a mashup

Elder Smith had limited time for emailing this week & didn't have time to write very much for his blog.  Instead I've taken a bit from each of the emails he wrote to all of us (his family) & posted them.

sorry no blog email this time :/ but here's a picture from the temple gardens!!

we had our district meeting there and it was amazing!
oh! and i celebrated my 1 month anniversary in the field this week by doing more missionary work!! :P haha 
love, 
elder smith 
ps. sorry, short emailing time this week:/

Dear Mom- 
I’ve noticed here in SA that the lord does love his people as much as he loves me! Their eyes light up when they see "Jesus Christ" on our nametags and they want to hear more! Even if they’re just jokers, like Joseph said, sometimes, we just plant seeds to be nurtured down the road by the missionaries who will impact them more! the lord is the perfect micromanager;) but then we get people like Leslie Ncube (n- tsk sound-oobay) who commit to be baptized after saying "give me 2 seconds to think about that, 1,2, yes!" haha it made my day and I hope he will continue progressing!! It's been amazing to see the gospel work in his life:) I know I'm the missionary but he inspired me to fix a couple things that I need to and it's been a huge blessing!!  

Dear Emma- 
Thanks for your prayers and inspiration to do that which is right. I know that as you set goals and work towards them that you will become a better person, even if maybe you fall a little short you were still further than when you started and it just motivates a person like you to work a little harder:) keep on keepin on!!  Haha we have to wake up even earlier to exercise and it kills me but I always feel better:)
Dear Ben (who asked about baptisms, missionaries, zone conferences & Spencer's twisted ankle)-
no but we set Leslie on date for baptism the 16th of MARCH!!!!, in Joburg there are 7, only one zone conference but district meeting every week, its better! Bruised still but I’m running again:),
Dear Bekah-
I’m living super simple here haha um cool story is that we went ice skating today for p-day at the Northgate mall!!!! The skates were horrible but I still had fun:) hahaha 
Yeah about the ankle.  I guess I left that story hanging huh? Well we were playing rugby for pday 2 weeks ago and I just stepped weird in a hole and it was bad!! It’s finally stopped swelling and now the bruising is going away but man! Did it hurt! Haha part of life I guess...
Dear Dad- 
I wish you could like be here with me to answer the hard questions but I’ve learned something cool as you cannot be here haha it’s that we need to rely on the promise the Lord gave us to study those things and then we will have what we need to say, and what we say is just the simple doctrine! Just the eternal truths that we know and the spirit can do the rest:) one cool thing I learned is that we first "obtain" his word then we can declare. Well what does "obtain" mean? I came to the point that to obtain something, we need to pay a price; money, time, etc. so to obtain his word, or a testimony, we need to pay a price of our time or giving up a vice or worldly thing so that we can know His word! How cool is that!?
Well, tha's 'bout it!