Dear Mother,

Whoa.

Defensive.

I didn't mean to be offensive.  In fact, I really don't know why you were upset with my letter. I'm fine with you dating David.  In fact, I think it's really good for you.  I don't feel out of the loop, you seem to explain everything accurately.  I joke around, because I don't know how else to react.  Actually, I joke around, because that's all I ever do.  I've got Dad's blood. And perhaps some sick sheep.

To be fair, for the last few years, I've been your quote unquote "guard dog."  So the pictures throw me off a little, but I'm fine. I just bark at men sometimes. After all, Hank and Adrienne are brothers, so I think I'm related to him too.

On to the girth of the email.

So, I think you misunderstood me.  Some of the Chavarrias have been members for a long time, some were baptized a few months ago, and some aren't members.. yet.  Elder Velarde is the third Spanish-speaking missionary in a row to serve here.  I broke the combo.  But hopefully he stays here until he goes home in a couple of transfers, and hopefully by then the Chavarrias' English and my Spanish is up to par far enough that we can communicate if I don't get a Spanish speaker for my next companion. So Elder Velarde's last companion was Elder De Aguiar, and before Elder Velarde there was an Elder Gomez.  Technically I haven't officially asked if I can learn Spanish, but I'm going to be doing just that on Jueves (Thursday) at interviews.  Technically Elder Velarde has been doing his language study, and I'm just helping, so I pick up some Spanish.  Haha, but on Thursday I'm going to ask President if I can really dive in and learn Spanish.  It makes sense for him to say yes, because no one else in the ward here speaks it, and so Elder Velarde has to teach Gospel Principles on his own.  It would help him and the ward out if I knew Spanish.

Our main Chavarrian investigator is the Abuelo of the family.  He comes to church every week.  He has bible study every single night. I think he actually probably believes in the church, but he's very traditionally Catholic.  He'll come around to it, it's a when situation, not an if situation.

Then there is Carmen.  She is one of the three children of the Abuelo and Abuela of the family (who are divorced, but that's another story.) She has three boys, and a husband.  Two of her boys are members, and one of them is very disinterested, but I think Carmen makes him come to church cause he's there every Sunday.  Carmen however, had a very big falling out with her mother, and now refuses to be in the same room as her.  It was a physical falling out.  (Elder Velarde saw scratches all down Carmen's arms.)  Carmen will be baptized as well, but things need to be worked out between her and Anna Julia (Abuela) because Anna Julia is a very active member.  So Carmen will not come to Church.

You know what, I'll just give you the run down on the whole family.  So, Abuela and Abuelo are Anna Julia (Anna Who-Lee-uh) and Jose Rafael, respectively.  They are divorced, but on good terms, Rafael is remarried, but his wife is still in El Salvador.  Anna Julia is not remarried.  Those two have three children.  Dennis (Denise), Carmen, and Iris.  Dennis is married to Annabelle, and they have two little girls, Alejandre (8) and Victoria (Beekie) (3).  They're all members and they converted in El Salvador before they came here. Then Carmen is married to another Rafael, who isn't interested in the church at all. Those two have three boys. Emerson (17) who is disinterested, Alberto (14), who is an unordained teacher, and Harold who is eleven.  The only reason Alberto is unordained is because he wants his parents to be there when it happens.  But I think Abuela also wants to be there.  Conflict of interest. We're getting that sorted. Then there is Iris.  She has no husband, but she's got two girls.  Julianna (13), and she's a member.  Then Iris (7), who wants to be baptized, and will be next year. Iris the older is not a member, although she has a strong belief in God and Jesus Christ, and loves the Bible. She told the missionaries that if they mentioned baptism to her again, that she would stop talking to them.  She thinks that all religions are wrong, basically, and doesn't believe in organized religion as it stands.  I think she'll come around to it, but it  might take some time.

I think that describes them.  It took me a while to figure everything out.

Other investigators?  Not many.  We have one guy Sean, he's a foster dad, and I haven't been able to see him, but we have an appointment with him tomorrow.  Then, we got a new investigator Samson yesterday, who is already Christian, and a good guy, but we'll see how long he lasts.

I have read Granddad's book.  I read it when I was with Elder Shepherd, and when I was with Elder Wrenger.  So it was a little while back, but I love it.  There's so much cool stuff in there.  I think it's so awesome when he refers to Apostles and Prophets like they were best friends.  A lot of the ideas are awesome, and I really wish I had Granddad as a mission president.  But.. my mission president works differently.  

So, you could have a daughter named Brooke and a step-daughter named Brooke, both of which want to name one of their daughters Ruby, and one of them has done it.  How does Brooke (Elaine) think about that? I bet she's mad that other-Brooke beat her to it. And a new Colton?  Replacements? Ouch. Just kidding Mom. I'm just kidding.

DC looked pretty dang cool though!  I'd love to go there someday. 

Josh sounds cool! Maybe we'll shred sometime.  That would be pretty rad. (Translation: Josh and I seem to have similar interests and it seems I would enjoy spending time around him.  Perhaps, even, we can go snowboarding together.  That situation would be quite nice.)

Wales is great.

We went up into the mountains last week, and it reminded me a lot of home, and it made me pretty trunky.  It took me back to when me and Dad would wake up super early in the morning to go fishing, and drive out to the Provo River to his secret spot, and we would wade all the way across the river and he'd carry me, or if the river was too high or fast, we'd have to hike in about a mile and a half, cause the spot was that good.  And we'd just spend all morning talking and fishing, and hanging out together.

I miss that guy.

Stop crying.

I'm going to stop in Cardiff and see if I can't find a suit one of these days.  I'll look for shoes too, but a suit first.

Oh yeah, and I haven't stopped coughing yet.. so I'm going back to the doctor after interviews on Thursday.  I'll keep you updated, this one is just to get a referral to another Ear Nose and Throat specialist, because I think my last referral was for a doctor in Birmingham, and that's ages away now.

Aaaaandd finally, it is Breea that went to Paris.  She'll be there until August.  Then she's coming home.  It's crazy that my grade is starting to come home off their missions now.  Steve (Big Steve on my football team.) is on his last transfer I'm pretty sure.  He went out right after we graduated.  Like June 10th or something.

Anyways.. I think that's all.  I should be on the computers for the next little bit.  I'll be replying to the grand multitude of emails in my inbox.  Tell Jordon sorry.  He emailed me wayyyy back, and I still haven't gotten back to him.  I have a lot of catching up to do.

I love you!

Oh and yes.  I will be skyping you on Mother's Day.  I'll have times and things to you post-haste.  That'll be my second-to-last time.  Weird.  Get this.  There's only one more conference before I get home.  Put that in your pipe and smoke it.  

Actually don't.

Love,

Elder Intelligente

Newport!!

It's sooo much better in Wales than in England.  Don't tell anyone from England that I said that though.  Wales is really where I got called on my mission.  It's amazing here.  We live on the top of a flippin mountain though.  There's so many hills here, it's insane.  I forgot that land could be anything but flat. Non-flat land is so much better. I realized how much I miss my real mountains.  A lot.  Wales is close though.  They call their big hills mountains.  And a lot of the time, when I'm walking up one, I'd have to agree with them.

Granddad is very right.  People actually say hello back here!  How crazy is that?  I'm pretty sure that they even consider us to be humans over here.  That's pretty much heaven.

I'm in a small ward called the Newport-Gwent ward.  There's probably about sixty or seventy active members here, and there's two sets of missionaries. Me and Elder Velarde and then Elder Wiser and Elder Smith.  So in the same ward, there's an Elder Smart and an Elder Wiser.  Pretty good, right?

Do you remember Limhi?  He was my Branch Mission Leader in Leamington?  Well he comes from a family of thirteen kids, and quite a few of them reside in this humble little ward.  In fact, basically everyone has some kind of tie to the Sommerville family.  His wife's parents live here as well.  Small world.  His brother is the Bishop here and is a really great guy.  

So, my new companion is Elder Velarde, from Spain.  He's been out on his mission for about 21 months now, so I think I'll probably be killing him here.  (He'll be finishing his mission here.) (Have you caught on to mission lingo yet? Or do I need to keep interpreting myself?)

Get this.  There is this family of El Salvadorians in our ward here that were baptized not too long ago, and all they speak is Spanish.  They have fourteen in their family and they're all in the same house (multi-generational), and about eight of them are members.  So we're working really hard with them.  They had to flee from El Salvador because of some political uprising apparently.  I haven't really asked about it, mostly because I can't.  Which brings me to my next point.  I'm learning Spanish.  It's going to be so dang cool.  Technically all non-English speaking missionaries are supposed to do language study for an hour a day, but generally when they get to the point of fluency, they stop doing it. (or if you're Elder Wrenger, you just refuse to do it, because your English is "perfect.")  Anyways, Elder Velarde has had a Spanish elder as a companion for the last transfer, and apparently really only spoke Spanish for the majority of the time, and so his English is a bit rusty again.  But he's more than needed to interpret for the Chavarria family, and to teach them all Gospel Principles. So.. for the time being, I'll be helping him fine-tune his English, and we'll be teaching the Chavarrias English, and I'll be learning Español from both of the parties.

The Chavarrias have a bunch of young children, the youngest of which is three years old and her name is Vicki (Beekie), and she looks exactly like Dora the Explorer.  She is suuuuuper cute.  She's a lot like a I think Remy is.  Absolutely insane.  I love it.  Than there are two little seven and eight year old girls that are in love with me. When I shake their hand and say Buenos Noches they hurry and kiss my hand. Haha oh well.  They are the best family though.  I'm super excited to get to know them.  We're going to baptize the rest of them, and all their refugee friends too.  And I'm going to have to know Spanish.  And fast.

It's getting warm here, and all the flowers and stuff are coming out.  I should probably start taking a bunch of pictures for you.  I've been pretty bad at that lately. They'll get to you eventually.  But Wales is the beautiful castle-spotted land that you imagine when you think of England.  When we come back, we might be spending a little bit more time over here than in Englaterra.  

I forgot to mention the bike situation.  I found out that I was coming over here to Wales.  So instead of having a lot of time to shop around for a new wheel, I just went and got one so that transporting the bike wouldn't be hell.  Because transfers already are pretty bad, so a bike with one wheel would probably be the worst thing on Earth.  So I just bought one.  It cost me like £60, so I'm sorry.  I'm still trying to figure out how to fix my bike, and I have to get to know the members around here before I start asking them about welding I think.. but Elder Velarde's bike is out of commission to, so we're just walking lately.  And honestly I might die if I try and ride my bike around here.  When you come here you'll understand.

So as for logistics.  If you send me post to the mission home, I probably wont get it for ages, because the mission home is now like a two or three hour drive away, and the Zone Leaders only go like twice or three times a transfer.  So when you write me all your beautiful hand written letters, send them to my flat.

The address is:

242A Stow Hill

Newport

South Wales

NP20 4HA

You can look it up on google earth if you want.  But it wont look like much from the ground level.  It's technically three stories though.  Although the first floor is just a landing.  But the flat is massive.  And super run-down.  Haha, it's one of the flats that have been in the mission for ages, and missionaries have absolutely destroyed it.  Which is exactly what I like.  We can see Bristol and Cwmbran from the top, and the curtains wave when the windows are closed.  Haha, oh well.  It's really a good one. At least, in my opinion.  You'd think it was a total dump. And it is. But that's nice. And I can put my arms all the way out or even over my head and I wont touch both walls.  It's great.

Life is really really good.  I'm super happy to be here, and I think I'm only going to get happier and happier.  

I love you.

Love,

Elder Smart

(or ¡Elder Intelligente!)

Hey Momma,

 

I'm glad you got the call from Brother Dowling!  I told him to ask if he could talk to Remy, cause I thought that he'd like to talk to her, but it sounds like he said something else.  Oh well.  I did tell him to tell you that I love you.  And he's lying about Tuesday.  I refuse to say chooseday.

 

Yeah, I'm in the same stake as him.  It's all part of Lichfield Stake.  I'm at the farthest west that I could be in the stake boundaries, and Tamworth is like an hour's drive ish from Wolverhampton.

 

Conference was so sick!  You should be really really excited about Priesthood session.  It was probably my favorite so far.  I haven't listened to the last session of conference, but I will soon.  Probably my favorite talk was Elder Holland's.  Surprise, surprise.  I think he should share Brother Brigham's nickname.  I think Elder Holland is a great Lion of the Lord.  He's just the man.  Period.  But I loved all of conference.  It was all good.  I was hoping a little bit that they would announce a temple in Birmingham, but alas, it's not meant to be. Yet.

 

The week was good.  Strange, but good.  The zone leaders had to move this week, and had to be out by Friday afternoon, so they called us on Thursday morning and asked if we could come help.  When we got there, they had done close to nothing, so we stayed there all day and helped them clean and get things sorted.  They bought us McDonalds.  Which is good because McDonalds Monopoly is on right now and I'm tired of waiting for an iPad so I'm just going to win one instead.  Or a Mini Cooper.  Either way.  I also went on a really really good exchange with Elder Turney who is one of the zone leaders.  He's a really good guy, and we had a good talk.  His Dad has an unreal past.  He spent something like fifteen years in prison for pretty much everything except rape or murder.  People in the slums of London apparently still know his name, and are pretty scared of him.  But he came out of prison, went to rehab for his drug problems, fell in love with one of the girls helping him, who was a less-active member, and then married her.  A few years later her granddad sent the missionaries over and his dad got baptized and his mom was reactivated.  Since then, he's served as a bishop and has done all sorts of drug-related inspirational firesides and he's like the head of the addiction recovery in the UK or Europe or something.  Really really cool.  Apparently he's written a bunch of books.  Look up Bob Turney.  I bet they're some dang cool books. It might be Robert Turney, but look up like Bob Turney LDS or something.  I'm sure you'll find him.

 

Not much happened this week.  Sad news: Matt and Hailey texted us and told us they didn't think that this was the time for them in their lives.  I think they thought that if we came over than we'd just persuade them to join our religion.  Good news: I had a really strong feeling when Elder Bednar was speaking that I should leave like a box on their doorstep with all our materials and just explain that I know that it could really benefit them in their lives, and just bear testimony and tell them I know they're supposed to be sealed as a family in the temple.  Because I do.  That's the coolest thing.  So I hope that my prompting will punch them in the face with the Spirit.  Pray for that.  Maybe use better words.

 

Our Indian Pharmacist is still really cool, but he hasn't gotten his answer, so nothing is really happening.  We've taught him the big three lessons, but I really don't think that teaching him about the Law of Chastity or Tithing or the Word of Wisdom will help him right now.  He needs to know that God exists and loves him before any of that even remotely matters.  We're going to try and help him stop smoking.  It'll be good.

 

Why on earth didn't you let the boy just puke in your rubbish bin?  Haha, "when I decided he wasn't lying.."  I think the rule on that is just believe him the first time.. always.  Unless you want him to ralph on your shirt.

 

The challenges are kind of dwindling.  We got a bit behind, and then saw that the sisters in Wylde Green had done every challenge and gotten every bonus point, which meant that we couldn't do anything to win, so we just stopped.  The challenge was to have a thumb war with some one on the street, and I doubt we'll do it.  We've lost.  Wah wah.

 

Most of the trees are in bloom, and now it's started to rain again.  Usual.  Oh well.  Life's good now.

 

I remember seeing some real dog-poop cleaning services advertised at the vet when we went last.  I bet you could get some one that would actually do it instead of the little boys that never did it.  Then you wouldn't have to clean anything up, and Hank could poop to his heart's content.  Which is probably a lot.  I miss having a dog.  I would love to have him over here with me. Alas, no pets.  Although, at the moment we have a pet spider.  We feed him flies.  The mission does weird things to you.  I'm going to be like the birdman of Alcatraz when I get released.

 

I went suit shopping and I found one that I liked, but they only had it in one size too small for me.  I was majorly disappointed, because I was set on buying one that day, and then after I had decided on that one, all the other suits paled in comparison, so I just gave up that day.  It'll happen eventually.  Stop worrying about it.

 

I think I'll be getting transferred out of Wolverhampton after this transfer.  I think they'll have Elder Baker die here.  (Finish his mission here.)  President basically only lets the APs choose their last area after they're done being APs, and only if it's an area that's struggling, and they have to train a new missionary or get a really dead companion.  I'd love to go back to Tamworth at the end of my mission though.  I think that would be amazing.  I'm hoping that if I move this next transfer that I go somewhere either far in the east or far in the west.  So either Lincoln, or Nottingham, or Cardiff or Pontypridd in Wales.  I want to get out of the flippin Midlands.  That's all I've seen of my mission so far.  A change of scenery wont hurt either.  It's easier to step up more if you get moved.  And that's what I want to do.  We'll see what happens though.

 

Life is good right now though, and I think I have a clear mind for the first time in a long time.  I don't have to worry about anyone other than my investigators and the Lord, and really I think that means I only have to worry about my investigators.  I've been thinking a little about my life as well, and I've been thinking about a few things.  I'm not sure about what I want to do when I'm older, but I know it's going to require a lot of math and science.  My original plan is to do aerospace engineering and help design planes or parts of planes.  But I've been thinking a lot about brains as well, and how cool I think they are.  So Neuroscience sounds interesting to me.  The other weird thing that I've been thinking about is kind of in the middle of the two, and it's working on prosthetics.  I think it would be the coolest thing in the world to help design a hand that could be controlled with brain waves or help a deaf person hear for the first time in their life.  I really like the idea of making a difference in people's lives for the better.  I think that was what I loved most about the Philippines and regardless of what I end up doing in life, I hope I'll get the chance to do a lot more humanitarian aid.  That was amazing. Mom, I love the Philippines.  We should go over there and I'll show you the tiny village I was in while I was there.  Flip.  I'd go back to that in a heart beat.

 

The goal this week is to find three new investigators.  Pray for that.  Uncle Steve told me that at the end of his mission his mission was baptizing 1500 a month with 80 missionaries.  That's unreal. Our mission is doing really really well to get like 50 or 60 a month, and we have almost 300 missionaries.  I don't think England and Mexico are very similar.  Haha, oh well.  Three investigators is what we want by the end of the week.  I think we can do that.

 

Anyways.  I should probably write to some other people.

 

I love you Mom!

See you in a bit!

 

Love,

Elder Smart