Houston, we have a baptism!

Well, this week was fantastic! CALEB WAS BAPTIZED! The baptism service was on Saturday night, and it was very simple, but very powerful. He was very happy afterwards.

Just so many great things happened this week. On Tuesday, we had ZTM, and I gave a training on the need to be a Christlike missionary. It was a great reminder for me as I prepared and gave this training. Originally, it was supposed to be given by my companion, Sister Hirschi, but she and the other departing missionaries were taken to the Gilbert temple that morning by President and Sister Townsend since the Mesa temple is closed right now. I am grateful that I could give the training. 

Wednesday, we were able to have many lessons. One person we had a lesson with was an investigator who requested a Bible and Book of Mormon via mormon.org. It was an interesting and entertaining lesson. She is very outgoing and charismatic. She was talking about how she knows Christ will be coming again soon because of the signs we are seeing. She was talking to a friend once and her friend said, "I can smell Jesus. He is coming." Also, she was telling us the "things the Spirit was wanting her to say to us." This included that I have a calling to preach in life. She also told me that there is a good young man looking at me and keeping his eyes on me and that I will get married young... She asked if I had a young man back home and I said no. She said, well you do, and he is looking at you. He is a good man. So that was interesting and funny...

Thursday, my zone had interviews with President, and it is always nice to talk with him and discuss how things are going. Then, that night we had a lesson with a part member family that I felt like went well. The family was just able to laugh and it was sweet to see them interact. It was also great to hear the mom share her thoughts as we went about the lesson. So we are hoping to work more with them.

Friday night we were able to have 2 awesome lessons with investigators that are slowly starting to progress again. One in particular, we have seen him become happier as he has started doing those things to help him progress once more. 

Saturday, we had some lessons with investigators that went pretty well. We think one of the investigators might be a little overwhelmed currently with everything, so we are going to slow it down a little. Saturday night was pretty great. First, we got to watch part of a religious freedom broadcast that was shown in Arizona, and it was really cool to see church leaders address this topic. One of them addressed how there is a hierarchy of how much we can do and regulations we ourselves can impose. We had to leave the broadcast before Elder Oaks spoke, which I am sure it was fantastic and am sad I had to miss it, but that is okay because it was so we could prepare and set up for Caleb's baptism. So that happened. And he was confirmed the next day in sacrament meeting. 

So yeah, a great week! Lots of laughs and lots of smiles.

I love all y'all!

Sister Smith

We did goofy golf for FHE, so we gave our third team member, Chelsea, a name tag

Sister Godfrey, my companion while our companions went to the temple

Sister Thomas's dog, Tommi

Dinner with Lucy--she made homemade empanadas 

Me and a goat

All the goats

Us and the Gastelum's dog, Mona

Missionaries and Caleb!  He didn't want a pic in the white jumpsuit...

Missionaries and Caleb + his girlfriend Whitney 

Our YSA member Savea had us relax after dinner

Our Harry Potter closet in the apartment