Feb 26, 2018

From Dad - Weekly Letter

Dear Sam,

It’s been a good week back here in Canada. Everyone is healthy again and we are seeing some warmer weather the last couple of days. Visions of spring are creeping in. 

This week I was called as an Adult Sunday school teacher. I’m very excited about it. The last couple of weeks have been all about Abraham and I’ve learned a lot. For example I learned something new about Abraham 2:11 from Galatians 3. We are all descendants of Abraham because Christ is the literal seed of Abraham and we are the children of Christ through baptism. Interesting to think about. 

Saturday was the funeral of Leon Lambert, bishops father. It was an amazing service and I got to help out by broadcasting it via Skype to a congregation in Ontario ( Leon and Myra’s old branch ) and Mary and Graham’s daughter Samaria who couldn’t make it. Leon was a favorite in our ward. 

Josh has been dating up a storm and it’s good to see him adjusting. He’s gone in a few dates with Kristen Rice and they seem to get along well. Josh helped me paint by the bathroom downstairs so we’re still making good progress down there. 

Ben went on a date too this week! It was a bit of an awkward group date with Ashlyn, Kaylen and Ben deVries with Sis Adamkewicz driving, but hey, you have to start somewhere, right?

Last night one of my former co workers, Archie Miller and his wife Priya came for supper and it was a nice visit.   We are always thankful when we can invite people to our home and share the spirit of it with them.  

The girls are loving having Mon read them Harry Potter and Mom is keeping us on budget and fed. I sure love her. 

We got a forwarded letter from Steph about her graduation details so we’re getting excited to go down to celebrate that with her in April. 

Friday I got to go axe throwing again for a company party. That was a fun time and a chance to connect with friends. 

How’s the new area? How many members in your ward? Is it part of a Stake or a District?

Your doing a great work. Hope your loving it and your companion and the People. 

Have a great week!

Love, 

Dad. 

Response from Sam:

I love the updates, except the pictures are sent large so they're huge on the email.

I'm slowly learning my new/old area. Yesterday, as we were walking in a large court yard space, a bung of kids(around 20) came up to look at us because we're white. We took this apertunity to show them some magic tricks. It was so funny to watch their reactions.

There are around 140 members in my ward, and I'm part of a stake. I'm seeing every week the importance to get to know the members. I'm loving everything about everything, even when there's a huge storm coming to overtake us from the back, the right and the left.

I view everything as an experience.

I love you lots, say hi to the family,

Elder Smith

Sam's Letter - Another week in Zambia

Another week has gone by and I'm wondering where it went. This week I've been able to go to my area. I'm slowly learning my new/old area. Yesterday, as me and my companion were walking in a large court yard space, a bunch of kids(around 20) came up to look at us because we're white.(I get this reaction from kids everywhere in my area. Sometimes the kids will cal "Basungu" from a mile away. It always makes my smile) We took this opportunity to show them some magic tricks. It was so funny to watch their reactions.

There are around 140 members in my ward, and I'm part of a stake. I'm seeing every week the importance to get to know the members. I'm loving everything about everything, even when there's a huge storm coming to overtake us from the back, the right and the left and we have to run to grab a bus because we won't make it to our flat in time. I view everything as an experience.

Yesterday I had the experience of confirming my investigator(Joshua) into the church. And on Tuesday I was able to give a blessing to two of the Sisters in my district. I'm so thankful that I'm able to live worthy of the spirit so that it can guide me in everything I do. 

Nephi

The Book of Mormon is the one book, when studied prayerfully and with a question, is the most precious gift anyone can have. The Book of Mormon is true, study it everyday.

Pictures:

-One of my investigators, who is into Marvel just as much as me, gave me his Black Panthar movie ticket with a note telling me he saw it first.

 

-A maze field

-Down a road in my area

-Sister Whyte is goinging back to Madagascar(She's the one beside me)

-My hair cut

- The kids gathering around the "White People"

- Storms coming

February 19, 2018

From Mom - Recovery:

Dear Sam,

I am a little embarrassed to admit how long it is taking me to feel 100% after getting the flu last week. I’ve been falling asleep whenever I sit down and still feeling weak and shaky, but ah well. Every day is better. I expect it will be a fantastic upcoming week, free from any sickness. Amelia and I are happy to say no more flu for us and we hope no one else gets it!

The weather’s been cold so we’ve mostly stayed in.










I got a painting in the mail I commissioned almost a year ago. Jesse Ellsworth painted a photo of our forest in the fall. I love it.




Abby had a Sense and Sensibility movie night with three friends. We had tea and biscuits.



For Valentine’s Day we tried to have a chocolate fondu at 10:30 at night once everyone was home. Josh is working construction with Peter Rector on the Day’s chicken barn plus going to institute. Ben is busy with school and piano. We don’t see too much of them.



So all is well here. We pray for you daily and miss you lots. We wouldn’t have you be anywhere else though.

Love you forever,

Mom

From Sam - Slow Week:

This week flew by, but it has also been slow. In the sense that we didn't find lots of people, not a lot of our investigators came to church and we were still stuck in our complex.

The good news is, I found out yesterday that I can go back to my area, Bauleni, So happy. 1st transfer: locked out of my area because of Cholera. 2nd transfer: Allowed back into my area. It's great. Because my area is now open, I can now have member meals. I'm so excited for all the food I don't have to make myself.  One member works at the American Embassy, and has access to all the American food. I'm excited to have meals with their family. Another member that I just met yesterday, because he was away, is really fun. He's blind but is very enthusiastic about everything. If your not careful, he will talk to you for hours. But he's not just talking, he makes sure your having an engaging conversation. The sister missionaries in the ward avoid him because they know that if they talk to him, they're stuck there with him for a while.

I feel like I'm always running out of things to tell you about, but then I realize that I'm in Africa, I can say anything and everyone will most likely believe it. This thing is true though, the peanut butter is way better here than there. 

Because it rains here like crazy, we have flash storms. I have my umbrella but my lower half always gets soaked, and my shoes become water bags if it's coming down hard. I enjoy it everytime it happens. Not everyone can say "I'm in Africa, I might as well enjoy it".

My favorite thing about the Book of Mormon is that no matter how many times you read it, you always learn something new and it makes more sense than every other time you've read it before. I love the Book of Mormon, I don't know how I would live my life without it.

Elder Smith

I hope you can see the pictures and that it makes sense.

Pictures:

-My homemade Stroganoff 

-Service Project

-A driveway in my complex

-Stuck in the rain/Flooding 

February 12, 2018

From Sam - Last Week of the First Transfer

I can't believe how fast these first 6 weeks have been, and i've been told it only gets faster.

I've had an amazing week. I had my first baptism yesterday, Joshua. It was really cool. 

It rained from Tuesday to Saturday night. I wasn't able to do lots of tracting because no one would be out in the rain. It was a really cool experience. It's also supposed to rain all this week. Sister Kupu always tells us to have the attitude of Every Day Is A Beautiful Day. I've been doing my best to have that attitude. I always say to the other missionaries who ask how my day was, I say "On a scale of 1 to 10, I'm a 25". Everyone is suprised when I say that. It's fun.

I'm still locked out of my area for the time being. It takes 10 minutes to walk from the front gate of my complex to the back gate. When we are tracting, we have to decide if we want to walk down a road we've already walked down 100 times before. But God has given us some suprises when we decide to stay out as long as we can.

I'm loving my mission and i'm loving the gospel more and more as I teach it and learn it.

Elder Smith

Pictures:

1. The cake I make for all to enjoy

2. A house in my area has this on the wall

3. A big snail we found after all the rain

4-6. The 4 foot deep Gutter

7. Chopstick night

8+. Joshua's baptism pictures.

From Dad - Crazy Week:

Hi Sam.

Hope you can still get this. It’s been a crazy week as we’ve had mom and Mia sick for 3-4 days. We’re not very used to that and so a few things have slowed down. 

Here are some highlights. 

Josh got a job through Peter Rector working for pinnacle construction. (Same guys who did our driveway). Mostly he is working on the Days chicken barn. 

Ben started a new semester and had 2 days off for teacher convention. Ben enjoyed getting to know the new YMs presidency on Wednesday with Bro. Mark McKee as president, Jared Townsend as 1st counselor and Kris Stagland as 2nd. They told the boys stories from their life. This week is a Temple trip and the first time Ben will be able to do baptisms for the dead with the new policy change! Excited for him. 

Tyler has been emailing us about coming up this summer and working more on the tree house, so expect to see some progress there. 

Abby had the chance to talk to the 11 year olds about her first Temple experience. 

Mom is doing a great job on her calling

Amelia of course is excited for and preparing for valentines  day and was sad yesterday when she was too sick to go deliver them at Church. 

Mom and I want to a high priests dinner this week and the first speaker talked about balancing technology to achieve the greatest good. Enjoyed it until Mom felt too sick to stay around. How we can get her better this week.  

Hope you are well. We pray for you daily. I’m in the war chapters I. The B of M and one of my insights this round is how creative the Nephites had to be to overcome their enemies and that we need to be just as creative in sharing the gospel to reach everyone possible. 

Questions:

1. How big is the complex you are confined to?

2 is the cholera outbreak still on?

3. Where do you email from?

Love, Dad. 

Ps did that baptism happen this weekend as you’d hoped?

Answer from Sam:

It's great to hear from you. I can't wait to see improvements on the treehouse.

It takes 10 minutes to walk from the front gate to the back gate. When we are tracting, we have to decide if we want to walk down a road we've already walked down 100 times before.

The Cholera outbreak has gone down a lot. It's not a major issue anymore. I just hope I can go back to my area soon.

I email from an internet cafe a 10 minute walk from my flat. The rules for emailing are: take the time you need. I'm paying around 3 cents a minute, but that adds up after a while.

I love you lots

Elder Smith

Conversation Between Josh and Sam via Email

Josh:

Man, normal life is hard! Working at it though, any general thoughts on how to enjoy life?

I found... well actually this construction job landed in my lap and I took it, along with a dog sitting job, combined made it one hectic week of high stress and days of not looking forward to the next one... I have had to take a deep breath on more occasions then one.

What is one occasion that stands out this week? Do you feel adjusted to it all? Any stress on your end?

Happy moments of the week, got Russell F and his girlfriend to a 007 themed dance.

Institute...infallible= incapable of making mistakes or doing wrong

Fun date.

I love you Sam, stay dedicated, stay obedient, stay joyful. Look to God when the worst times come, treat your trials as a trust test from God and fall back into his arms.

-Josh-

Sam:

I've found that keeping busy and not distracted helps you enjoy life.

I had a baptism yesterday, Joshua, He's the first one that I found and taught and baptized. I helped him from square one. It was really cool. He's going to school for computer engineering, Because of that and the fact that I'm 9 days older than him helped me connect to him.

I'm feeling completely adjusted to Zambia, everything but the heat. I'm still getting used to that.

I don't feel too stressed. Just knowing that I can do better and wishing I was already better.

It's hard to believe that Ben can date. You have to tell me when and if you get a girlfriend, I got to know these things.

I love you,

Elder Smith

Josh:

Haha for sure, I am hoping to date a lot of girls so I can see who I am most happy with. 

Sam:

I have to tell you this dream my investigator had. He explained it in detail and I super hyped.

He was running away from something in the woods when that thing was suddenly in front of him. He said It was a giant monster. Before he could do anything my companion, Elder Blanchard, put his hand on his shoulder and said "Get behind me" 

My companion pulled his scriptures out and he started floating in the air and his scriptures started floating in his hands and the pages were flipping like crazy like it was magic. Then suddenly, I appeared behind the monster and put my hand forward and said "This is the land of the rising sun of our Heavenly Father. 

Your desecration shall not be aloud here be." (At this moment I start summoning a sword with engravings on it from the air) "I will lay thee waste with the holy scriptures. Expell thy vast foulment. I cleanse thee!" Then he woke up.

I got so excited as he was telling me this. My imagination was running wild.

Feb 4, 2018

From Dad - Winter's Still Here

Dear Elder Sam Smith,

Greetings from the Great White North! And it is truly white this week as we've had a foot of snow fall down in a beautiful, inconvenient blanket. 

I say inconvenient based on my experience yesterday (Saturday). 

Woke up relatively early for a Saturday and the first thing I encountered was the cat, cheerfully tearing at the corner of the carpet by the entrance I had just repaired. Well I lost it! I ranted and raved and threatened banishment for the cat and made the girls cry. It would be an omen of the morning to come!

Resignedly, I woke up Ben and Cody to get ready to go help with an 11 year old scout activity at the Stake Center.  Originally we had thought that Ben would drive there, but with all the snow, our driveway and roadway is in no condition to drive a little car on (Josh tried 7x to get up the road in the silver car to go to Leduc and failed on Friday night). So we were relieved that Bro. Patrick was going in as well in his 4x4 as he is the 11 year old scout leader. 

Once we got the boys ready, Josh and I started troubleshooting how we could get him into Leduc. He agreed with the Prete's to watch their dogs this week while they are away but needs to be there to let them out and feed them etc. So we decided to get the truck going and make a track up the driveway and hill for the car. Unfortunately the truck battery is not working well and so we had to boost it. After making a few runs up and down the road, I realized there was no way that our little cars would make it. So we decided that I would drive in and drop off Josh with the truck. Of course I left the truck running and of course I only unlocked the drive side door to get out and so when Josh and I went to go, we'd locked the running truck keys inside. Luckily I hit the unlock button with the coat hanger the first time and we were off.  

We hit Canadian tire and grabbed a new battery and then I dropped Josh off at the Pretes. He'll probably stay there this whole week.On my way home, I reasoned that I could stop off at No Frills to get some groceries and hazard turning off the truck because I could self-boost it with my new battery. Sure enough, the truck died after turning it off, but I wasn't worried. 

After grabbing some groceries, I lifted the hood, boosted the truck off the new battery and cheerfully put the battery back in the back seat, and was about to jump in when I remembered I needed to close the hood. So I shut the driver side door.... and yes, you guessed it, the locks had triggered when I started the truck and I knew, as soon as I closed the doors that I'd done it again. No more pointing fingers and laughing at Ben for locking the keys in the truck, I had just done it for the second time in a morning. 

Luckily, or so I thought, I had left the hanger in the back of the truck. So I grabbed a cart, and tried to repeat my one shot performance from that morning. No Luck!! after 1/2 hour of frustration, with my arms aching and hardly able to move and help from a friendly neighbor Kevin, from 86 Corinthia drive, we still couldn't get it open. So, knowing that our budget was over already, I made the touch choice to call a locksmith, hoping my phone hadn't died in the cold. $60 later I was on the road, already mentally worn out for a Saturday.

I'm happy to say things got better from there. I burned off some energy and gained some perspective by manually shoveling our long drive way and enjoyed seeing the girls pitch in and then enjoy the deep snow. Life can be challenging, but it is also so rewarding. Your Mom was very patient with me and gave me extra hugs that day.

Earlier in the week, we finished off the headboard for our room.That was very rewarding and very fun to do together with Josh and Ben and with Mom. Our room is almost fully finished now and Mom loves it.

Friday night, Amelia and I took the perilous journey into gymnastics, Mom drove 6 ladies to Beaumont to a bridal shower for Sis Milner (she's getting remarried!) and Josh tried unsuccessfully to get up the drive way on a terrible snow stormy  night. I spent 3 hours reading and watching Mia do here tricks. She's getting really good!

After reading  your letter last week, and hearing how mornings are hard because you feel a little homesick, I realized it is really the first time you've been away from home on your own. So it's pretty natural to feel some homesickness. It's a great opportunity to turn the Lord for strength and learn how to forget yourself and lose your self in the service. I'm so proud of you Sam. Your decision to serve a mission strengthens our family in unseen ways and will be a blessing to you for the rest of your life. The gospel is true and the Lord is faithful in fulfilling his promises. 

88 And whoso receiveth you, there I will be also, for I will go before your face. I will be on your right hand and on your left, and my Spirit shall be in your hearts, and mine angels round about you, to bear you up. 

Keep loving the people even when they don't show up to appointments. Remember my experience with Hugues and Jardine Jules. We had just about given up on him because he never kept his appointments, but once the spirit touched him, he fell in love with the gospel and now, almost 30 years later, he and his family are faithful and 70+ people have joined the church. 

Love you lots, Sam!

Love Dad. 

From Sam - Amazing Week

My week has been amazing! One of my investigators, Joshua, is getting baptised this Sunday. He's a really cool guy, he really loves what we're teaching him. Now, we just need to teach his family, heh heh;]

At the moment, Joshua is the only investigator that is really progressing. There are a few others that we're teaching that are showing real potential. We'll see how they do.

Right now the hardest thing about the culture is the accents. Face to face isn't that bad, but over the phone is terrible. There's only a select few that I can understand good enough. Also, when ever I see another white person, I can't help but stare for a few seconds. It's a little weird to see white people besides the missionaries. A few of favorite things are the rain storms, the food and the lessons we have with investigators. Almost every lesson is around 50 minutes, It's awesome. With 50 minutes you can cover lots of material. Especially if the person i'm teaching is for real.

The African dialect i'm trying to learn is Nienja, It's really fun, most everybody speaks english, but you can get people to like you faster by speaking their language. I've met some really cool people. One person we contacted grew up in California and new Obama when he was a kid. It's amazing.

The rain storms here come like a flash, and can last from 5 minutes to 5 hours. Just today at lunch a rain storm hit, good thing we were inside because it started out as rain, then it started coming down hard. There's a reason there are 4 foot gutters, otherwise the street would be flooded so bad.

I love you all, keep President Monson's counsel to read the Book of Mormon daily. My mission has a standard of reading 7 pages a day. If I do that, I'll be done in 3 months, 4 times a year and 8 times while i'm on my mission. I challenge you all to at least read some of the Book of Mormon daily, preferably 7 pages a day to keep up with me, but I'm not that picky.

The church is true strive always to gain or keep that testimony as I do my best to do the same.

Elder Smith

Also, I try my best to email by 4pm my time so that I can email you 7am your time.

Here are some pictures.

-This dog likes to follow us while we proselyte, which is not the best becuase most people are afraid of dogs.

-This is the product of my bake work. Happiness in a ball.

-This is my homemade DNA Script name tag(That I don't wear)

-The next two are my clothes washing station.

-The videos are my and my companion in a light rain storm that quickly changed into a heavy rain storm.