Talk with strangers!

This is the motto for missionary work, especially at Christmas Lights lol

Anyways, this week was pretty good. It was long looking back though. Really, not a whole lot happened. We didn't have many lessons, so we did a lot of finding. 

Christmas Eve was good. It was wet and cold, but it allowed a miracle to happen. We were delivering cards and cupcakes to some of our investigators and members because there isn't too much you can actually do. Because it was wet and cold, one of the members invited us into her apartment. For the most part, we were just hanging out and talking with her. Then, we shared a little spiritual message to kinda start to close. Well, after that, she opened up to us to us about some struggles and concerns she has been having lately and we were able to talk about it some. When we went to leave (almost 2 hours after we arrived), she told us that she felt like it was an inspired visit. It was definitely an inspired visit and I am so glad we got to spend that time with her. 

Christmas Day involve lots and lots of singing for Sister Csolity and I. We sang with the Udall ward choir (since we were invited to a few weeks ago). Then in our YSA ward, we sang 9 songs as a congregation. It was basically a Christmas program, but instead of a choir singing it was the whole 26 members who were there. Then, that big we sang with the Arizona Mesa Missionary Choir at Christmas Lights. It was great though. I loved having my focus on Christ so much this year. I absolutely loved reading this year the account of Christ's birth in 3 Nephi 1 from the perspective of those in the Americas. And I also read Luke 2 by invitation for the dinner message Christmas Eve. 

Also, talking with my family was great. I think it definitely made Christmas be more like Christmas this year. 

Anyways, I love all of y'all! Hope Christmas was great and have a happy new year! 

Sister Smith

Views from morning exercise #nofilter

Zone funny pic

When Christmas Eve dinner is an hour late...

 Normal pic

Christmas pun- secret santa gift our Spanish roommates received lol

Our presents stayed in the closet until Christmas morning so we weren't tempted to open them

My friend Maison from my dorm freshman year

Michaela and I! (My roommate from sophomore year) It was fun to see her, even if it was briefly

Matching pjs thanks to my mom

Christmas breakfast. I had to have cinnamon rolls

Skyping with my family!

Another Sister told me I looked like a snowman with the side dots covered

Our Christmas setup

Had to have a pic of me opening presents just for my mom

I need more of this wrapping paper in my life

Roommate Christmas church pic

How do you find an extroverted engineer?

They look at your shoes when they talk. This joke was told at Christmas Lights by someone who was just walking by lol

Anyways, I don't have a lot of time today to write, but it was a great week! We got to go to the temple and have a short zone conference after. It was really awesome. I love spending time in the temple and the answers we can find there.

Another exciting thing, we set our investigator Caleb on date for baptism in January!! He has come a long way since we started teaching him. 

Christmas Lights are still going and they are still awesome, even when it's a little colder outside. 

Anyways, I am doing well. 

MERRY CHRISTMAS to everyone!!

Sister Smith 

Christmas Lights crew that night

Makenzie and her first companion

Other Sisters kept telling me I looked good, so I had to take a picture. I also had a few girls during the Christmas Lights tell me that I was cute too.

When a package says open before Christmas, you open it and really get excited haha

Brightening someone's day

We went to a member's home to visit her, and she was so upset because the top two parts of lights on her tree weren't working. But I was able to get them to work. So I literally and figuratively brightened someone's day.

So this week seemed long, but it was pretty good. There was lots of stuff going on. We worked Christmas Lights a couple of nights. On Friday, we had what's called a Mission Tour, which was from about 8:30am-3:30pm, so that took up a lot of time from our day/week, but it was really really great!

The Mission Tour was basically like a Zone Conference, but with half of the mission and then also a general authority. Elder Gavarett was the general authority that came. There was a lot that I learned from this meeting and had questions answered. I think one of the biggest things I was reminded of is that miracles can and will happen. We have a line in our mission statement that says "We expect and facilitate daily miracles." We were discussing this line when something came to my mind. It is found in the Bible Dictionary under Miracles: "Christianity is founded on the greatest of all miracles, the Resurrection of our Lord. If that be admitted, other miracles cease to be improbable." If Christ was laid in a tomb and then rose three days later, which I know He did, everything else can happen. As a missionary, I can find someone prepared to hear the gospel. I can reach the goals I have set. I know it can happen, but as we also discussed, we have to have faith; we have to be humble; we have to be obedient. 

Something that was funny though from this meeting was that Elder Gavarett talked briefly to missionaries that would be going home relatively soon. He told them to apply chapter 9 of Preach My Gospel in their lives as well as chapter 11. If you don't know what these chapters are, chapter 9 is about finding people and chapter 11 is about commitments... What was really funny was Elder Gavarett asked a question about chapter 11 and what we should do in our first lesson, still regarding post mission. Some elder said, "Establish expectations." We all laughed pretty hard at that one. The actual answer was leave a commitment, which always starts with "will you...". So basically we were all told that post mission we need to find someone and get married lol. 

Another funny moment from this week. We were teaching our investigator Caleb. Right before the lesson, he and his friend had gotten food and were eating when we came over. He said the opening prayer and he said this in his prayer: "We are grateful for this meal that smells so good that the sisters can't eat. Sorry about that." We were trying so hard not to laugh, but we couldn't contain it. 

Yet another time we laughed this week- we knocked on a door while finding. No one answered, and I turn around and run straight into the wind chime with my head. The center of it was the shape of Texas, so we made the joke that I was keeping Texas in my heart and my head.

Also, Sister Csolity and I were asked to sing at a baptism. We did. But we asked two other sisters to help us because I'm not the best singer and Sister Csolity is worse than me, so there was that. 

Overall, Sister Csolity and I laughed a lot this week. 

Love you all. Have a great week!

Sister Smith

Pre-baptism singing

Temple view during morning walk

Proof that we san, except they accidentally put Sister Csolity's first name on the program...

It's never too late to make a Halloween cake lol

Margo snuck in this week....

When you don't get wrapping paper...

My white elephant gift I ended up with. I first got a tie and another YSA member said that I should give it to an elder... instead, someone stole it from me and I ended up with organic conditioner

More light than I bargained for

So this week in the adventures of Sister Csolity and I, we saw a flame be a source of light because a car caught on fire in front of our apartment, so I got to call 911. It was weird because after they got the address and stuff, they asked for my number and then my first name. It was weird responding to that question... haven't had to answer that question for awhile. It started as just a small little flame when we saw it, but it got bigger real quick. We don't know how it started, but we are glad we caught it before it really got out of hand. It was sad though because it was a car of a sweet old couple who went to the temple. 

We helped at Christmas Lights twice this past week and we also took an investigator. It really is amazing, and when you really stop and take time to think about what everything is and what it means, there is so much you can learn. As we were walking around with the investigator at the lights, we took the time to explain and talk about most of the things, and I could feel the Spirit testify that Jesus Christ is the Savior of the world. He truly loves us sooo much, and this season is a perfect time to grow our testimony of Him and thank Him for all that He has done. I loved in the Christmas Devotional last night, it was talked about the prophecies of Christ and then someone else talked about His life. As it was said, Christ's birth would not be complete with His death and resurrection. 

I love how the church also has the #LIGHTtheWORLD going on. It truly is amazing that we have ideas of small acts of service we can do each and every day to spread light now and to develop a habit of it so that after Christmas, we can continue to spread His light. It is also such a great way to become more like Christ and develop that love for others. 

Nothing else is too noteworthy from this week. 

I love you guys!

Sister Smith

FIRE 

No dead body in the trunk (I think I watched too many crime shows before my mission lol)

CHRISTMAS LIGHTS!!!

I love Brother Essa. He is hilarious! He sent us this text 

#LIGHTtheWORLD and our apartment...

So we got home last night, and the storm that came through knocked our
power out for a couple of hours. We made a joke about how we have been
telling people about the church's Christmas initiative of
#LIGHTtheWORLD and we don't even have light in our apartment. There
were other jokes made, like how we we wandering in darkness and stuff.
Only something missionaries would do... haha

But this week was pretty good. We had transfers, so I am now with
Sister Csolity. We have gotten along pretty well so far this week. It
is weird being in charge of the area for right now since Sis Csolity
doesn't know it. It is definitely a learning and growing experience.

Besides transfers, it was Thanksgiving. To start, we volunteered at
the Mesa Turkey Trot. I think most missionaries helped give runners
water. It was my first time being on that side of it. I made the joke
that since it was the missionaries handing out the water that it was
holy water. The other missionaries thought it was funny. Later that
day, we went to a YSA member's home and had dinner with him and his
family. There was plenty of food, and we even had homemade ice cream!

On Friday, we had car troubles. Our battery died. We went to go to a
lesson, and the car wouldn't start and we just heard the clicking,
which is an obvious sign for a dead battery. As we went to get out
though, tiwi told us, "Warning. Battery may be low." As missionaries,
we are often sarcastic with tiwi, so we were just like, "Thanks for
letting us know now tiwi. It would have been more useful last
night..." Luckily we were able to borrow our roommates car to go to
that lesson. We got back, and tried jumping our car, but we just
couldn't get it to start. Long story short, we were on foot for the
night. We stayed in a relatively small area near our apartment. There
were lots of people out, but that's because they were all headed to
Christmas Lights since they started that night.

Saturday, we had our first shift at Christmas Lights. I have never had
to try to talk to so many people in my life than this past week.
Between being the one to start lessons and stuff and then Christmas
Lights, I talked a lot. Christmas Lights are good though because it
makes me push myself to talk to people, even when I don't really want
to. It is also teaching me how to make small talk and then relate it
to the gospel or find a way to bridge it to encourage people to go
inside the VC, since those are mostly our main purposes as
missionaries working outside.

Sunday was a fun day. Our lesson at 7pm was outside, but then the
temperature started dropping pretty quickly and at the beginning of
the lesson, it started getting really windy and started to rain a
little bit. I was not dressed for this weather. We ended up driving
over to the church building. Funny story about this lesson. Prior to
this, Sis Csolity and I were talking about football for some reason
and it was brought up about somehow relating it to the gospel. I said
if I thought about it for a moment I probably could. Well, during this
lesson, the member present started relating what we were talking about
to football. We had a pretty good analogy going. But when we got home
after this lesson, I guess the storm knocked our power out, so we had
no power. At least we had our iPads for light.

I do know that Christ is the light of the world, and each one of us
can spread the light of Christ, especially this Christmas season. I
love the church's initiative of #LIGHTtheWORLD and I would invite all
y'all to check out the video and think of ways you can #LIGHTtheWORLD.

Much love!
Sister Smith

Last pic of Sis Leavitt and I as companions

First pic of Sis Csolity and I as companions

Runners and Volunteers at the Mesa Turkey Trot

Dinner with Anthony Butler and his family

Churning some homemade  ice cream
(Her Grandpa Brink would be proud)

Dogs 😊

We wanted the alliteration...

Planning in the dark

We had a Twinkie fun run today. It was a relay where each leg ran a mile. This was our prize for coming haha. I actually ran the whole mile. But my team finished last. But the first shall be last and the last shall be the first, right?

Inhaler in one hand, Twinkie baton in the other.  Oh, the irony...