called to serve AZ a MESAnary: What is green and white and red all over?? My first area.

Green because I am a greenie.

White because we are white washing.

Red because it's hot.

Also, watermelons are those colors and I have had a few experiences with watermelon since I lasted emailed. The first one was in the MTC when my MTC comp got sent a whole watermelon, and we cut it with a plastic knife somehow and ate it. The next day, I wore an outfit (mostly intentionally) that looked like a watermelon. Then I got served a big chunk of watermelon with a spoon to eat it at a dinner the other night.

Anyways, the last week at the MTC was good. Mostly just the same stuff as the previous weeks.

This past week in the field has been good so far. The travel was uneventful, just kinda long. Bus, frontrunner (train), tracks (another train), plane, and then car. After we landed in AZ, we met President and Sister Townsend at the airport, got our bags, and headed to the Visitors Center (VC) where we did a short little orientation and stuff. Then, we headed to the stake center that is right across from the mission office and had more orientation stuff and then lunch and more orientation. Then, we had short interviews with Pres. Townsend and his wife. After I did that, my comp from the MTC and I went and got certified to drive a car, so I got to drive a car for a short amount of time. It was funny though because when we got done with that, we came back and walked into the chapel and all the new missionaries are just laying across pews sleeping with the pillow and blanket they gave each of us. It was kinda funny to see that, and I wish I had a picture of it. But I joined in and took a nice nap. Then we finally got our companions. My name was called first and my companion is Sister Leavitt.

Sister Leavitt is pretty cool. She is from Grand Junction, Colorado and is a Broncos fan, so that is always a plus haha. Besides the general where are you from question, the first question she asked me was, "Do you know what white washing is?" So that has been fun. What white washing is is when both companions get transferred out of an area and two new missionaries come in. We did actually have a lesson set up though. The was one of the next few things my comp told me. And the lesson was with an ex-communicated member who wants to rejoin the church. But when my comp first said the lesson was with an ex-communicated member, not gonna lie, it made me a little scared and nervous. But the lesson went well. The ex-communicated member, Laura, has a very strong testimony, but she has just been through a lot and is trying to overcome some addictions.

The rest of week has mostly has just been trying to get to know and meet members, especially in the Ward Councils. I am actually covering two wards, the Udall ward and the Gable YSA ward. The Udall ward is often described as the "newly wed or nearly dead" ward, and that is true. In Relief Society, it was almost all elderly ladies. Some of them were really funny though. I don't remember what the question was, but one woman answered "We are so old that we forget or we just don't care!" And they also have a box of blankets they bring every week for them to use if they are cold. Sunday was long though covering these 2 wards because church is from 9:30-12:30 and1:30-4:30. But I survived

But back to my week, it was mostly just calling members to try to set up time to meet up them and get any info we can about the ward, other members, and investigators. We really only had I think 5 lessons or so this past week, so it is a little slow. Hopefully things pick up this week. Friday night though was full of miracles. Sister Leavitt and I were out trying to find and contact people from our area book, and we got to one name and it didn't have a phone number or address, but it had a friends name. We were able to find that friend's number and call him. And he happened to have this other person we were looking for with him. He was like, "we can meet right now." The only problem was that we needed another female with us, but the friend was like, "I have some friends that live right across from the VC and we can probably meet there." So we met there. And the friends' house we went to was actually a member from the ward we were trying to contact and meet with anyways. We had a lesson that was so full of the Spirit. AND THEN, the person's house we were out (the Pierces) offered to have us over for dinner the next night, which was really great because we didn't have a dinner planned since we did not yet have the meal calendar. So that night was AWESOME! I walked away from that house feeling so happy.

The hardest part so far though is waking up at 6:30am every morning and then trying to stay awake during personal study. The latter one is definitely a struggle and I am still trying to work on that haha

Anyways, I love you all! If anyone would like to send me anything, you can send it to this address (the mission office):

2525 N 32nd St
Mesa AZ 85213
United States

~Sister Smith