Sleepover in Swansea & Sacrament Talk

Family,

What a week. An extremely long week. But a very rewarding week non the less.

It started off like any other week. We had some appointments set up and a lot of finding to do. But it quickly went the other direction when we found out that there was a district leader council meeting in Birmingham on Friday. Since Elder Ruttan is the district leader here he had to go. I was hoping to get to go too but instead I got to go to Swansea. Swansea is about a two hour drive away from us. We drove to Swansea Thursday night and stayed the night with the Zone Leaders there. One of the Zone Leaders (Elder Lowe) is from Australia. It was fun and refreshing to hear the accent again after living with one for 3 months! We had a fun little sleepover, but had to wake up at 5:00 in the morning to get ready and go exchange with other missionaries. We exchanged and I got to spend the day with Elder Magda from Hungary. He is really funny and super crazy. We had a fun time together. Swansea is a beautiful city full of hills and right on the beach like Aberystwyth. Anyway, after the meeting Elder Ruttan got to drive the 3 hours back to Swansea from Birmingham, and then the 2 hours back to Aberystwyth. The poor little guy was just beat! We got back to our flat around 9:30 and went strait to bed. It was a very tiring day.

In other news. The work here in Aberystwyth is amazing. The people are so much friendlier than the people in England, and there is so much history all around. In Aberystwyth we actually have a university so we teach a lot of students much like in Coventry. It's like they say, the up coming generation is the future of the church, so we need to find all that we can.

Probably the coolest investigator ever is Dominique. Domi is from London and she is a student here. What else can I say than she is golden. She has such a strong testimony especially of the Book of Mormon. When people try and tell her bad things about what the church believes she answers simply with, "If you can find where it says that in the Book of Mormon I'll believe you." She is the coolest! She just loves the church and is hopefully going to be baptized on the 28th of this month! There is actually a cool story. One day randomly out of the blue her Dad called her. She said that she hadn't spoken to her Father in years and he randomly just called her after she had started taking the lessons. They talked for a bit and ended up talking about her joining the church. He said that he really wanted to come to her baptism and so he is! It was so exciting to see how even just learning about the gospel can bring families closer together.

To answer your question, yes we do do less active work. With how Wales is set up there are just loads of scattered villages here and there. Most of the members of the Aberystwyth Branch live in these villages, not in Aberystwyth itself. It would take about two and a half hours to drive the length of the branch boundaries. Scattered through these two and a half hours are villages that will have maybe a member or two. A little more than half of the members in the boundaries that we know about are less-active. So we will occasionally set aside a day or afternoon to go and visit these members. This would be the main reason that we get the honor of being in a car. Specifically we are working with one less active couple. We go to there house every Wednesday for dinner. Then we play some piano and sing a bit, (Sister Taylor loves music). After that we have a foosball tournament. Brother Taylor Loves fooseball. It is really fun and they love the missionaries. We are just hoping that we can help them get back to church! I definitely hope they come back.

Things are a little different in a small branch compared to a large ward. Especially when it comes to callings. In a big ward you sometimes have to start making up callings, but here you have to combine them. For example the Relief Society President is also a Primary teacher. It has given me a new respect for the members here and in small areas around the world. We have it so easy in Utah it is unreal. Doing our occasional sacrament talk here and there and teaching a lesson once in a blue moon. Yes I understand there are a lot more people to look after, but it is much easier when the responsibly is divided out. But along the lines of helping out, the missionaries get an amazing opportunity here to help out in so many different ways. One of them being giving the occasional sacrament meeting talk. I got to give a talk this last Sunday and it was pretty fun. Different because there were only 40 people there, sitting on chairs set up in the top half of an office building. But it was an enjoyable experience because of what I learned. 

I decided to give my talk on Hope, Faith and Knowledge and how these three are different but the same. While I was preparing, (during personal study Sunday Morning), I came up with an analogy that I really related to. I compared these three things to tennis! I love tennis! But specifically how we are all in the biggest double match of our lives. It is us VS Satan and the 1/3 but don't worry we have the best doubles partner in the world, Christ. I can't imagine having anyone else by my side for this match. As I was thinking about how this relates to hope, faith, and knowledge I thought about tennis. When playing at the net in doubles you have to have a lot of hope. A hope that if that ball gets passed you then your partner has your back. You also have to show a lot of faith. Often in the church we talk about how the biggest part of faith is our action. We show our faith by playing our hearts out at the net, or if we are serving then we make sure that every serve is in. In doubles we can't always see our partner we just have to trust that he is there. It is the same in the gospel. We don't always see Christ behind us, ready to return the ball that satan hits at us. But sometimes we are behind and we can see are partner and it is then our job to be in the right place at the right time. Christ isn't going to hit every ball for us. That would defeat the purpose of this life, if we just got to stand around doing nothing how do we improve. We improve by hitting every ball that comes our way. We improve by learning from our mistakes. Sure we are going to double fault here and there or maybe we will even hit one into the net, but with every stroke comes new experience. What we must never forget is that no matter how poorly we are playing as long as we are trying our best Christ is always there and he is always going to serve an ace. When we rely on him and learn from him our game improves and Satan will never stand a chance against us. Remember we have to have a hope that he is there standing behind us, we show our faith in him by playing our hearts out, and we get knowledge when we see that ball go back over the net. Even though Christ is perfect we can still choose not to play at all, but if we do want to play he will be there every step to help us win the match!

I know that is kinda corny but it connected with my simple mind and I found a new side to the Saviour. Well that is it for this week. Tomorrow we are going to Cardiff for a Zone Conference and I am singing in a group for the musical number! It is going to be fun! Wish me luck.

Hope you are all happy and healthy! Happy Birthday Evie! You are the cutest little stinker ever!

Love you all,

Elder Kmetzsch  

Castles and Zone Conference

Family,

Well I survived my first week in Wales! I love it here. The area is so beautiful, and there is definitely something special about being in a small branch. I've only been here for two sundays and I already feel like I know the branch fairly well. They are a close family here, and they love the missionaries!

To answer your questions. As of right now I'm not actually driving the car, just riding in it. So I may not have to get my license here. Even if I was driving it is legal to drive on my American license until I've been in the country for a year. My address is 39 Portland Street, Aberystwyth, SY23 2DX, Wales. Just about a 2 minute walk from the beach. Elder Ruttan is from Vancouver Island, the city of Victoria! I've see pictures and it is a very beautiful area.

Yes, Wales has there own language, and it is a crazy one at that. Just take a look at a map of Wales and you'll see what I mean. Cymru is how you spell Wales in Welsh. Everyone here speaks English though and Welsh is a bit of a dead language. They are trying to keep it alive by teaching it in schools now, but not many people speak it anymore. I think it is a really cool language, but it is impossible to pronounce anything. The food isn't all that different from England but I haven't had any really w

Welsh food. Like I said last week, there is one family in the branch who run an American diner, and a good one at that. They love the missionaries and give us a free meal every week. So last week I got a Philly cheese steak and thought I was about to die.

It was good to hear that the package arrived safe and sound. I'm glad you liked the chocolate! I will possibly send more if I get the chance because it is really cheap and super good. I thought the ties were pretty sweet and I'm glad the boys like them. Too bad they didn't fit Dad though! Oh well I will just find some longer ones later!

Man Kristen is getting married!!! Thats so great! I'm sure that he is an awesome guy, but I'll have to give my final approval the thanksgiving after I get home, ha ha!

Well this week has been fun. We had Zone meeting which of course is a two hour drive for us. All the way down to Swansea. But it was really fun to see all the missionaries in this Zone. I've been in the Coventry Zone for so long that it was good to see some missionaries that I'd never met and some missionaries that I went to the MTC with that I haven't seen in 6 months. On the way back from Zone meeting we stopped at some ruins we saw. They were the ruins of an old Monastery from the 11th century. I think it was the oldest building I have ever seen. We also have some ruins of a castle in Aberystwyth. I just think that the medieval history is the coolest. So I'm enjoying seeing all of the ruins and castles that Wales has to offer.

The 11th Century Monastery 

The ruins of the Aberystwyth Castle (Aber-wrist-with) 

 I'm hoping you all have a good week and an especially a good Valentines day!

Also Happy birthday Kate!

Love,

Elder Kmetzsch

P.S. I discovered a small deep fryer in our flat..... I then decided to put the skills I learned at the Mandarin to the test! I deep fried a caramel waffle things, ha ha! Anyway they were really, really good! I was quite proud of what I accomplished and Elder Ruttan was very impressed! 

Aber-darkness

Family!

Well my darkest fears came true. I have been transferred! I am now in Aberystwyth which is on the coast of Wales. Probably the most beautiful area in my mission. Plus I am now in a car. I don't get to drive it as of now, but hopefully that will change. My new companions name is Elder Ruttan and he is from Canada aye, ha ha! He has just barely been out longer than me, with a whopping 8 months of experience. We get along great and have seen some awesome miracles this week.

Last week I did one of the hardest things that I have ever had to do. Leaving Coventry was heart-wrenching. Leaving behind all the amazing friends I had made and all the work that was going to be done was extremely hard. I think the hardest was leaving Elder Costigan though. I don't know that I will ever have a companion that I get along with and work as well with as him. He is a legend! But it was time for me to move on and I will just have to adjust.

Well the branch here is really small only about 50-60 members attend on a good week. They are really amazing though and there are some really cool families. A few of the students are from utah so it is really nice to have them here. And there is a family that owns and runs an American diner! They are really cool and gave me a Cherry Doctor Pepper! Ha ha, I almost died it was so good. But like I said the branch is very small and very short on pianists so I actually ended up playing the piano for my first sacrament meeting here. It was a little bit scary, but everyone was really impressed that I could play. I think I will get to use a lot of my musical abilities here so I am excited for the opportunity to serve.

 Not much has happened that is too exciting accept for traveling for 8 hours on Wednesday. Aber is the farthest area away from the mission home in the mission so some people call it aber-darkness, ha ha! I got a kick out of that.

I hope all is well and that you liked the pictures of the beach that I sent. It really is beautiful here and I will send lots of pictures of the castle ruins, that are in the town and of other cool things I see. The first rule of being in Wales is alway have your camera and alway have it fully charged!

Love you all,

Elder Kmetzsch 

HuoGuo (Hot Pot)

Family,

I love all the pictures of the beach! I hope my next area is Swansea so that I can be on the beach! I hear it is beautiful. Not gonna lie Peter already looks like a beach bum with those cut off shorts and his rocking sun-glasses! 

I can imagine all the kids loving Dads crazy voices and just goofiness! I remember when Mom used to read to me and Brigham when we were in the bunk bed. The chronicles of Narnia were by far my favourites! I think I miss reading more than Netflix so that's good, ha ha.

This week has been full of miracles for us. We have had a few investigators that have had some very spiritual experiences. Most prevalent was a girl named Chloe. We met Chloe on the street and for about ten minutes were trying to convince her to meet with us. Eventually she just said that she was going to pass this time, and we were super bummed. Turns out that the Lord really wanted us to meet with her because we met her in the morning and later that night we ended up running into her again. She of course took it as a sign from God that she needed to meet with us. Which of course it was! But we met with her the next day and had probably the most powerful first lesson that I have had on my mission. Everyone of us was feeling the Spirit hard core and she recognized the power of the Book of Mormon immediately. We gave her a chapter to read (3 Nephi 11) and set an appointment for a couple of days later. When we met with her she told us that the Book of Mormon had answered a question she had about her Grandmother who has recently passed away, and how it gave her a lot of comfort and how she knew that it was true. It was a powerful witness to me about just how amazing the Book of Mormon is. Here in England a lot of people say a lot of bad things about the church and different people in the church. But when someone puts everything aside and just reads the Book of Mormon with an open heart, they cannot deny the divinity of it. As Joseph Smith said it is the Most correct book on the earth. I know that to be true. I have seen it change lives, and I am beginning to see it really change my life. 

Our District

The other highlight of the week was that we had a Chinese Hot Pot. A lot of the recent Chinese converts cooked a traditional meal for us and it was sooo good! Hot pot is a pot of boiling water with loads of spices in it and you just drop your food in a bit at a time and it cooks it right there. So there was Squid rolls and Lobster balls and Beef rolls. Just different meats and vegetables that were in bowls and you just picked what you wanted and dropped it into the pot! It was, well, cool! Ha ha, it was really fun and cool to see and the new members getting to know each other. 

Hot Pot & Chloe and her boyfriend

I'm getting really nervous about transfers and may actually end up staying in Coventry for another 6 weeks! Elder Costigan thinks I will, but I feel like I'm gonna go. But we will find out tonight! 

Love,

Elder Kmetzsch

Fried Lettuce?

Family!

It sounds like Mom and Dad are living the life in Florida. I love the pictures! Pete is such a little stud. I'm sure all the girls at school think he is the cutest.:) Evie just looks as adorable as ever. I think when I take the road trip to Florida, when I get home, I'll have to get Cameron to sort me out with my teeth. We will also have to go deep sea fishing, and maybe Pete and I can go wrestle some alligators! 

The Japanese restaurant sounds good, I love Asia food! This week we ate some delicious Chinese food! One of the recent converts (Arnold) fed us, and I must say he is a really good cook. He made us a few different traditional Chinese dishes my favourite of which was fried lettuce! It blew my mind that he just threw some romaine lettuce in some oil and salt with some chicken seasoning thing and it came out to be this beautiful and delicious masterpiece, ha ha! It's not even a joke guys! It was amazing! The other dishes were really good as well but they just couldn't compare to the fried lettuce. Me and Elder Costigan have tried a few times to reproduce the lettuce but have not been fully successful in getting it how Arnold does! But we try are best;)

This week was another slow one. We honestly have been working like crazy and not much seems to be coming of it yet. On Thursday we did what we call GQ-ing or street contacting for 5 hours! Normally we can break it up with a lesson or two, but we just did it straight. I am not going to lie after the first two hours I was pretty discouraged. To make it more interesting Elder Costigan and I decided to have a race to see who could get 20 potentials the fastest. Take into mind that in a normal day we would get around 10-15 together. We set some stakes and just went for it, it was pretty fun. Both of us were talking to everybody and having loads of success. But in the end Elder Costigan beat me. He got to 20 and I was only at 13. I now have to call all of them because I lost the race, but we still had lots of fun and met a ton of cool people! It was the most potentials that Elder Costigan and I have ever gotten in one day so we were pretty happy! Hopefully we can now turn those potentials into progressing investigators who will get baptized! 

I learned a pretty big lesson on prayer this week. It is not a complicated or deep thing, but it was very powerful. I don't know about you guys, but I find it hard to say personal prayers out loud, it can be pretty awkward. So I never really did it. But this week I tired it, and I have to say it was one of the most powerful prayers that I have ever had. I would encourage everyone to take a minute by themselves and say a personal prayer out loud. Don't just say it to the ceiling, talk like someone is actually listening and you will feel the presence of Heavenly Father like you have never felt before! 

I will know whether or not I am getting transferred and to where next Monday night. So you guys will find out two weeks from today! The exact transfer date is the 28th so we will find out Monday what is happening and then transfer on Wednesday. 

I hope all is going well and that you have fun in Florida! I love the pictures so keep them coming! 

Love,

Elder Kmetzsch

Work, Work, Work

Family,

Time is flying! We are already almost to the end of this transfer and I will probably be leaving Coventry in a couple of weeks. It's crazy, it is about time for all the seniors to start putting in their mission papers back home. I have been praying that someone from Viewmont comes to the EBM. Not just because it is the Earths Best Mission, but because I think it would be really fun to serve around someone from home! 

Dad's talk was probably really good, but he probably was a little too goofy for Mom to handle! I can just imagine the joke he told. If I am right you have to email me the joke next week ha ha! I actually remember the talk that Bishop Daines gave where you replace faith with trust. Something really cool about the word faith in Chinese is that it can also mean confidence. When I first found that out it put faith in a whole new perspective. If you just say that you need to have faith in God than I would just kinda brush it off. But when you say, put all of your confidence and trust in God it means so much more. Trust and confidence help us to understand faith a lot better.

I actually have been trying to find out who the new mission president will be. All the missionaries are getting really excited to find out. We have heard rumours that he is Italian, but who knows. Also I know that rumour is spelled with the U in the end just like Saviour. In England they use a U in most the words that end in just "or." So get off my back Dad ha ha! It says it is spelled wrong if I do it the other way. 

This week Elder Costigan and I have probably worked harder than we have worked in all of our time together and nothing has happened.... It has been a very humbling and very disappointing week. We have had to take a hard look at what we are doing and hope that we can do something to turn it around. We just need to continue to work hard and I know that the Lord will bless us for the last two weeks that we have together. Not all that much has happened that is very exciting except for that we found out they are looking at starting a Chinese branch in Coventry! It would be the first Chinese branch in the UK, which is a pretty big deal! We have started having occasional separate Sacrament meetings or Sunday school classes in Chinese which has been a really cool thing to watch! One of our new members, Chris, gave a talk in Chinese sacrament meeting and I have never been so proud! He is so cool and I was really excited to see him do something that was extremely hard for him. I love him a lot!

I love you guys and hope that you all have a good week!

Love,

Elder K  

New Years and Wensleydale Cheese

Family!

Well, it's a New Year. It feels weird thinking that I have almost been out 6 months. A fourth of my mission has already passed like a lightning bolt! Craziness! On New Years Eve we had to go inside by 6:00 because of the amounts of alcohol being consumed by the general public and we didn't do much. We just cleaned the flat a bit and went to bed a little bit early! Not gonna lie it was nice to catch up on a little sleep. The boys weren't kidding when they said I was going to be tired for two years! 

With the new year always comes the thoughts of last year, how much you have learned and how much you need to learn still. It is amazing how much my own personal testimony has grown in the last year, the last six months especially. I have been really humbled with how little I actually know and with how much I can improve. I know a lot of you may be thinking to yourselves that Jake could never be humbled, but it's true! During the last few months I've been shocked by how little I know the scriptures, and how hard it can be to teach someone a concept that seems so simple to me. We all have so many weaknesses, me especially. But with the New Year also comes a new hope. A hope that this year we are going to be even better than last year. So we all set goals. In the past setting goals always had something to do with money or weight loss. I never really thought of setting Spiritual goals, besides the goal of maybe reading my scriptures more. As a missionary I don't need to set any monetary goals and though I could always use some more weight loss, I don't want it to be my focus. But rather I have set a goal to get to know my Savior better, so that I can come closer to my Heavenly Father. I have been thinking a lot about how I can achieve this goal. What more can I do? Serving a mission is surely enough? I have had this mindset for most of the last 6 months. You just need to, "grin and bare it" or "bite the bullet," and soon it will be over. It is not supposed to be like that. I was reading a talk called, "The Fourth Missionary," and it has taught me a lot about how I can let my mission change me! 

"You may permit the Lord to change your nature if you give yourself to Him and to His work. He cannot work on what he does not have, and He cannot have you, unless you give yourself to Him.!"

Sacrificing my time and my efforts is simply not enough. I have to sacrifice my will. All of my time the Lord has given me, all of my talents are things that he blessed me with. If I give those things back to him then I am just giving him back things that he already has. But if I give him my will. The one thing that he can't take from me, then I can come closer to him. So that is my new years goal, to give myself to the Lord. I am not sure of all the ways that I can do that, but I am sure going to try! I hope all of you can focus your new year on the Savior! I know it will bless you so much. Thank you so much for your testimony of the Savior Mum! I absolutely know that Christ Lives and that he loves me. He is my best friend, and has pulled me out of holes that I could have never climbed out of on my own.

My district

This week has been a really good week, because all of the people are coming back from holiday! Things are starting to pick up and we are getting really busy! I think the highlight of this week was eating at the Tops. They are honestly my favorite family in the ward, (shh don't tell). But they are honestly too good to me! We eat with them like twice a week. They are great! But this week they introduced me to some really good cheese. So now I've found my new favorite cheese! It is called Wensleydale with cranberries! I don't know if that is how you spell it but it was really really good cheese, ha ha! I didn't think I could be that impressed by cheese until that moment. 

There is a lot going on but not much that I can remember! So next week I'll fill you in on some funny stories! I love you guys and hope you have a great week!

Love,

Elder Kmetzsch