Aloha

Howdy,

So this week has been an interesting one, Elder Boyd got pretty sick partway through the week so we had to take it easy these last couple days but he is doing better now. We did get the chance to teach once or twice this week so that was nice, an improvement from last week but still not where we want to be right now. But slow progress is better than no progress. Probably the best experience this week was sharing the message of the restoration to everyone that attended a Baptism in the 4th ward. Elder Boyd and I each got to share different parts of the lesson to the crowd and when it came time for me to talk about Joseph Smith's prayer I directly quoted his experience from Joseph Smith History. I now understand why they tell us to do that, I felt the spirit so strong and I know that someone else out there had to as well. I felt my own testimony of the truth grow. I wish I had figured this out earlier haha. Live and learn I guess.

I love this gospel and I love being a missionary. It's the hardest thing I have ever done, but I wouldn't trade it for anything.

On the funny side there was a massive spider in our pad this week. Dang thing was big and faster than lightning and smarter than most Elders. Eventually we were able to kill it because you can bet we weren't ready to go to sleep knowing that thing was in our house. It was a terrifying experience. Spiders are not my friend. Bugs here are scary, not like third world scary but still enough to make me hesitate sometimes when I go to bed.

Ooooh quick spiritual moment I had a couple days ago. So there's this less active family that we have been trying to meet with a ton lately but they are never home so we were considering just calling it quits for a bit, but then when we swung by on a whim a couple days ago and met her mother who was visiting from the mainland and when she saw that there were still missionaries trying to get her family to church just just started to cry and thanked us so much for not giving up on her daughter. It definitely let us know that we need to never give up on people, especially her. So hopefully me or someone after me will be able to get them back on the right path.

Well that's all the updates I can think of right now, hope everything is going well back home. Thanks fam for always keeping me updated, it means a lot.

Love you guys!
Elder Smith