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!

Tivoli! And winter! Darkness! Missionary work!

Hey everyone!

It has been a good week and a cold one. I think winter is on the way. We also had the time change so it gets dark not long after 4 o'clock.

We had an awesome Pday on Monday, we went to Tivoli, an amusement park built in 1843. It was super fun. I haven't done anything like that for a super long time.

We had a lot of splits this week. I went with Elder Birch and later with Elder Hunsaker. We have a lot of fun going on splits so much. And I learn a lot too.

We went and visited all the districts in our zone this week to give a training. That was good to. We talked about teaching while we find. 

We are going to have an awesome zone conference this week. Elder Sabin from the seventy is coming to visit the mission and it should be great. He gave us a big list of scriptures to study and I have been working on those. There are some really good ones.

A cool story from this week. We were able to have dinner with 2 of our new investigators who own and live at a housing place for all kinds of Christians. They were all there at dinner as well. Not long into dinner, many of them started asking questions surrounding our beliefs. The Book of Mormon, Prophets, missionaries, etc. It was amazing! After dinner, we sat in the living room with all of them and everyone was having more individual conversations. Elder Whitaker was teaching the two hosts, the ones who invited us. I was teaching two Canadian missionaries from their church next to me. It was an amazing experience, and I've never had something like that happen before. I think a lot of good things will come out of it.

Well that's all I can think of for this week folks. Something I was thinking about this week is the power of prayer and how important it is. We need to pray every day and all the time. Even when our prayers aren't answered right away, they will bring us closer to our heavenly father. Make prayer a priority and you will see the blessings it will bring.

Have a great week and enjoy the coming of winter. I love you all!

Love, Elder Smith

Hey Mom!

I can't think of anything I really need/want for Christmas. My shoes are starting to die. Other than that clothes are fine. I definitely don't want you to send anything special after last year. I will think about it and let you know.

Tivoli was so much fun!. It is really cool and there are lots of cool stuff in there. It is super old. It was a really fun Pday activity.

You never fail to have a few hikes every week! Where do you find the time? The weather here is starting to get chilly. Not looking forward to that. At least we have a car! :)

Holbæk was great. It didn't feel exactly the same, but it was still good. I don't know if I have a favorite. I miss some of the experiences I had in earlier areas or the people I was around. Most of them have gone home. I found out this week that Elder Lee my second companion, and Elder Olson my third, are both engaged. That's pretty weird. As far as areas go I like them all. Taastrup is probably my least favorite, but the people are good. 

That is fun you are doing Celia's pictures. She is fun. Haha I'm glad lot's of the swim team is grateful for you and nice to you.

I am excited for light the world too! We haven't had anything about it yet, but I'm sure we will be working with it! That should be super exciting! I loved it last year.

I love you mom! Have a good week!

Love, Elder Smith.

Hey dad! 

It has been a good week. Haha I guess neither of our lives change too much as far as what we do goes. I bet you were super happy Cooper got a deer. That sounds like fun. I miss raking the leaves with you. I was just telling Elder Whitaker yesterday about when we made the massive pile in the field. 

Sorry your classes haven't been too great or enjoyable. You talking about them makes me scared for school haha. Just kidding. I am somewhat worried about school though. I don't know where to go or what to study or how to pay for it. I am still not thinking about it too much, but whether I like it or not I am going to have to apply for schools soon. It makes me sick. I hope your classes go better. Maybe you will be able to find some classes you really like when you are finished with the pathway program.

I guess it's good Harvey was half happy haha. Sounds like fun having to manage multiple places at once. Sounds like a lot of work.

Tivoli was super fun. It wasn't very big, but it had some fun rides. Nothing in Denmark is too big. Especially right in the middle of Copenhagen. I hope you get some time to go pheasant hunting. I am looking forward to doing that kind of stuff with you next year.

I love you lots dad. Thanks for everything you do for me. Have a good week. Work hard.

Love, Elder Smith 

Big week

Hey everyone! It has been a great week!

Our Pday on Monday was awesome. Our friend Nicklas took us on another little tour of Copenhagen. First we went and saw a statue named Kristina. She represents the saints who left Denmark in the 1800s. The artist, Dennis Smith, is a relative, so it was cool to go and see it. After that we went through the Citadel, a big military base and training center. After that we went to Den Blå Planet. The national aquarium, it was so much fun. There is so much to see around here.

On Tuesday we had splits with the APs. I was with Elder Jensen and we went to a lesson with a guy named Nicky. It was the worst thing ever. He just wanted to argue. We showed him a talk from Thomas S. Monson. The one about the Book of Mormon. He then showed us a 15 minute hard core anti-mormon video. We were really upset but we decided to just leave instead of keep talking to him. After the video the spirit was already gone so there was no use trying to fight him.

The next day we had splits with Slagelse and I was with Elder Angerhoffer. He is one of the newer missionaries in the mission. It is so cool to see them learning and moving so fast. They also have a lot of dedication to learn the language and give it their all. It is awesome.

On Thursday I got to visit my very first area, Holbæk! Things were going a little slow there so we had a big blitz splits with 5 other companionships and helped them find some new people. It was so weird being in the area. I haven't been back there for a year so it was an experience.

We had a good day in church yesterday. Our investigator MaryAnn came to church which was exciting. She is doing well. We are working on helping her understand everything.

We had a dinner appointment with some members last night. The spiritual thought was about the scriptures. We each shared some favorite scriptures and why. Then we read 1 Nephi 19:23. All of our favorite scriptures mean a lot to us because of this. We have likened them to ourselves. They help us through hard times and are relatable to our own lives. So if I were to give one suggestion when studying the scriptures, I would say liken them to yourselves, apply them and you will learn so much more.

I love you all. Have a great week!

Elder Smith

Hey Mom!

I think it will be a pretty fun day. We are excited. Tivoli is the oldest ammusment park in the world! We get to go in our mission. I guess the parks here aren't too crazy. We are going in a group of 8 missionaries.

Haha I like hearing about your hikes, it's cool that you get to go so often. I guess you will find out in a year if they want you to still have that calling.

I know how you feel about the same thing every week. Missionary work never really changes that much so I don't feel like I have so much to say.

Nicklas is awesome. If we ever come to visit Denmark, or if he visits Utah you will meet him. He is a good friend, I hope one day he has the desire to come back.

MaryAnn is doing well. We talked about repentance with her and went in depth with more things to help her understand. She is very faithful, but doesn't understand much.

I don't really have fall pictures...still. I will really try and get some though. I'm sorry I've gotten so terrible at pictures.

We have started having a seperate English guest class with a member teaching and it is going really well. We had like 10 people there yesterday.

If you love the temple enough, I know you can do it! It would be cool if you found names to take with you too!

The goal is 16800 because it is 25 people a day per companionship haha.

I played on it for a minute. It was a little out of tune, but didn't sound untuneable. It was old and pretty. I guess they didn't want to give the effort of finding someone to take it.

The danes don't really celebrate halloween a ton. They are trying to adopt it, so there are some kids out, but it isn't huge or anything. I will probably dress up as a missionary. haha

I love you lots and lots and lots and lots and lots and lots and lots and lots and lots and lots and lots and lots and lots and lots and lots and lots and lots.

Have a good week!

Love, Elder Smith

Hey Dad!

It was a good week. My companion is doing pretty good. He is pretty trunky but not much I can do about that. The weather is good half of the time. I love fall weather, but it rains about half the time... The amusement part is called Tivoli. It's the oldest one in the world and it's right in the middle of Copenhagen. It will be pretty cool. 

How are your classes going? Overwhelming? Challenging? Good? 

I always liked dodge pig. I'm glad it is well attended. I wonder why that is. 

I'm glad you enjoyed deer hunting. I bet Cooper is a little more disappointed than you that there weren't any bucks haha.

Do you get a discount at the movies because of Cooper? Sounds fun going to the movies as a little family of 3 haha.

I can't remember that story. You will have to tell it to me. I'm sure it was  a good talk. Even though you cried.

Why is Harvey's son coming? Maybe they will give you a raise. I guess I asked how your school was going before I got to this point on your letter. Sorry it feels like a bit too much. Can you take less classes at a time? Or are you taking the minimum?

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

Love, Elder Smith

Zone conference, moving members (again), and other stuff.

Well it was a pretty good week. We had zone conference on Tuesday and that was fun. It was all on repentance and teaching repentance. It was super good. Elder Whitaker and I gave a training on Commitments and repentance.

We have been talking to a lot of people the past week. We made a goal as a zone to talk to 16800 people. It has been a lot of fun and really pushes us to get out and find people. 

Friday was a fun day. There was a member who asked us to help hand out fliers for a young single adult open house thing. We spent a couple hours in downtown Copenhagen doing that and we were super tired after that.

On Saturday we helped a member move to his new place. He was throwing out a piano which made me really sad. We would have taken it to our apartment, but we live on the 6th floor, so pretty impossible to get up there. We also watched some more of conference with our friend Nicklas in the evening. We saw the Saturday morning session and it was really good.

We had a good day in church yesterday and in the evening there was a broadcast from Elder Ballard to all of Europe. It was really good and he talked a lot about missionary work. Something he said I think applies to every one of us. He said we need faith in miracles. We can't lose hope in these people who do not have the same faith as us. We must believe in miracles and do everything in our power to give them the greatest gift. The Gospel. 

I love you all and hope you are loving life. Have a great week!

Love, Elder Smith

To Mom:

I'm glad you liked the video haha.

That is awesome that the temple was full. That would be hard to not be able to do things for yourself.

That is crazy that you are in the RS again. I am glad you are happy to serve that is what is important. Does that mean you got released from YW camp director? 

So Nicklas is one of our friends. He was a member but he left the church because he is gay. He still believes in everything, and has a strong testimony, but he doesn't want to fight anymore. He started coming to church a few weeks before I got to the area, but he isn't planning on coming back to the church, he is mostly coming because we are his friends and he helps with the music. He is awesome, but it is really sad too. He is taking us on another tour of Copenhagen today so that will be pretty fun.

We had a separate Gospel Principles class yesterday in English and we had a member teach it. It went really well. MaryAnn was in church again and she seems to still like it. We had to crack down in our lesson with her this week to help her understand the apostasy. It seems to go better with her though.

I will try to get some good fall pictures this week. The leaves are actually changing color now. I love you lots and lots and lots. Thanks for being the best mor ever. I hope you have a great week.

Love, Elder Smith

To Dad:

Hey! I am doing pretty good. It was a long week. I do enjoy the meetings. It is a lot of fun and I always feel really good afterwards and ready to work hard. 

That sounds like a fun race haha. I guess the race people should have had people at the checkpoints in time. That is cool that you did so well. When is your next race? I remember doing ragnar and I had a downhill leg. That was not fun. The downhill hurts especially after all the rest. Good job :) Is ideal dairy the place that the swim team always goes to? 

That sounds like a good training you did. I will write down those chapters and be sure to read them.

I'm sorry for the short email. I'm running out of time. I always plan to write good emails with lots to say, but I never have enough time. I'm sorry if my emails aren't good. I will try to do better. I will also send you a letter soon. It is much easier to write a nice letter to you in the evenings where it is relaxing and quiet as opposed to the library. 

I love you lots dad. I hope you are happy happy happy :) Have a good week.

Love, Elder Smith

From Eva Stokholm: