Uggggg.....

Uggg....

      I absolutely hate transfers. It has been the longest week of my life. I just got ripped out of Grays and now i'm in a decently sized town of Luton. I don't even know where to start... I feel good about being here but its just been so hard to leave the only area I know and rebuild this area here. I was about to have a wonderful Christmas there, all my skype plans were set up with the members but now we don't have any plans here in Luton :(. ... so were are trying to work out were we want to be on Christmas and what we want to do with the zone. The move last Wednesday was a killer... I hate carrying all my stuff literally across the country from train to train... and the stuff weighs so much... but I guess that's just part of missionary work I guess... It makes me appreciate the stuff I used to have so much! I miss just being able to use a car or to even have a bike. I never knew I could miss our home so much. I've just been having a really difficult week and I'm trying to get to know my new companion better. Elder Affleck is really a good guy, he just is very, very relaxed. Literally he is the opposite of Elder Hansen. I went from strict to completely loose. In a way it's nice, but in another its kinda hard to work with. We don't fight or anything so don't worry about that, I just feel that I'm not really included in all the plans that he has for the day and I feel like I'm just tailing him around like Pickachu the whole day. 

       Luton is a much more Posh place than Grays, alot nicer of an area yet everything still feels foreign to me. I'm just really disappointed about Christmas since I don't know any of the members... that is what I'm really feeling the most frustrated about. I kinda just feel left out to dry. This is an interesting area. Luton is really quite a large place but it is split in half by the Dunstible ward and they literally take 90% of the members so the Luton ward has like 30 people that actually attend sacrament meeting and nobody ever wants us over for dinner except the same 3 people. In Grays we always had dinner appointments almost every other night and now we have none so its been a big change. 

      I also hate that our flat was literally empty of food and I had to make an enormous shopping list and spend a lot of money getting the flat and the food up to par. I enjoy the other members of our zone quite a bit. The other missionaries are highly entertaining and have tons of stories to share. Its quite fun to be in a batch of six missionaries and just listen to the stories that go around. I just wish I could have come here one transfer later... I really just don't want to be in this area at the moment because its so difficult to rebuild the area and get everything to a level that I'm comfortable with. I guess things just don't go as planned... ever. 

     So it's been a very long week and I'm just a little down-hearted at the moment. I'm trying my best to have a good attitude but I'm just very frustrated with the way everything is working out at the moment. I don't know any of the members except Bishop and his counselors and a couple of other people and we don't have like any investigators here... so we've spent a lot of time in town center the past few days. 

     At the moment I'm in an internet cafe because I can't get a library card still I get some post from the mail that gives proof that I live here so please send me some snail mail so I can get a library card and email you guys for free.  So, back in Grays it was Essex, but I think its something like Hartford or something close to that, you can just look it up on Google. 

     I'm working on finding a place for Skyping. So just a heads up we might need to do it on Christmas Eve, and the call might last several hours so be prepared for that. If you want to invite the few friends I have in our ward still that would be cool to talk to them. So how we can find out when we are skyping is that I will have to do a series of emails to let you know next Monday the time, and then I will make a Skype account and send you the contact details for that so you can add me on the ipad or on the computer. Also about Christmas... I'm not sure what you guys sent me through amazon, but I'm excited for it! 

      I was wondering if you guys might put a little cash in on my debit card so I could by a cool english slim suit on Boxing Day, or the 26 of December, when all the Posh stores are having a 75% off sale at 5 in the morning that we are planning on going to. So the suits would be between 30-60 quid or pounds and that would be 60-120$ I believe. So I don't know if you guys would support that or not, but it would be cool christmas present that would be appropriate, but if the stuff you sent me in amazon was a lot then don't worry about it. I'm at an internet cafe right now... so I don't have the ability to send you photos at the moment because the computers here are absolute crap... so I promise to send lots of photos next week and I do have a ton. I think I've vented everything I want to talk about... I just miss Christmas back home... it's what seems normal to me, so now its the first time away from home and its kinda hard not knowing anybody that I can put my full faith in at the moment. I love you guys so much and I look forward to talking to you guys either next monday or tuesday. Have everybody there and it will be a lot of fun. I'll survive until then.

Love your Son and Brother,

Elder Bradley J. Smith