AMMON,  14 February 2011

Hey Dad, thanks for writing. Yeah, I really am learning a lot. It’s really weird, but I have changed so much from when I left home, I am almost a different person it feels like.

You asked what is whipping; you tube Hungarian whipping and you can see for yourself. It’s the funniest thing ever.

That’s weird, I heard that North Korea was bombing South Korea and America sent the navy to deal with the problem, idk, I heard it from a Hungarian newspaper or maybe I read it wrong. 

Mom’s email is not working when I try to send her an email, so I’ll just write to you.

So this week went by fast.  My comp and I are really working hard this transfer and we are being blessed for it. The work is really picking up here in Veszprém. It’s really cool to see our teaching pool so big and to be blessed with so many investigators.  We tried to ask all of our investigators this week if  they will be baptized when they receive an answer about the church and everyone we asked said yes!! So please pray for them all to get that answer.

This week we were able to do something very cool. Here in Veszprém there is a club called American Conner.  It’s for people who speak English or want to learn. Inside this club there are smaller clubs and one of them is a book club.  The leader of the American Conner is one of our investigators and she offered to us, a few weeks ago, to give a book report on the Book of Mormon after we taught her a lesson about it. We agreed and we were able to do that this week.  It was awesome, one because it was in English and I don’t really get the chance to often to teach in my our language, so it was a little bit of a challenge, but the report went great. After the report, there were tons of questions.  Some were hard to answer and that’s because they were all great questions. There were about 15 people there, so it was pretty fun being able to do that.

Last week we were even able to teach the plan of salvation to a group of over 30 people. That was scary, but it was also great because mostly everyone there was not a member or investigator. We got a few new investigators from that.

The language is coming along great.  It’s really been a big help serving with a native.

I would also like to say that I got and new pair of church pants and yes they are a size 34? I swear I’m not fat, I workout every day, maybe I’m just a growing boy? So anyway, since I’m a size 34 now, that beautiful suit you guys got for me does not fit any more, it’s just to tight. Since I was only able to use it for about a half a year or so, it still looks great and brand new, so I think I’ll sent it home for Danny to use for his mission. You think I should do that?

My back its doing great no big problems. My knees have been hurting me though, lol.

I hope everyone has a great week.  In 10 days I will hit my year mark and then it’s all down hill from there :(

Elder Smith

Ammon, 7 February 2011

 Hey family and best friends,

 I’m sorry to hear that you didn’t get a letter from me last week. I sent one and just now found out that it was rejected. It said it was something with your email address mom? So I hope this weeks goes through.

Just to fill you all in with what I said last week. We had transfers last week. I will be staying here in Veszprém with elder németh. He will be my first comp that I have served 2 transfers with. I am grateful for the chance to serve with him again.  I am learning lots of hungarian from serving with him. Other than that he is a tuff elder to serve with. The first week of our transfer was amazing though. We were amazed when we did our numbers for the week, how high they where. We asked 3 of our investigators, when they get an answer about the church, will they be baptized and they all said yes!  These are 3 different people in different lessons. So I was amazed at that. I got a few letters from sister tryon about some of the other elders out in our ward and I was looking at how often they have baptisms, at least it seemed that way.  I’ve been blessed to be a part of 1 baptism on my mission and I am grateful for that time and the feeling that I felt and the friendship that was made through it. I called Irán (the baptism we had in szeged) a few days ago to see how she was doing because I heard that she hadn’t been to church for 2 weeks. I flipped a little so I called her and found out that she was only sick (there is something going around here in Hungary). I’ve been feeling good though so no worries. Irán is doing great.  I love her so much, she is such a good friend and member.

This week we were teaching a program with someone and we were closing with a prayer when there was an earthquake!!  It was crazy! It wasn’t a big one, so no one was hurt or anything but it was weird. I also heard from someone that America is at war with North Korea? true?

That’s so awesome that Dan is so close to leaving on his mission. He is going to have a good time at the temple. I can’t wait to hear where he is going!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  Hurry up already.

I didn’t get a letter from dad so maybe something came up idk. I got one from Dan and TJ though, so that was cool. We are going to go hiking today and go look at this old Hungarian hunting store and after that we are going to go whipping lol

I hope everyone has a great week. Thank you for your prayers and I think I like the game chess now lol yes

 p.s. mom’s email address is not working I can’t send anything to it

Ammon, 23 January 2011

Hey family,

I’m glad to hear that everyone got their gifts.  I hope everyone enjoys them. That’s crazy that everyone is going to school down in Thatcher.  It really must be a great school.  I can’t wait to check it out for myself.  I was just trying to download pictures for everyone but I can’t find my camera when I plug it into the computer. I’m sorry I have so many cool pictures to show you.  Maybe I’ll just print a bunch and send them home.

This week was good.  We worked hard and met some new people to teach. We have some great investigators right now.  I got into my first fight in Hungary.  I hope you’re all proud to know I did a great job. My comp and I were having some problems and he didn’t want to work. I could just feel that the spirit was not in our companionship at the time so I said to him, ok if you don’t want to work or tell me what wrong we can just go home because we cannot work without the spirit. So we went home and he told me what was wrong and we sorted everything out but it took 4 hours. It was unfortunate but we needed to do that. So that was interesting.

We went to Budapest for interviews on Friday. We had a great time up there. There was also a good training meeting on how we can better work with the members. There is only one week left in this transfer. So we will see next Monday if I’m staying or going, if I’ll be getting a new comp, and all that good stuff. I have learned so much on my mission; things that I would have never learned if I had not gone on a mission. My testimony has left the charts and I love sharing my testimony with everyone. Make sure you all give referrals to the missionaries.

 I love you all, have a great week.

Elder Smith

P.S.  I will send a letter with pictures in it this week.

Good luck with selling the house. Oh and when I come home, I would like to give my homecoming talk in the ward that I left so don’t move to far away :)   k bye!!

Ammon, 17 January 2010

Hey family,

Sounds like you all had a crazy week again!

MOM IM GOING TO BE HONEST WITH YOU.  YOU ARE WORKING TO MUCH!  Sister Tryon even mentioned something about it in a letter to me. Tell Nathan and Dan to make more time to spend with you guys!      

Did you get my gifts yet? This week was awesome!  We worked so hard and met some great new people. This city is very pretty.  The branch here is so strong.  I love it!  There is a wonderful spirit here. The hungarian is going great. I’ve even been thinking in hungarian.  Sometimes it’s weird, it happened to me this morning when I woke up lol.

Here is a funny story for you all:  me and my companion tracted into an    ex-nazi (we still think he is one). He was way weird and said some weird things too, like Jesus was a Nazi and he hated Jews and lots of weird stuff.

This week was very long but great. Today we are going to go hiking in the hills around the city. It’s a very beautiful day today. This week we are going to Budapest for interviews; we are doing that on Friday. Other than that it looks just like another week of work. I don’t really know what else to talk about.

I love you all. I hope you all have a nice week. Thank you for your prayers.

Elder Smith

Ammon, 09 January 2010

Hello family,

Sounds like a crazy week for you all. I spoke with Daniel about my bike, I said no lol.  Sorry to hear that everyone is gone out of the house. Looks like you both are free now to follow your dreams of traveling the world in the airstream but don’t be gone too long I’ll be home before you know it and then I will live with you both forever lol jk.  It’s weird, everyone hear always asks me what I’m going to do when I get home, what kind of school and stuff will I do, honestly IDK!!!!! Is that bad? lol  I have a few ideas but I’m not sure.

Anyways, this has been the craziest week of my mission. It started on Tuesday morning, when I was on splits with some other elders. I got a call from president.  He said elder smith pack your bags, I need you somewhere else, I’m transferring you to veszprém.  I was in shock lol, then he said I need you to be here tomorrow morning.  Now this was bad because I was on splits that day, because my comps were going to a different city for a meeting. I was going to be on splits with Zoli all day so I couldn't just go home and pack my bags.  I had to wait till around 8 at night to start packing but that’s not all I had to do, I had to fill out some paper work for the other elders, to help them out, because they still hadn’t met with me and all of my old comps and investigators.  So I was up late packing.  Anyways, I had to go to Budapest by myself, which was weird because I haven’t been alone that long for over a year lol.   So anyways, my new companion is Elder Németh. He is Hungarian and yes he speaks no English.  I know, I know, I’m really lucky.  Yes, you could say that, other than the fact that he is really lazy and doesn’t really want to work or walk faster than one mile an hour, but honestly, I think he is really fun. Sure it’s no good, but he is just like a stubborn kid, I love him, he's great. The new city I’m in is amazing.  I love it so much. It’s a hard place for work but the branch… wow they are awesome!! I also forgot to say that I’m also district leader now and senior companion.  Elder Németh is older then me in the mission, but like I said, he is different. I’ll try and send some pictures of my new area, I’ll put them on facebook. 

Love ya all, Elder Smith

Mon, 25 Oct 2010 (Ammon)

Hey everyone, sounds like everyone had an awesome week. I’m proud of you all doing such a great job with missionary work, keep it up!!!  That’s cool about the Halloween party. We planed one for this Saturday and it looks like we will have an ok turn out. We have about 60 active members on a good week at church and so we hope that maybe half will come to the party.

This week was great for us, we worked very hard to try and speak only Hungarian and just worked our butts off lol.  We had programs with people all day Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday as well. I think Thursday is when we had our english class. Then Friday was good, we had a few programs and had ysa night which is every Friday. On Saturday we had a super p-day which is just when it’s a p-day all day long. That was a nice day. We went to a museum and saw some cool things. Then we had some food and then watched movies the rest of the afternoon. That night we just went home and hungout. Church was great, one of the best I have seen in this city lol. We have some great investigators right now that we are very proud of.  They are working so hard to find the truth, please pray for them.  Today we only have till 2, then we have to get to workin but other than that, that was my week. Next week is zone conference so we will be leaving Szeged. Then that night we are going to go on splits with the zls so looks like it will be another fun week.

Have a great week EVERYONE!!!!