That Greenie Life

Aloha Ohana,

Zone conference was pretty amazing, we got to go to get trained by President and Sister Bekker and also by our APs and ZLs. If you don't know a zone conference is when 2 or 3 zones of missionaries get together and get trained by the Mission President (President Bekker) and sometimes a higher up. Since I'm new I had to get up in front of everyone and bear my "Greenie testimony" which was pretty cool. These only happen every 12 weeks so there were a lot of other new missionaries there. We got some awesome training on how to work with members and we had some bomb nachos. In the end all the missionaries that are leaving in the next 12 weeks also bore their testimonies then we all sang Aloha 'Oe to them. Let me tell you it wasn't super sad because I only knew 1 of the elders that's leaving but maaaaan when it comes to be my time to be on the receiving end of that I'm gonna bawl. I can tell. Lots of good stuff between them all but over we learned about how to best work with members and how best members can help the missionaries, I also heard a lot about that in conference. We watched conference in the stake center and the rough thing was the sessions are at 6 and 10 AM. Makes it a little hard to stay awake but all in all great conference, loved Holland's talk on Home teachers and how important it is, definitely have a new respect for it. Honestly this week has been hard, not a lot of chances to do missionary work because most of our appointments canceled but hopefully the work will go better in the future. We have a lot of appointments set up for next week. I would say that staying positive throughout the week despite all of this was probably the most faith strengthening part. It's good to know that things will get better, so I'm doing just fine.

Finally got a haircut! It was was good, it's a little weird because it's not what I'm used to but I like it. Elder Zollinger cut it for me.

Ok so are you ready to be jealous? This morning I went to a Ranch where a tons of movies and TV stuff have been filmed. I got to hide under the log that Alan Grant and the two kids hid under in Jurassic Park. I also saw a ton of props from Lost. I'll send pics of those. All in all it was a pretty crazy awesome morning.

Ok so right now all the Elders are standing in the same room as me bible bashing about deep doctrine so it's really hard to focus on what I'm typing. Sorry if the email suffers because of that. I'll attach some pics. I'll email Dad but give him a happy birthday today from me.

Love you all!

Elder Smith

Hawaiian food - good stuff