Tuesday, January 5, 2010

E-mail from 1/4/10

Hello,

Happy New Year,I'm glad you guys all had fun on New Year's Eve. So, everyone played scum while you and Diane played Wii? What did you play? I didn't know you played video games. Funny.

You'll have to send me a picture of Peyton's purple glasses.

While "The Princess and the Frog" sounds like fun, I think it will be pretty low on my "trunky list" in 2 years. I'm glad everybody liked it, though. Cody is probably just too self-conscious to admit that he liked it more than "a little bit".

I like the RS theme - "encircled in love" - should be a great idea to base all the other lessons off of. That is basically the first principle in the first discussion - "God is our loving Heavenly Father". We talked about God being our loving Heavenly Father in Gospel Principles yesterday. Does our ward even have a Gospel Principles class, or just Gospel Doctrine? Are they going to be using the new Gospel Principles Manual in Priesthood? I've decided that the Spirit must be a lot stronger in RS than Priesthood, since you hardly ever see men or women crying in Elders' Quorum. Or maybe women just feel the Spirit easier, because on the other hand you rarely see men crying in Relief Society.

Don't try to tell me that it's almost Spring! (Peyton announced Sunday morning that it is almost spring.) It's been snowing all week. It's cool, though, because they actually have snowflakes here instead of great big globs of 50 snowflakes all squashed together. I there is one good thing about not having mountains around - no inversions!

We went to a fireside at the church yesterday where Elder Lambson played a bunch of hymns. It was really cool, and it was his last one on his mission. He and Elder Wayment both fly home this morning. They should be home in a couple of hours. So, I knew Elder Lambson was good, but I didn't realize how legit he was until Bro. Wray (who was conducting the fireside) read his introduction. He has won all sorts of championships, toured Europe a bunch of times, played for the Queen of England and a bunch of other royalties, dignitaries, and bigwigs at international conferences...and, to top it all off, he lives next door to Elder Holland! Pretty cool, huh! And, of course, his music was amazing.

Tim came to church yesterday and liked testimony meeting. So did Brenda. We invited Tim to fast with us yesterday for help to quit smoking and challenged him to quit smoking within a week. I think he can do it. Brenda is really sincere in her investigation-she comes to church and reads the Book of Mormon. Now she is just waiting to receive an answer about the Book of Mormon. Destiny is out of town right now. We've found a few new people, but no one that we've taught more than once or twice yet.

Way to go Peyton! I am so proud that you are going to read the Book of Mormon this year! That is so cool! I know that as you do, you will be able to feel the Spirit more strongly and you will be able to know that the Book of Mormon is true because the Spirit will tell you so! That is so awesome!

Per your question- we are supposed to read the Book of Mormon in 90 days, circling all references to Christ by any name (Jesus, Lord, I, he, me, etc), highlighting His attributes and keeping track of them, and (in 3 Nephi 11-28) underlining things that Christ did that we can also do. Before we began, we did the "attribute activity" at the end of Ch. 6 in Preach My Gospel, and we will do it again after we finish and compare differences.

No, I don't feel neglected. The inbox is just as good as the mailbox. I'm working on replying to the letters and cards I received - there are just a lot of them and so little spare time available with which to write.

"Go Browns"? Seriously?

Love,
Elder Smith

hey, could you please send me a recipe for fajitas? Our meal coordinator got released and it looks like its' going to be a little bit slimmer pickings than normal next week.