Family!
Thank you for the emails and good news from home. Mom, I did not get the package yet, but I'm sure I will today or tomorrow. You can start sending mail to the Rosequists home now, and thanks in advance for sending the package.
First off, on Wednesday we had a big leadership training meeting that all the zone leaders went to and some district leaders. Brother Donaldson and someone else came down form the missionary department in Salt Lake to give us about a 5 hour training haha. Brother Donaldson is one of the mission president's that was in San Diego during the filming of  The District. He is a pretty cool guy. Excellent teacher! We learned a lot from him. He came down las Monday to spend some time with President Ahlander and also go on exchanges with the AP's. His partner went on exchanges with some Zone leaders, luckily he didn't pick us haha. It would have been cool to go with him though, his partner was the one that gave our In-field orientation when I was in the the MTC, so I recognized him right away, he'a an excellent teacher as well. We will now give a training to the Zone tomorrow on all the things they taught. It should go pretty well. Oh and he did talk about Ipads....The official word is that we won't get ipads until maybe next May or June. Right before I go home. But Brother Donaldson has a lot of say in who gets them first so he says he'll put in a good word for us haha.
Another cool thing that happened this week, we met with a LA guy in the ward, Mike Ozosky, and we found out that Joseph Smith is his 4th or 5th grandpa. Direct descendant!  Pretty cool. He's a great guy and still has a strong testimony of the church but stopped going because of certain challenges he had in life.  I hope to be able to meet with him more. The third thing I will write about is the most painful....literally, haha. So during my time on my mission I have tried some pretty hot peppers and hot sauce and gotten used to some of them. So I ate a Scorpion pepper the other day, apparently it is as hot or hotter than a ghost pepper, which is one of the hottest on the world! WOW is all I can say, it was an experience haha. It's all good though, it was all fun and games, and I'm still alive haha. Bruce, I want to see you eat one when I get home. Mom it kind of reminded me of the time we gave hot peppers to those missionaries at our house, but those have nothing on these! haha
Anyways, all is going well and thanks again for all the love an support. I hope everyone has a great Halloween week and stays safe. We are going to a trunk or treat on Wednesday and just staying with the Rosequists for Halloween, so I'm excited about that. I Love you all! Love Elder Smith