Kamusta,

We had a really good week with not too much stuff going on. We had interviews with President Howard which is always a good experience, and I also got to go on exchanges with the zone leaders. I have been on exchanges before, but that was when I was really new in the mission so I had no idea what they were even saying. I went on exchanges with Elder Smith so we had a lot of fun convincing people that we were brothers; really it wasn't very hard to do :) I had a really good day of work with Elder Smith, and I learned a lot about different teaching skills that I can improve.

A few days after our exchanges, I tried really hard to apply what I learned about asking questions to investigators to help them learn. It's kind of weird to think that asking questions can help someone learn new things but it really works. I "taught" a lesson to someone after the exchanges, but for the most part I only asked questions. Instead of having a plastic lecture, we had an actual conversation with me asking inspired questions and her realizing the answer was from the spirit. That experience helped me learn a lot about what is said about letting the spirit teach, not the missionary.

Other than that, things are going really well. I have just one complaint and that is that they have decided to shut the power off every day for the next two weeks... We will have it for a few hours every day but that's still questionable. This little town always has something fun going on in it :) Thank you for all your letters and prayers. I hope you all have an excellent week.

Love, Elder Smith