Wk 63 - Bye Bye Jackson :(

Companion: Elder Nelson
Area: Jackson

Well this is it for Jackson! My heart is torn.. hate to leave the members that feel like family to me, But I'm also excited for the new area at the same time. Been a long time here and have definitely always loved this place! The members here are amazing and the place is as well! One of my goals for every area is to leave it way better than I found it, I hope that's the case here! Been one of the hardest and best times of my mission here in Jackson!

Elder Neeser and I were out and about and smacked a frog in the truck!
Haha it was pretty funny. It was like land mines everywhere!
And they moved! 

This week was so good! We got to live in a 4 Elder apartment! 3 days with Elder Coon and Burton! That's always a party! Just trying to contact as many people as possible from the Apple Festival. We've contacted a few very awesome people who have some great potential and I could see progressing and some not so interested but things have been good! It's awesome having a reason to knock on a door! The other Elders that came and stayed with us were Elder Johnson and Elder Neeser! Never really worked around either but they're both from Idaho and grew up on ranches! We've had the best time in the world! It's been a party!

We got to have Elder Johnson and elder Neeser down for the last 3 or 4 days to help with referrals! They're both from Idaho and farm boys. They've become some of my best friends!

Duayne Plymales' 8 month old cow! She's a beaut!!

We also got to go out and do some service at the Plymales with them and Brother Plymales loved having handy missionaries on the farm! Haha gotta help him set up for the hunting season and hunt rats in the barn, fix a bunch of stuff and all sorts of that good stuff! It's been awesome! I'm definitely going to miss that place.

Elder Nelson loved this bug! 

If you look close you'll see something Elder Johnson didn't see coming for his stomach! Haha
He jumped pretty bad and it was funny because we got a Pic of the keys.

Sunday we were supposed to have 4 people at church. It was the ten year old who won the big prize and his family but they all came down sick and couldn't come but said they'd come the following week, but it's general conference so we will see how it goes! Speaking of which I've heard general conference will be life changing, even more than the last one! So watch it! It's gonna be sweet! 

Well today we went golfing and it was the longest six and a half hour game ever! Haha but it was a blast! Hit up taco bell after and had a good time! For my last full day here in Jackson it's been a good one.

No idea what I'm gonna do without Elder Nelsons strange purchases!
He bought a unicorn costume for a 3 year old.... All because it was a unicorn!!

Now, in case you were wondering I'm headed back to the city! I'm headed to Dublin, Ohio. It's supposedly a wealthy area so the areas will be completely different! I'm excited for new learning opportunities and the chance to grow as a missionary. I got a call late Tuesday night from President Stratford telling me the Lord has called me to be a Zone Leader. So we'll see how it goes! Life is gonna be crazy! 

Anyway I love you all I'm grateful for ya! Hope you have a good week and talk to ya in the next!

Love Elder Smoot 

Wk 62 - Apple Festival

Companion: Elder Nelson
Area: Jackson

Howdy howdy!!

Holy smokes it's been a while! It's definitely been a week for the books! It was probably one of the longest yet shortest weeks of my mission and definitely the most exhausting!! There were so many people and so many missionaries! Every night we had from four to ten other Elders in our house! It made me Pooped! 

What the booth looked like

The Lancaster District when they came to help

Elder and Sister Allison

Elder and Sister Meacham

Well everyday really looked the same.. So after we got the booth all set up, which looked amazing! All the craziness started just like that! We would wake up, Exercise, take turns showering and getting ready and be to the Allison's by 9:30 with all the missionaries. We'd eat an amazing brunch provided by the branch and give a training to the missionaries and why we have them here in Jackson! Then we'd all shuttle them to the festival. I got to drive the beast and it was a good time! We had a reserved parking spot from a member who owned a house pretty close! Which was very convenient! Then we got there and set the booth up and start talking to people! What we would do was we had a couple clip boards with sign up sheets on it and a binder with pictures of all of our prizes!! So if we got someone to sign it that was called a sign up. If we got them to check one of the three boxes at the bottom of it, it's a referral! There were three boxes to check, family history account and training, a free king James version of the Bible, and a book of Mormon! We had an incentive for the missionaries as well! We made a deal that who ever got the most people to sign up would get Michael's ice cream!! It was crazy how hard they worked after that! Haha! We gave a beautiful statue of Christ away, a little 10 inch one, and we had 4 awesome pictures as well. Our goal was to get a thousand people to sign up. After the first day it was pretty slow and we got kinda nervous because we only had like 157 or so, but we knew it meant we had to work harder!  The sisters one that day because they wouldn't leave the dang booth... Haha! Even then we only lost by five or so. We ended up winning on Thursday with fifty nine! That was a new record that we broke the next day with sixty one! Except someone else got sixty four so that's all good! Later on in the day we'd have dinner and by nine we'd head home and get some shut eye! 

Well I did want to share a couple miracles we've seen already from this! 

Number one we tried so hard to reach our goal of a thousand, when the final count came we only had like 950, then on Sunday we found a bunch more hidden in binders and ended up having 1135 people sign up and 800 of those were self referrals! Meaning they signed up to have one of the three boxes given to them! Which means that we can go to their house!! Holla! Some genius must have thought of that! Lol! 219 requests for the book of Mormon! 545 for the Bible, and 363 for family history! Huge miracle! God has definitely put a lot of trust in us! 

Miracle number two! Two people that we have had on date in the past were found at the Apple Festival and signed up! One of them has finished the Book of Mormon and still wants to come back! Many former investigators signed up! It was so sick! 

Miracle number three! The first place winner was a ten year old kid. When we went to drop off the statue, we were shocked because his family invited us back and have been looking for a church! They want to come on Sunday and the kids a genius! Loves the Bible and is so sweet! Was stoked to read the Book of Mormon! Hopefully his family will come a day everything will go well! 

Today we got to go bowling, play volleyball, and ultimate Frisbee for a district activity! Got some free hair cuts and ate steak and shake! Life's good! Haha 

Love y'all so much! Hope your week was this good! 

Hope you know how much the mission has changed me and my testimony! Every night after we got the results, thinking about how many children of God have opened up and signed up is very humbling and I'm excited for the craziness that is now happening! 

Love ya!

Love Elder Smoot 

Wk 61 - Apple Festival is here!!!

Companion: Elder Nelson
Area: Jackson

Oh my goodness mom this package is awesome!! 

Thanks you soo much!! 

District council elder Nelson made play dough for me! 

We bought a new shower curtain and mat to match it!
Shower time is incredible, it feels like you're in an ocean!

David & Goliath Chickens

Putting the booth together!!
She's looking good! Much more pictures to come!

 I get to drive both of these all week!! 

Holy smokes! Well geez felt like a long week even though it was five days ago! It's only because a lot of things happened! Literally everything is finally falling into place for the booth and everything! Basically everyday since has been planning, building, or checking things off of the list for things to do for the Apple Festival! I'm so excited for this week!

Thursday however, we did have an awesome district Council!! It was so uplifting! We had a talk shared with us in the last zone conference on the belief window!! Holy smokes its incredible and its something I want to use the rest of my life! It talks a lot about put downs and what people say can become part of what we believe. If a young boy gets called dumb 47 times a day in one way or another and he believes them, what will he grow up to be? Dumb. That's why everyone needs to abide in Christ and be positive influences in each other's lives! He applied it to missionary work. If we go to an area and we think oh this area never baptizes, are we gonna work as hard? No you aren't. It's such an incredible talk we did a whole district Council on it! We talked mostly on how crucial faith is in our belief windows. It was probably one of my favorite meetings. 

After that meeting everything's been a blur! It's all been planning the booth and pre building some, and we even got called to go do some service at the Plymales! We got the biggest turtle yet!! This sucker was huge! Pic included! 

We scored big time! Caught the biggest turtle yet! 

This suckers over 35 pounds and straight vicious!

Better pic of the beast!

Saturday we went up to get a 3 hour training in Columbus to become certified to drive the van, then we got to go to Raising Canes! Then down to Sam's Club! What a day! Sunday came around and it was so good! Had awesome church meetings, then gave Ralph the sacrament and changed and went to set up our booth and the Cruses! We got both almost all the way done! There was so many people just setting up that I can't wait to see those who actually come!!! It will be a good time and I'll get plenty of pics so no worries! Wish us luck! 

Well anyways it will be a while until next Pday so hope yall have a good week and a half! Love you lots! 

Love Elder Smoot 

Wk 60 - Festival Planning!

Companion: Elder Nelson
Area: Jackson

found a headband at District Council

Footer Friday chillin!

Sir butler-- Elder Nelson

Sister Allison being silly while shopping

we found ants in our closet!

Gotta have my seeds!

Elder Nelson's drawing

Pariseau's put him in a cage with a great dane

hiking pics

Hawking Hills

Hiking on my hands!

Howdy Howdy! 

Well this week has definitely been a long but a good one and another week in the books! Seriously it was an uneventful week other than a couple of good things! 

Last Thursday we had a great district council and talked a lot about faith and how we need faith in our lives! It was pretty dang spiritual! We ended up having the zone leaders join us and we went on exchanges with them right after that! Elder Hales, who I went with, is from Arizona, and Elder Beck from Lehi came down to Jackson! It was such a good day! We talked to a lot of people, found two new people to teach, went out to the Pariseau's farm. Cut a tree down. The best part was we went and tried by a guy we met a long time ago and he was super drunk and hugged both of us about 10 times! Haha! He had a little puppy hound dog that was pretty fun to play with too! We also gotta eat biscuits and gravy at the Detty's! It was so Good! 

Monday we had an empty nesters pot luck dinner! So glad we get invited! Haha it's a good time and the food is great! We gotta play uno and had a bible trivia game! It's was a good time! 

The rest of the week was honestly spent doin a little bit of service every day and planning and finding. This week's service consisted of mowing 5 lawns, pounding in about 30 posts,  wiring all of them and putting a barn back together! It was a pretty legit time!! The time we spent planning the booth and finally seeing it all coming together, getting everything we need, preparing for the whole zone to come down one district at a time and spend the night has made me so excited for the Festival! It's going to be sweet!!! Also ps because of the festival everyday except Monday next week we will be having our pday next Monday! So if you wanna email it'll be Monday! 

To cap the week off today the Allison's gave us a call and asked if we wanted to go to Hawking hills and we were like why not! Took a long time but it was sweet!! We got lots of good pics!!  

Well I love you all! Hope you have a blessed and wonderful week! 

Love Elder Smoot