Hump Day

So I reached the "technical" half way point of my mission. Dad you are probably right that I'm going to have to come home just a bit early to get back to school and all, but this is the week that I have been away from the blessed land of Utah for 1 YEAR. Man, it feels like it was yesterday, but also feels like its been forever... so I'm not sure how to feel. Well I guess I feel pretty good :) So yeah I'm feeling pretty excited about what's going on over here. I love my companion. I love my area. I really don't have anything to complain about except the size of my flat. Other than that I can handle pretty much everything that is going on over here. Man I'm so grown up :P 

So I do enjoy serving here in Romford. Its quite a cool place. Obviously its not the nicest town in England but you take what you get. I'm just glad to be so close to London. Its been nice to be able to just literally ride a bus into central London... well that takes like two hours... but I can still do it. We have Zone Conference again this week, so that is the highlight of what is going on here this week. Nothing else is really new or incredibly worth mentioning. 

I do like your idea mother. You don't need to send me a package. The only thing about spending money at Costco is that I need to take it off the card first... because I don't have an American Express card... or the cards here that they require. I'll figure something out. My companion is excited to be with me because he knows how fun it is to be with a companion that is turning a year old in the mission, because his previous one had his hump day with him as well. So he gets to party with both of us. That's really not a problem with me :) Now I just need to make it to next August and we'll see how i'm doing there. Everything else is pretty good. Garments. Good. Attitude. Good. Health. Good. Alright I'm set for another transfer here. Thanks for all your help and support Mom and Dad. I love you guys so much. Thanks for being awesome :)

Love,

Elder Bradley Smith

More Romford

So I just got the word that I will be staying here in Romford for another six weeks. So will be enjoying the essex culture for quite a while now :) We didn't get the calls till like 11 at night, flipping took them forever to tell us. So we didn't know if we had to pack or not and most of us at that time of night basically wouldn't have packed anyway. Well, I'm staying with Elder Behrends for two transfers. He is my third 2 transfer companion. I haven't had a 2 transfer companion since I was with Elder Affleck. Man, that has been a long time. So Pretty much everything is ok over here. Our president has just made a major change when it comes to hours of accountable labor that we perform everyday and just removed the aspect of Hours of Finding. So that makes a big difference for us because we don't baptize so much, we can't base our key indicators on the fact that we are not baptizing enough here. But our President has so much faith that he wants us to be baptizing more so that we don't have to worry about being accountable for how much "Finding". That was probably the biggest change we've had in the past few weeks. Everything is going pretty well now. The flat is clean. We have food. We have a P day to entertain ourselves with, so I can't complain to much at this time. I was quite peeved last week, but I'm feeling quite better now. I'm just going to go enjoy myself today and work hard the other six. Horray for being awesome. SO... About my Greenie Package MOM! I don't know if you realize mom that most missionaries here recieve a package from home at there 1 year mark, and well... that mark is just around the corner. Coming up in a week and a half I will be half way done with my mission. Can't believe it went by so fast. Oh by the way Elder Hansen is coming home tomorrow so you guys should say hi to him :) He wants to come and see the Bunny Rabbits that we have, because you made my gloves out of Ludwig's fur, so he wants to see "Binnicula," the vampire rabbit. Well because he's an albino you know. So yeah, things are looking pretty good here. Just got to keep going and pressing forward :)

Love you guys, I hope you are having a fun time with Aynie around the house :)

Elder Bradley Smith

PS

If you want to do the greenie package mother that would be fantastic. You know your beloved son has spent so long away from home... I don't think there are any requirements on what needs to be in it, edible stuff isn't a bad idea though... so homemade cookies and stuff are cool. Maybe some famous brownies or something... Just giving you ideas :)

The Last of Summer...Well, Two Weeks More

My Days... I haven't gotten any time to do anything this week. Just constant work and all that good stuff. We had a huge mission conference today in Hyde Park again. So I don't know who plans these activities but they are not doing a good job. They keep doing it right on our P-day so we have absolutely no time to do anything... Even Email and shop and stuff... So I can only fit in emails today and I'll have to do shopping tomorrow or Wednesday :P Just a bit frustrated there. I'm thinking this email is going to sound a bit complainy because I just got off the train and I have a massive headache and I'm feeling a bit train sick (or car sick). Normally this doesn't bother me... but I'm not feeling the best. I just got out of a huge four hour conference with Elder Evans from the First quorum of the Seventy. He's the guy that runs all the missionary department for the church... so it's probably a big job. I thought he was going to come talk to us about cool stuff like setting up internet proselyting and stuff like that but nope... Chuck Testa :P He spent four hours talking about how we could do street contacting better... like literally knowing I don't already know. So he just preached for four hours concerning what preach my gospel says about how to find new investigators :P It was like attending an uber long district meeting that I have every week... so to say the least I was a little disappointed. I know he takes the time to come over here and everything, but I lost my p-day and all activities that I NEED to be able to get through the week... So not my favorite day I've had so far.

Our week was a little better than today though. The Sun was out. I played basketball most of the mornings... usually from 6:15 in the morning till about 7:15. We found a court near by our flat so we just jog there in five mintues in the morning. Really nice :) We also had a Ward picnic on Saturday that was a big success. Investigators came and a lot of the ward helped fellowship some of the new people we had there. It was really cool. But I got extremely sunburned. I wasn't expecting to be outside in the sun for about 9 hours straight. We were playing sports and stuff with the ward and then we played basketball with some random guys in the park afterwards as a finding activity :) Yeah it went really well. I was so exhausted after that day though. I literally couldn't move when we got back to the flat to shower and stuff... but we still had like two more appointments that day before the day was over >_<. Good day overall though :)

That was about the most interesting thing that happened this week. Oh I did get the Garments mother :) I really appreciate you sending me those. I really badly needed them. So everything is pretty good. I get moves calls this next week so you'll get to find out where I'm going this next Tuesday. So your pretty familiar with how this works because we move P-day to Tuesday... which makes this week extra Long! Plus I didn't get a P-day today Hooray! (You can probably smell how much sarcasm I used there :P)

Well, if I survive the day I'll let you know. I'm just hoping I'm not getting ill because of how crappy I feel at the moment. I really don't have time to be sick this week... but maybe it'll give me a break that I need :P The hard way I guess... Well I'll catch you guys next week. Maybe you guys should say "Hi" to Elder Hansen. He comes home next week. I said "Goodbye" to him today... and that was a bit tough. So, it has been an emotionally strenuous day... dang... I think I need to go to bed right now... I'll catch you guys in a bit.

Cheers,

Elder Bradley Smith

The August Half-Way Point

Hey I'm almost to the top of the mountain! Yeah! Only a few more weeks and I hit the peak then its all down hill from there :) 

Well I hope you guys have had a good week so far. Mine has been fairly busy and all. We've been doing service for the members here like crazy... so we get to wear our regular clothes for like the first time in a century :P Its feels nice. Plus for the first time I'm actually getting a TAN! NO WAY! You know that ugly tan line you get from wearing a watch all the time... well I have a brilliant one of those :) First time I actually look like a Brazilian... not! I just look uber red... thats all really :P 

So I'm enjoying the sun for a change... I just wish it wasn't so hot during the night... but that's what you get with the summer sun. Missionary work is about the same to be honest. I never really go into details because you guys would get bored reading my letters, so I'll try to keep them interesting. I can't believe I'm already 4 out of 6 weeks into this transfer... its gone by so flippin fast. Probably because I have a awesome companion. Much easier than my last one that is for sure :) I guess I need the hard before I get the easy. 

So today we are going into the wonderful world of London again for our good London P-day :) I need to take my companion to all the good sites and all because he hasn't visited big ben and all the rest... so you'll probably get a lot of pictures next week consisting of me and my comp around the big sites here in London. We are going to have a blast though. So I'm going to be really tired at the end of the day again though. London always does that to me. 

We have a big mission conference this next Monday... so I lose my p-day... but we have the director of the missionary department of the church coming and he's giving a conference to us about the facebook and electronics and all that good stuff that is going to be coming out to missionaries. At least that's what we think its about. President hasn't told us what he's going to be speaking about so we are just going to have to find out when we show up. But we believe he'll be talking about the announcements made at the Work of Salvation broadcast that was this last June. So we are pretty excited over here for that stuff. That'll probably change a lot of the way that we do missionary work around here. London is very technology oriented place. Almost everyone here is plugged into a smart phone and headphones... its a little bit ridiculous. I probably would be like them to if I wasn't a missionary though :P

Well I'm working my way through the hottest August England has seen in a long time. The sun is out, the people are literally not wearing clothes here in Romford :P and I'm seeing a little to much walking "porn" if you know what I mean. Essex... what are we going to do in this place... So we'll have to work on modesty standards here for a bit. 

Anyway I hope you guys have had a good week. Don't get into to much trouble, and it sounds like with all the pool parties and all that I'm missing out on a lot of fun. But you guys don't have London to enjoy though either :) HA. I have some leverage on my side :P Anyway have a good week guys.

Love,

Elder Bradley Smith