big stood out accept we got a
new car.  We found a guy to teach from street contacting and he is
pretty awesome, he works with a lot of members and wanted to know more
about the church and a coworker gave him a Book of Mormon.  That's
about the biggest thing that happened this week.  Being district
leader is alright, I had my first district meeting and went alright,
at least I think so.

Sorry to be short but ran out of time sorry!

Love you guys!