Dear Family,
Hey so I hope you all had a good week. Well its been almost 6 months since the last general conference and I am super excited for this weekend. As I have said in the past, General Conference is like the superbowl for missionaries. It's basically the only vacation that we have as missionaries and this conference will be super awesome because it's my last as a missionary. It's crazy cause I still remember, like yesterday, when I went to the Priesthood session with Dad, Nick and Spencer and we sat in the High Council room and I slept through most of it. Haha. Oh and like after the Priesthood session ends everyone goes out to eat--well here, after the Saturday morning session ends, we go to KFC for lunch. Also this week we have Zone Conference and so that's going to be fun too. Oh and I'm conducting the meeting and I'm going to record it with the tape recorder. Also this week I'm going to do divisions with the Zone Leaders on Friday so basically this whole week is going to rock. Oh and we are almost in October, which is my third favorite month of the year behind November and December.
This week I did a couple of divisions and that always makes the week go by so much faster. On Tuesday I went to Tres Rios with Elder Johnson to do an interview for a guy, Jeancarlo, who got baptized this Saturday. The interview went really well and Jeancarlo was super prepared and a really humble guy. After the interview Elder Johnson was telling me that when they first started teaching him he was super prideful and could not accept the Book of Mormon or the fact that God calls modern day prophets. But Jeancarlo decided to pray and find out for himself and he received and answer and completely changed, so that was pretty cool. The division was also awesome because we talked about all the cool and funny things that happened in the MTC--we had to coolest MTC district.
Then on Friday I went on divisions with Elder Stevens. I'm pretty sure I've talked about him before, but he actually grew up in our stake. He lived by Reading Elementary and so was in whatever ward is by there. He lived there and then moved to Virginia. His family is super good friends with the Bednars, his dad and Brother Bednar were mission companions. Also he was on a baseball team with me, the Mets and brother Bednar was our coach. He is a super awesome missionary and he loves lacrosse too. He played in High School and then for BYU for a year and you know he is good, cause in Virginia lax is huge and the teams are a lot better than they are in Utah. It was fun talking with him about all the people that he remembers from his days in Centerville. I went to his area in order to get to know some of their investigators who are progressing and have the possibility of being baptized this month.
Which brings up my next subject. This past month we did aweful as a zone. We only baptized 3 people in total which is horrible. This month we really took a beating from Satan, because we had the people and they were progressing but lots of set-backs happened with investigators' work schedules, legal problems and divorce papers. During this coming month, I really want to complete the goal, cause it is my last full month in the mission and so it's the last time that I can complete the goal. In my district we have a lot of possibilities. Our goal as a district is to baptize 4 families and 5 Varones or guys that can hold the Melchizedek Priesthood. As a district we have all the people we just need to work with them really hard so that they can be prepared for this month. Honestly I don't even feel like I have that much time as a missionary, and I'm pretty sure that it won't hit me until I see you guys again. The mission has just become a way of life and so for me wearing a shirt and tie, studying the gospel every day and talking to people about it is just normal.
Ya so that's what has been going on down here. I love you all and I hope you all have an awesome week!!!!!
Love, Elder Anthony Kent Kohkonen Smith
