Prefontaine...

Dear Mom and Dad,

That’s really cool to hear about what you heard from President Degn, he is an awesome man. I have a picture with his wife, him and I. I also have some pictures of me with the president of my mission here in Belo. I really want to send them home, but I can’t without a flashdrive. By the way, I sent home the cassette tape last week instead of a letter. I spoke the Baptismal Ordinance onto it, but I recorded that a couple weeks ago, and my accent then was horrible.  My accent is still horrible but not as bad as it was when I recorded that. Oh well. Anyways, when you get that tape, please don’t record over the first ten minutes of it, the first ten minutes of it contains talks from the prophets that have brought me much inspiration during the mission. I would really like to be able to continue to listen to those helpful words from time to time. I can’t wait to hear from you guys though!

So I am sorry I haven’t done more explaining about my mission, it’s not that I think of it as a chore, it’s just I don’t pay much attention into providing details, its a Smidt trait, huh Dad? I'll explain in this email, but that will mean that I won’t be able to write an email home to everyone else, unless you think everyone else will want to read this too. I’ll let you decide :)

I live on a hill, in a green house. Every house has concrete walls surrounding it with a metal door; our metal door STINKS, every day I have to wrestle with it to get it closed. We have a little patio within the concrete walls and this patio is the roof of another house right below us, as our house is on a hill. Our house is green, with makes me happy because green is my favorite color. One of our neighbors is an awesome member who often assists us during the day when we are teaching. His wife isn’t a member but she still makes lunch for us often.

We have a little visitor in our bathroom every night, a little gecko. He is so stinkin fast! I always try to catch him, but he is like speedy Gonzales, and he jumps good too. We are allowed to eat lunches at members homes, but we are not allowed to take a dinner break, WORK! WORK WORK! No stopping! Its great therapy for getting a full night sleep. And a great weight loss program.

There isn’t a day that goes by that I don’t sweat because it’s so hot and hills are everywhere. These hills aren’t like the foothills in Star, they are very steep. My shins hurt at the end of everyday because we have to walk very fast to fit in all our appointments, and walking very fast down steep hills destroys my shins.

It is interesting how much of an influence America has here. There are more songs played that are American Pop songs than Brazilian songs, they watch American movies too. All their video games that they play are in English, so a lot of times, they don’t know what to do in games and I’ve had to explain a few parts to some of the Brazilians here to help them understand what to do. Don’t worry, I'm not breaking the rules and playing the games, only explaining to them. On most street corners, there are little huts that sell pirated movies and games, frozen Go-Gurts, or smoothies. Nothing is cheap here except for Movies, games, and fruit. Unfortunately the only thing out of those I can buy is fruit. Money is VERY slim here.

Because the area is so big, we often have to take a bus to make it to our destinations. The buses are crazy! If I could compare the driving here to anything, it would be a combination of "Fast and Furious" and "Italian Job". Small cars, very fast, lots of tire skidding sounds. It’s really nuts, if you guys ever do come here, we are only taking a bus places, never a taxi, I took a taxi yesterday to a zone conference, and it was one of the most scary experiences of my life. Speaking of which, yesterday was awesome! I got to see the guys from my district in the CTM. I showed up 30 min late, and after the meeting they all came up to me and told my how worried they were when I didn’t show up, in fear that I had gone home. One of my good friends from the CTM said he started thinking about going home himself when he thought that I had gone home. Whether this is really true or not, it makes me feel good knowing that my very good friends that I have made so far care about me that much. I loved being in their district and having the awesome opportunity to be their leader. I miss them a lot and we aren’t allowed to write them I just found out, which will kinda be hard, but oh well.

One great blessing is that I’m starting to really see my mustache coming along. I prayed that I would work as hard as I could and try to help everyone I could, if I could be blessed with a Prefontaine (sorry if I spelt that wrong) mustache after my Mission. I’m starting to reap the rewards.

Could you guys find out what I have to do to send letters to you guys from mission ties? In the CTM I would just bring an envelope to them with dads email address on it and they would send my letters to you with that email address. Also when they send letters to me, the return address says "your family". So, I don’t know who to address my letters to, because the mission ties office is in the cookie store. Also, do I put a separate envelope inside the envelope I send to them with your email address? Please find this out for me and next week I will start sending mail again though mission ties, because it’s much cheaper.

If you don’t send this letter out, could you tell Tiff thank you for her letter, I was so happy to see those pictures. Especially the one with KJ-- that practically made my month! I only had time to read Tiffys letter out of my 11! (new record) before I left to email. I’m still waiting for your package. I got the Quad Set though! It’s BEAUTIFUL! So beautiful, I almost don’t want to use it. I love it. I’m so excited to start marking my favorite scriptures in it.

Alright, I gotta go! I love you guys so much!

Elder Smidt X