Talent/Blessing or Curse

So this week, I was apparently extra tired because I feel asleep
multiple times throughout the week in various places. I fell asleep on
a park bench while my comp was doing language study (it's a long story
as to why we were doing studies on a park bench), on some chairs while
doing personal study at the church (another long story as to why we
were doing personal study at the church and not at our apt), and I
also fell asleep at our apt on the floor during exercise time, fell
asleep at my desk during personal study, and also fell asleep during
weekly planning on my bed. Sister Daquioag was like, "that's a talent
that you can fall asleep in random places and positions." I responded
that sometimes it can be a curse though.

Anyways, this week was alright. There were highs and lows. I'm not
going to talk about the lows though.
We had FHE with a family in one of our wards on Monday, and that was
fun and relaxing. On Tuesday, we had district meeting, and I gave a
training on the why of repentance. I basically made this flowchart
type thing with 3 different types of people on why those types of
people repent. I wish I could explain it more, but it's kinda hard to
type it all out. I definitely learned a lot from preparing it though.
We got to go to the temple on Thursday, and it was so nice to be able
to go! We all felt like it had been forever since we last went since
it had been like three months. It was just so peaceful and relaxing to
be in the temple. There is nothing that compares to being in the
temple, or even just on temple grounds. And it was nice to talk to
some other missionaries from another zone that we don't see very
often.
On Sunday, we did splits during church so I could go to the care
center church service. For some reason, it was just very refreshing
for me to be there and helped put me in a better mood a little bit.
It's just cool to see so many people come to the service who aren't
even members of the church, but they come because they enjoy it. Some
can't even say an understandable sentence, but they come. And I love
it.
We also did a lot of service this week. Most of this service was yard
work, pulling weeds. It just got me thinking though as we were pulling
the weeds about their roots. When you pull lots of weeds, you notice
that they have different roots, and this can be compared to our
testimony. There are some weeds that have strong deep roots, and some
even just have a single deep root, and when you try to pull it, you
can't get the whole root. Some have lots of roots, but they are
shallow and aren't very strong. Sometimes, we have solid testimonies
based on multiple principles of the gospel, and sometimes we might
just have a solid testimony based off of one or two principles of the
gospel, but they are strong and people can't "pull us out of the
ground." There are some people who have testimonies that are based off
of multiple principles of the gospel, but it is not solid, so "that
when the devil shall send forth his mighty winds, yea, his shafts in
the whirlwind, yea, when all his hail and his mighty storm shall beat
upon" them, they are pulled out. So yeah, we need to strive to have
strong, deep roots.

Love y'all!
Sister Smith

District funny pictures with Elder Riding as a giant haha

When people keep walking out of the temple
 as you are trying to take a picture...

Sister Sio--my sister (both trained by Sister Leavitt)

District (again) at the temple

Weekly planning nap, with edits

Shoutout to my ward mission leader, Brother Linford,
for engraving my name on my scriptures

Flossmoor

I find it very ironic and hilarious that there's a dentist in one of
my wards that lives on a street called Flossmoor.

Let's see, what's exciting from this week. We were able to find a few
new investigators, so hopefully we can start teaching them
consistently. We have been working with members, especially at dinner,
to try to get the, to do more missionary work to help us find people
to teach. It's really awesome because 3 nights in a row, we were able
to invite and commit members to do specific things to share the gospel
with friends they had in mind. So hopefully that goes somewhere.

We also had interviews with President this week. It's amazing how
through the Spirit, he knows exactly what to say even when you don't
tell him about certain things. I feel like half of my zone got some
type of transfer news during interviews, but we will see what happens.
We get news on  Saturday, so yeah.

As I've been studying 3 Nephi, I love reading about Christ in the
Americas. He really does love all of His children. Don't ever forget
that!

Anyways, not much else to say.
Love y'all!
Sister Smith

Always Reppin the  haha

Members home

District

dIsTrIcT

Splits with Sister Ratcliff

Splits with Sister Ratcliff and Ofa

Lunch at Sister Cox's home

It's the dog days

Okay, not really. But it is getting hot and this week was slow when it
comes to the work.
Also, this week I got to hold two different puppies, and one of them
is absolutely adorable (see pics)

But yeah, as I said, it was a slower week. On Thursday, I helped be an
answer to someone's prayer. Sister Daquioag and I decided to do splits
just to try to do more finding in one of our wards. So I went with a
member named Sister Wilkinson to go finding. We went to try to find a
member who we didn't know. Turns out that that member passed away in
December, and his wife is not a member. We went in to just try to get
to know her a little more. Long story short, she isn't really
interested, but as we were leaving, she brought up needing to find
someone to help fix her trust. It just so happens that Sister
Wilkinson's husband does that for work, so they were able to set up a
time to come back to do that. And this person has said that she had
just prayed and asked to help her find someone. So that was cool and
awesome. The Spirit definitely led us to her at that time for that
reason.

We also went to the Visitors' Center on Friday night with a family.
They are members, and they don't actually live in our ward boundaries,
but they were a referral to us from one of our ward members since the
wife is from the Philippines and so it would be good for her to talk
with Sister Daquioag. But we listened to the Christus narration, and I
love it! Something different always sticks out to me every time. This
time, the thing that stood out to me was, "Let not your heart be
troubled." This is Christ talking to us. He is there to comfort us no
matter where we are. It brings peace to me just thinking about this.
Just the fact that Christ can help us get through anything is amazing.

I love you guys!
Sister Smith

 We went hiking for FHE at silly mountain and were able to watch the sunset

 I just really like this pic because it's the perfect mix between a

dark sky, a sunset, and city lights

Zone after ZTM

Toy chihuahua puppy

Service

Service

Sister Hirschi came back in town for something, and made time to see us

The cute puppy-- half German shepherd 

VC with the family we went with

I am a Samoan goddess. Haha jk (although I think I look pretty

good in the first one), but Sister Sio gave these to me since they

don't fit her but fit me 🏼

Rain is a good thing. And it's a small world after all

Now that those songs are both stuck in your head, rain is a good
thing, unless you are on bike... We got caught in the rain on Monday
night and Tuesday afternoon. And Tuesday it was pouring when we got
caught in it. So we tried going to a member's home, but they weren't
there, so we stood on the porch until it let up a little and tried
another member's home.
As for it being a small world, I met a member in one of my wards who
lived in Katy and knows some of the people that I know! How crazy is
that!?

The highlight of this week though was that we invited one of our
investigators, Leroy, to be baptized on a specific date. At the end of
the lesson, he prayed and asked God to help him prepare to be baptized
on that date! The Spirit was so strong as he spoke those words.
Nothing is more powerful than a prayer said from the heart, especially
when it comes to an investigator asking for help to know truth or help
preparing for baptism and stuff.

Also, I almost lost my companion twice while riding our bikes this
week. The first time, we were riding along a road on the sidewalk, and
when I'm in front (which is often because I tend to ride faster and
know the best way to go), I occasionally look back to make sure my
companion isn't too far behind me. I guess I hadn't looked back often
enough and I get to a stoplight and looked back and couldn't see my
companion. I freaked out for a moment! Then I see her off in the
distance and just awkwardly wait at the light for her to catch up. But
the reason she fell so far behind is because she got a flat tire and
stopped to look at it, and I didn't hear her say that she was going to
stop, so I kept cruising along. The second time though, we were at an
apartment complex, and they have a few different exit gates, and there
was one with a car leaving, so it was opened, and this gate was closer
to where we were going than the main gate (which is open until about
7pm). I decided to go through the gate with the car leaving, but my
companion was riding a little slower and didn't want to go through the
gate because she was afraid it was going to shut on her (but she
definitely had time to go through). Anyways, the gate shut and I'm on
one side and she was on the other. So she rode through the apartment
complex to get out the main gate while I once again awkwardly waited
for her to come. So that was fun...

On Saturday, we got to help with a cultural event. We were in charge
of the "Mormon Table" since there were tables with different
religions. Our job was to basically to be there to give informational
facts rather than like teach and bear testimony. Ultimately, not many
people came to the event and we talked to 2 people at our table. It
was cool though to see all the different things they had there. They
had a table for Islam, so it was interesting to go look at that and
become more familiar with their beliefs and stuff.

Something that has really stood out to me though this week as I have
studied the scriptures is how Satan can attack us, but also how we can
defend ourselves since I have been studying the "war chapters" in the
Book of Mormon. Even though we aren't fighting physical battles, we
are fighting a spiritual battle everyday. We must fortify our
weaknesses, and we can't assume that Satan won't try to attack or
tempt us in certain aspects of our lives or follow the same pattern
every time he tries to get to us. We always have to be on guard and
rely on the Lord in all that we do.

I love y'all and hope all is going well!
Sister Smith

District

Carma Garner (the one who lived in Katy)

Sitting on a member's love sack after jumping onto it

Us at our table for the cultural event

The struggles of biking... my skirt got caught between the brake and the tire