Elder Ian James Smith

 November 24, 2025 This was the best week of my mission by far. I'm so excited. I'm gonna tell you all about it! So this week we had two exchanges. One of them was in Lille with Elder Checketts and the other one was here with our ZL Elder Rich. The exchange with Elder Checketts was amazing. They have a friend named Benjamin and he's awesome. We did a temple tour with him. He had a ton of questions about the temple and what happens and what we do, and all that type of thing, and it was a really good experience to talk with him and to clear some stuff up that he had questions about the next day.  We had in-person district council in another city in our area, which was fun. Then right after in-person district council, we had an in-person lesson with another one of our friends. His name is Benjamin as well. But we fixed up a baptismal date with him for the 22nd of December, so please pray for him. Right after that, we had Elder Rich come down here to Amiens and we talked to o...

November 17, 2025  It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas! They're setting up the Christmas market and our saunterville area looks amazing. It's actually so big. I wonder why we don't do this in the states. It's super sick There's a bunch of little red houses with a bunch of Christmas trees and decorations up. It looks amazing. It opens on Saturday, so I'll let you know what it's like next week. Today's gonna be super lit. Me and Elder Laughlin are going to some thrift stores to try and find ties. I'm also getting my haircut because it is way too long right now.  Sunday was super blessed. We had 9 friends at church and they were all different people. Our sacrament room was absolutely filled. It was super awesome  This week we have a ridiculous amount of stuff happening. We have 2 exchanges,  In person district council l, a Temple trip and transfers this Saturday. I'm really excited actually because we're going to the temple with 2 fr...

 November 10, 2025 Merry Christmas, everyone! One important thing that happens here in France is that they don't celebrate Thanksgiving. So after Halloween, it is immediately to Christmas. We are currently watching a Christmas market be set up and we're excited for the season, it's going to be awesome. It will be my last one in France which is sad because they are very different from the American ones.  This week was amazing. There was a miracle that happened. While I was in Belgium one of the friends that I was able to find and then teach was baptized. His name is Julian and to see him make that first covenant with God has been amazing. He was super prepared and such a miracle.  This coming week, we have exchanges in Amiens with the other Elders in our district which will be awesome. We have a good amount of friends progressing in our area right now. And 5 of them came to church which was super amazing. Please keep Theirry in your prayers as well.  Spiritual thought...

 November 3, 2025 We are living life out here! I'm going to start my email with a funny story that we had this week. Like 2 weeks ago I called a blue dot  (a member who was less active). As soon as she picked up the phone I knew that she was amazing. She Is from Cameroon. I said, Hey, can you come to church this Sunday? And she said, yeah, I'll be there! From the first contact I could tell that she was like the boss of the household. She's so very direct and it's so awesome. Her husband is currently a non-member and we called him this last Saturday to make sure that he was coming to church. He said he would be there and then his wife, our little Cameroonian member, came over, took the phone from him and told us that he wanted to be baptized! So we kind of explained that it is his choice, but if he has that desire, we would be happy to teach him and prepare him for that day! They both were at church this Sunday and we had a great lesson and she was pretty much explaining...