Zone Leader Life

Family,

This has probably been the most tiring week of my mission except for maybe the first or second week of my mission. We have been running around everywhere and just never ever stopping. It has been really fun at the same time and I am really excited to be in Nottingham.

Well the week started with us cleaning and rearranging the whole flat. Some Elders are just not very space efficient. So we fixed that. Then we had a drive to the mission home on Tuesday to help move some things from some of the flats in the Zone. On Wednesday President Leppard came to Nottingham to do a personal district meeting with all of the Districts in the Zone and so we had to prepare the Stake center in the morning and make sure that everyone knew when and where they had to be. Plus we don't know too many of the teams in the Zone so we spent all day shuffling people around and trying to get to know as many teams as we could. It was a long day at the church that got longer when after President Leppard left we had another meeting that night with the Stake President, President Gray. I was a little nervous about all the meetings with a lot of Leadership but we survived and I hope gave a great first impression.

Then Thursday hit and we had an exchange with the Assistants. At the moment we have three assistants because one of the last ones extended his mission for two weeks to help train the new assistant and to make sure things went smoothly with the conference with Elder Ballard. So after the conference he became a traveling assistant and has been visiting most of the zones to help out. It was a really fun exchange. Well it wasn't technically an exchange because he just came to stay with us for a day. But we had a surprise baptismal interview that we had to give. So we got to go to a place called Lincoln and Elder Swinimar (the assistant) got to give his last baptismal interview before he goes home this Wednesday. After the exchange it was a fairly normal weekend. We had a Dinner appointment with a Jamaican family and they made a dish the Elder Smith made for me a few weeks back. I'm gonna miss my Jamaican, but he is doing great without me. Church was pretty great. I really like the ward here in Nottingham, they actually have 3 wards in the city and we are in the Nottingham 1st ward. We share the ward with a set of Sister missionaries who are really awesome. One is from Italy and the other is from Romania. So I am the only American in the Ward cause Elder Shaw is from South Africa. Elder Shaw is pretty awesome, we have served around each other a few times before and I always thought that it would be way cool to serve with him. He has been out for 20 months and has been a zone leader for a long, long time. It is really nice to have a companion that is older than me and knows what he is doing. I took that for granted until the last 6 months or so, ha ha. But Zone Leader Life is crazy....

My new companion Elder Shaw
and our new toilet seat.

Elder Hellyer, me, Elder Swinimar, 

Elder Tukuafu, Elder Shaw, Elder Clayton, Elder Greyling

Exchanging with the AP's and man is was cold!

It is like zero degrees.

I hope you all have a wonderful week! Email me if anything exciting happens in all of your

lives!

Love,

Elder Kmetzsch

Oh Robin Hood!

Family,

Well is sounds like we have all had a very exciting week. I have been transferred and I am now in Nottingham. I was called as a Zone Leader and my companion is Elder Shaw who was actually in my last district and my Zone Leader. We are whitewashing into the area which is fun, ha ha. Elder Shaw is Robin Hood and I am definitely Little John and the rest of the Zone are our Merry Men!! I'm kinda still freaking out and it will be an adjustment, but I'll make it through. This also means that I am back into a car and will be getting my license soon. I am pretty excited about that!

Can I just say how proud I am of my amazing little Sister. Emma you are awesome! Keep being amazing! People have been emailing me and telling me how good you are doing, so keep it up!! It'll be over soon and you will be soooo sad so just enjoy this last week. Leave it all out there, don't hold back little Darling!

Man, oh man, it was a tiring weekend, but it was super worth it. We had the Conference with Elder Ballard on Saturday and we got a ride from some members who were helping out with food and stuff. But we ended up having to wake up at 4:00 in the morning to be ready to leave our flat by 5:30, it was nuts! I was super tired and almost fell asleep during Elder Christensen of the Presidency of the Seventies talk, but I managed to stay awake.  When Elder Ballard got up I was wide awake. Can I just say that Elder Ballard is a really funny guy. My favourite line from the whole thing was, "You've gotta wake up and say, It's going to be a great day. Look its raining and I get to go out and get persecuted like Paul the Apostle." He also taught us about how we need to WAKE UP and make the most of our opportunities. How we need to be in more of a Hurry in the things that we are doing. He also taught about how we need to show our character and radiate our calling long before we stop people. They need to recognize us before we say anything. But by far my favourite topic that he covered was Faith. He so simply taught about faith and how faith can make a bad day into a good one. What an opportunity is was to learn from and get to shake hands with another one of Gods chosen Servants.

I'm glad Nate and Torie are going to be closer together! That is going to make me and Emma's road trip easier. But something I didn't appreciate before my mission was being around the people I love, especially during the Holidays. So don't take this time for granted guys! Also congratulations to Craig for the Promotion!!! If you guys do get snow send me pictures!!! I'll be sure to send some pictures of Nottingham Next week cause I don't have any yet.

I love you all and hope you have a great week.

Love,

Elder Kmetzsch

Apostle Again?!?!

Family,

Life does move forward doesn't it. Today is Transfer calls and I can't believe that it has already been 6 weeks since I left Harborne!! It is crazy, I feel like I just got to Wolverhampton and there is a chance that I could be leaving. Getting the call is always a little nerve racking, but it should go smoothly.

So I just realized that Mom and Dads Anniversary is on an English Holiday called Bonfire night. Where everyone just lights off loads of Fireworks! So on your anniversary the whole of England lights fireworks for you! Happy Anniversary my wonderful and amazing parents.

Well this last week has been a fun one. We have been seeing a lot of our new investigators and it has been really fun to get to know new people and there concerns. Now the trick is to see if we can help resolve those concerns. We have started teaching the Husband of one of our recent converts. They are both Jamaican and have adopted Elder Smith as there grandson. They are both in there 70's and are such a sweet and funny old couple. There names are Joe and Sarah. Joe is a champ and has been coming to church with Sarah for months. He even pays tithing! He is what we like to call a, "just add water Mormon." So we will see if me and Elder Smith can add some water to the equation in the coming weeks.

This week we also have a very exciting mission conference! Elder Ballard is coming to visit the mission!!!! I am absolutely buzzing. Two Apostles within 6 months of each other have come to visit our mission. I feel really blessed to get to have seen and learned from these great men. We actually got our pictures taken with Elder Holland when he came so I will attached those for you guys.

Elder Holland's visit in June 2015

I love you all and hope you have a wonderful week!

Love,

Elder Kmetzsch

Happy Halloween!

Family,

Well first off this week Elder Smith finally cooked some authentic Jamaican cuisine for me and let me tell you that boy can cook!! He made some Jamaican style curry chicken with Rice and Peas, which is rice and red kidney beans cooked in coconut milk with some other stuff in it. Man it was nice.

Well this being the week of Halloween and since Elder Smith is very easily frightened. I spent the week hiding behind corners and making interesting/creepy noises. Needless to say Elder Smith was getting a little tired of being scared. One of my favourites was hiding in-between the mattresses on my bed and when he came in I popped out and pinned him to his bed under my mattress! But after having gone through this all week, he came out of the bathroom Saturday morning only to find that I had put up some Halloween decorations, ha ha. 

Well, all of you guys are just the Cutest!! I really loved all of the Halloween costumes. I didn't really get to do all that much this halloween but it was still fun. We had to be inside of our flats by 6:00 because they don't want anything strange happening to us, ha ha! So it was a pretty quiet Halloween for us.

Not too much happened for us this week. We did manage to find some pretty awesome new investigators and hopefully next week they will be at church. All in all it was a pretty quiet week, besides the screams of Elder Smith! Also the biggest holiday for England this time of year is Remembrance Day. Everyone has a red poppy that they wear around for weeks and there is a big charity that everyone donates too.

I love you all and hope you have a wonderful week.

Love,

Elder Kmetzsch