Letter #11

Hello loved ones!  elder smart here for this weeks belated news!

for starters I am being transferred again and I feel pretty sad about it.  I'm going to Rochester WA.

at first I was gonna go to silverdale, but oddly enough after church, President had left a message on our phone, of course our first thought was that he was gonna talk to to me.

I apologise ahead of time if I do not sound as chipper, I'm kinda sad since I'm leaving, I didn't think I would actually be leaving this transfer.  Jones has been very nice to me lately.  my stress levels have been rather high and he has been kinda worried for me, but he has said some very kind things.

at one point I was telling him how I had prayed to the Lord that if he was gonna send me home... he was gonna have to make it something big, cuz I wasn't gonna just wimp out I would rather just suffer for 2 years and he said

"smart.... your so noble!" he said it kinda laughing but yeah.

I am NOT happy with you momma!  you didn't send a letter!!!

its a drag because all of the libraries were closed on monday!!!!

well, lemme tell ya about mnonday anyway, it was possibly the BEST p-day I have had.  we woke up and drove over to the gig harbor house to have our studies with Platero and svedin, which was nice.  Then we planned out how ZOMBIES was gonna work!   We had 4 nerf guns and like 11 non-zombies to begin.  however I had to wait awhile before platero and svedin came back from a lunch with the holdaways (craziest family EVER) anyway, I got to set up the whole stake building for it!  I put tables in the way, spread out the bullets and guns it was PERFECT!  It took a couple tries to get it down perfectly but it all worked out in the end!   Jones was even saying in passing that it was the best P-day ever!   I felt so good because of all the things I have planned NONE of them have ever been really successful, so you can imagine how happy I was!

 I hate changing and moving around, I like stability and not having to go change things around too terribly, but I will live.

I got to go say goodbye to all of the families I meet whilst being here, two of which I gave moms number.   I'm really really really gonna miss gig harbor even though it was technically ALOT harder than my last area.

honestly I don't know if I really have the capacity to be an elder somedays, at least not when theres really no one to teach.

so, I have a problem, I need to work on my packing a bit more, cuz I kinda filled the car with 95% my stuff ^^''' think I will be sending some stuff back and possibly learning to actually FOLD my clothes instead of just cramming them in there.

Love,

Elder Smart

Letter #10

HELLO ARIZONA!

(and all the other places that my readers live.)

tis elder smart! i am BACK! and ready for some elaboration!!

SO, this week has been LONG, but actually relatively better as far as getting along with my companions go, elder Jones is in reality a really nice guy, a bit odd etc etc etc but a great missionary, I want to assure my readers that I am not perfect and was not the only perpetrator of our disagreements.

now, my beloved mother confuses me often about how the heck I'm suposed to write these blog letters so I'm still work'n on it.

lemme tell you about some of the MAJOR things that happened this week.

for starters,  I was bit by a dog!

Yaaaaay..... haha so, here's what happened!

we were off to see a less active members that bishop asked us to find so we did and as we pulled up to the house (it was kinda fenced in with trees and it so we didn't see the road.) I could here a faint barking so I look around, not seeing anything I lean back in my seat (which of course is leaned back a bit more than normal peoples ;3 ) Jones is the first one out of the car I stayed behind to put some of my stuff back in the dashboard so i am normally out a bit later than he is, so I drag my self out of the car like usual and turn around and see jones had walked out a bit hand outstretched towards this barking dog. my instant first impression was that this dog was more than a little freaked. it had moved away from Jones hand tail between its legs so I KNEW it was already freaking out. so of course I was already nervous, I stepped out from behind the car more now visible since I was no longer behind it. the Dog ran PAST jones, leaning its head over as if to bite him but then CHANGES ITS MIND as it starts running my way, the entire time I KNEW the son a biscuit was gonna bite me, but  I stood there because.... well heck what else was I gonna do? i wasn't gonna be a wimp, and i sure as heck couldn't out run it! so i watched him as he opened his mouth and bit my leg, still at a full run. tore past my leg and of course the rather annoying pain followed suit.

in anycase, the dog kept running then finally went home to its master the nice lady who owned the house.

my first impressin was that I must be bleeding alot because I could feel this wet feeling all over my leg, but upon examination I was fine.... except for the frigg'n HUGE HOLE IN MY PANTS! XD the lady got hold of him and (after I had calmly showed her some of the damage including the hole in my actual leg to, more like a big scrape) she scolded the dog

"BAD BUDDY!"

and then I was like

"ya, BAD buddy!" 

but it was alright, i was bitter sweet towards the dog, the lady we were looking for didn't live there but her mother in law did, who we talked to for QUITE awhile lemme tell ya, I honestly didn't mind but hey -shrug- after awhile though, the dog starts smelling my leg and I look at him, good naturedly and say.

"Now what do you want huh?!" in a teasing 'talking to a dog voice'

he was pretty nice after that, Buddy had been beaten by a guy, he still had the scars of the chain that had been imbeded in his skin.

of course I was udnerstanding, but I was also kinda P.O'ed at Dogs for awhile.

its funny cuz later that day we were out tracting in the sticks with Tyler allen a soon to be missionary and we're walking down this road and suddenly i hear this LOUD Barking and I turn to see this German shepard in the trees running down what looked like a trail towards us, it was only like five feet away!

my first impression was AH! AW CRAP NOT AGAIN!!!!!

this is what tyler said happened XD I saw the dog and jumped, Jones saw ME jump and then the dog and HE jumped and then tyler saw US jump and then he Jumped!

turns out the dog was in a wire fence!... so I lived..... thank heavens -.-

however I patched up my relationship with dogs on saturday when a lab ran up to us barking and I was tense but then she trotted over and got a teddy bear and brought it to us. I love dogs again. =3

it seems all of our crazy stuff happens when tyler's around! I just realised this because the nexrt week we ran into the most HORRIBLE people I have ever yet met on my mission!

so, heres what happened.

we were looking for a place to tract right? so Jones can't find a good place, so he see's this house that is rather foliaged and has a for sale sign on it, I wasn't to big into the idea because I KNOW most houses with for sale sign NORMALLY have some one in them...

anyway, we go tracting meet a few interesting people and a lady who is our FIRST  INVESTIGATOR that we have run into to actually teach.... even though we haven't taught her. a guy who has been ALL over the place studied all religions etc etc and even thinks that maybe Jesus was married!

(I know right?!?! =D eat your heart out grandma)

so we finally get back to our car, with the excitement of a box of pizza waiting for us at a members home. As we are walking up the driveway, the garage door opens and this round squat older lady walks out the entire time I was like, 'oh great, now we just pestered somebody.'  so, as she's walking out we see the car in front of ours turn on.   the lady then told us that the police had been called and a tow truck was on its way, her spouse during this time backs his car out and drives down the drive way moves around our car and then kinda blocks the exit for ours. he gets out and he's not happy either, apparently we had 'ruined their night' because of this. of course we apologies but the lady was a... Grrr, well she kept going on about how this was 'totally anti-christ. etc etc'

i told her that it was not our intention to cause them grief and she rudely interupted 'yes you did' and of course THAT got my temper running (I think thats a dad trait right there) I then responded and said NO we didn't. a tiny bit more stern than I was before, she then looks at and says 'you have a mouth don'cha!' and of course I wasn't gonna take THAT laying down! so I tried to tell her that I wasn't and that I was actually a really nice guy, but tyler put his hand on my shoulder and kinda calmed me before it got ugly.

SO then theres this awkward silencee the guy tried to tell us he has a long day working at the base, but his wife cut him off telling him not to give us any information.... like we'd do anything with it -.-

so Jones goes and calls president as we wait, he comes back and I was standing there a little miffed, but I looked over at the house, an I figured I'd try and be nice so i told her that I thought they had a really nice house.

she then looks at me and says 'not another word out of you, this is no time for you to be 'cute'' and of course mentally m y first reaction was to say this.

'I'm NOT being cute! I'm just naturally THIS adorable!!!!!'

she also called tyler an idiot at one point and lemme tell you I was SOOOO  mad.  Jones had said we had a right to talk but then the guy was like.

'ya well that right ends right at our ears.' and i was like.... BUT THAT MEANS WE CAN STILL TALK!

so, tow truck gets here, OBVIOUSELY since we're here he can't take the car, we explained what happened, calls the cops and then is like 'so what your telling me is that THEY won!?!' and he was pretty much like 'yep.'  So of course she starts cussing and swearing as they go inside cursing mormons, calling the tow truck guy that he was S#(*$ (which he replied with 'thank you.') cursed mormonism and said that she never wanted to see ME again.... so yeah, great week for wacko's!!

WOW, this letter is long 0.0

well, thats all for now folks! I'll give you an update via snail mail later!

WE SANG IN A FIRE SIDE AND IT WAS REALLY FUN!  but thats all for now folks!

Letter #9

Joshua's 9th Letter

Here is another weekly update!

I am worn out!  We have tracted ALL over the place,  done ALOT of service and I broke my companion for a day.

Jones and I, we have our momments where we get along fine, but he's kinda hard core sometimes and it stresses and actually gets on my nerves, he's a great elder and all but... man yesterday was kinda rough... I was struggling with a bit of my OCD and Jones was asking me to give a percentage of how much I think about how much do I think about home and missionary work.

it sounded like he was warming up for a lecture, I have had a rough week and I've kinda been struggling.

Jones is DEEEEEP DEEP spiritual, he gave up everything 2 years before his mission and all that stuff he's read it 22 times, but he doesn't understand how differently people deal with things.  He used to kinda give me grief in front of people about how messy I was and it kinda bugged me, but after our little devotional and I ended up sitting alone on the bus (I was in front of the sisters who were nice so I was okay) but he apologized how he had kinda treated me.

Jones felt really overwhelmed after we had a long talk and he had also been really stressed out the day before and had to stop and I had to drive for a bit because he was feeling dizzy and really REALLY out of it so we had stopped at a members to get him water, then the next day we had kinda a comp inventory and it had been slightly intense, we then go tracting (Jones favorite activity) and he suddenly calls it short which kinda baffled me cuz we hadn't even gone that far.

So we get back to get jones water and he plops on the couch and passes out. An hour and a half later he sits up REALLY trippy look'n and then accepts the offer I gave him for a blessing a while back.  We then get up get ready to go and then he looks at me and kinda sheepishly and out of it asks if he can lay down for a bit.  Maaaannn it was weird.

I wrote about 3 letters during this time, then sat and talked with him since I was a bit worried.  He said he felt like a total out of body experience. all he could do was talk and, we chatted for a bit.  I spoke a bit more about my issues and at one point he asked me to pull out my preach my gospel, which I did and turned to the page 186.... read the beginning of it.

I try my best, an i know I'm not as Gung-ho as other elders, I didn't come out here singing I hope they call me on a mission and feeling like all my dreams had come true, but I do what I can to be loyal to the Lord.

We helped a nice lady named Meg scrape off the Moss off of her roof, which was a bit spooky at first, sitting next to the edge, I asked Jones how to clean out a gutter and his first thought was 'does this guy not know anything about manual labor?'  He then courteously remembered I was from Arizona which the gutters serve a very non-fulfilling  life. But yeah we used a shovel to scrape it off of the roof.

I  think I may have gotten a couple unwelcomed advances from a very excited pit-bull...  Whether he was hitting on my or not I may never know or want to know, but he was rather excitable, the lady also had like 5 weener dogs and one of them was missing an eye... he was cool but kinda creepy ta look at!

The Ivey family seemed uninterested in Jones opinion this week but when we had dinner over at there place they talked about how they ALL had ADD and just liked talking about things.   I was like, oh yeah I can understand that!  We also met an awesome older guy by the name  Chuck Meachum!   He's a wonderful old dude who's done ALOT of stuff.   He was a Marine raider in WWII and has kept the association alive which is now run by his son, also named chuck.  We met him when he called the church saying he needed some help with his garden and we were more than willing.   Ironically  we had Knocked into his sons house and met his son chuck already.  We had given him a card with our number on it but he was out of town and didn't tell his dad.  Anyway he and his wife are nice, after we helped with his garden we helped out with his family service work.  So basically Jones works on his computer and i sit and play with his old FREAKISHLY HUGE scissors. 

We went to the temple this week and as always I kinda struggled with it. It doesn't help that its been sunny and shiny all week.  However it was BEAUTIFULLY cloudly on temple day.  I kinda wish we could do baptisms for the dead instead of endowments I've always loved baptisms for the dead.

I got a lot of grief because of all the packages I got for my birthday but I don't care cause I know I'm loved!  Thanks Grandma Smart for sending me the cookies and stuff.  I waited till I got some milk to eat them.

Elder Smart