Baptisms galore...

Hi again from England,

Another exciting week full of teaching, adventures and meetings has
gone. Mom said to me in her email that she felt like her week went by
fast, and I'm totally thinking to myself...where'd the week go? I was
just sitting here last week writing an email.

To sum up the week: it was a good one. We got the chance to teach
quite a lot of people and also have a lot of different kind of fun
activities.

Starting from last week, we had our kind of half zone barbeque which
went great. In the morning it was totally overcast and ugly out, but
by about 1:30 it was getting beautiful. The whole day was awesome
really. The sun was out, frisbees were flying, Elder Chandler had his
cook hat and apron on looking goofy, and the charcoil was cooking the
burgers and brautwurst...or however you spell it. We chowed down till
our stomachs were nearly exploding, then followed that up with some
football and ultimate. Overall it was a great day. I'm learning more
and more each activity we hold how easy it can be to set things up
like this and how hopefully I'll be able to continue to do that sort
of thing at home with friends, since everyone always loves em.

After the sun and fun, and Pday was gone, we got back to work and
got serious...well, as much serious as I can get at least. The
Wednesday and Thursday after Pday we attended 3 different district
meetings in Rugby, Solihull and also ours in Coventry. It's great to
see how each district leader prepares and teaches, and how their
messages are always very spiritually powerful, but the process and way
in which they teach is totally different. The first was with Elder
Peterson who's only about 7 months old, and he did a stellar job..but
you could totally tell he was nervious and a bit jittery. He talked
about the parable of the talents, and how each of us was placed in a
different city with essentially different "talents" or potential, and
how we each need to magnify that potential to be acceptable to the
Lord. The meeting was a very uplifting one as a lot of experiences
we're shared about the work. The second was with Elder Preston in
Solihull. He was my MTC companion, so out about 17 months nearly.
His was on Faith, Hope and Charity, and he did an awesome job linking,
describing and teaching each. His was a bit more open discussion, and
we talked a lot about what our reason for working was, or reasons, and
ultimately what it should be: perfect love, or charity for God's
kids...but of course we're not there yet. Afterwards we booked it to
Subway to eat since we were starvin...one of the Elders, elder Wood,
ate a foot long and...you won't believe it...20.5 subway cookies.
20.5! Freakin insane. We kind of peer pressured him into it/told him
it'd be a sweet new record for the mission. He totally dominated
those cookies. The .5 was one that one of the Elders found on the
ground..which he ate haha...way gross. The last District meeting was
Elder Chandlers, and he talked about the 3 different things of
conversion and how they're important: What the investigator, member
and missionary must feel as we teach for the spirit to be there,
working and used. It was good to again realize and talk about the
need for members to help us find, but also to help us teach.
Sometimes missionaries aren't quite converted to the idea of bringing
members, but its always the best. 3 sweet missionary meetings!

That night we taught a guy named Abdul, who I had street contacted
the day before, at the church with one of the High councilmen. Abdul
was from Iraq and interested in Christianity. When I talked to him on
the street, he seemed uncommittal and would just take my phone number
and not let me get his address. Two days later I was getting texted
"Can we meet at the church?" I called back and we arranged to
meet...and he showed up. It was interesting teaching in the Stake
Presidents office, with all these pictures of Christ, and the First
Vision and the ministry of Christ around. It totally helped though
since we would just point to a picture and explain a principle using
it. When I pointed to the First Vision he got all serious and was
like "excuse me, excuse me, how did you get a picture of that...no
cameras back then?" I just laughed to myself silently but we told him
it was just a painting and he just laughed as well. It was a good
lesson overall, and we even gave him a tour of the chapel at the end
which was sweet. He's way busy though and lives with his Muslim
friends....so hopefully we'll hear back from him soon.

I mentioned last week how we have two people we're preparing for
baptism in the upcoming weeks which will be great. The first one we
have, and taught this week was Grace. We saw him Saturday afternoon
during Englands first football match. Lucky for us...we didn't have
to go tract or get bottles thrown at us. Since it was another
incredibly nice day, we went out to the park and sat on the benches.
We had to teach him about the baptismal interview and questions
involved for when Elder Larsen spoke to him on Monday night.
Everything he was really good with except Word of Wisdom and Joseph
Smith as a Prophet. The Word of Wisdom he said was about the tea
"I'll die without tea!" This coming from like a 23 year old college
kid seems a bit crazy to me...but whatever. After explaining the
reasoning and commandment again, and how its for our benefit, he was
down with it. He just said it'd be hard but would make it. With
Joseph Smith as a Prophet he always is a bit confused for some reason.
He knows the Book of Mormon is true and the word of God, and that he
feels great when he reads it...but he doesn't seem to make the
correlation of where it comes from...even after having explained it
like 100 times. He said he couldn't say I know with 100% surety that
Joseph was a prophet since he didn't know enough about him. We
briefly talked about faith and how it's a seed, small at first, and
eventually it gets bigger. He grasped that this time and realized he
did believe Joseph was a prophet, but just didn't quite know how much
yet. Grace is a way cool guy and totally soaks it all in. He's a
really fun good lookin guy as well. He's always wearin like really
posh button down shirts, leather jackets and these funky acid stained
jeans. Always dressed up. Apparently he's a ladies man. We saw him
again on Monday for his interview and it went over great. He was
smiling big time after Elder larsen spoke with him. Sooooo
sweet...baptism on saturday!

The other lady Ellen, we taught her just before she went to see her
long lost brother(parents split up and they got fostered..to two
different familes and haven't seen each other for 25 years) We went
over there and again she was just doing amazing. She's been telling
us every time we go see her how much she loved church, how great it
felt, how her friends can see a different and how she's really
enjoying the Book of Mormon..even if it takes a bit of effort to
understand and get it all. When we showed up, for the first time I
smelled smoke in her flat, having seen coffee before. Since she was
about to go on vacation and we didn't have too much time with her to
waste, we talked about the body as a temple for about 10 minutes which
she agreed with and understood. We started to talk about the Word of
Wisdom and she just put her Book of Mormon in front of her face..and
was like "ohh no, I knew this was coming" Me and Elder Graham we're
both just laughing and so was she. We figured it'd be good to get her
working on that and engaged in it, since she'd be away, and especially
away from her usual environments and atmosphere. Definitely would
make it a lot easier to drop the habits while she was away. She was
cool with like smoking and alcohol and obviously with eating healthy
as well..but she's a coffee/caffeine fiend. She said sometimes if its
really slow she'll drink like 7 cups of coffee. That's crazy! We
talked about the reasons behind it which she was totally into and it
made sense to her. Elder Graham kind of tried to commit her to it but
didn't start off too well and was like "Well, if you do it, and try
it, it will be good". I kind of like head whipped over and about
slapped em'. She said she'd try. I was just like "Ellen, this is
something that prepares us for baptism, and God will bless us when we
do it, God promises to give us the strength to do all things if we
just exercise the faith and commit to him...will you start living the
Word of Wisdom tonight?" She just said "Yep" and now everyday since,
we call her up while she's in Hull with her bro, and check up on her,
see how she's doing it and just chat a bit. She said she's had some
tough headaches, a bit more sleep and feeling a bit down because of
all the withdrawal and changes she's made. We're doing our best to
keep her motivated and excited...but what's especially great is that
her brother is helping her with it and through it, so that's awesome.
Since she left, which was last Thursday she's been keeping the WoW
solidly. She's definitely one of the best people I've taught, so we
just gotta stay on top of her till she's baptised on the 1st of July.
Can't wait!

From Friday morning to Saturday morning I got another chance to do a
workover with one of the Elders in our zone, Elder Hansen. He's from
I think it was California or something and was also a Budge boy at
BYU. He's definitely way different than me though so it was
interesting. He was all about the NCMO, and asking out as many girls
as possible, wherever, whenever, no matter if he knew them, or knew
he'd get rejected. He was like talking a lot about his adventures at
the Y, with water fights, and his attempts to ask girls out in
interesting ways. He was even bragging about all the girls that said
no. I was like "Uhhh ok". He's a pretty cool dude though, relatively
soft spoken, dominated by pimples and talks to people pretty well.
He's not all that bold though so we worked on that and how it was
really necessary in what we were doing. I kind of felt like I was
back at BYU with all the crazy kids doin loads of ridiculous stuff
again. I always laugh at myself when I hear the california, west
coast perception against the east coast of things. It's always waaay
different.

Saturday was a pretty eventful day. We headed down to a baptism for
our Zone to support em, congratulate em, and drive em to the
baptism(pretty important) It was the 11 year old girl named Lerato
that I had interviewed previously and was finally getting immersed.
It was a bit of a crazy baptismal service due to her Zimbabwe
parents/relatives. This family isn't the most active, but has been
doing better at getting back lately...so they I think are a bit off as
to what happens at baptisms. The talks were good..due to them being
by the missionaries. The opening and closing prayers between the
actual baptism was the most interesting parts. As the mom went up to
give the prayer, she just like randomly was like "I hope nobody minds
but I'm going to sing a song" and just went for it. It was a cool
song, but totally wasn't ready for that. The last song was totally
the coolest. There was obvioulsy a tune to it, but the lyrics went
like "You must cling to the Bible, Rato(short for Lerato)". I
recorded part of it on my Palm, so you'll hear it sometime before or
when I get home. I was just thinking "what is going on here...?" but
it was sweet. They had some refreshments at the end, which of course
I was excited for..and as I went it was like "fufu", or basically rice
and potatoes with peanut butter mashed, some random meats and dried
caterpillar. I kind of thought it was somethinglike that before I
grabbed one to eat it...but wasn't sure. I wasn't too bothered though
and thought it'd be sweet. After I started chewin one of the Elders
was like "Dude that's a caterpillar". I just shrugged my shoulders
and downed it. The baptism itself was really quite good. It's
always exciting to see the fruits come, and helps you realise what
your doing matters and is important, if at very least, just for the
one person getting baptised.

The rest of Saturday was ridiculous. On the motorway home a car
completely flipped about 8 times and lay unmoving on the road. For
some reason both sides of this 3 lane motorway stood at a stand still.
For about 30 minutes we sat there in our car just laughing. Why
we're we laughing? It was ten minutes till the first England match
begun for the World Cup, and there were about 2000 people sitting in
there cars, FREAKING out, jumping over the median and looking around,
making angry phone calls and just looking generally ticked. We stayed
in our car and flipped the radio on to catch a few minutes, as I
probably won't be here again for a World Cup announced by an
Englishman. It was kind of cool though to hear David Beckam score and
the crowd go wild. It reminded me of the Harry Potter books and
Quidditch in those with the brooms. Hopefully I can get to a football
match someday...but probably will be when you all come here.

When we got home, we met up with the Sisters and the other Elders
for lunch. Since it was a crazy day with all the football and nobody
being interested, Sister DelVecchio and Sister Pehrson, one being
Italian, made a sweeeeeeet lasagna which we ate out of the back of our
car by the flat. Dang that was some good lasagna. She even put like
a layer of ham in it which was real quality stuff. It was pretty
funny too, since everybody was at the pubs drinking, we kept having
these random half naked dudes approaching us, asking what we were
selling..as we were in our proselyting clothes, and us just trying to
explain ourselves in between massive scoops of meat and cheese.
Sister DelVecchio was lookin way awkward and I was like "What?" She's
like "There's a half naked dude trying to talk to me...you'd be a bit
weirded out if a fat ugly naked chick was trying to talk to you." I
was like..."Yeah true". Our sisters we have are definitely the
coolest, and most solid missionaries. They have only been here for 3
weeks, and they already found 3 black guys they'll have baptised in
another 2 weeks. I'm really impressed by them, but as we'll how cool
they are. Hopefully Jess can be just like them: solid doctrinally,
happy and friendly, not super dorks, and also a lot of fun. Kristina
and Elise can do that with there hubby's on missions later.

Saturday to Sunday we're kind of interesting days. Elder Chandler
was called to be a Zone Leader halfway through the transfer as 2 AP"s
are being released...two more need to be called and two more ZL's
needed to be replaced, so that happened. As well Elder Salmons going
to Cardiff Roath in Wales. I was totally bummed about that...he's so
fun to be around. I'm a bit stoked about Chandler leaving as I didn't
get along with him all that well, nor did most of us, so that's kind
of good. But what's cooler though is Elder E Silva is now an
Assistant which is way cool. He's psyched and a bit nervous about it,
but I told him he'd dominate.

Monday we did a Zone Fast since throughout the zone that week we
were planning to project a total of 8 people for baptism. We had up
to that point 4 or 5 and we were lookin for a few more, so we figured
a bit of spiritual extra strenghth would do it for us. Man, that was
a toughhh day to fast. It was about 28 or 29 degrees celcius and it
was just scorching. I think it was especially tough since in the
morning we street contacted for about 2 hours. Luckily though we
totally dominated. I was able to be totally focused on what I was
doing, and just let the body forget what was happenin. I literally
spoke to everybody, and found us 4 new investigators that morning
which was sweet. 2 16 year old girls, 1 40 year old mom, 1 21 year
old girl student that's a Muslim. Should be interesting to see what
happens with those. My bets on the 40 year old...and hopefully the
Muslim student. There always way fun to teach and baptise, as they
are definitely committed to things. Oh, and yes, all girls...I try
hardcore with everyone, I don't just go for girls...but they seem to
be the only ones to listen. It's crazy.

To end the week off, I had called President on the Friday before and
he decided that he would spent Tuesday morning with us playing squash
before he went home. The whole Zone headed down for about 9:30 and we
played. We went to the Ramada Hotel which is right next to the office
which has some sweet courts, a great gym and a pool. I used 2 out of
the 3...you decided which. President played everybody I think and
totally dominated all of us. My first game he killed me 9-1, though I
put up a good fight. The second game I improved a little 9-2. After
that one, he asked if I wanted to be taught how to play better, and he
took about 10 minutes to show me. This was happening while about 15
people are waiting over the railing above watching...waiting to play
him. I think I got President to play his hardest among all the people
despite losing, so I was happy with myself. He also anounced me as
best in the mission. I was definitely pleased to be best at something
among all the awesome Elders and Sisters. It was another great week
and especially ended nicely having played with the Presidente.

After squash me and 3 Elders went into Birmingham to eat and shop.
I actually grabbed myself a new suit at a store called Next. I'd been
wanting to buy a new suit since all but the Nordstrom got dominated by
my bike seat. It's a sweet pinstriped one so you'll be impressed when
I come back looking studly in it. Just thought I'd let you know so
your not wonderin why my cash is gone.

Anyhow, that's pretty much the week. This one should be another
good one. Hope everyone elses's was awesome.

Love you all,
Elder Smith