Thanksgiving and getting ready for Christmas!

Well it was a good week! Last Monday Elder Hunt and I went and got a ton of Christmas lights for our apartment... (to be continued). We also went to the face to face with Elder Ballard and Elder Oaks and it was really good. It is cool to see the apostles answer hard questions so simply and clearly.

We had a good lesson with MaryAnn. She didn't come to church yesterday unfortunately, but things are going well with her.

We visited a few of the districs this week to talk about the Christmas initiative #LighttheWorld. I am excited for it and it goes along great with our zone goal Lift.

On Friday we had Birkerød on splits and that evening we put up all of our Christmas decorations. We had a lot of decorations in the closet of our apartment as well as the ones we bought on Monday. Needless to say our apartment is a Christmas wonderland. I will send pictures. 

Some members also put together a Thanksgiving dinner with all the americans in the ward, it was a lot of fun.

On Sunday we got invited by one of the senior missionary couples to come to their place for a Thanksgiving dinner as well. It was made by them and 3 other couples as well as Pres. and Sis. O'Bryant. It was a delicious dinner and a lot of fun.

I am excited for the Holiday season here and for the great spirit it brings remember that this time isn't about ourselves. In 1 Theselonians 5 it says that the will of God and Jesus Christ for us is to give thanks. We talked a bit  about why and I think it has to do with the fact that gratitude turns us outward. It humbles us and brings us closer to God. Be grateful and show it. Serve others and give them something to be greatful for. It will be a great blessing in the end.

I love you all. Have a great week!

Love, Elder Smith


To Dad:

I'm glad you still remember when I was born. Your memory isn't completely gone yet. haha. I think I feel the same. My companion reminded me that about a fourth of my life is over now so that is a bummer. They haven't sung the birthday song yet at zone conference but they probably will this coming one. 

Sometimes I miss being a little boy too. I am glad I am where I am now though. I think I am a better person. I had a personal study this week where I thought about how the gospel changes people. I was thinking about how it has changed me. I made a list of things that were most important to me before the mission and now. It was cool. Not everything on the list changed completely but my priorities are definitely different. It was cool.

I'm glad Cooper is getting into fishing. It would be awesome to plan a fishing trip together. I miss fishing a lot.

I'm glad your Thanksgiving was good. We had a couple good dinners as well so that was great :)

I wish the weather here was warm. It is getting colder and colder and colder and colder.

I love you lots dad. Have a good week.

Love, Elder Smith

Hey Mom! I love you! 

Thanks for the birthday wishes. We haven't done anything just yet, but we have some good plans for the day. I haven't looked for shoes yet, but we will be in Copenhagen a bit today and next Monday so I will keep an eye out. I haven't gotten any birthday letters yet. One from Grandma Howell a couple weeks ago.

I'm glad you had a good thanksgiving. Ours went well as well. I'm glad we have some good members here. That is crazy that the weather is so warm. It's not like that here, unfortunately.

We sing sometimes. It is fun having a singing companion. Sister O'Bryant asked us to find some piece of music to play or sing for the Christmas zone conference so we will see what we can find.

The lift goal is going well. We have just been trying to apply it whenever and wherever we can. Lifting all the people we talk to rather than being a burden. We are also working on lifting our zone and loving every member. We come up with the zone goals ourselves.

We haven't met with the lady again yet, but we texted her and she said she would get back to us. We will probably text her again soon.

That is cute with the little boy wanting to see your violin. Too bad you couldn't let him hold it.

Yeah I remember Holly Days not being that exciting. I think I only went there one year on a double date with Courtney and Aubrey and Michael.

Well thanks for being such and awesome mom. I love you lots. Have a super good week. :)

Love, Elder Smith

Is that today?

We had a busy week. We planned a zone goal this transfer focused on lifting others. Applying "lift" to everything we do as missionaries. Everyone seems pretty excited about it. We visited the districts to present that goal and everyone is doing well. There are some great missionaries in the zone this transfer. 

Elder Hunt and I have been getting along great and we are working extra hard. We had some great lessons with our investigators and we were supposed to have 3 of them in church yesterday. Unfortunately they all called either Saturday evening or Sunday morning and cancelled...

Funny story about Sunday. So like I said last week I was asked to give a talk on tithing. I completely forgot. On Sunday Elder Hunt and I are happily sitting in our seats and the second counselor comes and gets me and asks aren't you speaking today. I said yeeeaaahh... So I was the first speaker and during sacrament and the opening songs I was just wracking my brain for any and every experience I have had for myself and with investigators concerning tithing. It went well I think. I at least had a few things to say and felt fine about it. 

A cool experience we had this week started out less cool. We had an appointment with one of our new investigators and as we arrived she said she was busy. As we tried to find another time she said it wasn't worth it and dropped us. We decided to go out finding and knocked for a bit. It was going okay with a couple potentials, but then as we were walking we saw a mom pushing a stroller. I was reluctant to talk to her because it was pretty dark and it looked like she might be Muslim, but we decided to stop her and start talking. She said she wasn't too interested, but we asked if we could give her something to read. She said yes and we pulled out a Book of Mormon and started to tell her a bit about it. This sparked her interest and she started asking questions. How does a Mormon live? Why do bad things happen to good people? We walked with her as she pushed her stroller with her newly baptized son. We read a bit from 2 Nephi 2. She told us she normally would never talk religion with people, but she also said she doesn't think it was just coincidence we met her and started talking that night. She said she would read the chapters we gave her and she is excited to meet again. We are as well.

The Lord places us in the right place at the right time. He knows our needs and he will make sure we have what we need. I love you all and hope you have a great week! 

Love, Elder Smith

To Mom:

Happy Thanksgiving to you!!!

We will have a little Thanksgiving on Friday with some members so that will be good.

I haven't been looking for any shoes yet. I will let you know. The shoes here are a little different. Maybe a little more "fashionable" but not too different.

I'm glad you were able to find someone to teach the class. Missionaries are great.

Elder Hunt is way cool. He is good at a ton of stuff. He is really good at singing and likes guitar. So we get along pretty well. 

We are the zone leaders. It is going well. We just go on a lot of splits and give trainings every once in a while. We also find a goal for the zone to work on every transfer.

Well hopefully you aren't late for the Jazz game. Why didn't we go to Jazz games when I was at home? 

I love you lots and lots times three trillion billion. 

Have a good week!

Love, Elder Smith

To Dad:

Hey! I'm doing good. It has been a good week with Elder Hunt. We get along really well. We are both zone leaders. There is a family in the ward and the dad is from America so they are having kind of a Thanksgiving party on Friday that we are going to. Thanks for eating extra pie for me. It's not like I need it haha.

It is weird that time is going down. I still feel like I have a lot of time, but at the same time things like school and work and stuff seem to be coming quickly. I don't feel much emotion toward it right now haha. It is only annoying when members say I don't have much time left. I feel like so far my mission has gone great. I have changed and grown a lot. I have met a lot of my goals and I do still have some for the next while. I set some a while back for the rest of my mission and I have some for the rest of this year to work on. 

That's awesome you got accepted into BYU-I! That is too bad you can't take much of a break, but you're right. It is easier to keep going than to get started up again.

I am glad you liked Aubrey's boyfriend. I'm also glad the bathroom is done!

Well have fun at the Jazz game and at thanksgiving. I will miss you all. Tell the family hi and that I love them. Don't get mad at the family gathering :)

Have a good week! I did read that talk it was great thank you! Love you lots!

Love, Elder Smith

New transfer! New companion!

Well we had a good week. Reading the Book of Mormon last week for Pday was hard. We were extremely tired after it. It took 16.5 hours in reading total. I don't think I will ever do it again, but now I can say I have done it.

We had a pretty normal week otherwise I would say. We had splits with the Elders from Ballerup and I was with my past companion Elder Stephens. That was fun. I love seeing old companions.

We had another big project in Copenhagen on Strøget. We gave out tons of Books of Mormon and talked to a lot of people.

We got transfers on Saturday and got the news that Elder Whitaker was leaving. He is on his way to Bornholm. My new companion is Elder Hunt from Sandy. He has been out for a little over 9 months. We are going to have a super good time.

Well I can't think of much else. I found out I will be giving a talk next Sunday on tithing so we will see how that goes.

As the cold sets in remember the things that bring warmth and happiness into our lives. Daily scripture and prayer will bring the spirit into our lives even when it gets a little dark and cold outside.

I love you all and hope you have a great week!

Love, Elder Smith

Hey Mom! 

Yes I got the money okay. Thank you. It will be plenty.

We got the book read but it was really really really hard. I don't think I ever want to try it again. The only cool thing was that I can say I've done it and it was cool seeing Every story come and go as we read.

That is sad that you had to go to funerals, but I'm glad you were able to play at them. I'm sure the people there really appreciated it.

What happened with the double booking? Oops... haha.

Haha your RS story makes me laugh. Yesterday our Elders quorum teacher didn't show so another guy said he would do the lesson. He basically did the same thing. Just asked all the missionaries questions. 

I got a new companion Elder Hunt! That is sad that Elder Johansen is getting transferred. His dad was telling me at stake conference last week that they baptized a Danish man that lived in Vernal! Crazy right?!

That is super sad about the Evans. Do you know anything about why? That made me really really sad. I don't know them that well, but I know he was the ward mission leader when I left. 

Here are the answers to your questions.

1. I can't really think of anything too weird that happened.

2. We had two with Nicklas but no members.

3. Nicklas took us to a place called Jensen's Bøfhus and I got ribs. It was super tasty.

4. We go to the basement of our building and pay 10 crowns a wash for the washing machines down there. 

5. There are a lot of pets and it depends. Not usually out in public, but some have them at home and they are really really annoying.

I love you lots and lots and lots and lots and lots and lots. Have a good week.

Love, Elder Smith

Hey Dad!

I am doing great. New companion! We are going to have a good time. 

That is sad that Elder Johansen is leaving. Did you ever get to feed him again? I saw his family at stake conference last week and that was great.

I hope all goes well with the boy haha. It would be a shame if you had to kill him. I guess he is already doing good things though if he got you to finish the bunkhouse. Can you remember that place when we first started it? It's pretty impressive what it is now. You will have to send me some pictures of the finished shower. 

That is nice that you have had the new work truck. Sounds like it is going to get some use haha.

I hope you get accepted into BYU. It will be worth it. It would be sad if you gave up after all that hard work.

I'm not ready for the cold. I'm just glad we have a car in this area I think that will make it better...

I love you lots and lots. Thanks for being my dad. Have a good week. 

Love, Elder Smith

Elder Sabin and stake conference

Hey everyone! It has been a good week!

We did a lot of finding throughout the week and we had splits with the Elders in Frederiksberg. I was with Elder Merrill and we had a lesson with one of their new investigators. It went super well and she commited to be baptized in January. They are in our ward so I will still be able to see her progress. She was in church yesterday so that was cool. 

On Thursday we had a zone conference and Elder Sabin from the seventies came and talked to us. It was super good! He talked to us about the gospel and what it leads us to, and how we can best bring it to others. It was cool, he started off the meeting by saying he wasn't going to tell us anything new, but things we already know. He said to listen to the spirit and we would learn a lot. And we did!

On Friday we had an MLC with Elder Sabin at the mission home and that was amazing too! We talked about how we could apply everything from the conference to the mission and help them in that way. It was so cool learning from a general authority.

Saturday evening we had the adult session of our stake conference and that was really good. Yesterday we had stake conference as well. It was awesome to see members from my very first ward and from the Nykøbing branch. I miss a lot of them and it was fun to talk to them. Especially the ones I couldn't understand when I last talked to them.

That's all I could think of for this week. We find out on Saturday about transfers. I will probably be getting a new companion so we will see what happens. We are reading the Book of Mormon for Pday today. Literally, the whole thing today. We are already finished with Alma. I will let you know how it went next week. 

Anyways. Love you all. Have a good week!

Love, Elder Smith 

Hey Mom!

I don't have much time today because we are trying to read the entire Book of Mormon today.

Well surprise for birthday/Christmas. Yesterday we were at the office doing some zone things and when we got back to the car there was a parking ticket. We forgot to set the parking clock thing in our car. So that is 750 crowns or 120 dollars. We are going to split it and each pay 60 so shoes can wait a while.

I'm glad you got a hike in and that you get hikes in. Is it getting cold yet?

Taastrup is my least favorite mostly because of scenery. It just doesn't feel like cozy Denmark.

Zone conference was awesome. He put a lot of work into it. I got all the scriptures studied, and they were awesome.

I will send you some pics of my apartment tomorrow.

My companion and I get along really well.

I can't think of the most discouraging moment. 

The happiest was probably that when we were on splits we put the other elders investigator on baptismal date!

I love you lots mom! Have a good week!

Love, Ældste Smith

To Dad:

Hey! I'm doing pretty good. Not super excited for winter. It is definitely getting darker and darker here. Haha that sounds like a good paper for your class. Good luck.

I'm glad you finally got a new truck! It's about time! 

Well I'm sorry I have to go. I am emailing at the mission office and one of the senior missionaries has to use this computer. I love you dad. Thanks you for everything.

Have a good week!