called to serve AZ a MESAnary: 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