First Email from Arizona - December 24, 2018

That's great to hear everything is going well back home.  I'm sure that break will be a very much needed break.  That is so weird that it's not snowing there.  That's crazy.

There are 2 seasons here that I have picked up:  cool summer and hot summer.  We bike all the time so hopefully my pants don't get too tight that I'll have to get new ones.  I'm sweating and everyone else is in jackets like a bunch of weirdos.  My trainer is alright.  He's been out for 5 months so he knows what he's doing so that's good.  He helps me out a lot because I have no idea what I'm doing.  We have so many weird rules.  We can't do service for members, we ask investigators to be baptized the 1st or 2nd lesson.  It's so weird.   I don't even get a sim card for my phone.  We get 1 sim card per companionship.  Of course, my trainer is the DL and the other companionship in our apartment are the zone leaders.  I have not taught a single lesson.  Every person who we have talked to shot us down in about 3.2 seconds.  Every appointment we have had set up fell through.  The members are really what's up though.  They help us so much.  There are a lot of them too.

A pretty spiritual experience I had was that one night I was just thinking about how everyone doesn't want to talk to us and we are at a dead end and I prayed about it.  In the middle of my prary, I had a feeling of hands on my head.  The Lord reminded me of when I was set apart to do this work and that I will bless lives.  It's be rough but it will get better hopefully.  Been an interesting first week.

Love,
Elder Smith