Tuesday, May 30, 2017

Feasting upon the words of Christ... and also food

I am definitely well fed in this mission. Each week, I usually come home at least one night with a bag a food members send us home with. We also got asked by multiple members we stopped by last night if we were hungry. Definitely not.

This week was just a regular week. More meeting with members, more trying to find people to teach. We did contact a few member referrals, and they could have some potential. We dropped more people.

We did some service this week. We played bingo with some people in a small care center. That was fun. At the end, we sang a few songs. Some of the people there are members, so they joined us in singing, and it was just really sweet. We plan to go back in coming weeks.

We also had exchanges on Wednesday to Thursday. That was a lot of fun. I was with Sister Johnson, and she is just so enthusiastic and energetic when it comes to the gospel and sharing it. She really is awesome, and is an awesome missionary. I learned a lot from her on that exchange. 

This week, I also really saw the importance of having the Spirit with me as I study the scriptures. There were multiple times when I had understanding of scripture passages that I never really understood before. It was really a neat experience. I mean, I have had this happen before, but it was really prevalent this week.

Well, I love y'all!
Sister Smith

 Dog pics ðŸ˜Š


Missionary parking

Went to take a selfie with the timer, and I dropped my iPad. This was the resulting picture

Normal pic with Sister Johnson

Tan line from wearing the same shoes almost everyday

Nicole- she just graduated high school and is planning to come out with us often to try to prepare herself for if she goes on a mission

Tuesday, May 23, 2017

freely ye have received, freely give.

So one of our ward mission leaders quoted this scripture to us when we
told him that we got a phone call from our mission president telling
us that we were losing our car and it was going to another area... He
thought it was funny. As for us, we didn't think his joke was very
funny. But then my companion didn't even really last a full evening on
bike. Actually, she crashed in the first 5 minutes... So long story
short, we got a different car.

Besides all the craziness with the whole car and bike thing, this week
wasn't too exciting.
We did have a pretty good lesson with a part member family, and we are
really hoping that we will be able to keep working with them more.
From what it sounds like, we have made more progress with this family
than missionaries have in the past.
We had another lesson with our investigator Heather. She is slowly
progressing. She is going to take time, but she will get there
eventually.

We went to the temple this morning, and it was definitely refreshing.
My companion and I talked about last week how we feel like we were
being tested by the Lord because we had a rule change where if we want
to go to the temple, we have to go on our pday and President can
change our pday to accommodate when the temple is open. So we had to
decide to go to the temple or go and do the fun pday activities we
were invited to by the missionaries not going (because only half the
mission goes one day and the other half another week). We thought
about it, but we both felt strongly to go to the temple. We did not
regret making that decision. It really is a real life decision: temple
vs worldly/fun things.

Anyways, love y'all!
Have a great week!
Sister Smith

  I can bench press my companion

Temple

Duck on temple grounds

Zone conference pic

Tuesday, May 16, 2017

LIVIN' ON A PRAYER

Well, I'm halfway there.

So this week was good. We had transfers, so Tuesday I got my
companion, Sister Marcos, and a car. I was not shy about telling
people in the ward and even some of our investigators that we got a
car, and I loved seeing people's reactions when they realize we got a
car. They were all excited for us.

Nothing too exciting though happened this week besides transfers. We
mostly just met with members to try to help Sister Marcos get to know
the ward and the area a little bit.

I got new roommates. I'm with Sister Colbert and Clark, and that's a
lot of fun.
But yeah, not too much else has gone on.

Just a thought that we talked about in relief society in one of our
wards is that we cannot forgot our divine nature. We truly are
children of our Heavenly Father, and He loves us so much. Never forget
that!

Love y'all!
Sister Smith

Look closely, and you can see what has been used as a dryer knobfor who knows how long #missionarylife

 Fancy dinner setup


Calling home!

Tuesday, May 9, 2017

The Fan of Salvation

So this week, it got a little warm, like 108° warm. My companion
pulled out a pamphlet to use it as a fan, and she pulled out one and
didn't want it. Then she pulled out the Plan of Salvation pamphlet and
used that one, so I nicknamed it the Fan of Salvation.

To begin, we got transfer news and I'm getting car! I'm staying in the
area and getting a new companion. I'm trading one small Filipina for
and even smaller Filipina haha

So miracles this week:
Members are amazing here. Even though it was hot outside, members were
giving us plenty of water and A/C, so that was awesome. We got a
referral from a member! This member was prompted to talk to her
friend, and she did, and the friend said she wouldn't mind meeting
with us! We also ran into another member who lives in our ward
boundaries but her records aren't in our ward, but she gave us a
referral as well! Like, it was perfect. We are still trying to follow
up on those referrals, but member missionary work is starting to get
going a little more in this area! We also just had some solid
lessons/meetings with members this week.
Another miracle is that this week I had multiple things on my shopping
list for this week, but most of them have been given to me by others.
Most of the things have come from my roommate who is going home
tomorrow, so she is getting rid of some things. It's just perfect.
Like, sometimes the Lord really does work miracles, even if they are
things like this.
We also had 4 investigators at church this week! Which seriously is
pretty awesome for our area right now.
One of these investigators, we finally figured out where she actually
lived because we had taught her at a member's home and didn't know
where she lived. But we were able to contact her at her house, and
this week we should have a lesson not only with her, but with her mom
also!
Another investigator was invited over for dinner by members when they
were also feeding us. We ended up having a nice discussion afterwards
where we mostly just talked about the power of the Book of Mormon, and
the members were able to bear their testimonies naturally, and I
thought it was pretty powerful.

So yeah, it was a pretty good week. I don't think there is really
anything else noteworthy to write...

Love y'all!
Sister Smith

District!

Wore this to church on Sunday. A lot of people liked it (shoutout to Sister Sio)

Zone sports pic

Tuesday, May 2, 2017

Jesus, Take the Wheel


Or Jesus, Take the Handle Bars when you are on bike. I say this
because at one of my Ward's activity, they had karaoke, and as a
missionary you are really limited as to what you can sing. I decided
to sing that song. I didn't sound very good, but I definitely wasn't
the worst one.

Also, can I just say, April went by wayyy too fast. I feel like just
the other day I was changing my calendar to April, and now I have to
change it to May already!

So this week, we did lots of service. After cleaning a couple
different houses, I am grateful for a home that was kept clean. One
house, we began to clean the floor of one little room, and dirt was
just caked on. Another house was just covered in dust and dog/cat
hair. My job was dust all the walls and vacuum dust and dirt off of
shelves and things. The other house had been sprayed for roaches, so
we were cleaning up dead roaches along with killing some roaches that
were still alive. What doesn't kill you makes you stronger I guess...

We also had a progressing investigator move into our area from another
area, so we had a lesson with her, and she came to church on Sunday.
We are really excited and thankful for this. Over the past few weeks
though, we have seen our wards slowly become more involved in
missionary work, so we are hoping things get rolling quicker here
sometime pretty soon.

We also had more bike problems this week... We are both currently
using members' bikes because we don't want to get the other ones
fixed. And then I actually had a problem with the member's bike...
Biking isn't so bad until you keep having bike problems. Hopefully
transfer news this week is good news haha

Oh, and it was my 21st birthday. Thanks for all the birthday wishes! I
celebrated with extra sugar and a black light party (see pics for
explanation haha).

This morning, we also went to a member's home and played wally ball as
a district. It's like volleyball, but you can play off the walls. It
was a lot of fun, and my team was the champion. We never lost a game.
This member also had a gym in their home, and I did squats for the
first time in forever. (FYI the Wally ball was played on a racquetball
court in their home).

This week, I studied a lot on obedience. Something that was said in a
meeting was that "exact obedience is an attitude." As I studied
obedience more, I have come to realize that this is true. Ultimately,
our obedience should be out of love. Part of obedience is to develop
and build certain character traits to help us become more like God.
Something I read was that, "God made man free—and then gave him the
Commandments to keep him free." When we are obedient, we really are
more free and can receive the blessing that come from being obedient.
Along with that last quote, there was a question in one of the church
manuals that said: "As man has come to understand and obey physical
laws, have those laws limited his freedom or increased it?" A great
question to think about.

Anyways, I love all of you! Hope everyone has a fantastic week!
Sister Smith

Check out the lights on the member's bike

What's a birthday without Blue Bell ice cream
(yes, they sell it h
ere in AZ!! ðŸ™Œ)

Unfortunately, we couldn't light the candles...

Our dinner  appointment knew it was my birthday, so she decorated ðŸ˜Š

Black light party = scorpion hunting. With black lights, they glow lime green
(one of the few lime green thing I don't like lol)


PUPPY!

Filipino food party!

Mostly took this pic with Sister Sio to show off my new outfit haha.