We Can Dansk if We Want To

Hello everyone!!! How are things going? The MTC is a fantastic place if anyone was wondering. On the first day they throw you into a classroom and the teacher starts speaking jibberish to you. And he doesn't stop. Ever. The first day was really confusing but it's getting better. I'm practically fluent. The next thing that no one told me is that you start teaching an investigator in your mission language beginning on your first Friday. Yes I started teaching in Danish on my third day.

My companion is Elder Sisco from Virginia. He is learning Finnish. We are the only Elders in our district so we are what are called solo missionaries. So when we are at class or meals and stuff we can be with two sisters from our district because its hard to be together all the time learning different languages in different classrooms. We found out our second day that we would become the zone leaders beginning our first Sunday. You may think why did they assign Elder Smith to be a zone leader? It is because we were literally the only option because all the other Elders in our zone left for the field on Tuesday. It's okay though. We got 5 new Elders on Wednesday and they are all great and fun.

The spirit here is great and always present. The meetings are amazing and we have devotionals on Sundays and Tuesdays. On Tuesday Elder Dale G. Renlund spoke to us. It was so good and he said a few things that stuck out to me.

Faith is kindled by the hearing of those who have faith.

Strong faith is developed by obedience in Jesus Christ.

Your faith does not increase until YOU act in faith.

He applied that to us missionaries because we have to kindle or start the faith in someone, but in order for their faith to grow we have to do our best to help them make the decision to act on their faith. It doesn't just apply to missionary work though. We all need to understand that in order for our faith to grow, we have to act on it and keep moving forward. I know that if we do we will be guided and our faith will increase.

Well I miss you all and pray for you daily! Shoutout to my mom for sending me dearelders every day. I love hearing from you all so let me know how you're doing! I love you all so much!

Love, Ældste Smith!

Hi! You should send me a package with the following items.

Food

Grey slacks

Food

A hug from my mom

A picture from cooper

More advice from dad

A box so I can send some stuff back that I don't need

I can't really think of anything I want or dont want right now. I still have mixed feelings about my scriptures. I have marked them a bit. I love the size. But they are also hard to read and hard to mark. I feel tempted to buy the brown leather separates or quad whenever I am in the bookstore. Especially since the Missionary discount in there is amazing. I think my camera will work fine. Don't really care what brand of slacks. I just want some grey ones that aren't super dark. You could just look at Tj Ross or Beales. I dunno. I like the quad for some things but other things I would like seperates. It's the same with the size thing. I'm just not sure. I have a beautiful triple combination in Danish that I wish I could read because it's so nice and I love it. Also what would you recomend for taking care of shirt collars. They have stain sticks that maybe I could use before washing them. Let me know if the pictures are okay.

Here are a few more

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It is crazy here haha. It is definitely hard to SYL. Finnish is not even close to Danish. I really like my teachers. The one actually teaching us the language gave us each a little interview the first week. He shared a scripture about God hastening the work. He said he knows that God is hastening the work, even in Denmark. He said he knows that on my mission I will change peoples lives and people will be baptised because of my efforts. I know that I might not baptize anyone but I do know that I can start someones faith and that my efforts won't go without results. My Pday is on Thursdays but we didn't get one last week. They just let us email for like literally three minutes. I found Elder Allred eventually and it was so exciting haha. I've been writing in my journal everyday. I'm pretty proud of myself. I'm sure you read my letter about my companion. Sunday was amazing. It's definitely one of my favorite days. I don't really miss yardwork at all. I do have a nice story about working though. So I was doing service on Wednesday and I was vacuuming a hallway and I realized I was on the hallway with all the Thai, Hmong, Vietnamese, and Cambodian classrooms. Then I moved to the next floor down and the whole floor was Philippines classrooms. Respectively you were in one of those classrooms (who knows how often they move around the classrooms). And I'm almost positive Aubrey was in one of the Tagalog classrooms. It was pretty cool and a nice comforting thought. This is hard especially learning a language and its good to know you guys understand. I'm getting good at doing all those little things that I had a hard time doing before. This has been good for me. I love you lots! Let me know how things are going. Write me a letter. Love Elder Smith.

Sorry I forgot to ask earlier. I need you to find any pictures of my elementary school classes especially 4th grade. I might have some in one of my under the bed boxes in a school memory book thing. Or maybe the filing cabinet thing. It's important. I met two missionaries just in my zone who were in my fourth grade class in Rigby. A Sister Peterson and an Elder Cole. Elder Cole just left for Norway but Sister Peterson will be here the whole time is. See if you can find any pictures and send them to me or email them to me.


I also forgot to tell you that the person who said she saw me was right. I guess they were testing the fire alarms and I happened to be in the shower. It was very annoying. Elder Sisco was out there in just a bathrobe and towel hahahahaha. I managed to run to the room and grab shorts and a hoodie. We were late to class and annoyed that we only got half a shower. haha 

First Email from the MTC!

HI! My first couple of days have been pretty crazy! After being rushed into the MTC I was rushed into a classroom where the teacher started speaking Danish and that is all he speaks to us. No English. My companion is Vanhin Sisco who is going to Finland. We are called solo missionaries which means we are the only elders in our district. My district consists of me and five sisters. I have to be with my companion or two of the sisters since there are no other elders for our languages. I'm very thankful that I am not learning Finnish because it does not sound very fun. haha. I just found out that me and Vanhin Sisco are the zone leaders beginning on Sunday. I don't have any more time but I love you and miss you! I'm alive and loving it!

Love Elder Smith!