Chips on your shoulder

So Sister Clark and I were moving out of our apartment, and we were

carrying stuff out to our car. She had a big of chips leaning on her

shoulder. Of course, my response was, "Man, you sure have a lot of

chips on your shoulder."

Anyways, this week was kinda different with everything we had going

on. So we moved on Tuesday, and we moved into a member's home. It's

good, but different. There are definitely pros and cons to it all.

Pro: wifi, which means emailing while laying on a comfy couch. Con:

the thermostat is usually at 80°, but sometimes at 84°... I also feel

like I have 2 strikes right now because I apparently didn't shut the

front door all the way when we left one morning (because it is a

little harder to shut), and then I also put a canned drink in the

freezer and forgot about it and it exploded... So now I am on edge for

strike 3.

Wednesday, we had a Fall Festival for Mountain Vista Ward, which was

great. We had a less active member come, which is the first time she

has come to something in a long time. There were also lots of other

non members there too!

We had MLC on Thursday. We found out that sometime in November, our

mission is supposed to be getting smartphones! We will keep our iPads,

but it will start a transition to all missionaries having smartphones

instead of tablets. We don't know how immediately it will be though

before all missionaries just have smartphones. But I love going to MLC

because it is an extra opportunity to learn and grow. We also had

multiple lessons, and I think we finally figured out the trick to keep

the Wolf family focused and engaged in the lessons (we have had a hard

time the last few weeks focusing everyone).

On Friday, we had an STL meeting in the morning. It started off

talking about how God is always aware of us and knows what we need. It

made me reflect on how many times I have seen God's hand and known

that He is aware of me. I also like a statement that was made. It was:

"If you don't believe that you have a loving Heavenly Father, why

would anything else matter? If you don't believe that He loves you,

why would you want to return to live with Him?" This is so true. If He

doesn't love us and we don't love God, it wouldn't make sense to want

to go back to His presence. This is why as missionaries, the first

point in the first lesson, so the first things we usually teach, is

"God is Our Loving Heavenly Father." That's the basis, and because He

loves us, His Son, Jesus Christ, was sent to earth to atone for our

sins. Because He loves us, He wants us to have this knowledge, the

knowledge of the gospel. Everything is based off of those statements.

On Saturday, we helped with the Salt River Cleanup Project. It seems

like it wasn't too long ago that I was helping with this, but it was a

year ago... But it was fun. It was interesting. Sister Clark and I,

along with 2 other people we were with, went to pick up a blanket that

we thought was trash. As we were pulling it up, we saw a skeleton of

what we think was a dog 😐. So I guess we found someone's dog that had

been buried for some time. Later that night, we had Skyline's Trunk or

Treat. I think Skyline is my favorite ward that I have served in. I

just feel like I am home in that ward. There were lots of people that

came, including non members and investigators. They were playing music

though at the party, but it was kinda disappointing because it was

mostly kids singing the songs. Sister Clark called it, "Unsatisfying

Disobedience." If we were going to listen to music, it should have at

least been the real thing lol

Last night, we had a lesson with Maria where we went over the

baptismal interview questions. It's a good thing we did this though

because we found out there was a misunderstanding about the Word of

Wisdom. Unfortunately, it means we have to push her baptismal date

back a couple of weeks 😒 Everything else seems to be good for her

though. A small miracle was that her baptism wasn't announced over the

pulpit earlier yesterday. We had talked about doing it while in Ward

Council before sacrament meeting, but then when sacrament meeting came

around, it wasn't announced. Thank goodness!

Hope y'all all have a good week!

Love y'all!

Sister Smith

We acquired dry ice while at the fall festival

When it's 80 inside, you male it cooler yourself lol

Mission Leadership Council pic

Salt River Cleanup

Weekly dog pic?

Haha jk--real weekly dog pic

Face painting. Multiple members did a double take
(Sister Clark did this in about 5 minutes) #artdegree



I thought people only did this for Christmas