Darkness Falls across the Land

Family!

It has been a fun week of catching up with Elder Lam. I'm really glad that I'm serving with an old friend rather than someone that I don't know here at the end. But unfortunately for Elder Lam that meant that he had to come and experience the cold weather of Leicester. For the last week or two we have just had a crazy cold spell and I'm just thinking to myself, what the flip it's flippin JUNE!!! Why is it soooo cold and rainy, but that's just England. The sun finally came out yesterday and today looks like it is going to be a winner. I was talking to someone at church and we decided that the Angel in charge of the weather for Leicester pushed a wrong button on accident. Then left for a bathroom break only to come back to see that he had sent us back into winter. One of the days this week was actually colder than it was on Christmas Day. Needless to say I'm excited to see the sun again cause I haven't see him in a week or two.

This week was cool we got to go to Costco!! There is a Costco in our area and one of the members offered to take us along. Of course I said yes, haha! We walked in and I looked at Elder Lam and said, "Welcome to America." It was just great. I bought some Skippy peanut butter and some Pop-Tarts, good stuff! And we of course got a hot dog and a drink. Which was soo good. I'm a happy guy now that I have my American peanut butter cause the English stuff is just wrong.... And Pop-Tarts

what a great invention.

On another note and back to missionary work. But it was a good week. Nothing too exciting happened. We did however get to practice our missionary skills for selling stuff. So the BYU Dancers are coming to Leicester and they needed people to market for them and pass out fliers in town. It was crazy trying to pass out cards for a dance group rather than talk about the church. It felt really strange, and I realized that people are not just avoided me as a missionary they just hate people that are handing out stuff. Or maybe it's because I looked like a missionary and they thought I was pushing religion on them. Finally I was like hey, it's a dance group. Then they were like, oh okay I'll take a card. Funny how people blow off stuff before they even realize what it is. The dancers are coming this weekend and we might actually get to go watch the show but we will see what happens.

Our investigators are doing well. Howard is doing really well. We get to see him once a week and he is progressing really well! It's going to take a bit of time because of circumstances, but he has already given up smoking and drinking and has come to church the last few weeks in a row! He is a really funny guy and it's fun to teach him.

It sounds like you guys had a crazy week! Emma sounds like she has just done waaaaay too much partying and needs to calm down and start doing some work around the house, Haha! I remember those days though, we had some good times. Especially the first few days after school ended. I'm sure Dad was feeling it, he is an old man now!! But I wish it was 90 degrees here.... Can't wait to be back in the sunshine! I am sure that Mom did a great job with all the little primary girls, she is an actress at heart!

Elder Lam has been out about 18 months so between us we have about 40 months of missionary experience. Things are going really great with us and things are just good. We are having fun and working hard.

Hope all is well for everyone! Love you all!

-Elder Kmetzsch

The Last Transfer

Family,

Well we have had our transfer calls and I am staying here in Evington for my last transfer! I will however be saying goodbye to Elder Davis and saying hello to an old friend from Birmingham Elder Lam! We served together in a tripanionship for a week in Harbourne and I was his district leader for a transfer! We get along well already so I am excited to spend my last transfer with him. He is from Hong Kong which is pretty cool. I am excited!

I did see Brigham's record player and it looks way sweet!!!! I can't wait to listen to it. There are absolutely loads of places her that have lots of old records for really cheep! So if Brigham wants I could look around for a few classics. Weird to think that he is 23 and I'm going to be 21 in just a few months. Hey, I hope all goes well with the girl from Kaysville, haha! I guess Kaysville girls are okay! Too bad that she probably went to Davis High... It is just too bad.

This week was good. Slow but we did see a really amazing miracle. It was Thursday and not much had happened yet in the week. We decided to go visit a part member family that has been showing a lot of interest in the church and has been coming out. Howard the father of the family is the nonmember and so we decided to go and stop by. He let us in and we got talking and found out that he genuinely wants to learn about the gospel. He is going to try his best to find out if it is true. I was just so excited to see someone so excited about trying, in his words "I really wanna give it a go". We talked more and agreed that we would come over a couple of times a week to teach him. Which is so amazing considering we don't have very many other investigators. It was a small but tender mercy from the Lord.

Ah I wish I had gone to one of the colour festivals! They seem way fun and I will definitely be going to one in the future! I'm glad Ems had fun. You guys are really getting old! It really has been 26 years since Cameron, Torie and baby Nate signed the cement, wow! But I don't know how I feel about this whole taking part of the basketball court for a garden thing! But I won't really be living there anymore, plus we don't even have a basketball hoop anymore. I guess I'm okay with it. I do remember Connor Child he is a good guy, keep an eye out for him! Speaking of seeing family when is the Kmetzsch family reunion this summer?? Cause if you could persuade them to do it after the 20th of July that would be great, haha!

Well that about does it for this week. Hope you are all doing well and that life is treating well.

Love you all!

Champions!!

Family,

Well I'm just going to tell you now that I feel like my emails are going to get shorter and shorter in the next 8 weeks, haha! But don't worry you will get to talk to me soon enough!

This week had an exciting beginning with a Parade for the Leicester City Football club winning the Premier league! It was absolutely mad!! CRAZY!!! They say that there were Two hundred and Fifty Thousand people there!!!! And can I just tell you keeping track of your companion in a crowd of 250,000 is no easy task! But it was extremely fun and I was delighted that it happened to be on a P-day so that we could go. I took Cameron's advice and I bought a few Leicester things. I got a flag and a "fake" jersey! I am definitely a bang wagon Leicester fan!! It was awesome and we had a lot of fun.

On to the week. Well it's nothing that you haven't heard before. We did a LOT of finding this week and hopefully a few of the people that we talked to will become new investigators. It is pretty normal in Evington to spent a lot of our time with the less actives. We have some really nice less actives here and they'll be back at church soon!!

Well, that's about it, haha! The bike is working great. We don't bike all that much because we are so close to town it doesn't make sense. But we do use them when we go to visit members that live like 4 miles away from us.

I am excited to see this new toy of Dads in action! We are going fishing very soon after I get home! Then me and Dad are gonna have some father son time and go fly fishing!!

Also Happy Birthday to by Big Bro Brigs!!! Crazy that you are 23!!!! You old man!!

Love you all and hope you have a great week!

Love,

Elder Kmetzsch

Happy Birthday!!!!

HAAAAAAAAAAAAPPPPPPPPYYYY BIRRRRRRRRTHDAAY TOOOOOOOOO YOU

HAAAAAAPPPPYYYYY BIIIIIIIIRRRTHDAAAAAAY TOOOOO YOU HAAAAAAAPPPPPY

BIRRRTHDAY DEAR DAAAADDYYYY HAAAPPPYY BIRRRTHDAY TOOOO YOU!!!!!!!!!

Happy Birthday Pops glad that your day was so special. I love you so much and am so grateful for the incredible example that you are to me. I wouldn't know how to work hard if it wasn't for you. The things that you have taught me are of greater worth to me then all the knowledge that the world could possibly teach me. You taught me in a much more spiritual way, you taught me the things that I'm going to need after this life and how to get through this life. I've always looked up to you and watched everything that you do. You are my Hero Dad, and your the best guy I know. I love you loads.

Man that is awesome that Centerpoint did "Curtains"! I definitely miss the music and am looking forward to listening to some of it when I get back, haha! But really Viewmonts musical theatre department should just be praised. They do a good show and we had sooo much fun, those were some good times.

I'm glad that Conner is doing better and that he won't need surgery. You should ask him how he broke it, maybe I can give that a try and see you guys a few weeks early, (just kidding)!

Had a fun exchange with Elder Langi this week.

I really liked the talk by Elder Bednar in the last conference. I'm sure it worked well for your High Counsel talk for the YSA wards. The idea of becoming perfect, "even as (He) is," often times overwhelms me. It seems to be an impossible task that we will never be able to complete. But when you think about it and when I had my bash the other day I talked about it, it is by our simple good works day to day that we accept the atonement into our lives and begin to become perfect. As we work our hardest things that seem to be too hard suddenly become easier with patience and with practice. You know what they say practice makes perfect and how true is that. It is through simple acts of obedience even when it doesn't really make sense that we begin to master these things. I often think to myself why do I need to keep all these rules especially when a lot of them on the mission seem so pointless. But when we stop doing the little things then eventually we break bigger rules and sometimes commandments. I would always tell the missionaries when we were doing training that if they stopped waking up at 6:30 every day that eventually it would lead to bigger disobedience. Not because they are not going to go the the celestial kingdom because they didn't wake up every day at 6:30, but because once you justify a little sin then it will be much easier to justify it when it comes to bigger things. Keeping small and simple rules will keep us safe of any harm that could ever come our way.

I also found the street that Batman lives on.

There is my rant for the day haha, but things are doing well in the area. We are finding a few more people to teach and things are going really well with the part member family that is coming to church. Not much else to report on, haha!

Well I hope that you are all doing well and that you have a great week.

Love,

Elder Kmetzsch

Happy Mothers Day

Family!

Oh my goodness it was so nice to see you all yesterday and to talk. I'm glad to hear that all of you are doing so well.

To be fair this is going to be a very very short email because I don't really know what else to say. It was a great week very, very, very hot, but not really that hot. But still hot for England. We had a part member family that we are working with come to church which was really great. The Bishop gave the gospel principles lesson and it was fantastic. It was focused on the needs of the mother who is a returning less active.

Well I said it before, but I'll say it again. Happy Mothers Day Momma!!!!!! I love you so much and hope that your day was wonderful and that Dad and Emma did all the cooking and cleaning! I couldn't get you real flowers but we found some really nice Spring flowers and so pictures will have to do! But I love you and want you to know how much I really appreciate you.

Love you all and hope you have a great week!

Love,

Elder Kmetzsch

A Tiring Week

Family,

Well this week has been physically exhausting! We have walked more this week than I have for a large part of my mission! Absolutely miles and miles of walking. I'm not quite back on the bike because well I just got my bike back yesterday and it is not quite in fighting condition. I'm gonna have to put a little bit of work into in but it should be okay. Note to self though, don't leave your bike with other missionaries when you move to a car area if you want to see you bike in working order anytime soon!! But it's okay cause walking hasn't been that bad, just slow.

The new area is pretty much like a lot of my other areas. Our flat is really close to the city centre so it is pretty easy to just walk outside and start talking to people. We are also near two universities Leicester University and DeMontfort University. It is always nice to have some young people to talk to in your area. The ward though is completely different to Nottingham 1st ward. I went from one of the largest and youngest wards that I have ever been a part of to one of the smallest and oldest wards that I have ever been a part of. There are only two families in Evington ward that have young children and I'd say the average age is about 60, haha. It is nice though on Sunday to not have the roar of children during sacrament meeting. I'm excited to start working with and getting to know all these new members. I felt like just another member of the ward in Nottingham, like it was home, but now I've gotta start over again and get to know everybody. It should be fun though.

Elder Davis is a good lad. He is from the great state of Texas and has been on his mission for about nine months now. I'm a little sad that I didn't get the opportunity to train again but me and Elder Davis should be able to do a lot of good together. I'm looking forward to the next few weeks.

Congratulations EMMA!!!!! WOOT, WOOT!!!! That's so cool that you got chosen as prom royalty. It just proves that you are the prettiest sophomore in all the land and that all the other girls wish they were you, Haha! Don't let it go to your head though and remember to always be yourself and to always be nice to everyone.

Leicester does have a soccer team that is doing very well right now. They are in line to win the Premier league cup which is pretty much the biggest accomplishment that an English football team could win. It is for sure an exciting time to be in Leicester because the city seems to have almost an electric buzz going through it in anticipation of the win. All the shops have the team's colours and crest up and they say we are backing the blues. It's cool to see how such a seemingly small thing is bringing a city closer together. Cool story, we actually were in town and we saw this big line outside of one of the banks. We asked someone what is was about and it turns out that the trophy for the premier league, which is the Premier League Cup was on display in that bank to raise funds for charity.  All you had to do was donate £2.00 and you could take a picture with it. I couldn't let that opportunity pass me by so we got a picture with it! Man it is huge and way cool looking.

Brigham sure is a lucky guy! I wish I could go to Hawaii! It seems like since I've been gone everyone is just getting to go all over the place without me! Don't stress the whole St. George thing too much cause I can always just ditch school and go down in September for my Birthday!!

Okay so for skyping I am thinking that 6:00 my time would work best for us. That would be 11:00 for you guys. Does that work? You will have to let me know by tonight if not then that will be the time that I will be calling.

It is sad to hear of another death in the family, but I am glad that everything worked out so nicely and that it was a positive experience for the family.

I hope that everyone is doing great! I love you all and I am soooo excited to get to talk to you this Sunday!

Love,

Elder Kmetzsch

Back to the Bike

Family!

What a week. It was the last week of the transfer and it has been a pretty sad one.... We got the transfer calls last night and I will be leaving Nottingham. I am taking possibly my last step of this mission journey to my last area and I am going to Leicester. A place called Evington and my new companion is going to be Elder Davis. I am a little bit gutted to be leaving Nottingham, but it has been a good 6 months and it's definitely my time to leave. I'm gonna miss Elder Wagner loads, but it's okay cause there are good things to come. But I'm also no longer going to be in a car. I will be back on my bike, with no more responsibilities as well! I am going to be a regular old missionary and finally be able to just get it done. I'm gonna miss having a big influence on other missionaries, but I am also looking forward to not having to deal with there problems, haha! Plus I am going to lose tons of this darn car weight, haha. I'm gonna be a slim trim good looking Jim!

The Nottingham City Centre

Well the mission wide challenge week went really well. Loads of people went mad about it but no one in our zone won anything and the zone took 3rd place overall. We were a little bit sad, but it's not the end of the world. But it is amazing what a little bit of competition does to males.... What can we say it is just in our nature!

This week was pretty normal. Our investigators are doing well and not too much went on. We weren't able to see everyone that we planned on, but it worked out in the end. 

Oh yeah and Happy Birthday to James!!!!! I cannot believe that he is already 4...... He is soooooo old.... But it's okay I'll see him soon enough!

I forgot to mention that I got to go back to Birmingham on exchange with the AP's this last week. It was pretty cool to be back in my old area. This is a picture with the Bull from the city centre that happens to be named the Bull Ring. As you can see I am going to be taking these next few months by the horns and going hard, haha!

Birmingham's Bull Ring

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

Love,

Elder Kmetzsch