July 30, 2012
Family!  First off thank you so much for all the letters, Dear Elders and packages! And thanks to the Cottle family for the letters.  I'm so thankful for all of you in my life!  This week has gone by pretty fast compared to last week and I can't believe I have less than a week left!  But our district gets to be hosts tomorrow so tell Aaron to txt Ryan that I will be there when he comes.  I'll try to be his host.  I'm so glad to hear his farewell went good, I'm proud of him.  And yes I have talked to Taylor Rapp a lot here too.  Well where to start . . .Thanks Dad for all the good advice and scriptures, it helps.  I think the way we teach investigators is a little different now then how you did it.  We don't memorize the lessons, just have to know them and the Spirit tells us what to teach that specific investigator at that moment.  It's amazing how the Holy Ghost works through us and tells us what to say, I love it.  I'm so happy to hear about Payton, I look up to him so much.  And I hope Michael gets the hang of things.  To answer some questions....we wake up at about 4 AM Monday and the plane leaves about 8:30 I think.  I can call home also---so Mom expect a call Monday morning if everything works out!  And yes Dad they assigned Elder Bruce in my district to be our travel leader, there are 26 missionaries flying to Vegas at the same time.  Crazy!  I think the whole plane will be converted by the time we get there!  We do service projects every Saturday at 6 AM and our district just cleans one of the big buildings here.  About Jordan, I'm sad to hear that he's moving, but hopefully it's what the Lord wants for him at this time.  Oh and Mom thanks so much for the shirts, they came yesterday.  Tell Lexie Uncle Logan wishes he could come play with her too, I miss her!  I'll share one spiritual moment we had this week out of many, me and my companion are getting along good and we're getting used to each other's teaching styles, we were teaching one of our teachers Bro. Mederios, role playing as "Alan" and we only got through half the lesson when he stands up and he says, "hold on, that was perfect," then was speechless.  The Spirit was so strong guiding our lesson and he said if there was a camera in the room with other teachers watching, they would say we had been missionaries for over a year already.  I was so happy and it gave me a lot of confidence.  Well since today is pday we got to go to the Prove temple this morning, it was really good!  Now I'm in the middle of laundry and emailing so I hope I've answered most your questions!  Thanks again for everything everyone does for me!  Love all of you!  Elder Smith