Transfer week! I'm headed to Siem Riep and way excited Week #27

Kampong Cham Zone

Our mission is splitting! Vietnam is leaving us. Its just going to be the Cambos now. It’s super cool. Also I got a call last night and I am leaving Prae Choo. They're sending me to Siem Riep. Its the place where all the way dope temples are. I’m super stoked. My new comp is cambodian. So Im not going to be speaking any English for the next couple months. Im way stoked. Im so sad to leave this place. It almost has like a little "home" feeling to it. My comp right now is the best. Siem Riep is going to be awesome though. Apparently the branch I am in has a ton of just awesome people. I’m way excited to meet all of them.]

So last week Sophal got baptized and the DAY after she went out to sell watermelons, and BOOM she sold 440 flipping watermelons. She was so happy she sold so many. She was just on fire. So cool to see how God will help people who will just show a little faith. I love it. She's doing way good. 

Something funny about Prae Choo is that no one is educated. They think every person from America is Black. When we tell them we're from America they don’t believe us. It’s hilarious. Also the only two people they have ever heard from America is Obama and the beloved WWE WRESTLING CHAMPION of the world.. John Cena. They love that dude here. Ha its aweseome.

Life is going swell. The language is getting better. I say the dumbest things all the time. But the people here are way encouraging which makes it fun. I love all you dudes! Thanks for the early birthday wishes!

Love elder smith

We found this way cool/sketchy roller derby place. We had to try it

Played football and soccer behind a Cambodian High School

Sophal was baptized! Week #25

Hey doodes!

Well this week was dang good. Sophal got baptized! It was so awesome. Our area doesnt have a font to baptize people so we grabbed a van on the road and went to the "city" of Kampong Cham. It was so cool. When we were taking pictures there was this little eight year old girl who was ready to be baptized. Ha no one knew, but her Mom wanted her to get baptized, so I had the sacred privledge to baptize sophal and this little daughter of God. It was awesome. After someone gets baptized the new convert stands in the front of the church, and everyone stands in a line to congratulate them. Its such a good way for them to feel loved. Sophal was crying pretty hard towards the end. After everything was done, i realized this is why I am here! That moment right there is the reason I am doing this. Seeing PURE joy is what makes it all worth it. Not happiness that lasts for a day or two, but lasting happiness. SO DOPE.

So the other day I was talking to one of our members whos 16. He's like the coolest dude ever. And a total lady killer too. His name is Money. Anyways we saw him eating some dog the other day and hes going to hook us up this week. I'm way stoked. Its goin to be good.

So a couple days ago we didnt really have a ton of stuff planned so we decided to go contacting in an area that we've never gone too. So we just grabbed our bikes and  biked way deep into these villages. It was awesome. I just love seeing these people's faces when they see us. Eiether straight fear, or complete shock. Good stuff. Anyways we got pretty deep into this area and we started talking to this lady. Turns out shes a christian and used to drive like an hour every week to go to church. Shes way cool. She's going to be a sweet new investigator.

Well my new years was way LAME not going to lie. Ha but i here chinese new year in cambodia is way bumpin so i just got a wait a little longer.

Sophal, Elders Neuberger and Smith

Teaching our recent convert, Puu Mao, how to do sit-ups. He said he wanted to get in shape.

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When we get to eat rice again :)

Spider as big as my face! The first counselor is done being inactive-way awesome Week #24

Heyyyaaa

Well what a week. It was so awesome to talk to you guys. Ha fastest 40 minutes of my life. But luckily mothers day is in like 4 months. It'll come fast:) Christmas in Cambodia was definitely a day that didnt feel like Christmas at all ha. Just an average day in Prae Choo. People working and kids going to school. It was kinda surreal just cuz i've always had a white christams. It was awesome though. My comp and I made these little gift baskets and went around giving them to members. It was a ton of fun. Ha but still no one really gets what Christmas is here. We then hitch hiked on this van and stayed the night at the elders house in Prae Choo. There new house is way dope bytheway. Its huge. 

Well this week we've been teaching this man named  Piset. We started teaching him and then we invited his family, so right now I'm teaching my first real familiy. Its so awesome. Piset has come to church for both hours every week we've taught him. Perfect investigator.Fun stuff. This week Sophal is getting baptized! We're so stoked. She's loving the new glasses bytheway:) She used to go to like one of those hardcore baptist churches in phnom penh and so she was talking to us agian, and thinks all the members here just arent that converted because they dont shout alleluia all the time. Its all good. Imma show her whats up with my testimony next week, the fire is coming:)

Om june is still drinking a ton. Its way sad. He just cant stop or wont. And since hes so old if he drinks it literally takes him 4 DAYS to get back to normal. Hopefully he'll come around:) 

So the other week Elder Neuberger and I were setting up chairs for church and I moved this chair, and a spider as big as my face just shot out and started walking around. I lost it. I saw black and just threw the chair and that was it. I was a little ashamed in the way I acted. But man you should have seen it. AND then we tried to kill it, and I missed. (they are way fast bytheway) And it crawled in the hole in the pulpit in the church. About 5 minutes later i had to go give a talk.  i just kept staring at the hole, ha i dont even remeber what i talked about. That spider was like a foot wide. 

Oh and yesterday our first counselor came to church. He said hes done being incactive. Way awesome. All the members were way happy. Hes like the life of the party here in prae choo. So its going to be fun.

All in all, awesome week. I got to skype the fam, celebrate christmas, and eat some cambodia pumpkin pie. Hope oall of you guys have an amazing week:)

Elder Smith

Our landlord stomping fish to make ប្រហុក, that fermented fish paste that the khmaes just love

A bucket of fish heads right outside our house

What every dog in Cambodia looks like

Christmas Dinner-we're not that great of cooks

Merry Christmas from Puu Dee and Ming Sophoas and their daughter Hanaa!

Kampong Cham Zone 2016

This Elder ate it on the way to our Christmas dinner

From his companions blog--It's fun to read and hear different details! 

"I do like being cut off from the materialism of American Christmas for sure. In Prey Cho I saw zero Santa hats, zero reindeer, zero Christmas trees, zero toy stores. Instead of Christmas bells jingling across a parking lot were the Pali funeral chants of monks floating across rice fields. Instead of reindeer hooves heard prancing on the roof were the scampering claws of fat old rats as they ran to and fro across the metal roof of the rice mill we live inside. Instead of Santa coming down the street with a bag of toys in hand was a smiling lookpuu biking past us on a country road, swinging a freshly killed mongoose by the tail. Going around on Christmas with everybody just going about their normal day makes me feel like Alma, where I want to be able to cry with the voice of a trump and shake them and say "Don't you know what we are celebrating today?! The birth of our Savior! Yours and mine! And guess what else? WE'RE SIBLINGS! We have the same Heavenly Father who wants us both to return to heaven, and because of our Savior we can! Isn't that wonderful? Don't you want to learn about this?! Don't you want to follow all this?!" 

But, like Alma, having the voice of an angel isn't my lot in life. I'm just a twenty-year-old kid out here in the middle of Cambodia. Day after day as missionaries we go around, inviting people to just try out the most wonderful thing they could ever possibly conceive, and most of the time, they don't take it. You love them and you walk up and talk to them, and every time you get the most wonderful image in your head of what they can become through the Atonement, of the blessings God has in store for them if they will just take one small step forward, just try it out, and then most of them turn down the offer. That's one of the great not-so-secret secrets to missionary work though I think. You've got to make yourself vulnerable. It would be so easy to be cynical and just think, "This person isn't going to want to learn. I'll talk to them but I already know they'll reject me' or "Wow that was a good lesson, but the probability of this guy pushing through to baptism and being an active member the rest of his life is next to zero". Throwing cynical walls around your loving hopes for people certainly would protect you from hurt. It would make missionary work less painful. But that's not what it’s about. As missionaries we love everyone we see because of the sweet gift of charity that God has blessed us with, and we have to use that gift to the max. That means no walls getting thrown up. To see them through heaven's eyes is the opposite of cynicism. It means knowing and expecting that everyone you talk to has the ability to gain eternal life. That everyone you talk to could one day become a branch president or Relief Society president. That everyone you talk to can keep the commitments you lovingly extend. That your investigator really will do what he says and cut off alcohol. It means believing your investigator really will come to church when they say they will. True love I think requires a firm belief in the strengthening and changing power of Christ's Atonement and a firm belief and trust in others' use of agency. Of course if they don't follow through, if they don't go to church, if they tell you they're too lazy to learn, it’s going to hurt you more this way, because you generally believed and saw what they could become. You knew what God would have them be. But I think seeing people and believing in their potential to be changed through Christ's Atonement is so much closer to how Heavenly Father sees them. Heavenly Father is no skeptic. He is no cynic. If I have learned anything on my mission, it's that He loves all of His children perfectly. He sets all of us up to succeed. No one came to fail. Everyone can believe. Everyone can repent. Everyone can change and become who God would have them be. And if they choose not to, it hurts, but at least you know you did your part with as much love and faith as you could muster.

One of the people we are teaching has changed right before our eyes. His name is Piset. When I first came a few weeks ago he was a guy who had been contacted just a couple days before but hadn't learned yet. The first time we went over he really didn't seem that into it, said he was about to leave and didn't really have any time. But then we went over again and he was more inviting. We taught him the first, second, and third lesson, and with each lesson and each commitment kept he has become more and more inviting. Now at the end of every lesson he says ' Teacher! (that’s what most non-members call us, not elder). Please, come as often as you can! And if you come back in the evening you can teach my wife too!" So now she is learning. He has come to church for two weeks in a row now. He's awesome!"

No sign of Christmas here, but God is in the details of our lives! There's a python to prove it. Week #23

Hey guys! Well this week is Christmas. I've never had a Christmas without snow or lights so its been weird. Its funny, lots of people here havent even heard of Christmas…but thats not going to stop Elder Neuberger and I. Christmas this year is going to be bumpin. Prae Choom, Cambodia isnt going to know what him em ha. 

This week we had 3 different investigators come to church. Thats the most i've gotten so far on the mission, I was way happy to say the least. Sophal came, this new investigator name Peeset, and a super old lady named nat. Peeset and Nat both agreed to be baptized. Super cool. This past Sunday President Christensen, his wife, and some of their family who came to visit came to our church. Elder Neuberger translated for them, but then it was his turn to give a talk. So... I had to translate... I literally thought I was going to die. Ha I definitly dont know khmer, but I had to try. It actually didnt go as bad as I thought. Funny stuff.

Well this week I've been studying a lot about just believing. Some less actives and members come up to the elders and just say, man i wish i could believe like you guys. So as I've been studying about believing i learned some cool stuff. All in all, we CHOOSE what we believe. Belief is just a choice. Its not that special. You either say "Yip I believe, or nope it cant be real" Presdident Uchtdorf said "There is no magic to belief., But wanting to believe is the necessary first step! God is no respecter of persons. He's your Father." Way simple. I've never met God, or had an amazing spiritual experience, but I believe. I choose to. Its not something that some people have and others dont. Its a choice. But its hard sometimes. Things happen and bad things get thrown into our lives. Thats when belief turns into faith. Elder Anderson said "faith is not by chance, but my choice." When something negative is in our life, we need to do something. We got apply the faith and what you believe in. Then the faith becomes stonger, becuase you already have relied on God and gotten through the trial. Sorry im getting all preachy, but i just felt like writing this. Its good stuff. Just start with the desire to believe if you dont know where you stand. Then choose to believe. Honestly, ha its just a better way to live. Believing there is an all powerful God who loves you and wants you to be happy in this life is a good feeling. The sermon has ended.

Well to end the emial i wanna share one miracle that happend to one of our members. So right now everyone is harvesting their rice and planting. The lady we live with has some big rice fields. She sells the type of rice that all the rich people eat. Its super good and sweet. She went to her fields and started to throw the rice seeds in her fields. Her neighbors started making fun of her, becuase they said they saw 30 rats in her field the day before and the rats were gonig to eat all of her seeds. So she dropped her basket and prayed in faith that the rats wouldn eat her field. Then she just threw all of her seeds. All of it. Thats a ton of faith. Then the next day she came back, All she saw in her field was a huge python as thick as her leg in her field. The snake ate and scared all of the rats away. So sick! God is in the details of our life.

Well i hope all you guys have an awesome Christmas. Cant wait to talk to the fam this week! 

Love Elder Smith

These little dudes love wearing our helmets :)

Afternoon nap, no crib needed

ps-just a little bit from his companions blog-Elder Neuberger

"This last week has been way cool. . . as in temperature. In the mornings and evenings it’s been a brisk 70 degrees. I shiver on our bike rides home at night, because the breeze just picks up over the rice fields and douses me in cold. No enveloping dust/slum pollution to serve as a blanket for me this year.  Elder Smith loves the temperature though. He makes fun of me for being cold. Ohhh just wait till next year... Then he'll feel my pain.


As bad as I think it is, the Khmaes seriously pretend like the polar ice caps have shifted to cover Cambodia. They get all wrapped up in blankets and scarves and beanies and what not, hahaha.  Ahhh . . . it’s so funny. The other day we go over to our investigator’s house, who will be baptized in 2 weeks, and her son comes out of the house and he goes "Wheewee! It’s cold! I was riding my moto back from Prey Totung this morning and the wind made my face go so numb you could slap me right in the face and I would never know", haha."

New Companion! Elder Neuberger from TX-- week #22

Well Christmas is coming, but here I honestly think its still August! Its just hot!  And nobody even knows what Christmas is, everyone here is just stoked for mango season. I guesss theres tons and tons of mango trees here, so thats going to be good. 

So Elder Brewer finished his mission and I got a new comp. His name is Elder NeuBerger. Way cool dude. We're going to help a lot of people and have fun doing it. This transfer is going to be awesome. I am no longer in training. My 12 weeks are over, and now I'm leading out the area. Which means i have to remember every single persons house in all of the villages. Ha its been fun. 

So for the Investigator Uptdate: Ponloke, hes the restraunt man. Turns out he is a fortune teller and is telling the old lady we live with, that the reason she is sick is because her daughter believes in the Jesus. Seem legit. His magic cards told him that. So maybe our next lesson will be to stop doing magic. Never thought I would be teaching about that. Om June: He hasnt drunk in like 2 weeks, should get baptized in 2 weeks, but since he has no teeth it is very hard to understand him when he talks. We thought we heard him say he has been getting high, yes this 65 year old tootheless man. Lets hope its false. Ming Sophol: She is watching her house get built so shes way "busy" but wants to get baptized in like 3 weeks. Shes still doing good. There was a big wedding this week so no one was home at all, so we didnt really get to teach a lot. The party is over so hopefully things will work out. We got some other people we are teaching, but I have no time because we are going to a hill that has big statues of fruit, so i am crunched on time. 

This are is just so beautiful, but the people are just so poor. There are some pretty desperate situtations that we see everyday. One of our investigators named Samoon had his house collapse. He and his wife have 3 children. I kid you not they are living in a house thats 6 feet  by 6 feet. Its rough. But on Tuesday we are helping him build a new house so Im way excited. 

Well sorry this email is kinda lame, I've got to go. But I love all of you guys. have an awesome week and remember what Christmas is all about: The Savior. It's all about Him and His amazing Atonement.  Love, Elder Smith

Coolest family!  They sell sugar cane together.

Bought a live fish and then came home and cooked it.

Just a little bus stop snack of fried tarantula 

Prey Cho

Our church building--there is no church sign, but that blue sign advertises English classes

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I found Sam’s companion’s blog and he went into a little more detail about their week…

"My companion is Elder Smith. He's the coolest! He just finished training with Elder Brewer. Pretty funny that when Elder Brewer left Chaktomuk he went with my kid, and when I left I went with his. Elder Smith is from Eagle, Idaho and loves to work. He's a fearless contactor too! I love it! He'll just walk up to a huge group of people and invite all of them to learn about Christ.People out here in the khets are all way inviting, even more so than in the city! Everyone always invites us to come and sit with them on their kre (a wooden bed) underneath their stilt houses. 

So for those of you who feel bad, because you've never heard of Prey Cho, don't feel bad, because most Cambodians have never ever heard of Prey Cho either. It's this little farming community off the side of the road to Kampong Cham. It doesn't even have a town, it literally isn't anything, haha. The way Elder Smith put it is that Prey Cho has got to be the most overlooked place on the planet Earth. Haha, there's nothing really there to set it apart from anywhere else on the road to Kampong Cham. Maybe you're wondering, why in the world is the church there? Well because about 6 years ago this man named Puu Dee was baptized and became one of the most active members in one of the Kampong Cham branches, even though he had to ride about 45 minutes to get to church (that's how far away it is by moto or car). He kept spreading the gospel to his friends and neighbors. He's one of those guys who just tells everyone about it. They all started joining to the point that about 1.5  years ago, right before I entered the MTC, President Moon decided to establish a group out there. So that's where I am! We actually don't even live in Prey Cho, we live in this village called Kvet Thom. That's what our area is, just a cluster of different farming villages that we ride out to. 

Right now is the middle of harvesting season so everyone is harvesting rice everyday. Everyone has told me this whole last week as I was preparing to leave out to Prey Cho that it is the prettiest area in the whole mission. I believed them, but I had yet to see it, just because the only part of Prey Cho I've ever seen is the national road that goes right through the middle of it, but even that part is beautiful. The whole road is lined with these white-barked trees and you can see rice fields on either side as you ride down it. But even prettier than that is if you just go down the road, and go under one of the tons of wat archways, and ride for like 50 meters and all of a sudden you're just on a raised dirt road surrounded by rice fields and palm trees literally till you cut the tail of your eye (that's how you say, “as far as you can see" in Khmae). It’s insane. And off in the distance you can see like a bunch of trees or jungle looking stuff past the rice fields, with some stilted houses in it, and you ride to it and that’s where an investigator or a member lives! That's how our whole area looks! It’s insane! It's a pretty big adjustment going from the most urban area in the mission to the most rural for sure, but I'm loving it! So as you could expect in a village like Kvet Thom, there’s not much to go by in terms of nice housing, haha. We live in this house in the middle of a member's rice mill/pig farm/chicken coops. The house is small, but very clean. That's good, because the last time I went to the Prey Cho house, about 5 months ago for President to do interviews with the missionaries there, it was way gross. Out here in the boonies there’s no water pressure, so we don't have a shower. Or a toilet. In our bathroom we've just got a squatter, a basin that fills with water, and 2 buckets, one to clean yourself with and one to shower with (don't mix them up!) It's a pretty grand life. I've sent pics of this house before, way back when. Remember when I took those pictures with the pigs like 5 months ago? That's my house!

There are the most wonderful members in the Prey Cho group. Puu Dee is our group president, and he and his wife and 3 kids are just about the most Christ-like family you could find anywhere. They are super loving with each other and are always smiling. Puu Dee is actually like the most well-known person in all these farming villages, because he's a traveling doctor, so every always knows who Kruu Puu Dee is when you ask them. It's way cool. All the active members here are way faithful, even though they've all been members for less than 2 years (since that’s how long missionaries have been out there).

Since Prey Cho is such an isolated community, people freak out when we speak Khmae. They literally are in disbelief. It's like that in the city too, but out here it’s even more exaggerated. Haha, their accents out here are hilarious. Kampong Cham's accent is even worse than Phnom Penh's. They all speak like country bumpkins. I love it, hahaha.I love Cambodians so much. Moroni 7 has come to have such a deeper meaning to me now, because on my mission God has truly blessed me with at least a taste of what true love feels like for your fellowmen. I hope I can help this group progress, to continue establishing the kingdom of God in every clime, even in some quiet farming villages in Cambodia.I love my mission.” 

Elder Neuberger

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ps--Botevy drove 90 minutes each way to drop off Sam's Christmas package.  She is an absolute angel I tell you. She had taken it to the mission home for Sam to pick up when he got a new companion last week-- but plans changed and his comp went out to meet him instead so he didn't get the bag.  I was so sad because I didn't think that Sam would have anything for Christmas.  I'm not sure how Botevy found out that Sam did not get it, but this week she emailed me and said she picked the bag up and drove it out to him. I love her!!

A little miracle happened--Dally was baptized! Week #21

Baptismal Font

Well this week we had one super awesome thing and one super lame thing happen. Imma start with the good stuff.

So I had my first baptism this week! It was a little miracle. Dally was supposed to get baptized like a month ago, but then her dad got upset and said no. We kept visiting her and being nice to her and then last Tuesday she said she could get baptized because her dad said yes! It was so awesome. I had the sacred privilege baptizing her.  It was the first time i have ever baptized anyone. It was such a cool experience. I can’t believe the Lord would trust me with the authority to do a saving ordinance for one of his beautiful little girls. Dally is just amazing. She’s just a light.

Our area doesn't have a font, so we and our investigators traveled an hour on a taxi to get to the next city. We got there and filled up the font and it started leaking. We had a limited amount of water so we ran out of water. Ha it was time for the baptism to start and the water went only to my knees, but all in all it worked out. It was so cool. God's church just got one of the sweetest girls on earth. She's amazing and is the only reason her mom is active at all. One of the coolest moments on my mission was hearing her bear her testimony about Jesus Christ and then seeing all the members wait in a line to hug her and congratulate her. That Sunday could not have been any better.


So my main man couldn't resist the booze this week. Ahhh he didnt drink for over a month! That was like the first time hes ever done that in his life. We came to visit him and he was just completely out of it. It was the first time where I had true "sorrow" for one of my investigators. But we visited him a couple days later and he apologized sincerely to us and to God, and helped us teach some more people. So hopefully he can stick it. I love that guy, especially his toothless smile:)

We have an investigator right now who has a little restaurant. Anyways he's been reading a ton and agreed to get baptized IF he receives an answer. So we're super stoked for him. Hes a good guy and has the potential to help lots of people. Cant wait to see how it ends up. We're also teaching these two guys who are translaters for the big sweatshop in our area. They're two smart young dudes who want to find out why Jesus is important. Its been fun teaching them. They have a lot of potential as well.

Transfers are this week. My companion is going home in like 4 days--So crazy to think hes not going to be a missionary anymore. So weird, so im leading out the area and my new comp is elder Neuberger.  im super excited, ive heard really good things about him.  He’s been in the office for six months and hes going to go hard so im excited. You know the mission is just way hard, but this mission also has some amazing missionaries. I'm super excited to serve with a lot of them.

All in all the mission life is going swell. Still struggling with the language ha,but it's coming. Gods helping. I hope all of you guys had a good thanksgiving. Cant wait to talk to you guys on Christmas.

Much love,

Elder Smith

Life is good. Everyday something cool happens. It's definately the hardest thing I've ever had to do, but also the most rewarding" week #20

Elder Smith with Sophal and her daughters

Our mission right now has a goal to contact 10 different people every day. So 70 a week. Then the next week we add two more people. So 84 this next week. Last week we just hit contacting hard and got 101. It was sick. We got some pretty promising investigators out of it too. We had a lot of people just laugh at us, but it was super cool to see how the Lord put people in our way just because we were willing to literally talk to every person along the road. We probably got 5 investigators. So 5/100. Lot of rejection, but those 5 people now have the opportunity to have the best joy this world offers. It was super fun.

We were teaching this part member family the other day and I was talking about how if God is our foundation then Satan wont have any power over us, but of course I didn't say that. I wanted to, but i didn't. I said "hey, we need to put our foundation on the glorious chicken." Yes, that's what happened. The word for glorious chicken and firm have one different letter. Its was funny, to say the least.

Our investigators are progressing pretty good right now. Sophal is doing great, but two days ago she was on her modo, carrying a trailer full of watermelons and some car hit her and she fell off and messed up her back and a lot of her watermelons got demolished, buttt she still came to church. Shes awesome. My main man Om June was the best I've ever seen him. We went to his house and he just way excited. He was like " Elders! Lets pray real quick, we got to go." Ha he told us to follow him and for about an hour and a half we ditched our bikes and just walked deeper and deeper in the village. He just would point at people and say "HEY! You wanna join Jesus?" and most people would just laugh, but if anyone would have the slightest interest he would grab their chairs and make them listen to us. It was hilarious. Keep in mind two months ago, this man would get drunk for days at a time and just slept all day. Now hes got a purpose. And on sunday he brought a friend to church. If all goes well and he saves enough money hes going to get baptized on Sunday. Cant wait! We are teaching this man named Poneloke. He has a little restaurant where he sells rice and pork every morning. This guy could be the next group leader. Just a solid guy who's super open minded. The other day he asked me how old I was and when i said 18 he had a little annurism. So now he doest even call me Elder, just baby now. Thats my name. He can read, hes a little educated and hes keeping the commitments we're giving him. This is one of my first investigators who can read so I'm way pumped. Anyways its just been so cool teaching him. He used to believe in the Buddha, but know he's truly starting to believe in God. Its been the coolest thing to watch. I love that guy.

I've been reading D&C a lot lately and I came across this gem, It says, "And after their temptations, and much tribulations, behold, I the Lord, will feel after them, and if they harden not their hearts, and stiffen not their necks against me, they shall be converted, and I will heal them. (112:13)" This scriptures is showing us that every trial, every mishap, every bad thing that has happened to us even when we were being good is an opportunity. A way for us to truly become converted. The more we rely on God when life isn't going all that good, we learn to love him even more. God promises he will feel after us. If we just endure it, we will be so grateful we did. And so will our Father in Heaven:)

Life is good. Every day something cool happens. Its definitely the hardest thing I've ever had to do, but also the most rewarding. Helping people realize that we have a Father in Heaven who loves us is honestly a privledge. Best mission out there. Hope all of you guys have a good thanksgiving, maybe ill eat some rice or something. Ha love you guys

ELDER SMITH

 Fresh sugar cane

 Endless rice fields

 sleeping Buddah

This was the prettiest sunset I've ever seen, all natural.

One of our members