Elder Benjamin S. Smith

My mom was disappointed that we had fires and earthquakes last week and I just talked about my mint plant... So I'll try to do better this week. We slept through the earthquake but it was a significant enough one that Bishop texted us in the morning to make sure we were alright. So that day I asked people about it as we walked around and it lead to some good conversations. This past Sunday was really exciting! The Singles Ward met in person and stayed outside. And a few other wards have started some activities as well. One of them had a drive-in movie. Our ward hasn't done anything yet but they are making plans for outdoor Sacrament meetings. The area had a special fast this Sunday and we had a non-member friend join us in the fast and attend church! It was a great meeting with some powerful testimonies. We realized that the power of the gospel to bring families together will be a great blessing for the people we are working with. So we started asking members that we visit how ...

  I don't remember if I've mentioned it already or not but someone gave me these mint plants and I tried to plant it but the ground is like... rock and clay. And they've been having a rough time.  But one of them is actually looking pretty good! I put in some plant debris on the ground to try and help fertilize it. We'll see. We had a Mission Conference this weekend (big training meeting). It was 10/10 and we learned a lot of good things and we all wore orange ties. Someone called us this week and said that they were too busy cleaning to meet with us that day, so we ran over and started cleaning with them. They asked us to take out this huge tomato bush and when we lifted up the plant there was a bunch of cherry tomatoes. It would break my heart to throw all that away so we picked all of them before taking down the bush. It was a very exciting discovery. Elder Ben Smith

  The fires have been... strange. I am used to dark storm clouds rolling over my house a few times a week, so at first I didn't think too much about the gray clouds overhead. But then I realized that there was no humidity. Or wind. It didn't feel at all like a storm.  I am far enough away that I haven't been in any danger. It's just been strange to have dark skies with no rainstorms. It made the sun incredibly dark and red for a few days. I probably still shouldn't have been looking at the sun, but it looked pretty cool. We went up to La Habra Heights twice this week and it's always an exciting adventure to go up there. The first time we met with a beautiful young family who had guinea pigs, rabbits, and chickens. It was a lot of fun and we hope to visit them more often. We also spoke with an older lady who we didn't plan to see. She talked to us for an hour or two with story after story. They were some intense stories.  The next day we went up again and met...

But it wasn't water. It rained ashes instead. Which I guess is kinda cool but it's also kinda tragic. So now there's ashes on our car and everywhere. This week one of the members who loves feeding the missionaries had their birthday. He invited us over to give a spiritual thought so we went over and his whole family is speaking Tongan which was fun. There are basically all of the languages here. Except Portuguese. That isn't really a thing. There's a group of people who we've been talking with but of course it's hard to meet with people. So we've started relying on videos more. They aren't to replace us, but they go a long way in keeping consistent contact. Recently I've been gaining a greater appreciation for the Book of Mormon. You really just need to read it. I've been doing what I can to encourage my friends to because it teaches us how to live and how to follow Christ. The principles it teaches are true, it will change your life when you...