Fastelavns!

Well it's been another week already. Time is just flying by. The transfer ends next Monday so I will find out if anything is changing next Monday. I am hoping I stay here in Aalborg with Elder Halling. Things are pretty good here.

This week was fun. We had a zone conference in Århus on Wednesday and that was good. We talked a lot about inviting people to church and teaching the importance of church. We also talked about working and building our relationships with members, which went well with our experience from last week.

On Thursday we traveled out to Aabybro to visit some less active members. All of them were home. All of them had been away from the church for a very long time and weren't interested in coming back for now. That was pretty sad but it was good to give them a visit.

Thursday night we ate at flammen again. The meat buffet. It was awesome. It's good to go out every once in a while when your main staple of life is rice or pasta. :)

We had a fastelavns party at the church on Saturday. Fastelavns is a holiday here where everyone dresses up. They have a special pastry for it (delicious), and a lot of fun games. One of them is where they put a black cat in a barrel and beat the barrel with sticks until the cat dies and the barrel breaks apart (it's to get rid of bad luck). They don't do the cat in the barrel thing anymore, but they do it with popcorn or treats so it's fun enough for me.

That's about everything exciting that happened this week. I thought I would tell you about a study I had this week. I studied Christ's Atonement, because I made a goal that I want to understand it more. Reading and learning about it has been so good. I still can't explain it perfectly, but I know it works and I know that it is the way. I hope all of you are striving everyday to take advantage of the blessing of the atonement and turn your wrongs into rights. It isn't always easy, but it is always worth it when you experience the true joy and happiness that comes from the atonement. 

Have a great week and smile! I love you all!

Elder Smith

Dear Mother,

I can hear you loud and clear! I'm glad I'm here too. It's worth it. If you ever decide to come to Denmark I will gladly be your tour guide.

That doesn't sound fun with the car. It is really annoying when random things happen that just cost money. I'm sorry about the bike and that it happened at the same time. It was embarrassing because I should know how to clean them without breaking them. It is working now though so that it good. After walking so much last week, I am glad to have it back.

I didn't write down a funny story... I guess I'm not good at remembering things or having funny things to tell. 

I'm glad you went for a walk in the sun. The sunlight is precious. It has rained the past couple of days which isn't so nice in the cold. Sometimes Denmark weather is alright temperature-wise, but I'm not a fan of the rain and wind. It gets way to cold when you are on a bike.

We walked around for a while, but we weren't in our area and the town was so small there weren't many people to talk to, but we did give out a book of mormon.

We gave up stracciatella yoghurt haha. It is a really thick vanilla yoghurt with chocolate chips in it. It is really really good. She texted and said it has been really hard. She said she didn't have coffee 3 days out of 8. Not perfect, but she is trying which is awesome. We are going to try to get her to come to church this week. 

I love you lots too. I'm sorry if I don't say that much to you in my emails. I try to say most things on my group email, but I'm not very good at remembering things like stories. I will always answer questions though. My apartment right now is pretty big. We have a room for our desks and study and a living room to relax. The food is still good. I don't think I have eaten anything weird recently. There are a lot of little differences here but nothing to extreme. People here have a very liberal view. They aren't so talkative or outgoing but they are usually nice. They just keep to themselves a lot and don't like to do very much. Denmark is pretty worldly. Even though the food here is good, I miss a lot of american food. They don't have a lot of things here and a lot of the things they do have are really expensive. A jar of peanut butter is almost 10 dollars. I miss a lot of American candy too. The streets here are cool and the roads look nice in cobblestone, but sometimes the big functional roads in america are nicer. Sometimes a pastry is better than in america but you can't get a good donut here. There are tons of things good about both and plenty not as good. You should send a package later this spring with some easter candy I can't get here. Like jelly beans and cadbury eggs and reese's. I still have to send you something I got for you around christmas time.

I haven't written you all in a while so I will try to soon. I love you lots mommy! Share your email with the rest of the family because theirs were short and I don't have much time. Have a good week!!!

Love, Elder Smith

Dear Dad,

I'm doing good. It has been a fun week. We don't really have any investigators besides E. I learned some new things about the atonement this week. The language is going well. It is hard though because I keep making grammar mistakes. We are struggling with finding people. We haven't found any new investigators this transfer. Lot's of potentials but no new investigators.

That is a crazy story with the snow. We don't really have any snow anymore. It sounds like it has been pretty crazy over there, though. I'm glad you made it out though. That would have been pretty bad to be stuck up there. You have had a lot of fun delays lately. 

Mom sent me the What is Truth talk so I will be sure to read it. It looks really good.

That is so crazy that all those people will be getting their calls. Time is going by so fast. I still feel like I just barely started. 

Well I'm sorry I don't have a lot of time. I hope you have a good week. I love you.

Love, Elder Smith

Sunshine!

Hey everyone! Denmark is finally starting to warm up a bit. Fingers crossed that it keeps warming up. I have also seen the sun a few times this week. 

Nothing too exciting this week. I went on splits with Elder Preece this week. We decided to visit someone in a small town in the middle of nowhere. We took a bus out to a small town where we were to switch to another bus to a smaller town. Our bus to the first town was late so we missed the other bus. We ended up being stuck there for over an hour before we could take the next bus back to Aalborg. It was a big waste of time. But it was fun hanging out with Elder Preece.

We did a lot of knocking the second half of the week and we found a ton of people. They are all just super busy so that will take some time. 

On Friday there was something making a lot of noise on my bike so I decided to figure out what it was and fix it. I started taking it apart and concluded that it was just extremely dirty. I took everything apart and cleaned it. When I was putting it back together I figured out that I did something wrong with the brakes and had to take my bike to the bike shop. So we have been walking the past couple days. It's pretty embarrassing. Oh well.

On Saturday we had an awesome lesson with our investigator Eniko. We talked about prophets and the word of wisdom, which are two pretty big things. She was pretty reluctant to give up coffee but we agreed to give up our favorite dessert while she gives up coffee. 

Yesterday we visited a couple of less active members. They only had a couple of minutes, but we came in and shared a scripture about reading the words of Christ and how they can help us (2 Nephi 32:3) They shared with us how much they had seen the scriptures help them in their lives and how it has been really hard since they have stopped reading and coming to church. They want us to come back and help them come back to church. The spirit was so strong!

The words of Christ can really teach us everything we need to know. If we follow his example as closely as we can, we are doing exactly what we need to be doing. It is amazing how the Book of Mormon and other scriptures can give us the strength we need to do hard things and to grow and learn. I invite you all to continue reading and learning from the scriptures as much as you can. 

I love you all and hope you have a great week! Stay warm and stay happy. 

Love, Elder Smith

Hey mother,

Well I had a little problem with the brakes on my bike the other day and it is in the shop now. I have to pick it up tomorrow at 3 and I will have to pay like 300 crowns for it. Or 50 dollars. So that sucks. But it would be nice if you could transfer it to my card when you see this so I can pay for it tomorrow. I love you! Thanks!

 Your expensive son and favorite missionary,

Elder Smith

Hi Mom!!

Your life is still pretty interesting. You have done a lot this week.

That is so crazy that Lindsey is married. It is pretty crazy all of the things my friends have been doing. It's kind of sad though too. Things are never the same. Changes are weird.

Sorry about all the dumb money things. I wrote about the brakes in my big email. It was just dumb and annoying and frustrating, but I have my bike now and it works.

It sounds like you guys had an awesome stake conference. That sounds like a really good talk. I love Savior Redeemer of my soul. It makes me cry. We had a good stake conference last week too. There were some good talks.

I don't have very many funny stories. I guess I will have to look a little closer this week and write one down for you. I promise I will. 

I wish Aubrey would come visit me for the weekend. I would like to go for a 10pm walk. It has just started warming up a bit here, but I spoke a bit too soon. Most of today has been rainy and windy, so not too pleasant. It's alright though I'm sure I will see the sun again one of these days.

Thank you for thinking about Eniko. I am so excited for her and hope everything keeps going the way it has been. I am just worried for the later lessons on things. We really don't have a lot more investigators besides Eniko. We have a lot of potential investigators and people we are trying to get appointments with, but we have had a slow transfer besides Eniko. We have only found 2 new investigators in a month.

I love you lots and lots and lots and lots and lots and lots and lots and lots and lots and lots times 10000000 to the power of 10 times 6!

Have a good week.

Love, den bedste missionær søn som du har.

Hey pops,

It has been a pretty good one. It was harder at the beginning but it got a lot better. The bike thing was just really annoying and dumb. Eniko is still progressing. She has committed to live the Word of Wisdom this week. Luckily she has no problems with smoking or alcohol and just likes her coffee. I'm scared for the future lessons with her, but I know she can do it.

Ever since I left it seems like you have been doing a lot of different things and I think it's crazy that you found time for them and you are still doing it. I'm sure it's hard sometimes. We hardly ever have much planned when we start our day but it always seems like we run out of time way too fast. I have been doing good at working out in the morning. Still having a hard time eating well.

We had stake conference last week and it was really good. They did it in a little concert hall because the church buildings in our stake aren't big enough to hold everyone. I like how they talked about inviting. We can't force anyone to be ready. We can try and help them prepare, but the most important thing to do is invite. Nothing will ever happen if they aren't invited to do anything. They may be ready and not know it yet, so it is important to give them the opportunity. It sounds like you had a really good conference.

That is crazy that it has been a year since I opened my call. In a week I will have been in Denmark for 8 months. Time is flying.

Thanks for everything you do for me. I love you lots. Have a great week.

Love, Elder Smith

Tro

Hi everyone! Hope you have all had a good week. Things in Aalborg have been going swell. We got a lot of snow at the beginning of the week and have been freezing our tails off, but the sun usually comes out every two or three days!

We had a week full of knocking and teaching just like it should be. We had stake conference yesterday and there were some great talks. We sang part of "We'll Bring the World His Truth" with some of the primary children, and it was awesome.

Well I don't have much more to say because I'm excited to tell you our investigator Eniko has decided to be baptised on the first of April! When we first started teaching her she thought God hated her and didn't have much faith in Christ. Now she prays every day, reads from the scriptures, and is building her faith in Christ. It is going to be a big change for her, but I am really excited to work with her on the way to baptism. 

I don't have much else to say but I hope you are all striving every day to find faith in Christ. It isn't something we are born with and it is something that we should always be trying to build up.

Have a great week! I love you all!

Elder Smith

Dear Mom,

Things have been going good. 

That sounds like you had a fun time with Aubrey this weekend. 

There weren't too many pictures on the card. I tried formatting it so we will see if that works. I don't have a backup. I lost it in Holbæk.

I'm glad you have gotten perfect points. I don't think I have gotten perfect points the past few weeks. It has not been a too healthy time. But I am still working out. 

Elder Halling and I have a similar sense of humor. But we are pretty different in other ways. We have been doing really well together.

I'm glad I have clothes and a toe as well.

Hmmmm. I can't really think of a funny story. We were knocking one day and there were like 4 different people who answered without pants on, but that wasn't very funny.

There are always funny things going on that make me laugh. We are in a 4 man apartment and we laugh all the time. I don't know any specific stories. 

That is so crazy that Lindsey is getting married already. I'm glad you get to go to the ceremony. That's cool.

I love you lots and lots and lots. Keep Eniko in your prayers. Have a good week.

Love, Elder Smith

Dear Dad,

I'm doing good. I have learned a lot this week. Denmark is cold. The church is true. And missionary work pays off.

We have been extra busy. Lots of knocking and a lot of teaching, probably the most I've had of both. No major changes to our schedule. We just do language or companionship study at different times.

S.M.A.R.T. Goals reminds me of Timberline. I like smart goals. I always have a hard time with morning prayers. I usually do them, but I don't know how much I get out of them. It's hard to focus right when you get up.

Working out is fun. I have been doing pretty good at that. The new schedule lets us have an extra 30 minutes in the morning for exercise so I have been doing a little more.

You just need a missionary planner, it will help you plan your days haha. It's not to hard to find time to do things here. We aren't exactly loaded with teaching appointments, we have to choose lot's of different things to do.

I'm glad things are moving along. I can't wait for winter to go away. It's so cold. 

I miss you a lot. I love you a lot. Thank you for all the help and support. Keep Eniko in your prayers. She has a lot of changes to make in the next couple of months and I'm not sure how to teach them.

Have a good week.

Love, Elder Smith

Busier Every Day

It has been a very busy week and pretty crazy as well. We have had some great new things happen and I am excited for the coming days.

On Thursday the other Elders here in Aalborg moved into our apartment because the sisters moved into theirs because their apartment is getting repainted. So it's been pretty crazy in our apartment the past few days.

Elder Halling has also been sick the past few days so we have been switching off with the other Elders so we could still teach all of our lessons. We had two lessons with new people and they went great. Both of them want us to come back and teach them so I am excited for that.

We had a zone training on Friday and it was great. I'm sure most of you have heard that they came out with a new missionary schedule and we will see how it goes. It is taking some adjusting. The rest of the training was really good and I got a lot of new ideas on how to be a better missionary.

Our mission set a goal for this transfer to give out 2000 Books of Mormon. It has really helped us focus on the special message of the restoration and the Book of Mormon. It is what makes the LDS church different and it is the keystone of our religion. Our mission President challenged all of us to read the whole book within the next two months. I'm not very fast at reading, but I'm going to do my best to read it because I have done it before and the things that you learn from it are amazing. Every time the book is opened something special happens. Like Joseph Smith said "It will bring a man closer to God than any other book." I hope you would all take some time to read something from the Book of Mormon every day and really find out what it is and why it is so important. I know that you will learn something amazing.

I love you all and hope you have a fantastic week. Thanks for everything!

Love, Elder Smith

To Mom:

Hi! Sorry about the dropbox thing. I finally had my card thing to put pictures on from the past few weeks so I went to put them on and the whole computer just froze up and then I pulled out my card and it did something weird and all the pictures were gone. So that's awesome.

Haha yeah those are good pictures. I promise I wasn't flirting with the sisters or sleeping.
How is your challenge going? Are you winning? I haven't been so good at being healthy right now. It's hard. The other Elders moved into our apartment and Elder Preece likes to make deserts and things so it's pretty bad. I haven't been running lately for exercise. It's too cold. I just try to do some pushups or bicycles.

I always choked on water when I did backstroke too. So that's okay. I miss swimming.

Things are good with Elder Halling. He is very different from all my companions but he is great. We have pretty similar personalities with some things. Not a ton of common interests though. He is a hard worker. I don't know if he likes to run. Most people don't like it.
Sorry you couldn't find a perfect bow. I guess you'll have to keep looking. If you keep trying three at a time, you will always have 3 different bows to use.
The schedule isn't super different. We just have a shorter lunch and can move things around more. Like have studies in the evening if we wanted to.
My clothes are holding up alright. One of the pairs of CTR pants ripped by the pocket again. I'm not impressed. Everything is holding up though. The only clothes I have bought are a couple ties.

My toe is doing a lot better. Almost completely healed.

I am staying warm enough but it is pretty cold.

I did get my scripture case back and I still love my scriptures.
I love you too! You're my favorite mom!

I like the story about Aubrey. :)

Love, Ældste Smith

To Dad:

Wow. It sounds like the superbowl was a fun one to watch. Did you figure out how to watch it on our TV?

It hasn't been warming up here. It has been feeling a little colder actually. It snowed all day today. None of it stuck but it never stopped.

That is cool what Grandma told you. Maybe one day I will be the mission president here. I wish there was a way to find any family I have here and contact them. That would be cool.

I have looked through some of the family history stuff but there isn't that much. I really wish I could find a lot of the Danish resources from it. Like grandma sent me a autobiography written by Lauritz Smith, but it is translated to English. I want to read the Danish one.

Sounds like that would be a good Book of Mormon class. I love those chapters in 2 Nephi. I just studied chapter 4 on Tuesday. It was good. It is extra good when you have a hard time with temptations or feel that you aren't worthy.

I really liked the broadcast. It really made me think of some ways that I can teach better. I feel like I have been getting better and better at teaching. I love when our investigators seem interested and when they understand. The hardest part is getting them to do the things that we want them to do. I have been thinking of ways to entice them so that they want to do those things and try them. It's pretty hard though, because it's not really something that most Danes are interested in finding out about.

Thanks for everything. I love you lots. Have a good week. Be happy.

Love Elder Smith