lets get reeeeaaaaaal#66

Henlo peeps! welcome back to the semi-half-monthly email the guy who just quoted safety zone. iykyk. and iyk, then... yk what's coming hahahaha some DEEP stuff. go to the challenge and the Jesus Moment if you want to see it. lots of other good stuff before it tho!!!

antyways,

this weekz unconsecrated song is sweet caroline. let's go, good song

This week's summary! (for my TLDR folks)

☆ last p-days district activity - many pokey boiz in my feet. guess that's what i get for playing sand volleyball barefoot??

☆ cleaned our car, then it rained so we did NOT win cleanest car at ZC. lame. rain make happy tho

☆ i frikin love Zone Conference tho. so spiritual, yet at the same time SO fun. got many a good quotes from this one, as usual

☆ clothe machine broke. big stank, no money. yup.

☆ made a child cry

☆ got to drive into the other zone, like RIGHT next to my old area. got to see the monument tho, which i LOVE. it was kinda for nothing, turns out. we love accidentally wasting time

☆ had some... interesting service with a lady where some guys just walked into her backyard and started chopping down her trees. she.... did not ask for that and was very mad. sweet lady tho

☆ new friend alert!

☆ cool blessing working miracles:)

☆ unfortunate non-blessing working times as well

☆ cool teaching times!

☆ but... apparently not? nvm??? what is UP with sand. she is so... flip flop

☆ we have dropped... so many people

☆ i love weeding. snakes are cool too

☆ waited at sonic for like an hour. idek if it's worth the free food at that point

☆ we were not allowed to go to Mark Herricks funeral://////

☆ went to starvin arvins, and were served by arvin himself

Stories

-  last p-day we had a dope district activity where i got shanked in the feet many many times by some goathead thorny boiz. would not recommend. even worse than that was having to have elder durrant come givd me a piggyback ride in front if EVERYONE cuz i... i could not walk. i had like 8 in each foot. my toes still hurt.

-  tried to clean our car before Zone Conference, and as SOON as we got out of the wash it started to rain. nobody else's car got rained on. just us. ugh. i LOVE rain but it wrecked us. frikin rip.

- speaking of Zone Conference, i love it!! you learn so much. i LOVE our mission president and his wife. sucks this was our last ZC with them. i also only have 6 more ZC's after this?? now THAT'S weird to think about. dang bro.

- i dried my clothes i think around 4 times and they were still sopping. smelled SO bad. had to dry them out in our room for a day with ALL the fans running, it sounded like the worst high school locker room you've ever smelt. ever. washed em again, in separate loads, and then dried them each like twice again. the sucky thing is we have to pay for our laundry. i wasted so much money. if any of y'all got any spare quarters laying around, snap em over please. elder hassard style.

- visited this dope family, this little kid kept bringing out action figures and one of us would play with him while the other one talked. he cried when we said we had to go and tried to come with us. then asked if we would stay and watch spiderman with him. and this wasn't a bawling cry, it was.... so stinkin cute and sad. the little pouty face, tears started to come. it was so hard. i love kiddos

- drive all the way past this bdubs in the other zone to firestone only to find out twas about a 4 hour wait. we decided to schedule for next week, and get chipotle on our way out. good times. got to see the monument too!!! i also love driving so.... no regerts. (that one's not a typo mom)

- did yard work for sister archuleta! she walked to the store to get us drinks??? twas only like 200 feet away but still  we then raked, got BLESSED cloud coverage. it was so hottttt. has been all week. then these guys in helmets just showed up. we were super confused. they then started chainsawing down all her trees, she was TICKED. told us to just go. they were under contract from the landlord or sum, and had done it to a bunch of other houses around. all the other peeps were out and about and didn't look too happy either. yikesh. sister archuleta is very sweet tho. we love her.

- went and weeded with the buddeckes:)) talked about video games, anime, all that good stuff. held a snake. slippys cousin, scaley!

- waited at sonic for like,,,, almost an hour. boi was BUSSIN today. not worth it. even tho it's free. idk bro

Teaching Updates

 - highlander, deadeye, marker n ben, miner, sand, DJ Junior and kone, frog bus lady, and toptight! these nicknames are really really weird.

- highlander, deadeye, DJ Junior and Kone, and Frog bus lady have all been dropped. i hate doing that. but, we leave and believe. God will have a way:)

- started teaching toptight! dang bro. freaking long. good tho! he's very willing to come to church, read the BoM, but it's all just like: "sure" type stuff. need him to feel truthfulness. lit tho

- gave blessing to sand, she loved it. predicted we would come with oil and then we did. she also literally started walking after we gave the blessing. completely healed her knee and her awful throat thing. so that was cool

- miner! had a good discussion, then he started having mad cramps in his legs and was... just in so much pain. ah man. poor guy. we gave him a priesthood blessing immediately, and it seemed to work. then the cramps came back. it was so hard. poor guy:(( then he broke his wrist and couldn't come to church? hope he's doing alright

- went and saw sand again! she told us she doubted if the blessing we gave her worked, but prayed and released that doubt and then it started to really work! we all had some cool experiences sharing about the last half of the plan of salvation, with sand actually comparing the 3 kingdoms to the 3 members if the Godhead without us even telling her that's how it already works! it was a bit of deep doctrine but... hey she brought it up and she herself said it was a confirmation of the spirit so i'm okay with it. she has so much faith, and even took notes the whole time! we put her on date and then... by the next day she was off. she didn't want to come to church, and didn't want to think about baptism any time soon. even tho she said "i don't see why not" and wrote it down big in her notebook, then circled and underlined itliterally the day before. ughhhhhhh.

- toptight church tour! he's an.... interesting guy. think he just likes/wants to hang out, and like... is lowkey down to talk? but isn't actually interested. we'll slap him with the spirit tho. no cap

- didn't get to go to marks funeral. muy.... angry. shouldn't be. but i am. i just.... don't agree with leadership sometimes haha i'm sure that'll come back to bite me soon

Spotlight

- sister glase:) ur not on here, but congrats on the engagement!! and the advice. ur awesome dood!!

- my little brothers!!! love u crazy kooks. love u.

- all my past comps. i frikin love you all so much. i WILL kiss u on the mouth. dont even try me.

- my aunt Nancy!!!!!! i love you:)) thanks for always responding to my emails!!!

- Aunt abby too!!! ur the best, you nerd. i heccin love you!!!

- my grandpa and my grandma rhonda!!! they went to their mission in nauvoo recently:) love you guys so much!!!! you're my idols:))))

My challenges for you

- challenge:

"My faith is not placed upon the Lord’s … favors he bestows upon this people or upon that people, neither upon whether we are blessed or not blessed, but my faith is placed upon the Lord Jesus Christ, and my knowledge I have received from him."

this is a personal study moment. i been struggling. idek. i've had literally no focus last week or so. (during personal study). just zoning out ALL the time. i was getting angry at myself, and then felt the desire to flip open the Book of Mormon to a random page to find an answer. i don't do that too often, but i did today. and i flipped to Alma chapter 34 immediately and read verses 17-27. it was like my eyes IMMEDIATELY snapped to those verses. it was definitely God orchestrated!! i've read those verses countless times before, it's literally in one of my favorite lesson plans. but i felt the spirit so strongly right then. and that mental block of not focusing was gone. we must rely on the Lord in everything that we do. the rest of this challenge will be in the Jesus moment just below

Every minute, every moment...there was Jesus.

- improve to the end

today i am not going to talk about simply enduring to the end, but improving. and i'm gonna bring up some... pretty dang personal experiences to show you why. a few of you know this. a lot of you do not. i've... really seriously considered putting this on here or not. i want to just keep quiet, not worry about using it for 'attention' or whatnot, because that's not what this is about. i do think, however, that most of you on here would want to know. at least, if you've made it this far and are actually reading this, then i know u a real one and you'd be there to support me so i would want to tell you anyways. to anyone reading this, just know that i'm not trying to do this for pity and/or attention. i simply want to inform people of a major life event that happened very recently that y'all might feel you would want to know if we were still hanging out and being around eachother. and hey, maybe we can learn a lesson or two from this:) i am a missionary, after all!

just a week or two ago, my parents finalized their divorce. i'll be honest... i never really saw this coming my whole life. i had some friends with some divorced parents, and i never really thought that would ever happen here. did it fully surprise me? 100% honest... it was a surprise. but it didn't exactly... not make sense. you know?? weird double negative there for ya. anyway, it was hard. man. it didn't really make me want to go home, or stop my mission or the work i'm doing here, but... it wasn't easy i'll be honest. i'm doing perfectly fine, rest assured, but i know that satan will give us ANY trial to try to get us to quit. we have to not just endure to the end, but something i heard recently that i loved was this: we have to IMPROVE to the end. always get better. always get past it. rely wholly on the merits of God. of Christ, that's where true strength will come from.

 Foundation of Faith in Christ scriptures 

- 1 Nephi 16:8 ~ when we fulfill the commandments, we finna get "blessed exceedingly"

- 1 Nephi 16:24 ~ humble them with our words. all the energy of our soul.

- 1 Nephi 16:25 ~ god chastens us, to bring us down into sorrow, but more importantly, to humility

- 1 Nephi 16:28-30 ~ God gives us direction according to our faith in Him, and our diligence in listening to him. He'll help us understand His ways, and He'll do it in small means. then, we obey.

- 1 Nephi 16:32 ~ after God tells us to do something and we do it, we must be hunble and give thanks. we should do it anyways, but especially in these cases.

- 1 Nephi 16:39 ~ God does so much for us. even when we harden our hearts, when we disobey. He is always there to help us. He'll chasten us, and tell us to repent, yeah. but He does it for us. to love us.

mucho love 

~ Elder Smith