Elder Ian James Smith

April 21, 2026 This week was amazing. A lot of really cool things happened to us.  To start off, last Tuesday, we went and played volleyball with a bunch of other missionaries in Paris. It was so fun. Definitely should start practicing a little bit more. I hadn't played volleyball in a minute but it was so fun. We ended up having to run back to the bus after volleyball, but I entered in the wrong door and I got controlled, luckily, the guy was really nice and so I didn't have to pay a fine hallelujah. It was my second to last zone conference. Probably one of my most memorable. The formations that were given were super memorable. One involved my mission son coming through the window as an angel. I got a video on my google photos if you want to watch. We finished Wednesday off with some awesome lessons.  On Thursday we had a pretty normal day we just had to go make sure one of our members had not died but she's all good  Friday we had a temple tour with our friend Carlingto...

April 14, 2026 Saint-Ouen this week was pretty standard. I'm just having a blast with my companion in Paris. Honestly, my life feels like a movie. And there's always new seasons coming out every single hour! This ward here is absolutely amazing. There's so much faith, there's also a lot of members. We fill up the entire chapel each Sunday. And some people have to sit outside the chapel. We have some really cool miracles with some of our friends coming back. This last Sunday, we had a friend named Carlington come out of the blue. He's a super funny guy from Zimbabwe. He's very short and he has a ton of energy. It's really fun to be around him. He introduces himself to every member of the ward, even though he doesn't speak any French. We're going to the temple with him this Friday. Can't wait to see his reaction to the temple.  On Wednesday, we called a reference. And you can tell that she was genuinely looking for the truth. So we did a 2 hour les...

  We back !!!!! We made it back to Paris. This will probably be my last area on my mission and it's an absolutely awesome place called Saint-Ouen. The ward here is absolutely amazing. They have a ton of faith and a good amount of young adults in the ward, so it's really easy to integrate our friends. I'm super pumped to work in Saint-Ouen for the next couple weeks. I wanted to share with you about our friends in Brussels. This was an absolute miracle and one of the biggest faith inspiring moments of my mission. Their names are Jackson and Olga they are new here in from Africa. But their living conditions are not good whatsoever. They are still trying to figure everything out.  We do in person lessons at their house. It is a 10 foot by 10 foot room where the bed is most of the room, they also have a 3 year old daughter. So we gave our message to them it was super powerful all about the gospel of Christ. We fixed a baptismal date! Well as we were leaving these people who have...

March 31, 2026 Bye, bye, Belgium, it's been wonderful. We just had our transfer news. I'm sadly leaving the wonderful city of Brussels, but I'm going to Paris with one of my old companions, I'm actually so excited! I'll also be living with Elder Lee and Elder Tuua, both of whom I've lived with or been companions with in the past, so I'm super pumped about it. Finishing off my mission in Paris is a dream come true with Elder Jones. This week was honestly kind of uneventful. We went down to Charleroi to do an exchange which was really cool, is was my last day in Charleroi, I'm gonna miss that city very much. On Friday, we had an exchange with an elder here in Brussels, and we went and visited a family which was amazing. They have so much faith, it's a family of 7 and the dad's name is Sunday. They've come to church 2 times and are really interested in the gospel. The problem is that their situation here in Brussels is tough, so they need our pr...

 March 24, 2026 Hello everyone I hope you had a good week! Low key this week for me was pretty standard. Didn't have a ton of crazy things happen, but we saw a couple of miracles. Starting with, I got my Belgian legality card, which was really cool. So now I have a residency card in both Belgium and France.  Right after that we went to my favorite spot to find people to talk to and it was super fun. One cool thing that happened was that I saw four military uniformed individuals coming towards me with a man in a suit coat in the middle of them. They were wearing the flag for Congo Kinshasa, and to us missionaries, the people from Congo Kinshasa are the best!  Being prompted by the spirit, I asked them if they wanted to come to church. All of the Army guys knew us and 3 of them gave me their phone number, which was really funny. We also went down to Liege and helped them set up an apartment for sister missionaries coming in this next transfer. So everybody's excit...

March 17, 2026  Our week was crazy, but we have a ton of cool stories. Last Wednesday, we went down to a city in Belgium called Nivelles and we had an exchange with the elders down there, I was able to exchange with of my favorite missionaries in the mission, Elder (Daddy) Dunn. He is goated. I lived with him for 2 transfers at the beginning of my mission. So we were able to reconnect and talk about a lot of cool things. We also came into the mission at the same time. We also ate American frosting (betty crocker) that was left in the fridge at the Nivelles chapel. Probably one of the fattest things I've done in a long time.  We tried to go back on Wednesday night from Nivelles, only to find that because of a strike, all the trains back to Brussels were canceled. So we had to take this regional train that stopped at every little dinky town in between nivelles and Brussels. Then the next day we went to follow the wall. And this place is one of my favorite places of all time...