Letter #13

Elder Smart here relaying the usual mission report for this week!

and BOY lemme tell ya, I have been FEISTY!

Lately my patience for people who want to bash us has been really short fused.

Saturday we had a guy who we knew would be trouble because on his door he put 'Stop the war!' and then a s drawn in crayon.   The door opens and out comes this older guy with freakishly huge glasses and  a sixties smart guy look to him.   So we tell him who we are and etc,  and his reply is 'oh, you mean that guy who said love one another and bending the spear heads to make plows?' or something along that line, then talks about how its funny that the church doesn't protest war and the fact that Heavenly Father allows the U.S. to drop 500 pound bombs on Afghanistan.  .... what the heck am I supposed to say to that?!?! my mind went totally blank and I Was NOT happy about it!!!

we tried to explain stuff but we really had no idea what to say to that! it had no real gospel relevance.

I can't remember what I said, oh wait! I was telling him how we didn't know as much as he did, it was along the lines of 'great job, your like sixty and you out smarted a couple of twenty year olds in politics.'  what REALLY made me mad was he kept telling us to look up these obscure pastors from the sixties and how it seemed they had more integrity than US.  

 On the bright side WE HAD A BAPTISM!!!!

Johanna Liang got baptized yesterday! it was great! the owens family were all there!( a HUGE chunk of our baptisms in Rochester have been because of them.) I brought him up quite a few times. Still kinda working things out but the ward is supportive, however theres a slight amount of judginess but its alright.

we do ALOT of service in Rochester due to its small size, I sometimes think that we are being pushey too much, but we are working it out.

Natalee is being a turd.  She's got 'wizardbooks' and we are slightly nervous about them, cuz sometimes she's been acting kinda weird, BUT that's probably because we aren't giving her anymore attention, we have changed to paying attention to chris, rebeccah's 'nephew' who is marrying her actual neice.. we are hoping to move it up sooner because we have suspicions that she is infact pregnant. we met John, rebeccahs flacky punk of an X who lets his children watch movies like blade, Constantine and matrix -.-

messsssssssssed up.

We have a mission tour this week so... yea, nothing getting ripped a new one from the seventy.  my previous experience with these have made me slightly anxious about them.    we have elder piper coming and president said he is very... business-y. I have a hard time with those types, I have a hard time with stuff as it is, I hate getting grief for not being good enough when I already feel that way.

to answer my mommas questions me and elder mosbrucker spend a little bit of time studying together we talk about what we learned as well as other things, I have yet to use any of the C.D.'s but I'm working on it.

Despite all of my struggling I have been hanging, I appreciate and am very greatful for all of the love and support I get from everyone.  Thank you to all those that wrote me this week.  And thank you Mom for the socks and Grandma Shakey for the package.  Grandma, the package was torn so I hope nothing was missing.  If you will write me and tell me everything that was suppose to be in it I will make sure I got it. I love you all.

A very special happy birthday to a sweet young woman who deserves all of the love in the world, just for how special she is - my very special and dear friends, Savannah K. Saunders.

Mosbrucker has really been helping me out since he's a good listener, I wish I was more relaxed and sure about things in the mission.  We had a big talk that really helped me out.

Special request - please  pray that I will be able to deal with my anxieties and learn how to teach others.  Also, I need to learn to enjoy writing these letters! I have been dragging along, if I don't answer I ran out of time! I love you all and miss you lots mom.

Love,

Elder Smart