201 days left New Years Eve

well here in iowa city is super slow. don't have much to do. but we did reach our mission baptismal goal of 400 baptisms for the year of 2012! woooohoooo!!!  :) we were told by a G.A. that if we didn't reach our goal of 400 that we wouldn't reach our goal of 550 for this next year of 2013! so im super excited to help out in this goal while i can. so i went out and bought a binder for my District leading and it is nice. just what i wanted! so now i can look official and not have this giant white binder sitting on the podium in front of me. nice! i can't believe that ashley is leaving already and that sam is home now! so weird. and so fast! wow. crazy and to think that randy is out on his mission! oh man time flies by when you doing the lords work....and when you're having fun with it! :)

well thats about it for me! i love you and miss you and it would have been super weird to have talked to you on the phone! so im glad that that didn't happen. haha sorry momma. not for another couple of months. 

love

elder jens smith

oh ps. the card you sent me doesn't work. what did you do to it? did you take pictures on it with that big fat camera? or did you put a video on it? like i can't even get it to work on a computer. it just says...card not usable. 

I forgot to ask about the primary letters...isn't it kinda funny.  There are some new kids that you don't even know that wrote you...aurelia, johnny (brother and sister)  

yeah i also got some from the young women in the ward as well i think. from sarah mitchell? haha this is sad but is that sister mitchell who is married to K.C mitchell? anyway so yeah i have a lot of writing to be doing in the next few weeks. :) haha 

What was your favorite food this week?  

favorite food this week was little chedder smokies wrapped in some croissants  super good!!!!! mmmmmm! i could eat like 50! 

when is your companion's bday?  

feliz cumpleanios de mi companiaro es octubre beinte dose. haha try that spanish!

How was your first dl training? go smoothly? or not as planned?  

no it went great! we just had it for an hour and a half to set goals and things like that so no training yet. this coming thursday. im excited!

208 days left Christmas Eve

All our letter were short so we would have more to talk about when talking on the phone.  It was a treat skyping with him again.  He was at his branch presidents house.  We got a sweet pic of him.

hey momma, this week was slow as usual. these next few weeks will be slow. or at least that's what it looks like. so it also is looking a lot like Christmas as well. we got a good 6 inches of snow on Thursday and Friday so we will have a "white/gray" Christmas   haha gray cause of all the dirt in the snow. but finally!!! all our investigators are home right now so we have no one to teach really so we are going through our area book and cleaning it out so we can see what and who is in there. we did a little bit last night and were able to find someone who had moved to Florida but was still interested so we sent in that referral this morning and hopefully they get on the path to baptism. so i will be calling i think around 1 our time. or so. so be ready. for that. :) oh also, i will be skypeing so i will see you then! see ya tomorrow!

where will you be spending Christmas this year? 
we will be having it over at our branch presidents house just like thanksgiving. 

Christian, has your companion transferred yet?  
don't think this question applies to me. but transfers are on Thursday and i will be staying here and becoming a district leader!  

What do you miss the most about Christmas at home?
being with family. 

I Won't ask you any more questions. I can't wait to talk to you. Cheers  ok bye! talk to you tomorrow!

love 

Elder Jens Smith

215 days left Hop-py Burfday!

so this is coming to the hardest time in my mission where we really have to buckle down and work work work. there is no substitute for it. since the Christmas break is here and all the finals are done we have literally 0 investigators now. they all went to china, back home in Iowa, or Illinois. so we really are having a tough time here. it is going to be sparse but we know that there will be someone here that we will find. there has to be. 

haha so my birthday was a normal regular missionary day filled with tracking and finding people to talk to. nothing really special but a couple of the branch members did ask me when my birthday was cause it was coming up and so leading up to my birth date just really flew by with out any notice of anything. so we were out later than we wanted to be on Friday, but when we came home we found a nice little surprise waiting at our door. it was still warm and we brought in inside and instantly took pictures of it. haha it was pretty funny. did you tell them to put hearts in the writing? or was that them being thoughtful? :) haha but anyway i will include some pic of that. i also had dinner last night with a sister who knew it was my birthday and she is living with an elderly member and she decided to tell her that it was my birthday and so they went and got a cake. nothing big but it was a chocolate cake with candles...i repeat, with candles. i don't remember the last time i had someone else put candles on a cake for me. haha so i blew them out made a wish and then the sister in our branch pulled out a present for me and it turned out to be a twisty turny ball thing that you have a little metal ball that you have to get around a bunch of obstacles . i think it's called perplexes epic. it has 125 things that you have to get around and so far i have gotten to 60. :) haha so it was a really nice birthday. and they did sing to me when they brought out the cake but no pic were taken. haha sorry. but the pizza was awesome and we played basketball with our district the next morning and i brought the pizza and shared with every one. it was pretty cool. :)

well thats about it for me here!!! i love you all and can't wait to hear from you next week! 

love 

Elder Jens Smith

 

What was your birthday week like?  Did some elders sing to you like last time?  Or were you just with your companion?  What did you do on the actual day?  

well the week was ok. i heard that the BYU beat Utah so that was nice. :) haha but other than that nothing really exciting. 

So about the pictures now...

We're wondering about the boofing in the videos...is it something in the car...there is no way...if they came from you... that all those boofs in a row ALL sound the same...And one of the funniest parts was listening to your companion laughing (trying not to) in the background.  we laughed at him. 

 LOL.....ha yeah it is when you want the air to come from inside or outside of the car to heat or cool it down and so when we would switch that it would make that sound and so we decided to put on a fake mooshtash and video it. haha it was pretty entertaining to watch them all afterwards. :)

Good morning video?? who are the savages?   

so it is a recording of our phone on someones iPod and so we played it and we drove past our house going to go to the back way and the savages are the senior couple in our district who has to do apartment checks and so they looked at us as we were playing that and driving by and they all laughed cause they thought the savages saw me freaking out in the car. :) haha pretty funny. 

I loved hearing you talk to the duckies...have there been duckies every where you've been?  I saw Elder Tekanene take a video too...does he see that very often?   

mmm...no i don't think so. just at this place and it was when we were riding our bikes and we saw them just hording over near this bench and so i thought of you and took a video. :)  

222 days left

this week was awesome!!! we have seen the blessings come from being obedient and from going out and finding people on our own and not relying solely on the members. just going out and getting it done even though it is cold and it is late and we are tired. we see those blessings come as we endure to the end happily. :) i love my mission and am so thankful for all the examples i have had to get me out here! 

so to explain why i am happy...

we were out tracking and we were really tired and we both had to go to the bathroom really really bad and we were like lets do one more apartment and so we did and it turned out that we found a chinese man who had just come to know God and who he was and so we were like, "we're messengers from God" and then he says, "oh, i have a few questions for you and so we set up another time to come back and teach him. so we did and went home and went to the bathroom. :) haha so we were studying one morning and we finished our personal study and started our companion study and asked each other what we studied and we had both with out knowing it studied the plan of salvation. elder hinman reading 2 nephi 26 and me reading from alma 42...i think. i don't remember but it was way cool and so we were like ok so someone needs to hear the plan of salvation today and so we remembered our lesson today with our chinese friend and we taught him the plan of salvation and he said that we answered a lot of his questions! so that was awesome! 

second would be that we were able to have our mission president come to a lesson with us and so we did that and it was super powerful! we had a member there who was studying in her same field which was law and so he was able to help us out a lot and it was awesome! we also extended a baptismal invite and she said yes!!! so that's two people who have accepted the invite. we also found her through tracting! 

third is that we were yet again knocking on doors and it was butt cold and we were going to do this last building and then go walk somewhere else and the second door we knocked on was a chinese couple who had just started dinner and so they invited us to come in and eat with them. so we did and what they had was not the best thing i've had on my mission. we had pork feet, some sort of cold chicken, and some mushrooms that weren't even cooked all the way. and so we ate with them and they had also recently found God and they just ate up the restoration and loved it and asked for some copies of the book of mormon in chinese! pretty sweet. so after we left their apartment we walked home and were like, "we're still hungry and so we ordered some pizza! hahaha can't go wrong with some good old pizza! but the thing is is that i woke up the next morning feeling like i was going to puke!!! i got all ready and was just finishing up going to the bathroom when it just punched me in the face...or more like the stomach and so i kneeled down and tried to throw up and it just wasn't happening so all of sunday, yesterday i was in major doubt to whether or not i was going to throw up haha so needless to say we sat at the back of the chairs in case my stomach wanted to pull some sneaky moves on me. :) so i decided to say a little prayer and ask for my stomach to be ok for church and it was so there's a testimony that prayer works...but it worked for just that, church. so maybe i need to be a little more specific and ask for the whole day cause about 20 mins after church we were getting a ride home and it again punched me in the face and i was like "pull over quick!!!!" so we did and i got out and bent over but again nothing came out and so we called our mission presidents wife and she gave us permission to get some thing for my stomach so i could just keep going without feeling like i was going to throw up every 5 mins. so we got some pepto bismal and i took that and kept chuggin on. we also had dinner that night and it was so so so so good! haha unfortunately i couldn't eat very much cause every bite was just like oh man. so after i took a bite i had to breath in really deep. haha pretty funny. but pretty sucky at the same time. 

ha that sounds like a pretty sweet deal with the missionaries there. nope there just aren't quite the number of mormons here in the great iowa as there is in the amazing provo, utah. :)

i love you so much and can't wait to see you in a couple of weeks!!! have fun! be safe! 

love 

Elder Jens Smith

how many people are in the mission president's family? and their ages?  

i have no idea on any of those questions...he keeps those personal and if he doesn't he hasn't ever told me...

how are you feeling? after the nasty cold the other week...are you better?  

im feeling better from the cold and am now feeling better from what ever it was that i got. 

i know i'm wishful thinking...but did you get the package yet?  

yes i have gotten them both and have opened them both...i hope thats ok. 

got any questions for yo mama?  

mmm...nope not right now!

229 days left

hey momma, this week was good and bad. it was slow and we had only taught one lesson this week and that was to a less active...which isn't bad but we have had all of our investigators fall off the map and so we are having to start over, which is hard but it will all be worth it. this work is amazing and i love being here in iowa! 

we have had more conversations as companions and had a good one about going to the temple as often as he could. he had in his mind that he only wanted to go to the temple once every two months. he is from north bend which is about 45 mins from seattle and so i thought, we live here in iowa city and these people have it down to where they are going once a month. not once every two months so i made him promise that he will make it his number one priority to go to the temple as much as he could. i am finding out that i am needing this same motivation. i hope that you as a family will get tyler his endowments and take him as much as you can before he sends his mission papers in. how often do you go to the temple as a couple? we had that mission tour with elder clarke and he said that out of all the people in that chapel that we were in, only about ten people would go on a senior mission. and there were about 100 missionaries in that chapel. i decieded that im going to be one of those ten people and hopefully make that precent go up. i sure hope that it is a goal for you as you grow older and plan for retirement which is just right around the corner. haha not saying that you're old or anything but just be thinking about that long term goal for yourselves. i plan to go on a senior mission with my future wife, so future wifey, be prepared for that as we get married and have that as a long term goal to save up for.  i love this work and am so grateful to be here at this exact time. we truly are clay in the hands of the lord and as we follow the doctrine that he has given us we will let the savior mold us into the children that he once new! i know my Father in Heaven lives and that He is watching over us always. i know that the book of  mormon is not only another testament of Jesus Christ but is a book full of experiences for us to learn from. wise people learn from experience. even wiser people learn from others experiences! i remember that from a John Bytheway talk i heard. i know that i am changing and am trying to let my mission go through me and not me going through my mission. i love you mom and i love you dad so much. i can't wait to talk to you in a couple of weeks. Tyler, i love you so much am truly worried about you and how you are doing with getting ready to serve your brothers and sisters and also your Heavenly Father. not that your doing anything wrong but that you aren't doing the things that are preparing you for this experience. i invite you to be the starter and instigator for family scripture study and for family prayer. please always give gratitude to your Heavenly Father. say some prayers by only saying things your grateful for and see how you feel after that. i love you ty and can't wait to see you. and to adi, i love you and hope you are keeping our family safe and happy with your silly and lovable personality. :) chickens, keep mom happy and also grandma B! i love you all and will hear from you next week!

love

Elder Jens Smith. 

sorry for such a short letter. 

Questions:

What's your fav part of the week?  

i think my favorite part of the week was watching the devotional. it was awesome!!!

So my school is done in about 2 weeks...is that school there too? 

yeah everyone is getting ready for finals and so it is really busy for them and really slow for us. haha

play any soccer lately?  

nope. hopefully today for pday we will. haha we have been having 50-60 degree weather here!!!! amazing in weather in December!!!

do you have anything in common with your new companion?  where'd elder tekanene go?  

mmm...he really likes cars and i really like to look at cars. he played soccer his freshman year of high school and quit cause he didn't like the coach. elder tekanene went to Keokuk  IA.  das bout it. 

so last time (or the time before) you mentioned that the next transfer will be on Christmas day? will that really happen? or will they postpone it a day? or earlier? how are they going to work that one?  or do you think that you'll even transfer?  

did i mention that they were on Christmas  hmmm oh well they are two days after Christmas  so the 27th. and yeah i think i will be leaving cause i will have been here for 6 months. it doesn't even see like it. i told the people in branch council and they were like no way! it has been six months!?

oh and i forgot a funny!!!! here it is! 

"why am i all wet?" "don't worry, i used to have the saaame problem." 

there is a name in there but if i did that it would give it away. :) haha funny. 

236 days left

oh man this week was so slow!!! and by golly it got cold! 20-30 degrees! haha right now my fingers are like still frozen from being outside just for like 30 seconds to walk from the car to the library. haha it's hard. :) well we were able to grow closer to one of our investigators who we have to pass off to the other elders in a family ward cause she has a little daughter. but she can still come to all of the ysa activities that we have and so i really hope that everything goes well with the hand off to them. 

this week we finally had to get out the thermal g's and start bundling up cause it is so super cold out there but i know that it will just get colder! 

oh man we had a few people that had to work on black friday. im glad i don't have to work in a store on that day. i'd be afraid of getting bit in the neck by a little 11 year old. haha we heard a story about that on thanksgiving. :) 

so thanksgiving was great! we spent it at our branch presidents house and then went home cause they all went black friday shopping and so we sat at home for a little bit and then were invited to a members house from the 2nd ward elders! it was way nice of them to do that and we also got to play pingpong in both houses. i love it! im not very good but i absolutely love it!! :) so i think we should get one when we get home. fold it up and store it when we are not using it but then pull it out and put it in the big room and have a big party! 

we are kinda worried about one of our investigator cause she just won't answer us back. we have texted her and we have even had a member try and text her to see how she is doing but to no avail...fortunatley we have a person in our branch presidency who has a son who lives where she is from and so it's kinda creepy but also we are able to keep tabs on her with out her even knowing. haha we are like spies! fun times! haha no but we plan to try and get ahold of her and see if we can set up a lesson with her sometime soon. i don't have really much else to say besides that this week was again slow. 

well thats it for now! i love you all and can't wait till next week!

love 

Elder Jens Smith

Are you getting closer to your baptism dates?  

yeah we are.  and we are getting a little nervous about what is going to happen. 

How has the newness of your companion been?  Getting along ok?  

yeah we are getting along great! we are talking a lot about his past companions and how he needs to overcome somethings and work out somethings that will help him with his self confidence. we have an elder here who isn't very nice to him and so i plan to have a nice chat with that elder and tell him how it is. hopefully it goes over well. i think it will. 

I'm sending one box tomorrow...not sure when others will be sent.  Is there anything last minute you'd like?  you good on pants?  

mmmm...i don't really know what i would need. you just need to know to send them priority mail or 1st class. thats what president jergensen keeps telling us in our emails and that all packages should be sent before the 15th of december. so yeah...

What's your best favorite thing this week?    

prolly being able to see an investigator and help her understand that the only way she is going to know whether or not to be baptized is to read the book of mormon. and thats all she'll have to do to know. that was pretty cool to tell her that. oh and being able to play pingpong twice in one night!!! it was awesome!! haha

What'd you do for thanksgiving...the actual day?  

in the morning we went and contacted some people on the street but there weren't that many so we decieded it would be less time effective to do this so we walked around for a little bit more trying to find some people then we headed over to our branch pres. house and had a linner thanksgiving. kinda weird but oh well. it was fun. :) played pingpong and then went over to the other members house of the 2nd ward and played pingpong over there. pretty fun. 

243 days left Transfer Week

well this week was another slow one. my comp is Elder Hinman and he has been out for 10 months now and is pretty cool. we still have to work out the kinks and how each other teaches but we are doing pretty well together. he teaches and talks a lot more than elder tekanene did. it's pretty weird to have to get used to. 

on saturday we got pretty sick with a cold and so we have been trying to recoup from that. saturday night it came on and just punched us in the face! it stinks! i think it is because we went to rake leaves that had been sitting and were wet on the bottom and so we raked them up and then got sick that night. lame sauce. so we are taking it easy and trying to get lots of fluids in us to fight this dang sickness. 

thanksgiving here in iowa city is hard cause everyone is leaving for the holidays and that includes most of our investigators. so we are really going back to the basics and going tracting and finding. we had a less active come to church yesterday who hadn't come to church since i have been here. he is a wrestler from utah and he must be pretty good to be wrestling for iowa. they are a pretty big school for that and so we talked to him and asked him when his meets are so we can come watch them. maybe that will be a way in to get him to start coming back to church. 

i did get a letter from gramma B and i plan on writing her back today. really now all i have to do to recieve some letters is to write people back so thats what i plan to do today. i don't really have much else to report on so i'll just answer some questions... :)

thats about it for me! i love you all and can't wait till next week! 

love 

Elder Jens Smith

What happened at transfers?  who's your companion?  where's he from? how long has he been out?   so transfers happened and yeah i got elder hinman from washington. he is pretty cool and loves cars. he has been out for ten months. he came out with elder tekanene. 

I'm hoping to get some more pictures...got any?  

mmmm...not today. sorry. 

Do you still have your pumper upper from your soccer calle ball?  

yeah i still have it. i thought i lost it a while ago but i found it.

What's the best thing this week?  

best thing this week was prolly having a few people show up to church that we weren't expecting. like that less active and also one of our old investigators with her member friend. 

What's the plan for thanksgiving?  You going anywhere?  

yeah our branch pres. is having us over so we are excited for that. he has a ping pong table that i plan to dominate! haha no i'll prolly get whooped!

250 days left Transfer Week

this week has been a slow one. elder tekanene has been having a hard time. he is getting transferred and luckily for me he is still willing to get up in the mornings and ride our bikes to the track and me run while he sleeps on the bleachers. he is such a great missionary. 

we had a lesson on tuesday with our investigator and she just was not ready for it. we taught her about the tree of life in 1 Nephi 8. it did not go well. not that the lesson was bad it was just that the spirit was not present during that lesson. the only time that you could even feel a smidgen if the spirit was when we just flat out told her what our purpose for being there. no bueno. after that we just didn't have a great week. we had an investigator not follow through on an appointment we had and so we weren't able to have a lesson with her and so we set one up for this tuesday (tomorrow) and hopefully we can help her get to the waters of baptism. 

i really hope that this next week will be better. transfers are on the 15th so i'll have a new comp by next monday. im really sorry for such a short letter but there really wasn't anything much going on this week! here are some pics of our district with out the sisters cause they had to leave early from district meeting. 

i love you all so much and can't wait to hear back from you!

love

Elder Jens Smith

How many discussion per week are you having?  Christian wants to know. 

well we have been getting about 7 or 8 these last few weeks but this week we only got 5. 

When is transfer day?  

transfer day is on the 15th and the next transfer day is going to be the 25th of december. 

Did you make your goal to beat the sisters?  When are your prospective baptisms happening?  

we did have a goal for beating the sisters but right now it isn't looking so good. we are supposed to have a baptism on the 22nd of dec. 

Best thing this week?  

best thing this week is...emailing you guys... :)

257 days left

hey folks, 
it's beginning to be a wee bit nippy outside now. we haven't had any snow yet. i hear you got some. thats super lame. this week went really well. we were able to set another baptismal date with one of our investigators (another girl) for dec 22. super exciting! the work is picking up!!! obedience is key in this work thats for sure. i admit that i haven't been as obedient as i should have been these last few months but now i see that and am picking up the slack that we left behind. we are having so much success now i love this work for the reason of helping someone on their way and leading and guiding them to the waters of baptism. i can see the lords hand in my life everyday as he is mindful of the lesson we teach and the people we are teaching! these people have been prepared for this exact time in their lives. the things that they have gone through play a key part and go right along with what we have to say about this restored gospel! amazing are the mysteries of the Lord. 

yeah there is supposed to be an influx of missionaries. it is supposed to be an 471% increase of missionaries sending in their papers and almost half of those are women of the church! so super awesome! we here in the iowa des moines mission will be recieving about 60-70 missionaries here in the next three months with that increase! so steven and lance are going to be with 18 and 19 year old men and women who have joined the construction team of building the Lords kingdom here on the earth today. 

i want to share a scripture that has hit me about Gods love and repentance. it is in alma 17:15 it reads....Thus they were a very indolent people, many of whom did worship idols, and the ^acurse of God had fallen upon them because of the ^btraditions of their fathers; notwithstanding the promises of the Lord were extended unto them on the conditions of repentance.

i love this scripture cause it says that all those who have sinned in their lives no matter who it is, no matter what they have done, the arms of our loving Father in Heaven is waiting to recieve us back into his arms once again! how amazing is that? God still cares about us even we don't care about ourselves! awesome!

haha yeah i tried to dress up as a nerd and did so up until we went to pick up the sisters and they weren't dressed up at all. just in normal missionary attire. i felt rediculus! so needless to say i went home before service and changed. kinda silly to think of a missionary dressing up on halloween. 

haha i miss that dog!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! aaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! my future wife better be ok with having a puppy in the house/apartment. 

kinda weird that cristin is have a baby already but hey all the more power to her and brennen! haha when is she due? 

well thats about it around here! i love you and miss you tons and tons!! i miss that dog!

love

Elder Smith

It's the beginning of a new month...are ya rich now?  

i am sooooo rich now!!!! shopping spreeeee!!!!!! woohoo!!!!!!!!!....no im just kidding. i have decided that im going to try and not spend as much money as possible this month and see how i do. 

What'd you do today?  

well we are going to have our zone P day today! we are going to be playing frisbee, bollybol..."chu godda be kidding me!" "everything you just said, ees my favoreet thing to do, EVERY DAY!

What'd you do for service this week?  

we were able to help more at the adult daycare center this week and serve soup and pie to a lot of old people. twas nice. :) i enjoyed it. 

I love you..sooooo much..hope you know that!  You are fantabulous!  

oh you kids...i love you too. 

How come you wouldn't ever beat the sisters with numbers?  Is it not possible?  

well we can beat the sisters. we are actually trying to right now. they have 4 baptismal dates set and we are going to try and have 5 here coming up soon so we'll keep ya posted on how we do with that! 

264 days left!

oh man i love stories about the dog...it makes me laugh sooooooo hard. haha im in another library and i started crying i was laughing so hard! hahaha luckily nobody really saw me. :) oh man, haha funny!!! 

(yesterday the dog and i were home alone and it was super quiet and i was doing homework (watching an online telecourse).  the dog was sleeping underneath the piano bench and all of a sudden i hear this phhhhssssss very quiet and 5 minutes later the room wreaked.  It was just funny that i could hear it...you usually can't hear him boof. funny puppy.)

this week was pretty slow as for work and things like that but time wise it is really speeding up! i can't believe how fast everything is going and it is so true what we learned about how we are spending our time or investing in it. didn't really see the importance of that until now.

haha you totally should have buisness cards for us!!! haha that would be legit! be like...here's his card if you would like to right him. i'll tell him to look forward to your letter....then they will feel obligated to write me! haha (I told him that people ask me all the time about the boys and how they're doing and I want to say..."well, write them! and find out! or look on the blog, that's why I have this thing...then I said I should prolly have some business cards made up to hand out to people that ask that with their addresses on them)

we have been getting ready for the cold and right now it is kinda miserable cause the land lord people have turned on the heater and so now it's like 85 degrees in our house and i am still having to sleep with the covers off and a fan blowing on me. so i haven't been getting a ton load of sleep but im getting just enough to get by. i say this and i think of others who have to same thing but every stinking day. kinda like christian. haha oh well.

so we are having another mission tour this next month of november. and the GA that is coming to our mission is elder clarke. he is a 70. pretty sweet. thats about it for now. sorry for the lame sauce letter.

thats about it for me here here in the iowa city. i love you all and miss you too!

love

Elder Smith 

what is the weirdest thing your companion thinks about the us of a? like when he first got here...   

hmm the weirdest thing he thinks of the states is when people are sun bathing or "tanning"

what're you going to be for halloween?  Is there a ward thing? I think i'm going to be a zombie. 

hmmm well seeing as we can't dress up in anything other than our proselyting clothes im going to be a nerd. ;) haha i'll be sure to send home some pics of it. :) haha my companion is going to be an FBI agent. or will smith from the men in black. :) hahahahahahahaha funny!!!!

christian said in his letter that he beat the sister's numbers this week...have you ever done that? hehe is it kinda a little competition?   

mmm nope we haven't ever done that really. we have sisters that we share the car with and sure they had a baptism yesterday but we'll have one in a few months. thats ok with me as long as the work moves along. 

271 days left

hey momma, 

this was an ok week. so the sisters kinda stole the car this week which is ok but it would be nice to have a car so we don't have to rely on members and having to walk since it's been pretty rainy here. but ya know sometimes ya gotta sacrifice.

 

so we started out with an ok pday. we...i don't really remember what we did for pday. oh we just played pingpong and wrote letters with the zone leaders and sisters so that was ok...i loooooove pingpong! haha i can't get enough of it!! that is one thing i will never get sick of! i could play all day! anyways...

 

thats good that you got ty's eagle project done. how much of it did he do and how much did you do of it? ;) haha no but yeah hopefully he can stay on top of his homework. i sent him a letter last week, did he get it? is he writing me back?

 

I don't really have much else to report on. haha sounds like our weeks are pretty much the same. just doin the same ole same ole' stuff. not to much different. still teaching people who won't be baptized till december but thats ok. still finding people. 

well thats about it for now! i love you all and miss you. sorry for the short letter today, and mom your quote is from babe. i still remember the first time you tried that one on me and christian and we were stumped! so i will never forget that one! :) (that'll be the bus.)

 

love

 

Elder Jens Smith

 

Best thing this week?   

best thing this week was being able to run almost every morning this last week!

Can you believe Christian hit his one year mark yesterday?  boo yah.  

yeah he is just about three months apart from me. i just turned 15 on saturday! crazy! now its 8 months and some odd days.

Do you switch off making dinner for each other? or do you just make whatever each of you wants separately?  

well we don't really ever make anything for each other, except for when we both want and can make spagettii. then we usually make that but we don't do that a lot. it is usually a lot of canned stuff, cereal, mmmm....we had some pancakes a few days in a row. that was a good treat.

Did you go out to a member's house for dinner this week? what'd you have?   

yeah we did and we had cashew chicken which was really really good!!! i loved it! too bad she only had a little bit. hhmmmm. we are going to eat out with a member tonight at texas roadhouse, which i am totally stoked for! ,Mmmm!

 

Been thinking of what you'd want for your christmas package?  

haha how bout that motorcycle?! ;) no im just kidding but i think a couple new ties that aren't purple. a few paisley and a few not. um....some snacks! like, candy snacks! so i can snack on them during personal study and not study lehi's dream! (that means not fall asleep in missionary language) other than that i haven't really thought about what i would like. i will keep thinking about it though. :)

278 days left

yeah we haven't had much of a break but thats ok! we've been able to see the work progress so much because of that! we've been working pretty hard these past few weeks and have been able to see the lords hand in our lives so much. we were able to go to the temple this weekend on saturday and was just what i needed and also what i didn't need. i was doing pretty well spiritually and then i go to the temple and then satan sees that im happy and just comes in and shuts me down! ha just totally makes me contentious and just lazy and not wanting to do anything so we were like we just have to get out of the house and go walk around and it was super nice out side. it was 60-65 degrees and it had just rained and the weather was nice. just a few mists of rain here and there. over all i am glad i was able to get out and see what a beautiful world we have. earth right after rain. it is amazing to see what our Father in Heaven has given us. we had fasted before we went to the temple and so they all wanted to go out for lunch after and we were like we are fasting so we are going to walk around and see if we can find an lds store that might have CTR rings for elder tekanene to remember nauvoo by. so we were able to find a ring that he liked and that fit him and we were right in time cause the members who took us walked out of the restaurant at the time we walked up to it! cool. anyways thats what was good.

 

we had great lessons yesterday! we taught two lessons that were to investigators and one to a less active that we've been trying to get in with for a while. so things worked out. that was good.

i love you all and am sorry for the short letter today. i can't wait to hear from you again next week! oh and here's a quote from me!!!! "they come, they eat, they leave, they come, they eat, they leave..."

 

love

 

Elder Jens Smith 

 

Question:

So, did you get to go to the temple?  Do a session?  

yeah we went to the temple and it was awesome! being able to go into the nauvoo temple was great! we did a session and then left right after that. but thats ok. i still have two more temple trips that president jergensen owes me. :) haha

I love the service questions:  so I'll ask again...Favorite service moment this week?  

hmmm...service question...i can't think of any right now. sorry. :(

What're your plans for p-day?  

no idea. i think the sisters had a member who was going to let us go driving at the golf course. that would be pretty sweet. haha we went one time before and elder tekanene took his first swing and whew! out goes that golf club! hahahahaha twas pretty hilarious! :)

How're your investigators coming along?  

our investigators are coming along great! we just had a lesson with one yesterday. well our main progressing investigator yesterday. we are trying to get other lessons with our other investigators and our potential investigators. so we are doing pretty well.

285 days left

well this week was another great one. we have made so many contacts this past week and the work really is picking up these next few and last months. we had an elder come in who's name was elder elder. just like the  elders we know at home but it wasn't someone i knew. thats ok though. thats awesome that sister youngs brother will be coming here! i will definitely say hi if i am able to see him at transfers  is he going to the MTC on the 5th or out here on the 5th?

 

yeah conference was amazing as usual. so many great talks and the ones i think i got the most out of were not members of the 12. well one was but one was from the quorum of the 70. such a powerful moment when we heard elder bowen speak. haha kinda special and also we had the 70 who is going to come to our mission in nov. speak as well! his name is elder clarke. pretty cool to have two of the GA speak that came or are coming to our mission.

 

yeah dad sent christian and i a little video of it haha.

 

it is going to be soooo crazy to have 18 and 19 year old elders and sisters! we were all blown away with that news! did you watch the world report after that conference? they had a question and answer session with elder nelson and elder holland about that statement. pretty cool to see that the requirements are going to be a highschool graduation or the equivalent of that. ty start getting ready for the temple right now!!!!

 

well, thats about it for now! i love you so much and can't wait to hear from you again! oh we are for sure going to the temple this weekend on saturday cause it's our branch temple day so we are just going to go with a member up there 

oh and the movie quote is from a knights tale. :)  (come on ponies) and your movie quote is from whinnie of the pooh (think, think, think).

 

love 

 

Elder Jens Smith 

 

Questions:

Did you get to watch all the sessions?  Even priesthood?   

yep every one! i really enjoyed elder christophersons talk at priesthood. pretty influential. 

How many investigators did you have watch with you?  

we had one investigator there. she really enjoyed it. she watched all but one session. the saturday afternoon session.

Did you get any letters from any little people?  Like the Bayless'?   

nope not yet. i have gotten a letter from vanessa, kristen, sam, madison, and miranda. so im pretty stacked with letters i have to write back. no worries i am getting back to each of these wonderful people. :)

I'm starting to think of your Christmas package...anything special you'd like?  

mmmm maybe like some warm socks. a cool christmas tie? i don't know. :) maybe a motorcycle for when i get home? :) hahahaha :)  (haha I'll get right on that)

Favorite service moment this week...  

favorite service moment this week was when we were helping this really really drunk guy out of the street. so we were walking home on night and we see this pretty old guy pass us and is staggering really badly and is tripping over himself and so i watch him for a little bit and he passes us and kind of goes out into the street. all of a sudden he trips and falls in the street when cars are just about to approch us and so i run out there and stop the cars, see if he needs some help and he tries to get up on his own and then just crumbles back down into the street, introducing himself to the asphalt, and cutting his forehead and then i was like, this guy is too drunk to even get back up on his own. so i end up lifting this guy up on his feet, getting him to the sidewalk and the car who stopped for us pulled over and asked us if we needed to call an ambulance and the guy we were helping says...no i just need a cab to get me home. so we get this guy into the nearest place we could haha which happend to be a bar and asked the bartender if he knew a cabs number. so we got the number, called the cab and finally got the guy on his way home. that was a pretty funny and neat experience to see what happens when you drink and you aren't responsible about it. but also that we were able to save this guys life. if we hadn't been walking there at that time, this guy may have been hit by a car and who knows what could have happened to them. i love this work so much because the lord puts us in the path of people who don't even know they will be needing us. and we don't even know either! :) 

292 days left Transfer Week (staying)

this week has been another good one. you could prolly say it was same ole same ole but it wasn't really that way. we had some more lessons this week which has brought the branch to grow in their trust in us and so i am excited about that cause i fasted for help in gaining the trust of the members and so now i know that was an answer to my fast and prayer. i love this work cause i am able to see the lords hand in everything i do. there truly is opposition in all things. 2 nephi 2:15 the last half of it. and in fine, all things which are created, it must needs be that there was an opposition; even the dforbidden efruit in fopposition to the gtree of life; the one being sweet and the other bitter. so yeah i can see when the Lord or the Holy Ghost is in this work and when They are not. 

we had another lesson with our investigator and she is doing really well. i am soooo excited for her. i really wish she would just reconsider and get baptized here. december couldn't come any sooner!! that's when she wanted to get baptized. anyway we had a lesson with her yesterday on the plan of salvation. i think i have told you this but i think that lesson is the hardest to teach cause there is so much stuff in there that you think you need to pack it all into one lesson but you really don't. our branch mission leader said that there are easy ways to condense things in a way to make them easier to understand and to teach. so i am excited to hear about this. i guess i can tell you her first name. her name is kaitlin. 

we also had another lesson with some investigators. they are from Liberia and are pretty interested in the book of mormon and the fact that we have a living prophet today. we just read the book of mormon with them and answered questions they had during that lesson. so it was just a chill lesson but i don't think it went as well as i thought it could have. 

that's about it for our investigators. we are still working with the less actives in our branch but we are not making them a focus cause they just don't really respond the way we need them to. so here's the answers to the questions. 

well sorry for the short letter this time but i love you all and can't wait to hear from you again!. 

love 

Elder Jens Smith

p.s. yeah i remember getting a letter from kelly but i haven't written her back yet. kinda need to get on that. thought she would be too busy with married life for that. :) haha naaa im just kidding but really i need to write her back.
 
  
Questions:
When are transfers?  What're your feelings about this? You going? staying?  

transfers are this week on the 4th. and we are both staying together for another transfer! woohoo! :)

What's been your favorite part of this week?  

favorite part of this week would have to be having kaitlin come to church and being able to see the members fellowship her.

Are you excited for conference?  Are you setting up a showing at the church like you did last time?  with elder excell?   

haha no we will have the broadcast at the stake center which is like 5 mins away from the institute building. hopefully we will have all of our investigators there watching at least a little bit of general conference, if not all of it. :)

Are you having tons of rain storms now?  Christian said that he was in an earthquake.  Do you think you've ever felt one of those?  

mmm not so many rainstorms but pretty chilly weather. at least in the mornings when i run. haha elder tekanene is now just sitting in the car as i run around the track. :) funny guy. and no i prolly will never feel one of those. the only thing close that will hit us is a tornado. and that not very likely. 

299 days left

haha thats pretty funny. i have heard all about that thing. her name is siri and she can even help you hide a dead body! haha she says...where would you like to hide it? and it gives you all these choices. haha pretty funny. so whats up ma mega...pretty darn funny. i haven't called anyone that for a while. ha 14 months! 

and i heard all about the byu game and also the iowa game against centrel michagen and how they lost by one point as well but it was supposedly the worst called game ever! haha funny how people react to football. 

so we went to church with less than half of our members and it was only an hour long church cause of the nauvoo conference that the ysa go to every year so it was just a little testimony meeting where only like 5 people got up to bare their testimonies and the rest was filled with silence in which you could prolly hear my stomach growling at me for fasting yesterday. haha pretty funny. :) 

so i was talking with elder herrin about coming back and just going to uvu with him and rooming with him while attending that school so i have been really concerened with that thought so i will be praying about it for the next 10 months and really thinking hard. i have told a lot of people that i would be coming back to iowa and that i would be visiting them a lot, like the cannons and the calls and the hancocks. i was really hoping to spend more time with them so if i do stay in utah for school we will be taking road trips up the wazoo back to iowa to see them and spend time with them.

 

anyhoo...this week was really...well the weekend was the best part for us. i think it was wednesday of last week we got a phone call saying that there was a young lady who would like the lessons and so we called this person back and she said that she got this referral from someone else and wasn't sure if they said she wanted a blessing or a lesson so we were to call her and ask her which one she wanted. haha so we call this girl up and i asked...so we heard that you wanted a blessing...and she was like ummm...and there was a pause for a sec then i was like ok now ask her if she wants to take the lessons and she was like yeah i would like to have the lessons. it turns out that her boyfriend was a member in waconia, minnisota and asked her to take the lessons. this is always risky bidness cause they just want to do it for the significant other so we need to make sure that she is doing it for the right reasons and so far...she seems like she is really interested it what we have to say. so we called her on wed. and set up a lesson for friday, had that lesson and went great. invited her to be bapitzed and she accepted and then we set up another lesson for sunday after church. we taught her the gospel of christ and it went...ok. could have been a lot better but we then asked her to set a date and we had prayed before church elder tekanene and i about when we thought she should be baptized and so i had a distint prompting about the 13th of oct. and he said the 20th or the 27 and so we just could not make a firm decision about when this should be and so we were like ok, we will let her deciede between the 20th and the 27th. so we got to the end of the lesson and then say, we have prayed about a date for the baptism and we feel that it could be between the 20th or the 27th. you choose. and so she pipes up and says...oh i was wondering if we could do it in december cause then i would be in my home ward and my boyfriend would be back and i want to do it with his family cause i have a special connection with them. and i instantly thought...WHAT IS IT WITH EVERY ONE OF OUR INVESTIGATORS WANTING TO BE BAPTIZED NOT BY US BUT BACK IN THEIR HOME TOWN!!!! GAAAAA!!!!!  haha so i had to comply and then said yeah that would be totally fine and then thought, hmmm, maybe thats why we couldn't come to a firm decision about when she should be baptized cause she was going to do it in december. it was a pretty cool experience. 

and then yesterday we met with a lady that the elders in the iowa city 2nd ward referred to us and taught her a lesson and then invited her to be baptized and she said yes!! so awesome! thats about it for now really. we had a good week and i can't wait to see what happens next.

 

oh here's another incident from the game day saturday last saturday. we were walking down the same street that we got asked about the questions before and this guy comes out of his apartment with a suit jacket on, no shirt, some shorts, and flip flops and just starts screaming "GO HAWKS GO FREAKIN HAWKS! WOOOOOOOOO!!!" and his face was turning purple and we were like he is so drunk and i totally thought he was just going to puke his lungs out cause he was so drunk and then elder tekanene says, " i could punch him and he wouldn't feel it or do anything to us cause he was so drunk." haha he said that he did that some times back home cause there were so many drunk people where he was from. hahaha pretty funny coming from him. :)

well thats about it for now! i love you and miss you !

 

love

 

Elder Jens Smith

 

Questions:

Do you remember the Nauvoo temple dedication?  We went to the stake center and listened to some speakers and music and waved some white handkerchiefs.  

yeah very vaguely i do remember that. i remember president Hinckley waving it and everyone else doing it at the stake center. why did we do that with that one and not with any other temples that were built or dedicated?

ok so here are my questions about your pictures

Yay!! I found a picture of elder folsom!  printing that out and adding to the wall...  

yeah i forgot that i had those. did you get the easter ones? :) haha i thought those were funny.

Umm you got us all hooked when you were building/getting a bomb ready for the sisters...oh the suspense...and then...nothing.  what happened?!! 

hahaha ok so the story was that we had this guy rig our trunk so that we would have the sisters open the trunk and not see anything and then all of a sudden BOOM!!!!!  and they would get scared silly but they had just pulled a prank on us using the trunk a couple days before so they were waiting for it and we were too obvious with it and they opened it and didn't even really get scared! super lame sauce so we were pretty ticked that it didn't work we dropped them off and took of for home ranting a raving about how our plan didn't work...totally stupid. so thats the story of the bomb, that it didn't work. 

Tell me about the pretty butterflies...and the squirrel  

so the butterflies were from the butterfly garden at reiman gardens in ames. pretty cool. the squirrel...oh is it black? if it is... it is called a squigger!!!! hahahahahaha you can prolly figure out why its called that. :)

I'm assuming your wet picture with elder curtis is from a massive rain storm?  

yeah we just walked around the wet rain cause it was warm and raining. twas nice. wish we had that in utah.

"the mechanical room vidyo...is that in a church somewheres?  where elder curtis knocked on the wrong door.  were you practicing?  did anyone answer the "other" door?  

haha no, no one did. he didn't see the sign that said mechanical room so he just knocked that door. i saw it and was like, really? haha it was pretty hilarious.

and lots of cool fire bending vids.  

ha yeah he turned out to be an avitar geek with me. 

Who gave you the tickly duckie?  that was a funny vidyo.  

it was at a members house. i saw it on a video of another elder and thought it was the funniest thing and so i end up serving in that same area and come to find out that the same duck was that same members! so i took some video of it. :)

What is the size of your suit coat?  

no idea. i will check and let you know. i am having a lady look at the suit pants and try to patch them up. now it'll look like i was a real hard working missionary! :)