Wk 54: All sorts of WILD'N

Companion: Elder Nelson
Area: Jackson

My first fish of the day!!
Felt so good to get to use a fly rod again!!

Elder Nelson's first fish!
Both large mouth bass!

Two red wing sun fish I believe
(At least that's what he said!)

The fly rod I got to use!

Fish number 14

& 15 on the day!

Elder Nelson & I! He got 4!!

Any fly that gets eaten up like this and is that lucky
deserves a special place on the hat!!

Howdy howdy!! 

Wow, is all I can say about this week! We had just about every up and down that comes with missionary work. So, starting with last Thursday, we had district council right off the bat which went really well, after we had a pretty cool, I guess you could say, planning meeting with us and the Senior couple, Elder and Sister Allison. We came up with a lot of solutions and ideas to help the Jackson Branch grow. After that we went to the Orton's for some dinner and half way through we started talking about coordination with the senior couple and we just decided to run to the Church right then and there!! The coordination was awesome! President Orton is a stud and has a strong desire to grow the branch. We ended up having to leave a little  early because we had another dinner appointment down in Oak Hill with the Detty's!!! I had never gotten the chance to really know them but when we walked in their house I knew it was gonna be a great time because they had a bunch of cowboy stuff around the walls!! It turned out to be one of the best nights!! We ate amazing food and then had a huge nerf battle with their two boys and the dad!! haha! I forgot how much fun nerf can be!! 

Friday was sweet as well. We got to go help the Plymale's on the farm. We carried around a bunch of stuff for them and even got to bring a bench down to their new dock, which is legit!! The best part was when we got to bring in some cattle and sort them all through the chutes to give them all some meds! That was a good time!! After they took us to Taco Bell and we had a great talk! The Plymales are sweet! After we had a conference call and got our weekly planning done! For dinner we got to go do footer Friday with the Cruse family!! 

Saturday was a long but good day!! In the morning we went with Elder Allison to stop by a gentlemen named Michael they had found a couple days before. We went over there with lawn mowers because we knew his mower was broken and he needed his lawn cut. So we knocked and noone answered. We kinda sat around for a minute checking out his mower because he asked Elder Allison if he knew how to fix it. When walking down the street comes Michael! He was so happy we were there and we got right on his lawn. Me and Michael mowed at the same time while my comp and Elder Allison watched then switched us later on. So I went and talked to Michael. By the end of the conversation he had opened up so much and was so ready to change. He has a lot of challenges to get through but he committed to a date the first time meeting him! It was so sweet! It blew Elder Nelson's mind when we left! We also got to talk to one of his friends for a while who was going through a hard time which was awesome but said at the end he wasn't super interested right now. Later on that evening we stopped by a guy named Matt who is a pretty sweet guy! He loves rebuilding cars and had a pretty sweet car he showed us. After this day we had a bunch of people who said they would be at church so we were stoked! 

Sunday was good but a little rough because 0 people came to church and we had so many say they would! Church was still good regardless. After we gave Ralph the sacrament. Then had an amazing dinner at the Maquidang's with the Cruses and a member from the Chillicothe ward who is a Philippino also and brought Korean BBQ! It was quite tasty! Elder Nelson shared his children's book about Ammon cutting off the arms of the bad guys who where scattering and trying to take the flocks. Except it was funny because he made his flocks of chickens rather than sheep!! The pictures were pretty awesome too!! 

Monday, the highlight was definitely spent with the Pariseaus! They're so awesome!! We did service for them later on in the day our at their farm! They have a bunch of goats, chickens, dogs, ducks, and all that good stuff. We helped clean up a bunch of stuff, shoveled a bunch of gravel, ripped like four things out of the ground which were a pain! My companion could have helped a little more had he not been so distracted trying to catch and hold chickens! He got to hold his first chicken that day! haha! After they gave us some pizza and we got to have family night with them! That was the best!!! We played phase 10!!! Sister Pariseau got like 3 Phases ahead of everyone right off the bat so of course I started doing anything I could to stop her, and I skipped her like 4 times in a row and she threw a bottle or two  or four at me and started chasing me as a joke!! haha! It was so funny!! It some how got me in first and her almost in last so it was totally worth it!! hahaha That was such a  good time! !

Elder Nelson and his 'hairy headed chicken'-
as he called it

He got up but wouldn't come back down!
You can see the dog through he stairs! 

The other dog was barking while lying down!!
haha! huge threat!

Tuesday was also a pretty darn good day!! We got a list of people who no one knows and they wanted to clear up the records so we are trying to contact them!! The first house we went to was out in the middle of no where!! We went up the driveway and this house was sick!! It had a huge garage but they also had an outdoor bar which is just the thing you want to see at a members... Oh, and two dogs that were barking their heads off!! So we slowly got out, trying to calm the dogs down and eventually one went and hid under the front porch, and the other wouldn't stop but it layed down on the front porch so we figured they didn't care, kinda wrong! My comp was flipping out that the one under the porch that we could see was waiting to bite him as he walked up the stairs, after about ten minutes of telling him he'll be fine he stepped right next to the dogs face, even though he had about 4 feet both ways to go, and it nibbles twice on his foot and made him freak out!! He barely got his foot so right away we both started dying laughing and he was like I knew it!! haha! After driving to find more members we ended up passing someone's house we've been trying to teach and I've wanted to stop by for a long while. Her name's Lisa and I talked about her a while back. But we stopped in and had an awesome conversation with her and talked more about our beliefs and she loved them!! Hope she can commit and just try to see what it's really like!! We drove back to Jackson after that and were going to stop by a referral, when driving past Walmart in the middle of the road we see a box turtle trying to cross, about get hit! So we pulled over and remember Nephi, the Pariseaus son had lost his turtle and wanted another one so we grabbed it and called his mom and she was like, yeah bring it over!! So we made his day!! He was so happy! After that we got a referral from a member that we were going to stop by named Laura. They asked if we could get flowers and bring them so we did and turns out Laura is a 93 year old widow who is the sweetest lady!!! She was getting ready to go to bed so she invited us back!! It was such and awesome time meeting her!!! 

Nephi and his TURTLE we found him!

Elder Nelson does chicken time every night after 9!
He asked me what I wanted this week and he did it! It was sweet!

Well over all the week was pretty awesome!! I definitely have a lot to be grateful for!! Even though it can definitely be hard and frustrating at times, you gotta just stay positive!! 

Love you all! Hope you have a great week!! 

Love Elder Smoot