Home!!!

See you all soon!

Well today is my last day in Denmark. We had a great week!

Our investigator Morten decided to start working towards baptism.

I got to go knocking on my last day as a missionary.

We taught primary in church yesterday.

I guess that's it. Thank you all for everything. I will see you soon! I will be speaking in church on Mother's day so I hope to see a lot of you there :) 

Love, Ældste Smith

I love you mom!

Thank you for being there for me my whole mission and for raising me right! I love you so much and I can't wait to see you. :)

Love, Ældste Smith

To Dad:

Hey I can't wait to see you. Please don't worry about me. I'm sure it will be hard wondering where I am and what I'm doing, but I'm not the same teenage boy that left 2 years ago haha. I will be okay. I don't know how much I am looking forward to all the hard stuff, but I am excited to learn. Thank you for everything you do for me and have done for me. I am so grateful for you. See you soon :)

Elder Smith

Last Week as a Full Time Missionary

We had a good week and were able to work hard and get a lot done. We had an appointment with our investigator Morten at Mikkel Olsen's home. The lesson went great and Morten really has the desire to gain a testimony. He came to church as well and learned about the priesthood. After that class he actually asked for a blessing to help him stop smoking. He is very solid and I wouldn't be surprised if he invites himself to baptism at our next lesson.

It is weird to be beginning my last week as a full time missionary. I am grateful for the time I have had and I am glad I still have another week.

It has been cool this week with the many teaching opportunities we have had this week. We have had quite a few chances to share truths and testimony. Each time I have walked away with a feeling of gratitude for the testimony I have. The knowledge of a loving Heavenly Father who has a plan for us. The comfort of knowing that there is something much deeper than this life. So grateful for the experiences I have had here on a mission that have expanded and deepened my testimony of the Savior and the gospel. I would invite you all to look at your testimonies from another perspective and make a goal on how you can deepen your testimony. The feelings that will come as you do those things will only be good feelings.

I love you all. Thank you for your love and support. I am looking forward to seeing you next week!

Love, Elder Smith

Hey Dad,

It is pretty crazy how fast time is going right now. I can't wait to see you all too. I wonder how much you all have changed haha. I didn't know President O'Bryant would send you a letter, that's cool.

That is a crazy week. I can't believe you just decide you're going to go out and run a marathon randomly. That's crazy! I'm glad your knee is feeling better and there isn't any permanent damage. So do you like your new calling so far? Have you interviewed a lot of the members of the quorum? Who will be my ministering companion?

I will be sure to pray for Cooper and I will try to spend a good amount of time with him over the summer. 

It is hard to think that I don't have much time left. I am so excited to come home and do new things, but it is always hard to leave something like this behind. I will never be able to do this type of missionary work again.

I love you lots Dad. Thank you for always being there for me and emailing me. I hope we can do a lot together this summer. I wish I would have spent more time with you before my mission but I guess I will have to make up for it. Well have a great week! See you soon!

Elder Smith

Hey Mom!

I'm glad you have work lined up for me to do. I need to stay busy! You make the list and I'll do it. I am pretty excited to see you all.

As far as exercise goes I will have to go to work at that when I get home as well.

I feel like I will probably just stay in our ward but I guess we'll see. I never thought of going to singles ward.

It would be good to contact that guy because I am definitely going to need to work during school as well.

The interview went really well! They just asked us about why we are here in denmark and what motivates us and stuff. It was really cool and we were able to share some great stuff.

Well keep enjoying life! I will see you soon! Love you!

Love, Elder Smith 

Time is going by so fast!

Well it has been another week already. Time is going by so fast!

We had another lesson with our investigator Morten this week. We showed him around the church and got him ready for Sunday. He had a great experience this week, much better than last week. He made a lot of friends and even got invited to dinner with us so things are going well with him. He is progressing quickly and even went all of church without smoking.

We have been doing a lot of knocking doors and contacting people on the street this week. We have a couple good people to work with, but we aren't finding too many new people.

Earlier in the week a guy came up to us on the street from the local newspaper and wants to interview us so we are doing that this Wednesday so that should be interesting.

Well I guess that's all for this week. Don't have much else to say. I love you all and I know that your heavenly father loves you even more. Don't forget to pray and tell him how grateful you are to be alive. Have a good week :)

Love, Elder Smith

Hey Mom!

Things are going well. The weather is getting soooo much better! Companion is good. Investigators are doing well, we just need more. Pass. Food is great! A little bit. :)

That is cool that you have ran all of the trails at McCoy flats. I can't wait to bike out there. That's awesome that you're able to do stuff without your wrist affecting you too much anymore.

I loved Elder Bednars talk on meekness! I actually just read a talk from him called "Walk in the Meekness of My Spirit" Where he talked about a lot of the same things. I hope to get a lot better at this too.

Dad will do a great job as Elders Quorum President. I can't wait for him to be my President haha. I wonder what kind of callings I will have. It will be weird having a different calling than full-time missionary.

Will hasn't said anything about it yet, but obviously he signed up for the same room haha. I feel like it will be good. Trust me, I am also concerned about being able to afford everything. I will do everything I can to work hard this summer and earn a lot of money. If you hear of anyone needing someone to do work please tell them I am willing and I will work hard haha. I have been praying that I will be able to figure it all out. Sometimes I feel regret, because I didn't work harder in school and get good grades and earn more money, but mostly I am just scared because I really don't want to have any loans. Oh well. I will figure it out.

Our investigator Morten is doing so well. He had a much better time at church and made so many friends which I know he didn't really have before. He is now going to go play hockey on Friday with some members and he is going to come with us to a dinner appointment sometime soon.

I made another little scriptural connection today with the blessings and physical spiritual stuff haha. D&C 130:20 and 21. Each law has specific blessings based on them. That's pretty cool. We shared that during a lesson this morning when teaching about commandments.

I love you lots. I can't wait to see you too. :)

Love, Elder Smith

Hey Dad!

I'm doing well. It was a pretty good week. The weather has been much better. Not much to prepare I guess. Are you preparing for me to come home? I don't think I am shipping anything home. I'm a little nervous but excited too.

I'm happy for you and your new calling. That will be cool and I'm glad you got good councilors.

Did you get good grades for your semester? I'm sure you'll be able to handle the next semester just fine. Are you learning a lot?

Have you kept track of all the miles you have ran since I have been on my mission? Sometimes I think you have probably ran more than I have biked. :)

I got my temple recommend renewed today so that Elder Woodforth and I can go to the temple one last time here in Denmark, so we will do that later this week.

I will work as hard as I can these next two weeks. I can't believe it is so close. It is hard to think that this won't be my everyday anymore. I sure am going to miss it. I am excited to see you though. I love you. Have a good week!

Elder Smith

Surprise email!

Hi Smith family
I know you will soon have your lovely son home again, but I am sure you never get tired of pictures😊
We just had your great missionary and son over for some media training and dinner. 
Have a great day
Cecilia Paulsen

Miracles

Hey everyone! It has been an awesome week! We have been working hard and waiting for success and this week we were able to find 4 new investigators. Two of them are very positive and we are excited to start working with them. They are also neighbors! One is an older lady from Norway and the other is a man from Canada who has lived here for four years. He told us he cannot guarantee he will be baptized, but he is very interested in learning what we actually believe in.

A couple miracles. We have been going through our area book and pulling out former investigators that may have potential. We pulled one out named Sarah who has not been taught for 8 years, when she was 18. We called and set up an appointment and found out it was in the other Elders area. They went and taught her yesterday and she was super positive. It was a miracle because the record had just been sitting in our area book for years while this lady was prepared and matured for the perfect time we could call her and set up the appointment. Another one happened because Elder Hunsaker and I were biking around in the freezing cold. I somehow thought of an old investigator I had visited last year the first time I was here in Aalborg. I felt like we should go visit her. We went and searched for a while, but we couldn't find her apartment. We went home and found her record and went by. Turns out she was in the process of moving and she had gotten a new phone number so if we would have waited much longer she would have been gone forever. We will hopefully meet with her soon. 

On Monday we went and saw this cool old lighthouse in the middle of nowhere and it was snowing so we got some cool pictures. I think that about wraps up most of what happened this week.

Those two little miracles really strengthened my testimony that the Lord really is leading and guiding us in His work. If we are ready to follow impressions and try our best, he will use us to work miracles and we will be tools in his hands. Try your best to be where you need to be. Always be prepared to follow spiritual impressions the Lord may send your way. 

I love you all. Have a good week.

Elder Smith

Hey Dad I'm doing pretty well. The work has been going well. We are finally seeing some success. It is true Elder Hunsaker has been much happier the past few days with the success we have had.

Sorry you have had to be away with work and stuff. That is hard. That is sad about the boy with leukemia though. I think it is funny you run so much and complain about it. Either be happy for it or don't do it haha. Or just do less. You are already skinnier than me. Speaking of classes I found out I got accepted into BYU! So I guess that is another option. I still don't know where I'm going to go, but good to have options.

I'm glad Aubrey is coming to visit. That will be good. 

I will keep working hard. Sorry for the short email this week. I am running out of time. I love you lots dad. Have a good week.

Love, Elder Smith

Hey!

I am so glad you are so faithful and happy. It reminds me of when Elder Sabin was here and he said if there is one thing Mormons are good at it is that they are always happy no matter what happens.

I'm glad you are healing up. Sorry it is slow, but it will come.

It was super super super cold earlier this week but it has been so much better the past couple of days. I will probably bring my coat home with me. I sold my bike right before I went to a car area so I wouldn't have to bring it around with me. I've been using an area bike so no worries there. I am going to try to bring my guitar home, but we will see.

I sent more pictures this week too! I hope you all are happy now!!!

The cookies have been great. It seems like the members just automatically like us more.

I'm sorry I don't have enough time to tell stories, but I will try to prioritize it next week. I'm just running out of time. Have a great week! I love you!

Love, Ældste Smith 

Photos from Eva Stokholm