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 

You Dress Like A Million Bucks You Play Like A Million Bucks

Family,

Well another week of driving hundreds of miles has come and gone. When I say hundreds of miles I mean hundreds! We went back to Birmingham again this week, and then to Swansea and then to Merthyr Tidfil! All in all like 500-600 miles. But I guess it's better to drive than it is to bike! But I'm definitely starting to miss my bike and my waist is missing (gaining) it too. To answer your question we either shop at a store called Lydil or Morrisons. They are just like normal grocery stores. We can use the car for 2 things on P-day, shopping and emailing. But they are both close enough that we can walk. Everything and anything in Aberystwyth is like a 5 minute walk from us!

But besides memorizing every word to all the EFY music that I have we had a pretty good week. We had stake conference this weekend which was awesome. The Adult session was in Swansea so we drove down and then stayed the night with the Zone Leaders. Then the normal session was in Merthyr Tidfil. We had Elder Dykes from the second quorum of the Seventy and the Europe area presidency there and Elder Piltz a newly called area 70 as well. It was a really good meeting and it was mainly focused on the Sabbath day and how we need to be better at keeping it Holy. But it was a lot of fun to see all the missionaries from the Zone and to stay in Swansea again.

Well to explain the pictures I sent home a little bit more I'll tell you the back story. We had an appointment with our investigator Shirley so we drove to her house as normal and when we got there Victor (her member "friend") wanted us to help with some service. He wanted someone to help him hold some sticks while he cut them up with a chainsaw. He saw that we weren't dressed for service an he didn't want Elder Richardson to get sawdust on his nice trousers so he proposed an idea. He found some old fishing waiters and had him put them on. He then gave him one of his hats and some nice big safety glasses to top it off. Reminder that all of this gear is so that he can stand there to steady some sticks! I thought it was just too good to pass up taking some pictures of the two hard working men. But in the words of Coach Hymas, "you dress like a million bucks you play (hold sticks) like a million bucks." You gotta love that Sweater vest:)

 Man oh man, I can't believe Emma went to your last Jr. High school concert. What is CJH gonna do without the Kmetzsch's?? They won't be able to run the place! But I'm sure that Emma Lou is more than happy to get out of there and into the big old Viewmont High. I hope she can survive her first year there without me home to protect her. But I'm very sad that I couldn't have been there to hear Emma sing. More than a few sources have been telling me that she is becoming quite the star. Maybe me and her can become the next Donny and Marie cause we all know that the youngest children are the most talented!:)

HAAAAPPPY Birthday too you You live in a Zoo. You Smell like a Monkey AAAAAnd you look like one too!! Happy Birthday Daddy:) You are an extrordinary, vigorous, vivacious and energetic father, but I forgot to mention one thing and that is that you are a Fruit Cake! Well I am a failure of a son and sent your gift a little late but there is something for you, Brigs and Nate. It should be arriving this week or the next. Happy Birthday to my Big brother as well:) Love you Brig!

Thank you guys for all your love and prayers. They are felt and very appreicated!

Love,

Elder Kmetzsch

Oh Look it's Raining Again

Family,

It was unbelievably nice to talk to you guys yesterday. At Christmas when I said goodbye it was hard to think about going back to doing normal missionary work, but after I said goodbye yesterday I was just pumped to get out there and do it. Honestly you guys are one of my biggest motivations. And I'm sure that it has nothing to do with my little brother syndrome:)

We went for a hike today to a memorial for the Duke of Wellington. 

He was the guy that beat Napoleon at the battle of Waterloo! 

Well I don't really know what to say. This week was really good, but pretty mundane when it comes to exciting stories for people to read. It was pretty amusing the day after me and Elder Richardson went finding in the rain for 4 hours straight. We looked outside and it was raining again! The color drained right out of Elder Richardson's face and I couldn't help but chuckle. I remember absolutely hating going finding when I just got out on my mission, so I felt his pain. But because it isn't our time that we are on it is the Lords time, we went out and we went finding even though it was pouring! To give you an idea of how wet we were when we went in for lunch that day; I had to put my jacket and my trousers in the drier while we ate so I wouldn't be miserable for the rest of the day!

This week we went to Swansea yet again and coming up we have another trip to Birmingham. I figured it out and since I've been in Aberystwyth I have driven over 4,000 miles, 4,000! Pretty soon I will have driven my way back to Utah. But the meetings we drive to are worth it.

Awesome view from up here but it was super duper windy!

I know something that Brigham can do that is worth while.  He can do Family History! Ha ha, but really there is so much work to be done it is insane. I'm sure he gets a great perspective of both sides of that work working in the temple! That must be so awesome!

Well that's all for this week. I'm sure something way more exciting will happen this coming week, so look forward to a real thriller next week.

Love you all,

Elder Kmetzsch