Hey Family!!
Well your hopes came true...it was a great week and amazing birthday! Thank you so much for the letters and packages and good wishes. The members here made it one of the best birthdays I've had. In a small town, word gets around quick, so people knew it was my birthday because Elder Beddoes told like 2 people. Dinner on Monday was really good with the Hughes, they even got me balloons, cake, and caramel apple poops haha! Then the Bunkers on Tuesday made giant cupcakes and steak, thanks to you mom!! They are such a great family. And I can't forget about Chandler and Payton coming to see me, that was so good to see them and chat at lunch. The little prank we did was funny, Payton didn't know what to do when he thought they got the wrong Elder Smith to lunch, then I walked in and there wasn't a person in Taco Bell that wasn't staring at us, because we were so excited to see each other and the noise level rose haha. It was great. As for the work, we have been teaching a lot of active members lately just because we don't have many investigators. But the ones we do have are doing well. We are just waiting for President Ahlander to see if he can come interview them. If he can this week then the baptism will still be good for Saturday. So we are kind of on pins and needles in a stressful situation, hoping he can this week. But it'll work out for the best as always. This week we had an awesome experience; Brad Wilcox came to speak to our whole mission. If you don't know him, he's the author of "The Continuous Atonement, the  BYU devotional talk "His Grace is Sufficient", he's been a mission president, and a professor at BYU. That was one of the best meetings I've been to in a long time! He has a way of speaking that captivates everybody and draws them in to what he's saying. Nobody was asleep during that meeting! But he really gave us a better understanding on the house of Israel and the importance of that in our own lives today. And then he let us ask any questions we had about anything. I really wished I could of recorded it, but my recorder was dead. But I'll send a picture of us with him. If you haven't read his talk "His Grace is Sufficient", I recommend it too.
Well, sounds like some crazy news from home with all the surgeries. The thing that matters is how we go through them and what we can learn from it. There's something to learn from every single thing we go though, the hard part sometimes is realizing what that is.
We've been working with a deaf member that I told you about, and he really has a tough life. His parents don't even know sign language so he has no one to communicate with unless he's with us or a lady in our ward who signs, and his deaf friends. It's interesting to see how everyone deals with the trials that they have and learning from them. I've learned a lot from him and the deaf community. I can pretty well understand most things they sign, I'm just not proficient yet, so I still need a lot of practice, but I love it. I hope to continue to learn it after my mission too.
That's cook to hear about Ashlie and how good of shape she's in. I'll have to introduce her to crossfit, it's the best! But I hope she doesn't make me run because I'm not a fan of running! Well, have a safe week, Love Elder Smith

Brad Wilcox with us

The famous town of Bunkerville

I made it into Arizona on my mission!

It turned out that Elder Smith had the heads up that his cousins Chandler and Payton were coming to visit him at Taco Bell on his birthday as they were passing through on their way to California. They thought it would be a surprise to Elder Smith. But Elder Smith surprised them by sticking his name tag onto another Elder and so Chandler and Payton thought the wrong Elder Smith had shown up!! Joke was on them until the real Elder Smith came in! HaHa :)

The Fantastic Awesome Handsome Smith Boys!

Happy Easter!
I want to say Thank you so much to everyone who has sent things to me this week for Easter and my birthday. My only regret is not being in Las Vegas while I turned 21.....but Mesquite is good enough. Not like I could do anything anyways haha. So it was great to hear how the weekend was and I hope everyone enjoyed themselves and had a good time. My Easter was great!! First off, the mafia was at church, literally. Mr. Bundy now has crazy mafia guys guarding him (trying to guard him) and metro police had to come in the middle of the meeting and tell them to leave. Religion and politics do not and should not mix! So that was a fun time haha. Then we went to our sign language class last night, which was good, then just figured out the logistics behind transfers today. We are both staying here by the way. But president is giving another Elder here a change to be district leader, so I'm happy to relax from that a little bit this transfer. There are so many missionaries going home this summer and a lot of them are in leadership, so President is dropping a lot of them so younger missionaries get the chance to do it. But something exciting, we get a truck today! haha, it's just a Chevy Colorado but it'll be good to have cause of all the service we do around here.
The two baptisms are still set and good for May 3rd so we are excited for that.
Dad, I pray that things will go well with your surgery and that you'll be able to recover quick, you need to be better by July! And Jordan I pray for the same thing. Sounds like a pretty intense surgery but I know it'll work out, we just have to have faith and the Lord will take care of you, no matter what the outcome will be. I'll be praying for you as well.
Thanks again for everything and all the birthday wishes. Today will be a good day. Some youth in Bunkerville even made a cake for me! And mom, the cake was great! Thanks for sending it. The only bad part was some of the chocolate bars had melted and gotten the money chocolaty haha. Oh well. Love you all, Have a great week!

PS. I got a phone call from the stake presidency here and he told me to be at Taco Bell at 12:00 for lunch with somebody.....hmmmm I wonder who it is....haha thanks for the heads up mom. I'm looking forward to seeing Chandler and Payton. The whole weekend I was thinking, they are not gonna find me, I'm gonna get away with it and there's no way they can find me....I guess I was wrong haha.
And yes Idaho Falls airport, Be there or be square haha

Guns, Cows, and BLM Rangers!

Wow, who would have known that I am so popular, as soon as I arrive in Bunkerville, it becomes national news, haha just kidding, but really, it has been pretty crazy here with all the things going on as you have herd on the news. To answer some questions, we are OK and safe Mom, don't you worry! We haven't been told to stay inside or anything so things are pretty normal for us, other than every person we speak to informs us about the situation ha, Yesterday morning we were driving to church and we saw the NBC network truck parked and filming, so we wanted to go walk down the street behind it but we didn't have time haha. Hanity was also in town this week for the news report, but we didn't see that one. But there has been a ton of people driving through Bunkerville, mostly from Utah, Idaho, Wyoming, and Montana. And there were a tone of Rangers as well, before they left town. A set of missionaries in Mesquite spoke to one of them in the gas station and he said that none of them wanted to be there and they were just doing their job, a job that made them do things against their own morals. All of them stayed in the same hotel and nobody else was allowed in the hotel but them. The police even guarded the hotel. And there were police escorted out of town so all the people here wouldn't do something stupid. As for Mr. Bundy, he is a member in our ward who we saw at church yesterday. Good guy. But it was a little different because yesterday he had personal body guards with camo and everything. I understand that, but maybe not too necessary at church. Anyways, it's been an interesting week and we hope things calm down and begin to be peaceful again.
As for the work, we set two people with baptismal dates! They will be getting baptized on the 3rd of May. A husband and wife we've been teaching since right before I got here. The wife had her doubts and struggled with accepting baptism, but we went over there on Saturday and she said, "I have gotten my questions answered and I want to be baptized"! Those are my favorite words ever! She said that General Conference cleared a lot of things up for her and answered the questions she was having problems with. So we are really looking forward to that.
Also yesterday something cool that we did was a musical program for all of Mesquite. Same type of thing that we did in Vegas since this is something President Ahlander is trying. We're having these missionary musical firesides about once every 2 months, once a month in Vegas. But it's a great tool to bring non members to the church and have them listen to music and testimonies of Christ. We've been practicing for the last few weeks and the practice paid off, I think it was a great program. Too bad you couldn't come to see it Janell! haha. Elder Beddoes did a solo, another missionary did a solo, and we had a missionary choir that sang two songs, then some other performances by members of the stake. It was a great night.
Things are going great here, no need to worry, Mom. At least I'm not on the Marshall Islands with no electricity and no way to email, like a boy from our ward.
Have a great week, Love Elder Smith

Hey loved ones!
Well it's been another great week, other than some set backs, but conference came at just the right time! I'm sorry to hear about the medical problems with Dad and Jordan, and I pray for their health and safety. Something that I am reminded about this week is the fact that just because people live the Gospel and commandments, doesn't mean they won't have trials. They will have trials just the same as everybody else, but the Gospel gives us the extra strength and knowledge to get through it. That's why we need it so bad, because without that extra strength it's hard to find peace in life.
So like I said, general conference was great as usual, but this was the first time I fell asleep so much during it, but there's a reason behind it haha. So in the middle of the week Elder Beddoes got sick, just a cold, and so I had to stay in the house all day and do nothing, which is like the worst thing ever when you're on a mission. But I did accomplish a few things like clean the house, catch up on my journal, read some Doctrine and Covenants, play with the dog, shoot some hoops, etc, everything I could think of. But then I got sick a couple days ago and the tables switched. But the difference between Elder Beddoes and I is when he gets a headache or doesn't feel good, he has to stay at home and rest. Well my mindset is I'm not staying in unless I'm severely sick. So I kept working as much as I could and when it got to conference time, I was so tired I fell asleep for like 4 or 5 of the talks, haha. But it's OK cause in my notes I put, ":read this talk, fell asleep". Good thing we have the Ensign! So I hope you guys stayed awake for most  of them, but if not, you can read the Ensign!
Last Monday was so fun when we went golfing, reminded me of all the times I went with Preston. Tell him hi for me and sorry I haven't gotten a letter to him. I've been doing bad at writing anyone lately, just been really busy, (except for the day I had nothing to do, I didn't think about writing letters, haha), I love you all and hope your week goes well. Love Elder Smith

Great Day for Golfing!