So FRICK-in’ happy

So Caleb Frick (my recent convert from my first area) was married and sealed to Whitney (his girlfriend at the time who introduced him to the gospel) on Saturday! I got permission to go, and it was so amazing, and it made me sooo happy and joyful to see them be sealed. The Spirit was so strong during the sealing, and it testified to me of the importance of making temple covenants, especially being sealed as a family. It was a little weird being outside of mission boundaries, since it was at the Gilbert temple, but it was fun. We also had to wait awhile at the temple because the person we got a ride with was going to another sealing not too long after the one we went to, but it ran late. Being on temple grounds was good though. I’m just still smiling about them getting sealed.

Some background for some of the pics though—Whitney’s dad told the photographer that I was the missionary who taught and baptized Caleb to make sure she got some pics of me with them. Because of that, she also got some pics of just Caleb and I together, and I think that’s why she had us do a laughing pic

We had zone conference this past week, and I had to give a departing testimony, which was weird. Sister Townsend made the comment that when the sisters get up she feels like we just got here, and I feel the same way. People tend to make the comment in their departing testimonies that they felt like this day would never come, and I always thought it was kinda cheesy, but it actually is pretty true. All the sudden, you are the missionary up there giving your departing testimony. It really makes you reflect on your mission.

This week we were able to have a few good lessons with some members that we dropped by, and we were even able to contact some less actives that we haven’t been able to contact in awhile. One of them was a less active that Sister Talbot and I tried to contact multiple times with no luck back in August/September. I kinda put that person aside, but I suddenly had her name come to mind a couple of times, so I knew we needed to go and try her. Well, we went by, and she answered and was super nice and set a return appointment! It was seriously a miracle. 

Also, we had dinner with someone who lived in Texas for a bit since their husband was going to school at Texas Tech, and for dessert they pulled out Blue Bell Cookie Two Step ice cream.  Needless to say, this Texan was very excited and happy about that. #miracles

We were able to have a pretty decent with Maria for the first time in awhile since Larry isn’t always all there and completely coherent during most lessons. It went downhill just the last few minutes when Larry started letting out some anger from something that happened in the past. Besides that, we were talking about God’s love for us since He is our Heavenly Father. My testimony was strengthened during this lesson, and I know He loves is so much. He has a plan for us. He gives us so many blessings, even when we don’t recognize them. 

I hope y’all each have a great week! Love you guys!

Sister Smith

Weekly dog pic! Look how cute the puppy is 😍

Add captionWedding pic

Caleb and I normal

Photographer: “okay, now I want you to look at each other and laugh.” Us: *awkwardness*

Us laughing at the awkwardness

Whitney and I

Sister Heaps and I in front of the Gilbert Temple

When you pull out your jeans while going through your clothes and they still fit 👍🏼

I learned to ride a hover board

“Diet Coke fixes everything”

So I’m really running out of steam on puns, so this quote will have to do. I basically had no voice Thursday-Saturday, and I was talking on the phone with Sister Jensen on Friday, and she asked if I was sick. She then told me I could come by her house to get Diet Coke, because “Diet Coke fixes everything.” I’m sure my mom would approve of that statement. 

Anyways, thinking back on the week, it seems like it was forever long. But it was pretty good. Really, nothing out of the ordinary. More finding. A little teaching, mostly to the same people we normally teach each week. We had Stake Conference yesterday, so we weren’t at the church building for 10 hours, which was nice. And Stake Conference was super great. The theme was “Jesus, the very thought of thee.” As we think of Christ, we can love in His way and we can live in His way, and we can help those around us.

We did have a good lesson with Nadia this week. She just continues to be so excited for everything. She was telling us how she went to the temple with the youth, and she did baptisms again for more family names, and she talked about how awesome it was seeing some of the priests performing the baptisms for the first time (even if they dunked some of the girls way too hard into the water). It’s just cool to see her continue to grow and learn. It’s been fun to be around her the last 6 months. She even told me in our lesson that she has seen me change so much the past 6 months too. It’s a growing and learning process for all of us, and it never stops.

We had another lesson with someone else. It’s hard because they know what is right, and they have a strong testimony of the gospel. They just have had some experiences in their life that they can’t let go and still hold onto a lot of anger. I was thinking about this last night, and I just couldn’t help but think that Christ has infinite power. He can do anything. He can repair any hurt or wound. He can fix whatever is broken. So why not him? Why not you? Why not me? He can. It’s up to us to trust Him, to turn to Him. 

I hope y’all all have good weeks! Love you!

Sister Smith

Weekly dog pic. Only pics from this week

Captivating Decapitating story

So we were helping the Johnson’s paint their house, and Brother Johnson was telling a story about how he learned to decapitate a chicken. It was very captivating, so captivating that I accidentally painted on their sink faucet. So we named it the captivating decapitating story.

Anyways, this week was good, just a normal week. We did get transfer news, and I will be staying in the area for my final transfer, but I will no longer be a STL.

We were able to have an AMAZING lesson filled so strongly with Larry and Maria last night. It was so perfect, and our member present, Brother Carter, was able to extend a fantastic invitation to Larry to receive a priesthood blessing, and it was so powerful. The priesthood is real y’all! 

Other than that, I can’t think of much else from this week. And I don’t have much time left anyways

Only one more transfer to go. Can you believe it?! 

Anyways, love y’all!

Sister Smith

 Safety first= safety glasses

Jensen’s

Jensen’s

 Last pic with Sister Clark

Temple Trip Tuesday

It’s not a pun, but it’s a nice alliteration.

Anyways, the week always seems long when pday is on a Tuesday, but this week will seem shorter, so I guess it all balances out. 

This past week, it was mostly just like any other week. I was kinda sick on Wednesday, so that wasn’t fun, and then my comp wasn’t feeling good the rest of the week. It’s just that time of year, and we have gone to so many people's homes this past week where they have been sick, and it’s not just the, “I’m sick” excuse people use to get us to go away. 

We did have a lesson with a part member family about why we go to church and stuff, and we brought a member with us. We asked the member to share the blessings of going to church and how it helps him. Well, he starts talking about how hard Church really is when you have young children and talked about how it’s the hardest 3 hours of his week and what not. He even said that, “church is harder than hell.” We were getting a little nervous, but he eventually tied everything back together and said that despite the difficulties, he sees how it makes his week better and how he has learned to cherish seeing all his girls dressed up in the backseat of their car and everything. I think it helped the family to have someone give them some real talk though.

We also got a referral for a member who has been inactive for awhile who requested a copy of The Book of Mormon from online. We didn’t even have her records in our ward. We were able to contact this referral within 20 minutes of her requesting The Book of Mormon, and she let us right in. Apparently, her 6 year old has been a little curious since they went to church a little bit ago with the grandparents, so the mom decided that if her daughter wants to go, they will go. And they came to church on Sunday! Interestingly enough, our ward mission leader knows them a little bit and had been feeling like they needed to invite her to things. And last night, there is a group FHE put on for the missionaries to bring people to once a month now by one of the high councilors, and she came with our ward mission leader’s family. So that is exciting.

I also learned that the mission president looks at how much money is on all the missionaries mission cards, and if you start accumulating too much money, you get a phone call from him. This may or may not have happened to me this week... But the reason I have more money than usual on my card is because I haven’t had to buy too much with members giving us stuff and then a member payed for our groceries last week. So we just have great members, and it is a blessing. 

It was a little sad to hear about President Monson’s passing, but it has been a great time to reflect on those things he exemplified and those things he has taught us. It gave me the opportunity to think about what he taught me and some of the things he has said. Two of my favorite quotes from him are, “may we ever choose the harder right than the easier wrong,” and “never let a problem to be solved become more important than a person to be loved.”

Anyways, love y’all!

Sister Smith 

Gotta stay hydrated when you are sick

Found this this week 😂

Pizza with Jared (Brother in law) last Monday night

Juan on Juan

What do you call Spanish basketball? Juan on Juan. 

These are the jokes that come from missionaries haha

Anyways, HAPPY NEW YEAR!

This week was filled with a lot of great things, a lot of miracles for the mission. To start, our zone and district were really struggling to find people to teach, so we did a fast. Last week, our whole zone only found 4 people, but this week, just our district set a goal to find 20 new investigators, and we reached that goal! Also, the visitors center set a goal of about 2,200 referrals this year at Christmas Lights (which is doubled from last year), and last night they had to get 200 referrals to reach it. That’s a crazy goal, especially because Christmas Eve had 151 referrals, which was the highest ever. Well, with the help of the Lord, they got 220 referrals last night. We all ended the year on a good note.

Sister Clark and I, even though we didn’t reach our companionship finding goal, we were blessed with a few more referrals, plus meeting and being able to talk with a few other people who showed some interest. This will hopefully help us in our finding goals in the next few weeks. We also have been in contact with a few investigators who we have had a hard time contacting, and it was nice because during weekly planning, we had a few more people to talk about and plan for. 

We had one more exchange this week, and it was kinda nice to go to another area and not have to worry as much about planning for the day. It was also nice because I went on exchanges with Sister Caswell, and she goes home when I go home, and so we are in the same boat and understand each other on certain things. On this exchange though, we had one lesson where it was just natural to teach and testify of the plan of salvation. We stopped by a former investigator’s home, and they let us in. We really didn’t have a plan. We started talking to her, and by the end, we taught almost the whole plan of salvation. It was nice because I didn’t feel rote or like I had to teach the Plan of salvation because it was what we planned, but it really was by the Spirit and from the heart. I could feel the Spirit testify of the truthfulness of it to me. 

I just can’t emphasize enough how much the Lord blessed us this week. It was a great week to end the year. Even church yesterday, even though it was super long for us, I really felt uplifted and ready to begin this new year. We also were able to help someone move into their apartment last night. Of course, they were moving to the third floor, and my body hurt after going up and down the stairs with stuff for about 45 min, but it was totally worth it to help someone out. You could tell that they really appreciated the help.

To start the year, the mission had a big activity for all the missionaries where we could play various sports from 8:30am-12pm and then eat lunch. It was so much fun, and I played about 2 hours or so of soccer. Needless to say, I am sore, and I will probably feel it even more tomorrow morning. I also played a little bit of softball. It’s just great to be around other missionaries who want to have fun and just play sports and everything be pretty positive the whole time while playing.

I love y’all! Have a great first week of the year!

Sister Smith

Zone pic

MLC

Matt and Oakley 😍

Video of Matt trying to surprise me. 

Definitely went for Oakley before Matt lol