Elder Ian James Smith

 September 30, 2024 France is super cool. We had a lot of super cool miracles that happened this week!  One that immediately comes to mind is what happened on Thursday. The day started normal, reading in Alma and doing language study then at 11:00 the power went out. I thought it just went out for our apartment building but no it went out city wide! A person was stuck in the elevator and it was crazy. We were supposed to go give one of our new friends, Témé, a Book of Mormon. When we started driving to his building we realized that the street lights also had no power. So we were each saying a prayer in our hearts and I have never been more locked in while driving! When we got to Témé's building we couldn't call his apartment but he was for some reason outside! So we were able to give him a Book of Mormon! Awesome miracle and we got there and back safely hooray.  This is the end of my first transfer and sadly my trainer Elder Rowley is now a Zone Leader so I will have...

 September 23, 2024 Today was a great day! So far I'm currently standing outside a bowling alley lol. It's district p-day which is so fun.  We had a week full of miracles, we have a new potential member named Stacy. She came to church this last week- absolutely amazing! We set up a time to meet with her this Wednesday. She is absolutely awesome and super prepared to hear the gospel.  We went to Bourges this last week for exchanges. Bourges has the 5th biggest cathedral in France and Charters has the 4th. All these cathedrals are amazing here, massive and beautiful. Orleans which is the other city in our district that has the sisters has so much history here and is a beautiful city. All in all the week was absolutely amazing and I'm loving France.  In honor of General conference we have been listening to alot of general conference talks wherever we go. One that I listened to recently is by Ulysses S Soares in April 2024. Loved this talk here is an excerpt: "The S...

 September 16, 2024 WE GOT A BAPTISM !!!!!!!!  Our Awesome Friend Peter has a date set and I can't wait. The weeks all blend together and I’ve only been in the field for a month.  We do a lot of finding. One day this week we had 5 1/2 hours of street contacting, Which is never very fun. In Chartes we have very faithful and awesome members, we just don't have a ton of members or Friends to teach so we end up doing a lot of finding. I wouldn't trade it for anything though. It’s an amazing place with amazing members.  September 16, 2024 We had my first inter district exchange with the Elders from Bourge. I did it with Elder Stone! If you remember that's my bro from the MTC! Love that guy. We always joked that we would be greenie broken and it came true. Such a fun time. We also share a mutual distrust for Elder Clark’s flavor pallet when it comes to ice cream. let’s just say Yogurt is not a very good ice cream flavor.  This Friday we went to Peter's house and he sh...

 September 9, 2024 Hello everyone! This week was amazing. We had a ton of miracles happen this last week. One of them was that we had 6 amis (Friends) at church yesterday! Absolutely amazing and super cool. We also were able to see Elder Baldi (from our branch in Chartres) be set apart yesterday. He will be serving in Australia. We keep joking that now we have a trio in Charte for a week hahaha.  The fact that I'm in France still hasn't fully hit me. Like on Wednesday we popped over to Paris for a day exchange. We had to sprint through a metro to catch our train. Super fun! Also the bakeries here are no joke! My favorite thing to get is called a pain suisse (swiss bread).   Parts of France are alot like in the States, other parts are not. On Friday was the 80th anniversary of the Chartres liberation from Germany and Chartes threw a big party in the City Center. So me and my comp get off the train and we were so confused by the fact that there were American Flags flyi...

 September 2, 2024 I love Chartes! It is a very beautiful area of France and a very cool town. The branch that I'm in also has an amazing group of youth. They all speak a little bit of English and I only speak a little bit of French. But we are still able to connect and have fun conversations. The ward is amazing! We have 2 member meals a week on average which is a blessing for the France Paris mission.  French is crazy though. One example is "La foi" and "Le Foie" both are pronounced the same but "la foi" means faith and "le foie" means liver. So context is very important in french. I'm starting to pick it up. This week we also had my first zone conference and I got to listen to the testimonies of the Elders/Sisters leaving the mission field which was cool. All the sisters that my trainer came in with left this last transfer. Elder Rowley told me that it is super weird because he still has 6 months left. Miracle: we do a lot of door knoc...

August 26, 2024  Well a lot happened this week and I'm so pumped for the next 2 years! When I arrived at the airport we were greeted by the A.P.'s and our Mission Presidents. We then walked over to the metro from Charles de Gaulle Airport where we were given a Livre De Mormon and started to do contacting. Talk about trial by fire! The next day we got to meet our trainers and find out where we are going.  The town that I got assigned to is called Chartes. It's in the bottom middle of the France Paris mission. Southwest of Paris about 60 miles. It has the biggest and most beautiful cathedral I've ever seen. Look it up if you have a chance (Lady of Chartres Cathedral). My trainer's name is Elder Rowley. I absolutely love him, he is so cool and very funny. We also have a car in our area. We are one of a few that have a car which is cool. I found out Tuesday that I am the D.D (designated driver) my comp has been out 17 months so he would need a french licence. So that wa...

 August 16, 2024 Well this will be my last email in England! I leave this Wednesday morning for Charles De Gaulle Airport. This week has been an absolute rollercoaster. I am starting to fall in love with the language. It's a beautiful language, especially compared to German (which some of my other friends are learning). This week has been super fun. I am super blessed that we have a temple on the MTC grounds, we go every week to do endowments and it is amazing. This week we were able to have a rundown on the importance of family history work. I love looking back on my family lineage and figuring out where my ancestors are from.  This week has been an absolute language grind. I've been trying to translate the Book of Mormon children's stories on the gospel library which is one of my new favorite things to do. We also got some amazing news that we are able to wear blue shirts on the mission! We have two teachers who both came home from their missions in France like 1 year com...

 August 8, 2024 Bonjour Everyone! I am loving the MTC! So far this week was all French though so not a lot happened. We got more English speaking missionaries. They are genuinely so funny. They're all from England or Australia and for the first time in my life I got asked if I could speak in an American accent! It's so fun to all be in the MTC together. We also got a sister who is from Lille, France. We all tried to speak to her in French but she didn't understand a word we were saying so that means we need to practice a little more. But the language is starting to come along a little bit. It's just so different from English, it's fun to learn.  The MTC is turning into a boys camp for us because there is only 30 boys in the MTC right now. So we all know each other and most of us are learning french.  All our dorms are on the same floor as well so we all are having fun. Today we were able to go through the temple for an endowment session. It was amazing are endowment...

 August 2, 2024 Bonjour from Chorley everyone! I am having such an amazing time here. The language is not what I thought at all. It's hard and weird because there's not a word for word translation for everything. So learning new meanings of words is different. I am starting to pick up on the language, but in very small amounts. I can't wait to speak french fluently.  I was able to go into the Chorley England town center today with my friend Elder Casella from Austria. We went to a bunch of different old churches. In one they have an American flag that was flown when allied troops entered Paris. I have a photo of it below. Later we also had a gyro with all the greek missionaries from a very big fat greek wedding resturant. It was soooooooo good! It was truly an amazing P-Day!  At the mtc we talk alot about faith and the story of Peter walking on water was shared:   24 But the ship was now in the midst of the sea, tossed with waves: for the wind was contrary.  25 ...

July 26, 2024  Bonjour everybody! This week was amazing and we started full french lessons. This past week the language fully hit me French is a lot different than what I thought it would be! Our teacher Brother Forward doesn't speak any english to us during the lesson. He's a super amazing guy (there's a photo of him at the bottom).  All the candy is absolutely wild in the United Kingdom. The skittles taste like starbursts and the red doritos are actually called chili heatwave and they are actually pretty good. But the best thing is a boost bar! A boost bar is a mash up of of milky way and a twix it is genuinely incredible!  The mtc as a whole is actually pretty fun. (The food is ok). The other missionaries are from everywhere in the world. There's kids from Luxembourg, New Zealand, Russia, Spain, Ukraine, Austria, Pakistan, Switzerland, Sweden, Australia, Slovakia, Brazil, South Africa, Ireland, Tahiti, Thailand, Philippines, Pola...

July 20, 2024  Hello everyone! Preston mtc is absolutely crazy and super fun. Everybody talks funny here though. A trash can is actually called a bin. The starbursts are yellow. They don't have any normal Doritos. And the accents are absolutely hilarious. There's so many little differences.  In the mtc, we have missionaries from Austria, Switzerland, Australia, Slovakia, Thailand, Philippines, Poland, UK, United States and Germany. All converging into one! It's super fun to see the different accents and different cultures collide. There's a kid from Australia who is super fun to listen to (and maybe Australians are more extreme than we thought). We started learning french and it is a beautiful language but it's going to be hard to pick up.  I was able to go to into Chorley England today it was quite an experience! They don't have a lot there but they do have a McDonald's and a Starbucks. All the buildings are old and all brick as well.  It is a crazy place b...