The Greeny Exchange Lives On

Family,

It sounds like you had an awesome few weeks. Though I still don't approve of the trout farm idea, I'm glad everyone got to catch a fish!

The Lord really does come through on his promises. He told me just keep working and things will be okay. Well we have really seen a complete turn around in our area this week! It went from nothing to everything like that. By the end of the week we had found 6 new investigators and taught three times as many lessons as we did the week before. Honestly I wasn't prepared to see the fruits come so quickly. Sometimes in life we just give up way too easy when really the blessings are just around the corner. We just need to hold on an in the words of Elder Holland, "There are good things to come." Too quickly do we forget that the Lord promised us blessings and too quickly do we give up on those blessings thinking to ourselves, oh well I guess he's not there. Man if I could just make people hold on until they see what is just around the corner because it is always so great.

Well if y'all remember Elder Passey who went to the MTC with me, you will also remember that we got to experience our first exchange together as greenies. We shared many exchanges after that but soon we both left Coventry and thought that our days of Greeny exchanges were over! Tis not so this transfer Elder Passey the champ went Zone leader and came to our zone. And as is the rules the zone leaders go on exchange with all of the district leaders in the zone. Seeing as Elder Passey doesn't have his British license yet, he can't drive their car so he had to come to Aberystwyth with me! It was really great to see him again cause it's been like 5 months but we had a killer exchange. It was so fun to see how far we both have come from that first exchange we had, where we really didn't know anything, to now being out nearly a year and both having trained. We absolutely killed it. We taught 3 people on the street that night and got many more phone numbers. It was just a ball, it really brought me back to days in Coventry and all our exchanges there. What a guy, ha ha!

This week was Father's Day and I spent a lot of time this Sunday thinking about my Father. I thought about who I am and how far I've come and it's because of him. I love you Dad so much. I thought about all the things we did together, whether it was playing catch in the backyard or wrestling each other. I thought about how awesome of a football coach you were and how glad I was that you were there for me. I knew that I could always count on you no matter what. I'm so glad to have your advice always. You are the grooviest, funkiest, coolest dad around and I'm so glad that your mine I love you Dad!

Happy Father's Day!

Well I do love you all and hope that everyone's travels go safely.

Love,

Elder Kmetzsch

Keep Calm and Keep Working

Family,

Wowee it sounds like you guys are having an eventful week. I'm jealous I'm not there, but all in time. First off I need to express my disappointment in you guys.... A trout farm?!?!?! Really???? Since when do Kmetzsch's give in for a "easy" or "successful" day of fishing? What about the challenge? What about finding the right spot on the lake and finding the right bait? I mean let's be honest for some reason the pink sparkly bait always worked. But that's besides the point, lets get back to my expression of disapproval. When I get home don't even think about taking me there! We will proceed to go straight to Strawberry Reservoir with some cans of soda and some sandwiches throw in our lines and then wait. Maybe we will even catch some crawdads while we wait but none of this trout farm nonsense. Anyway, I'll try to get over it this week but no promises.

Ahh man that is sooo exciting that Ems got Brain and Kristen as her ma and pa! I hope they were the loudest and happiest family on the trek cause we certainly were! Did Brian call himself Buffalo Bri again? And I'm a little disappointed in the beard this go around. But I'm sure trek was amazing. Trek was a major landmark in my spiritual progress. It was the place where I found out the Book of Mormon is true. It was there where I first remember asking to know if it was true. I will never forget the answer that came in the middle of Deseret Land and Livestock, that overwhelming feeling that I had, and the conviction that came because I knew that that book was true. That testimony that I gained has carried me through a lot of hard days on my mission and will continue to carry me through my life. I know it's true and I cannot and will not ever deny that.

Well to answer your questions. I actually did mess up a little bit whilst leading the music... They chose, "More Holiness Give Me," for the closing hymn and those triplets were not agreeing with my conducting! In the end I just waved my hand back and forth to the beat and I don't think anyone noticed... I was slightly embarrassed but not too much. Second I think President Rasmussen chose the hymns and the meeting was held in a chapel near the mission home in Solihull. Elder Holland lived in Solihull when he was the Area President here so it was an emotional home coming for him. As far as I know Tom is doing well. He has moved back to the Isle of Man for the summer and unfortunately was not baptized before he left. Hopefully he will be continuing to go to church and meeting with the missionaries at home.

This is a picture of the little village that my Branch President and

his family live in. I think it's pretty nice!

Well this week has been really up and really down. It started up. We had a good start to our week with some successful finding and a few lessons. We then went even higher when Elder Holland came and gave us some amazing instruction. To be honest I was expecting to get an obedience lecture but he said that he didn't feel the need to do that in his words he said, "just be obedient okay." He said he felt that he could speak on a higher level with us. He then proceeded to talk about the Fall and the Atonement. What a wonderful experience it was to be taught by an Apostle of the Lord about such a meaningful topic. My favourite quote was when Elder Holland was talking about the garden of Eden he said, "you could just hop on a zebra and go and pick some raspberries!" Ha ha it was really funny. There was so much that I learned I couldn't possibly get it all in an email. But all in all the meeting was great. After Elder Holland left we got to stay a while and hear from President Rasmussen. It was fairly emotional as he was giving the mission his departing words. I will greatly miss President. He has not only become one of my heroes but also a close friend. The day was full of travel and me and Elder Richardson didn't get home until around 10:00. But it was worth it.

The rest of the weekend is when the down started. After the meeting I was pumped, I was excited to do missionary work and we had a lot of plans for the weekend. All in all we planned on getting 6 new investigators and teaching about 8 lessons on Friday and Saturday. All of these plans were in vain. Everything and I mean everything that we planned fell through. People didn't show up for appointments even when we called and talked to them the night before. The people on the streets didn't want anything to do with us and to top it off it rained all day Saturday, all day! I didn't know what to do. All of my efforts and all of my knowledge wasn't working. I even tried tracting, I was at such a loss for what I could do more. I was discouraged and disheartened and mainly confused. We were out waiting for one of our appointments to not show up and I began to plead with my Heavenly Father. I said, "Heavenly Father I'm doing everything that I know how to do, why isn't it working?" Right as I looked up from my prayer He answered my prayer. He answered it in a way that sounds kinda silly. But right as I looked up from that prayer I saw a tee shirt. On the tee shirt was written the words, "Keep Calm and Keep Working," peace came to my heart and I new things were going to be okay as long as I just keep working. Things are looking up and this week should be a much better week for us. I'm just glad that Heavenly Father answers prayers cause I needed a bit of reassurance.

Well I hope you guys have a great week. I love and miss you all!

Love,

Elder Kmetzsch

Just Enough Fire to Singe You Eyebrows

Family,

I'm not gonna lie, I'm a little jealous of Peter getting to hold the snake!! But I don't know if I would have been as brave as he was. That looks like a pretty big one. Too bad about the birds though, but I guess that's just the circle of life.

I was actually thinking about Pizza Pie Cafe the other night. Pizza in this country is absolutely ridiculously priced and not even all that good compared to America. Me and Elder Richardson were talking about the best places to go like Pizza Pie and the Pizza Factory. Man I could go for some of those breadsticks right now. But I'm glad that you guys liked it, I am definitely a big fan of Pizza Pie and it will be one of my first stops when I get home, one of many. Man I'm really glad Emma is finally learning what hard work is! It's about time! I know exactly how she feels though. Serving people at the mandarin who were just rude was the worst. People just need to realize that they can't have everything they want at a lightning pace and that just because we work there it doesn't mean that we are perfect.

Well this week was pretty slow but it ended with a bang. We had a special stake conference with the whole Western Europe area that was presided over by Elder Holland.  Man oh man did he ever throw down. It was sooo great. He gave a similar talk called, The Safeguards For the Soul, in conference a few years ago. But this one was different, it was less prepared and much more bold. The only way I can describe it is that it was raw. I didn't think the Book of Mormon could get any more true than it already was but it did. It went from being 100% true to like 280% true in a matter of 30 minutes or so. Elder Holland was also cracking some pretty good jokes. He was like I'm in charge here so I'm gonna do what I want to do. But all in all it was a very spiritual meeting and I'm super excited to get to meet him this Thursday, like out of my mind excited. I'm also a little nervous cause I've been asked to lead the music again. It's not very often that you get to conduct the music for a meeting with an Apostle of the Lord, pray that I don't mess up.

Haaaaapppy birthday too you haaaaaaappppy birthday too you!!!! Haaaaaaapppppy birthday dear Pete! Haaaapy birthday to you, happy birthday you stink-in jalapeno!

Well I hope all is well in Utah, Illinois and North Carolina you should all be jealous of me over here in Wales. It is so green! But remember to travel safe and that I love you all.

Love,

Elder Kmetzsch

Technology

Family,

Well this will be the first official family email sent from my iPad. Honestly it has been soooo weird using technology for something other than Netflix or texting. I have realized this week just how easy it is to waste time on pointless things. I've also realized just how useful technology is. Hopefully I can keep my grammar and sentence structures readable, and refrain from using abbreviations and slang, now that I'm typing on a touch screen again!

Well just about the only thing that happened this week that was at all exciting was the fact that we got to start using our iPads. We got them last Thursday but didn't get to use them until a week after. We just set them up and then turned them off! My personal opinion is that President Rasmussen was trying to teach us patience and self control. But it ended up that I was just starting to lose my mind.... But the wait is over and we have begun using them. They have some really cool features with movies and pamphlets but for now that is about all we are using them for. Later we will get an email address for our area and even later we will begin to use Facebook. But for now we have a great resource for study and movies for our investigators.

It sounds like you guys are had an exciting week. I wish I could have seen Guys and Dolls, but I'm sure if I had gone that I would have just started singing along with Nicely, Nicely! I dreamed last night I got on the boat to heaven. To this day that is still probably my favourite song that I sang on stage. Mostly just all the music from that show, it brings back some very fond memories of sophomore year. I am sure Emma was a very sassy hot box girl! Ha ha, I love you, a bushel and a peck, little darling!

Well with Cameron's move from Florida to North Carolina it changes my road trip plans a bit but not too much. I hope the boys are having fun without me! But it sounds like they are gonna have a great trip. I'm only kinda jealous.

Too be honest I don't even know what else to write. I think it is going to be weird having sacrament meeting first when I get back home but I should be used to it because they are doing the same change here. One of the general authorities said that the Lord wants his Sabbath back. So I think that it is good that the church is putting in a lot of effort to make the sabbath more holy, we definitely need it. I've noticed with most of the less actives that I've seen leaving the church, it usually doesn't start with big events. It usually starts with scripture study and sabbath day observance. If we have those two things plus a close relationship with Heavenly Father through prayer, we will never get lost.

I am pretty sad that elder Perry has passed away but he lived a good life and is in a better place doing an important work. I'll never forget the day at the Mandarin when I got off the phone from taking a take out order and there was Elder Perry towering above me. Then in his very unique Elder Perry voice he said, "Do they make you write with your left hand so that it looks Chinese?" I love his quirky sense of humor and I will always remember him.

There is a very famous bridge in Wales called Devils Bridge and it just happens to be on the way to a 

less actives house that we eat with each week. Like we literally drive over it. So we decided to stop and check it out. 

In the pictures you'll see 3 bridges because over the years they would just build a new one on top of the other one.

You should look up the legend of Devils Bridge. 

Well I hope y'all have a good week. Ta-ra butt, (which means goodbye friend/mate in Welsh)!

Love,

Elder Kmetzsch

Sent from my iPad because I'm just that cool!