February 8, 2016 Email

Hey everyone!!!!!!

Wow, this week was long!!!!  We had to go around and see quite the investigators!  So we have a lot of area that we cover and wow, I now understand why the missionaries call this week affliction week, haha!!!!  Man I had to dig into sub and man it was hard haha!!!!

Now, it was interesting meeting with a few of the investigators, merely because they either speak Twi or Fante haha!!!  I barely speak either, so it's very hard haha!!!

Fante is one of 56 dialects in Ghana

Also, it's difficult because these people are just not serious!!!  They love to hear the messages we have but just don't take them seriously.  It's nice to work with these people and it's very nice to see them, but we need them to be serious.

Being here has taught me a lot of being a grown up.  And it shows who I would have become if I would have been on my own.  It's been hard. . .the homesickness comes and goes, but when it comes, it comes in waves!!!  Working and thinking of you guys really helps!!!

Thanks fam!!!  Hope you all are doing well!!!  and remember to stay amazing!!!!!!!!

Love,
Elder Smith

February 1, 2016 Email

Thanks everyone!!!!!

This week has been pretty normal considering it's like the same each week haha!!!  It's also amazing and surprising that so many people are wondering how I'm doing haha!!!!

Well, I hope you are all being safe!!  It's been a normal week here, just going around and biking.  Meeting some pretty crazy people and learning some very deep doctrinal stuff haha!!!!  If there's anything I've learned from these guys, is that it's to always question reality and truly think about your life haha!!!!

So, we have a few people we think are getting ready for baptism, but they need to be taught the rest of the lessons and need to start keeping the commitments that we give them.  It's amazing to see some of our investigators progress as far as reading what we give them, coming to church, and wanting to see us more haha!!!!  Anyways it's just been day in and day ut, same thing haha!!!!

But, I think I'm getting bigger, like built!!!!! haha!!!!  Sometimes it's hard to get my pants on when my thighs are giant and my shirts are getting tighter haha!!!!

To be honest, it's way different here than back home!!!

I came in during  Harmattan season.  This time is when dust from the North has blown in and makes it a cool part of the year.  It blocks some of the sun but people still sweat, but they say it's cold haha!!!

There are literally so many churches here that you could not count all of them in your lifetime!!!!!  People just make their own churches here and it's so weird how some of them preach.  So, some of the buildings here are pretty normal but some are beautiful!!!  Some with columns and stuff like that.

You can also get anything on some of the streets here!!!!  There are phones, food, and literally anything else you can think of!!!!!  It's getting warmer and I'm starting to tan very nicely, or at least I hope so.

And there are these things called Fanice, it's practically like vanilla ice cream in a bag that we tear open and eat.

Since there are no trashcans around here, we just through trash everywhere and it's so weird!!!!!    At least for me haha!!!!!  So I'll say more next week, I'm out of time.

Love you all!!!

Love,
Elder Smith

January 25, 2015 Email

Hahah!!!!  Well that's great!!!!! (referring to Parker and Brigham going on Trek like he did 6 years ago).

Glad to hear that you're all doing good!!!  So this week has been pretty similar considering the fact that it was hard.  But hearing from all of you really helps me in keeping the faith and finding the desire to still be here!!!!!

Also real quick, mom, you should send me a couple of flash drives, or something that I can get music on, because for some odd reason, it's not working when I try to get them on my iPod, so yeah.  Also, my charger still isn't here!!!!  I don't know why, but still.  So can music be sent in a file or no, cuz I hope to get some music from home that turns out is ok for missionaries!!!!

So right now I'm listening to some good music on Youtube, and I can't wait to come back home.  But, being here, I know I'm here for a reason.  But, I'm going to need all the strength I can get to keep strong!!!  Hope you all are being safe.

I pray for you all every day!  So this week has been pretty boring actually.  So we have a new baptism schedule that we have to follow, it's every first and third Sunday of each month that we can baptize rather than baptizing every week haha!!!  So we have some baptisms coming up for next month that we hope will go well.  So we found some old investigators and we hope to start teaching them soon!

We have been having some good lessons with some promising investigators and it's going very well!!!  And on the plus side, I'm staying fit from all the biking and working out in the mornings haha!!!!  So other than those things, it's been pretty normal here in the mission field!!

Love you all, and hope you're doing well!!!

From,

Elder Smith