End of an Era

Family,

Well I survived another week of driving in Wales, woot, woot. It was weird experiencing the 4th over here. I probably said God bless America more than I ever have before. It was strange not seeing crowds of people wearing tee shirts and American flag flip flops. It was actually a bit chilly on the 4th I had to where a jacket! But I had, "I'm Proud to be an American," stuck in my head all day and I missed blowing things up more than I ever thought I would. Next year on the 24th we are gonna go hard, ha ha! But it was a good day. Some American members made us some red white and blue potato salad and some cupcakes with red sprinkles. I guess it'll just have to do for this year.

My favourite outlook in Aberystwyth

Bigger than the 4th for us was the 3rd. We drove to Cardiff, a lovely two and a half hour drive and then got to meet our new mission president, President Leppard. Just say it with a slight French accent and you'll be pretty close to pronouncing it right. The only way to describe my first impression of President Leppard is that he is just a lad. Simply he was just down to earth and funny and I'm really excited to get to have him as my mission President. He was asked what his plan for the mission was and he just said, "We are going to do the simple things well." I think that is soo important. There are a lot of missionaries who get caught up in trying to be too unique and think too far out of the box. They forget to think about doing the little things and if you do the little things well, then success will come and you will be a great missionary. It is sad to see President Rasmussen go, but it is time to usher in a new era in the England Birmingham Mission and I'm glad that I've get the chance to be apart of both.

This week is transfer week, and my time in Aberystwyth may be coming to a close. It has been an awesome five months and I wouldn't mind staying another 6 weeks. But that's not up to me, that's up to the Lord. We will find out tonight whether or not I'm leaving, so I'll let you know next week!

Summer in Wales is just too beautiful!!!

The whole of Aberystwyth, it is pretty crazy

So I totally forgot to tell you the crazy thing that happened a few weeks back. Okay so we were just walking around talking to people and we walked past this hotel on our way back in to get a drink or something and this lady knocked on the window and started waving at us and gave us a big thumbs up. So we gave her a big thumbs up and just kept walking. We went to our flat for a minute got a drink and then went back out to do some more finding and we walked past the hotel again seeing as it is on our street. Well this lady ran outside and was like "Elders!" so we went over and talked to her. Turns out she was a member from Orem, the BYU shirt gave her away, but we got talking and she asked us where we were from and I said Centerville. I asked if she knew anyone from Centerville. She was like yeah do you know the Redds? I was like Merica Redd? She was like yeah Merica is my Niece. So I met Merica's Aunt on the streets of Aberystwyth, small world huh? Not only is she Merica's aunt but apparently her daughter is dating Kyle Lemperie. I thought it was pretty cool to see someone who knew people I knew on the streets.

Well I love you loads and hope you all have a great week!

Love,

Elder Kmetzsch

The Music of Missionary Work

Family,

It's good to hear that Emma is working so very hard that means she can take me out to dinner when I get home with all this money she is making?? But it is a bummer she didn't get to ride the new roller coaster. What is it called? It looks pretty epic! I'm sure it is really odd going from noisy kids to nothing just like that. But I'm sure Nate and Emma make plenty of noise. Also I will keep Alan in my prayers and I'm glad everything went well with the operation.

To be honestly I definitely thought that we would be using the iPads way more than we are. They are a great resource for studies and to show the occasional clip to an investigator, but other than that we don't use them much. We will be using them more once we get approved to use Facebook and FaceTime and things, but for right now I honestly just use mine to study. I prefer doing most of the talking in lessons so I tend not to use it there much at all. But it will come when I'm more familiar with using them in teaching and finding situations. To answer your next question our next transfer date will be the 8th of July, next Wednesday. We are getting our new mission president on the 30th actually. So tomorrow he comes in and has about an hour with President Rasmussen and then President Rasmussen goes home. I'm super conflicted in my emotions because on one hand I don't want President Rasmussen to go home. But on the other I'm excited for the change and for the chance to learn from a new mission president, so we'll see how this week goes. We get to meet President Leppard this Friday at a zone conference in Cardiff so that'll be fun. The drive to Cardiff is beautiful but also like two and a half hours, so worth it though. Just pray that I don't crash, ha ha....

You guys remember the conference talk the music of the gospel right? Well this week was a bit rough and it was because I stopped hearing the music of missionary work. We can all agree that missionary work is hard right? Well it's even harder when you stop hearing the music because then you are just doing super tiring dance steps for no reason at all other than that you have to. I found out this week that if you just try to go through the motions and do the dance of missionary work then all your gonna get is frustration and exhaustion. Without that reward of feeling good because you want to do good it's not even worth it. If your just gonna go out to endure the two years because it's a responsibility then it's almost not worth going. But if you really listen and feel for the music of missionary work suddenly in almost an instant, it becomes the best thing in the world. A scripture that comes to mind is Alma 32:27-28. It reads,

"But behold, if ye will awake and [do your morning exercise], even to an experiment upon my words (personal study), and exercise a particle of faith, yea, even if ye can no more than desire to [go finding], let this desire work in you, even until ye believe in a manner that ye can give place for a portion of my words.

Now, we will compare the word unto a seed. Now, if ye give place, that a seed may be planted in your heart, behold, if it be a true seed, or a good seed, if ye do not cast it out by your unbelief, that ye will resist the Spirit of the Lord, behold, it will begin to swell within your breasts; and when you feel these swelling motions, ye will begin to say within yourselves--It must needs be that this is a good seed, or that the word (music) is good, for it beginneth to enlarge my soul; yea, it beginneth to enlighten my understanding, yea, it beginneth to be delicious to me."

This week I was trying to do missionary work on my own with no help from anyone let alone taking the time to listen. It was harder than its ever been. I realized at the end of the week that if I wasn't going to do it for the right reasons and listen to the music it wasn't worth doing. I'm really grateful for some awesome wards members and a few mini miracles to really help me start to hear the music again, cause I must have looked ridiculous doing those dance steps in a very awkward and forced way.                            

Hopefully this week will be a week full of music and many miracles for you all!

Love,

Elder Kmetzsch

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!

Patience and Power Hours

Family,

This week has been a roller-coaster, up and down and up and down. The main up and down was with the iPads. We have them, that's the up. The down is that we aren't actually allowed to use them yet. So we got the iPads on Thursday and we set them up and connected everything and then we were told to turn them off until further notice. Well that night we got word that on Friday we had to take an hour long safety course for using the iPads and once everyone finishes the course we can start using them. So we went and took the course on our iPads and then turned them off again to wait until we had the all clear from President Rasmussen. Well it has been a few days since Friday and our iPads are still at home with the power off! Patience is a virtue right? But we also found out that only the missions in the states or canada will have the option of buying the iPad to take home after the mission. So sorry Mom, it looks like you are just going to have to buy your own iPad mini cause mine is staying in Birmingham.

Other than some iPad drama we have had the normal ups and downs of missionary work. With university in its finals all of the students are just busy, busy, busy, with studying and taking tests! So it has been a bit challenging finding people to teach. And this weekend was a holiday so a lot of the other people in the town were just here on Vacation. But we have found a few really cool people. One of them came as an answer to a prayer. President Rasmussen sent out a challenge for the mission to have a power hour of street finding.  During this hour we were to teach someone and get a new investigator from it. We were about to go out to do our power hour and whenever we leave the flat we say a prayer for protection and the spirit. In this prayer we asked that we would be able to teach someone on the street and get a return appointment, we also asked that they would be staying in Aberystwyth for the summer. So we went out and the first person we talked to was a girl from Ireland. She is Catholic and just a student here is Aber. We taught here about the Restoration and the Priesthood and gave her a Book of Mormon. When we were finished we asked for her number to get a hold of her and for a return appointment. She told us that she is going back to Ireland in a few days and could find missionaries if she wanted to and just walked away. I was like What! That was it, that was the miracle, and she just walked away. But its okay cause our miracle was the next person we talked to. Her name is Betty and she is pretty cool! She lives just outside of Aberystwyth and is a research student so she is sticking around for the summer. We taught her about the Book of Mormon and set a return appointment for the next day. We went and taught her the restoration the next day and hopefully next week she will be able to come to church! Heavenly Father answers prayers, I know that. I know that when we pray like it all depends on Heavenly Father and then get up and Work like it all depends on us. He always helps us, but we've got to keep moving. Faith is an action word and we've got to do all that we can do if we want to expect miracles to happen in our lives. 

But other than a few other appointments and lots of finding our weeks been fairly chill. This coming week is transfers, but I'm like 99% sure that I'm staying in Aberystwyth to finish training Elder Richardson, so don't expect any changes this week. You don't need to worry about music, the members here got me covered! 

I'm glad the package got there safe and sound. Now whenever Brig plays his guitar he can think of me!;) ha ha and I hope Dad didn't share that chocolate with any of you! Also I hope the skinny tie isn't too skinny for Nate. I thought it was pretty sweet but definitely too skinny for a missionary. 

Good luck to you Ems! Break a leg! Also what's your part? I don't think you guys mentioned anything about what she is doing for this musical thing? But you should definitely try and send some videos and lots of pictures! 

Well I hope all is well and know that I love you all!

Love,

Elder Kmetzsch