"Yes, Grandma, These are Real!"

Wow after reading Mom and Dad's letters, I think you guys have been having quite a fun summer. I'm just a bit miffed I won't be able to have a full summer by the time I get home... but I guess that's life. I was interested to read that we've acquired a Subaru Outback, all mark needs on that car now is a cheap Masterflo exhaust that just makes a load of noise, well that's pretty much what every chav in this country does when they have a Subaru Sti or Mitsubishi Evo so it just makes the whole neighbourhood move when they pass. I imagine Todd Wilhite's new Lambo is going to be quite a neckbrecker, bright yellow Eh? I'll have to ask him if I can borrow it for a date... or I'll just date Delie when she gets home to see if her dad lets me drive the Lambo :P I'm totally joking. I'll just take one of his other Dodge vipers since he multiple of them ;)

Well my companion has been seriously under the weather this week. We haven't been able to get a lot done because he's had some seriously bad allergies, twisted ankle, and he probably needs a root canal done on one of his teeth. Yeah... he's kinda falling apart at the moment. I've been doing my best to take care of him, but there seems to be nothing I can do. Plus everything he has doesn't just go away after a few days. So we've been slowed down a bit, and he's had to sleep a lot. Well I'm going to be spending part of this p day in the emergency dental care with him... so I probably won't have anything fun to do today... but he needs to be seen by a dentist. Of course I've given him blessings, but I haven't been blessed to heal him yet... so still working on that. Yeah we'll see how the day goes here. I've brought my Rubik's cubes to entertain me while I wait in the waiting room of the dental office. Yeah that's called thinking ahead :P

Well, I'm off to my last zone conference this Wednesday which should be fun. I'll have to give my testimony in front of part of the mission which should entertain a few people. I've become very eloquent with my words since I've been here. Plus I've been asked by people in the ward if I have a English Accent, well I can imagine I can fake one pretty good and you couldn't tell the difference is about how good I am at it. I've heard accents disappear pretty quickly once you get home because you are not around the culture anymore. Hey this is kinda random, but ask Ryan which Football (soccer) team he supports in England. I'm kinda curious as to which teams the Leeds mission supports, whereas most of us down here in London support the major London teams in the Premier League. Since I haven't known football to well, I decided I would support Arsenal. Whether the Hillyard family agrees with it or not will be interesting to see since they were really into the world cup and stuff when I was last home. Speaking about the World cup, United States seems to be doing pretty well. I believe they play against Belgium tomorrow. You should watch it if you have the time. If the united States doesn't win, I want Holland to. They've got the guts to pull it of. Just don't let Brazil win. That's about it. To many Brazilian missionaries here that would get hyperactive if Brazil one... and there would be no end to there pride. Not that there isn't one in the first place :P

Well, I've spoken myself dry. I'd tell you more missionary stories, but we haven't done anything to exciting this week. A few service projects here and there. Oh, I managed to go hold some more reptiles at the shop the other day. I'm loving that place. We teach, hold snakes, and teach some more and we have a jolly good time. I don't know why Grandma doesn't believe that Python was real. Chuck is very real. I'll go take more pictures of him if you don't believe me. He's a reticulated Python and he's about 22 feet long at the moment and is almost full size. Unfortunately he won't get much bigger. I've also made a few other friends at the shop who happen to be employees as well. I've been shown a personal collection of snakes which this kid has and I just had the time of my life. I remember a poster that Mom made a long time ago for a show and tell project when I was in Elementary school that said "anacondas are huge" yeah, I held one for the first time a few days ago. He was just a baby, so he wasn't very big but I can now say I've done it :) I know mom is thinking I'm going to be some creepy "snake man", but there are plenty of "cat ladies" out there as well. I'll be honest, I love what are called Royal Pythons, basically the British version of a Ball Python. The don't get to big, very nice tempered, and have great life spans. Very beautifully coloured as well. I don't ever plan to own a snake bigger than 7 or 8 feet. They just get to big to handle if they weigh more than you. Don't worry I've been taught the care and how to handle dangerous snakes, not extremely properly but what I should do for the most part. I think I told you about the albino rattlesnakes these guys own. Yeah he's not much fun because he's grumpy all the time :) Well all things that have rattles are grumpy all the time. Well I think I've rambles off a lot here, but I think it shows how much I've loved being with these guys. Unfortunately, they aren't very religious but we are rubbing off on them. My companion and I are called the "Cool Mormons" and they love to get answers to questions from us. Plus they defend us from other people that make fun of Mormons even when we aren't there. Absolutely love these guys :)

Well I hope all is going well, I'll send a few pictures from my service project today, and I'll survive the dental waiting room as well. Pray my companion gets better so we can continue to do good work here. I love you guys loads. I'll see you in 6 weeks.

Love,

Elder Bradley Smith

plus I had a hairstyle change from one of the members... its ok but I keep it because the ladies love it :)

I'm holding what is called a "house" snake. Pretty much the same thing as a corn snake. The pictures are kind of bad, so I hope you can see him. Plus our two lovely sisters we work with here in Southend.

Big spider on my companions leg, I don't know how he was so chill with it...

Castle Ruins and M3's

I'm interested to hear Ryan's accent when I get back, because there is a big difference in accents from the North compared to the South here. Apparently I've got one of the worst in England, because I've spent most of my mission in Essex, being quite a indignant place and non for their troublemaker chavs. I don't practise the chav accent to much, we just use it for fun and making fun. Tons of words like "Innit" and "Bruv" and some other funny ones like "Safe". "That's safe bruv innit". That's a sentence they would say. Makes me chuckle.

Well the week has been about normal. We've run into a few difficulties with our baptismal family, mostly because one of their cats tracked in Fleas into their house and due to the state of the house, the fleas multiplied and replenished the house quite quickly. So they weren't able to have us over without us getting the fleas... so we thought we'll just have to wait it out. That puts us back a bit in our teaching schedule. Plus we discovered that the two parents are not lawfully wedded yet... they just have a common law marriage because they have been living together for so long. They have 8 children so far and still want more. What a true Mormon family. We'll be working out the marriage details for them in July, so hopefully we'll see them baptized by the end of the transfer.

I had the pleasure of seeing my good friend Elder Vogel again one last time before he goes back to Germany. He's the kid that kicked off the work here in Southend before I got here and we've been baptizing really well ever since he's been here. Crazy, now there are only two missionaries that go home before me. I'm an Ancient being around here. Well I actually enjoy it because then I get to teach others how to do the work and I get good respect from it :P Until they actually have to work with me, then they might change there opinion (just kidding).

Well its a sunny day and we are going to be playing football. We've been going crazy over here for the World Cup. To bad England already got kicked from the group phase, so they won't be winning this year... but USA have a good chance after drawing against Portugal yesterday night. GO USA! We've been much into Football due to me learning all about the players and teams, so I quite like it now :) Having a good time talking about it with investigators and members who love to talk about it. Good way to go into gospel conversations as well. I'll be wearing my England Jersey when I get back, and I'm proud of it :) So yes, you discovered the English flag is only the cross. The Union Jack represents all the other kingdoms that were united. Northern Ireland, Scotland, and England are in the flag, but unfortunately Wales didn't get there share in the flag :P Yep, good history lesson here. England's history is crazy long compared to our own little United States history. London is as old as the Romans. Flipping 2000 years. No wonder they have difficulty building modern roads and buildings in a city that was constructed during the time of Christ. Yep I'll enjoy the last few weeks that I'm here. Hopefully the sun will keep shining here this week.

I love you guys and I'll see you all very soon.

Elder Bradley Smith

The pictures are of a Castle in our area... It's pretty beat though... not much left.

Most awesome M3 I've seen yet. One day it will be my car.

Reptile City

Well looks like everyone is keeping busy, that probably means its a good summer then. I could try to run through my week, but I honestly can't remember half the stuff that has happened... my bad memory or I'm just always thinking ahead, one or the other. Well yesterday we got a surprise Barbecue with our friends the Barrons, and they bought loads of stuff from Costco and just had a massive fry up in the backyard, so good... and we ended up spending most of the day there because my companion is a bit ill at the moment from hey fever and allergies and goodness knows what else... but I'm still pretty healthy at the moment. Yes, I'm eating more vegetables because we found a cheap place to buy them, so now I can eat better. The barbecue probably wasn't the best for me though :P But boy, was that some good food. I don't know if you know about a special barbecue sauce, but it is made with Jack Daniels flavouring, no alcohol of course, but it is just incredibly good. You should find some so I can use it on my chicken when I get back :) We've also got a big family ready for baptism in two weeks as well. It's my companions first baptisms in his mission, so he's super excited. I'm excited as well because we are making my area into the highest baptizing area in the mission. Thank you. I've managed to pull off something amazing while I've been out here. Since the beginning of the year Southend has had about 8 baptisms, and now with 5 more will make us the highest baptizing area in our mission. I'm a bit proud of that because I've spent nearly 5 months here so far, and our Mission President is quite pleased as well. Knowing that this is England... and that not many people are baptized, this is a pretty good thing :) Plus our retention rate for all of our recently baptized people is still 100% at the moment. So I thought I'd brag a bit, but not to be overly prideful because it's not me that convinces people to be baptized, it's God.

So anyway, we're doing pretty good here. It's under two months till I see you guys, and I'm excited to be finished with all this business out here. It's been a long road, but guess there isn't anything else that would have taught me how to grow up than a mission. It feels pretty good to know that I've managed to make it this far. Sometimes I thought to myself that I wouldn't make it or that I would give up first, but it feels pretty good to accomplish something so big. Random thought, I now get to add like 300 hundred people to my facebook when I get home... Great, I thought keeping up with people in Utah was bad. I'm probably just going to delete facebook when I get home and have people contact me through real means like calling me :P I'm joking about that, but I am worried about things that will waste my time when I get home. Mom is probably going to reiterate those words to me in a few months when I'm playing a computer game or something and then tell me to do something more productive. Well, I've learned a few things about time management out here, so lets see if they actually carry into real life. Well enough of me ranting, I love you guys and I'll catch you in a few weeks as I've been saying for quite a long time now, but really I'll see you in a few weeks :)

Elder Smith

Happy Birthday to My Sweet Mother

Mom, you've almost managed half a century at life! Congrats, now you have to worry about things like Breast cancer and back pain for the rest of your life, but with the bonus of your daughter being a PA you shouldn't have to much to worry about :) You know I'm joking about the cancer stuff right? I just see so many ads in the buses here saying that if you are over fifty you should get checked for prostate cancer and stuff like that. Good I've got another 30 years before I need to worry to much about that stuff...

Well I've managed to make it through another week. I think these weeks are getting a little bit quicker now. We have a massive family on date for baptism on the 29th of June, about 5 people eligible for baptism plus a few children in the future that could get baptized at various times. Lovely family and they just walked into the chapel because they said Mormons like "Big" families so they thought they'd be welcome to come... which was true ;)

So hopefully I'll have my hair cut today, depending if the member doing it is feeling well enough to. The guy that normally does it, his name is Brad. So we're both named Brad. Unfortunately Brad happens to have bipolar, and so he goes downhill for a few months and has no energy, so we try to get him to do fun things and keep his mood up, so we'll probably drop by this afternoon and cheer him up :)

Well its good to know that everyone is doing well back home. I'm looking forward to that Lake Powell vacation now. Going swimming again after two years is going to be so Blessed. Yeah, don't worry I'll work hard until the end. Elder Maynard and I are doing pretty good, looking after ourselves and all. So far nothing to complain about, the weather has been a little weepy for the past few days, but otherwise not to bad. We got poured on at our football game on Saturday, mind you the football is soccer..., but we had a lot of fun getting soaked and running around in the morning. Not to bad of a way to finish the week.

Well I'm going to keep kicking around here for another two months and I'll see  you on the bright side :)

Love,

Elder Smith

PS

I hope you like the way I spend "Mum" :) Plus the car was so funny I had to take a picture, I didn't do it though.

Southend Till I'm Dead

More scones... I realized I spelled it wrong in the other email... and our Sisters who helped our Baptism :)

I thought this was so funny, "Also in silver."

Well, our beloved President decided for the good of England that he should just keep me in the corner of Southend for another six weeks. So I'm not going anywhere at the moment :P Which I consider to be quite a good thing. I'm really not in the mood to be packing, its just a pain. Actually I don't ever think I liked packing... sometimes changing the area was a good thing, but packing was never the fun part :P Plus I get to keep my home grown little Utah boy Elder Maynard, so I'm quite happy with that. He's keeping me Happy and Healthy :)

So, that pretty much covers all the fun stuff. I got some good pictures of a baptism we had on this past Saturday. Her name was Suelem. She's from Brazil and she was taught be Elder Berenguer and I, but when he left we had no one to speak Portuguese with her, so we got our new sister to finish the job since she's from Brazil. So we tag teamed with the sister missionaries and just got her baptized this past Saturday. Good stuff there. I still count it as one of my baptisms since we did most of the teaching before our sisters did :)

Well I've just got to survive about ten more weeks. Not to long, but still seems like it's gonna take forever... but that's just me being tired and lazy :P My companion is gonna work me till the end. I'm interested what President Jordan is going to do because I have like 3 weeks left after the next transfer, so we'll see what happens there. If all goes well, this will probably be my last area and I'll only have to pack one last time :) That's quite a good feeling isn't it. Well I love you guys and I'll catch you soon :)

Back So Late

Nice Shelby Cobra we found in town.

So I apologize for my late letter this week. It was a bank holiday this past Monday again, so the library wasn't open, and then we were booked all Tuesday... so this is the first opportunity I've had to get in a few minutes to write you guys and let you know how I've been :)

Well there isn't anything to surprising that has happened since the last time you spoke to me. I got to have an interview with president Jordan and we finalized everything for my return home. I should get my itinerary this next transfer... I hope that doesn't make me to trunky :P and it was the first interview where I actually got to talk with him for a decent amount of time. Yeah, everything is good and he's one inspired man President Jordan. He just has way too many missionaries to look after, so I guess its a bit difficult to get very close to him :P

Well, next week is another transfer week, I've only got two calls left so how many more of these do we have to go through? Not many. A bit weird to know that whoever I get or stay with next, companion wise, is probably my last companion. Wow, I'm really old I guess :P There are only three missionaries in the field that have been out longer than me, and then they go home next week :P I will be the oldest missionary in the field after next week... geez everyone is going to think I'm ancient.

Well, I'll surprise you with a few pictures this week. I'm doing well and I've loved working with Elder Maynard. I'm gonna have to pick him up at the airport next year, well at least that's what I've told him if he doesn't forget :)

Well I'll talk to you soon,

Love,

Elder B. Smith

"Love Lane," I thought that was funny.

To My Loving Mother and Family

I'm 21 now!

We didn't have candles, so we used matches instead.

I'm really just shattered from being in London all yesterday, as I've told you earlier it takes all the energy out of you like boating on lake Powell all day :P It was a little bit ridiculous because my oyster card kept eating all the money I was putting on it, making me a bit frustrated... the idea behind using the oyster card is that it is cheaper to travel with and after using eight pound sixty or so, you get a daily travel card all over London, anywhere you want to go. Well that didn't really happen, and it kept eating my money... So I was a bit wroth with it... so I might go have a word with the people at the train station and see if I can get my money back. I'll be just like mom who was mad when she only got Ice in her cup at Sonic down at Lake Powell and I'll march in there and demand a refund :) I still remember that one mom :)

Other than that, the day when pretty much smoothly. We went around to Buckingham palace again for one of the sisters in our District, and then went up to Oxford street again. Afterwards did a little snooping around a place called Camden Town. Big Market place, you can pretty much barter for anything you want there. We meet the Romford Sisters at a strange store where you get a special foot massage. There are these Chinese Fish that come and eat the skin off the bottom of your feet and it's just like getting a pedicure or something like that, it was really bizarre. So we saw them there and asked what they were doing... obviously we could see they had come weird sucker fish attached to there feet. They told us it didn't hurt and that we should try it... I didn't really feel like dropping fifteen pounds for the experience of a fish sucking on my foot... I can get my big orange fish back home to do that. He don't like anybody. :)

Soooo... afterwards we had a good time going to a party at my late recent converts home in the evening where they again gave me another cake. Yes mom... I've had 4 cakes so far. I'll count. The one you sent me through Sainsbury's, One from our beloved sisters here in Southend, One from my recent convert here in Southend... lovely gluten free cake since she is celiac, and one from my recent converts last night. I cannot eat them all. I'm constantly on a cake high :) I'm regulating how much cake I can eat per day... it's a little bit ridiculous. So yeah, I've had a great Birthday. It seems to have extended over the past few days because people keep saying happy birthday to all over the place.

Well, my last birthday done and gone. Now I just need to survive till August and I'll see you guys at the Airport. Love you guys so mucho :)

Elder Bradley Smith

Birthday groceries

Mom only will send CHOCOLATE bday cakes.

My comp wants to be a model LOL

Gotta love B Palace

Big Ben is peeking over the trees.

Don't think I'll drink this cologne.

We did a car wash for a new convert in Basildon
when I was on a workover there.

LOOK! A holy study time for me. Notice the light:)

Notice the plate says "Boss."