Week 34- Paper Hearts Mend Broken Ones

Helllllooooo! 

Tiffany Park has just been keeping us on our toes this transfer...so many things happening! 

Ok I have good news and bad news, but I'll deliver the bad news first. 

Bad news: We had a lesson with Casey this past week and found out he is struggling with a smoking addiction. Totally did NOT see that coming. Apparently, we didn't establish the "no smoking before baptism" rule when we taught the Word of Wisdom. So now his baptism is being moved to March 23rd, which is actually a good thing. I think Chris feels better about it and it will give them more time to get comfortable in their own ward before he is baptized. I'm just thankful he was honest with us. 

Good news: Casey and Chris finally made it to our ward and guess what? They LOVED it! They already knew a few people just from the many times we brought members to their lessons, but they found even more people they knew! Another young mom in the ward went to high school with Chris and the husband knows Casey from work. What a small world! The ward did such a good job in welcoming them in and they don't plan on going back to the Tiger Mountain ward anytime soon. Also the Allen family came and Evan too! I love having friends at church! Definitely helps the ward get excited about missionary work too. 

The Allen girls are preparing for their baptism on March 2nd. They are so excited and bring it up every time we see them. They always want us over...but maybe that's because we bring candy every time. 😊 The parents are getting excited too. They are inviting their whole family and we are all going over for lunch after the baptism to eat some yummy traditional Samoan food! So excited! I think the parents' hearts are softening. The dad actually drove himself to church yesterday. We are trying to work with Sister Allen's ministering sisters to give her some fellowship. One day she'll hopefully feel comfortable coming to church with the rest of her family. 

We took advantage of this Valentine's Day to share some of God's love with our people. We cut out paper hearts and wrote scripture references on them about the love of our Heavenly Father. We also wrote little messages and baked brownies for each of our friends and struggling members. We taped the hearts all over their doors. It was a lot of fun. We tried to be anonymous, but of course they figured out it was us because of the scripture references. Our little service made them super happy though! We also got to serve food to the homeless at the Salvation Army food bank. We invited our friend Greta and her kids to come with us. We had a lot of fun and we got to talk to so many cool people. 

The snow is starting to finally melt and it's warming up here. Still do get the occasional black ice in the parking lots and may slip and die, but it's all good. We are careful...most of the time. 

Well that's a wrap on week one of transfer #6! Have a great week everybody! Love you all! 

love, 

sister smith

This tree got wrecked in the snow storm

Heart attacking our friends

 Our friend Greta and her kids

Typical street name in Washington

Our view while tracting in Skyway on finding day

 My favorites

Renton city

Trying Pho for the first time

Sister Zhang finally got her fried chicken

Week 33- Purifying Seattle Area...with more Snow!!

Holy snow! This is the absolute worst/best winter Seattle area has seen in 70ish years and I get to witness it all! Definitely has made the work a little trickier, but we try to make the most of it. I think our little car has gotten stuck 6 times total this week which is actually better than some missionaries. These cars are not meant for the snow! Plus, Washington doesn't know what it means to "plow the roads" so each time we go out, it's quite an adventure! Also, I legit got frostbite on my toes since rain boots don't qualify as snow boots. The water just soaked right through! My toes have become little purple sausages, lol. 

On a positive note, I have finally had a reason to try out my pants this week! They are honestly the best for this kind of weather. My legs have never been warmer. 😊 It's still weird to walk around in dress pants...I feel like a saleswoman.  

This past week we were able to meet with the Allen family a couple of times! The two girls are back on date for baptism the 2nd of March!! It's going to be back-to-back baptisms for the next couple of weeks with Casey's on the 23rd! So much to do ahhhhhh! Honestly this is the best kind of stress in missionary work. The girls are so excited to be baptized and I really feel this will help the family become more active in the Church again. Heavenly Father really looks out for those families! 

Church was cancelled this week which was probably a good call considering our church is on a mountain and there's no way our car would have made it up. Instead of church, we chose to serve! We helped an older couple put away their Christmas decorations and shoveled their driveway. The sun was out and it actually ended up being a beautiful morning.  It's easy to admire the snow when you aren't driving in it. 

We had a unique finding experience last week. We were knocking this apartment complex just as the snow started to come down again. We knocked this one lady's door and felt impressed to ask how she was handling the snowstorm. She expressed to us her concern of having no food in the home because she's too afraid to drive out in the snow. They were a big family from L.A. and had never experienced this kind of snow before. She told us her family has been stuck in the house for 3 days now and her kids have nothing to eat. We offered to find them some food so we drove to a member's house. They generously gave us a macaroni casserole that she had just made as well as pasta, cereal, and granola bars. We drove through the crazy snowstorm back to the woman's apartment. She was so shocked that we came back...and with food! Her heart just melted and she asked us what church we were from. We proudly said "the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints" and gave her a Book of Mormon. She happily accepted the copy and said she would start reading it immediately. We are seeing her again tonight. Food and service is the way to every heart!

Sometimes I feel like I'm actually in another country here in Renton. We were knocking this one apartment complex we never saw before and it was crazy. Like no one spoke English! They were all from Russia, Romania, Africa, or some other country. We were about to give up but we felt prompted to visit this one potential in the area and guess what? She spoke English! We taught her about prayer and gave her the address to our church. Her name is Tiffany and she is super sweet!

Well that pretty much includes all of this week. Like I said before, the snow was a STRUGGLE so we didn't get a ton done. Many appointments were cancelled because they feared for our safety. We may have experienced a "few" car troubles, but luckily we were always kept safe. The Lord really does protect His missionaries. 

One more thing: transfers came and Sister Zhang is staying with me in Tiffany Park! This will be her last transfer so hopefully it's a good one!

Love you all and be safe in this weather! Pretty sure Heavenly Father is sending all this snow to "purify" the earth haha. Everything out there looks like one color: white. Have a good week! ❤

love,
sis. smith 

  

Thought this was pretty 😏

Sister Zhang made a baby snowman

The ZONE

District group shot

This was taken when we were in 2 hour traffic because of the snow 

Week 32 - SNOW!

What a crazy week it has been! And next Tuesday is transfer day so goodbye transfer #5! 

Yesterday we went to church and the weather was your typical Washington cloudy day. We came home and finished our studies, and right as we walk out of the apartment...SNOW! And its still snowing today! We don't get snow very often here so the whole city has kind of shut down. It's a perfect opportunity to find people because everyone will be home today...hopefully we can actually get our car out of the parking lot. 

Heavenly Father definitely has His hand in the work because it waited to snow AFTER church. If it had snowed before, our 5 amazing friends probably wouldn't have come to church! We were able to get the whole Allen family to church, Evan, Casey and his family, and a new person. His name is Maricio and both of his parents are less active members. Maricio is the most mature 12 year old I've ever met and he wants to be baptized! Our good friend Brother Lim brought him to church and is working with the parents to let us teach their kids. Super exciting stuff happening here! 

We had a lesson last week with a referral named Lily who is from China. Sister Zhang basically just taught the whole time and I just listened to them chatting away in Mandarin. I actually kind of understood what was being said and I've never even studied Mandarin before. The gift of tongues is so cool! Lily has work on Saturdays and Sundays, but she wants to quit her job anyway and she really wants to go to the Chinese branch in Mercer Island. Hopefully her desire and faithfulness will grant her that opportunity. 

We had a little miracle this week. We've been trying to get in contact with this young mom the missionaries used to teach. She is always super busy and hard to reach. We gave up on her for a couple of weeks, but one day during our planning session, I felt prompted to stop by her place again at a specific time. I didn't know why and I just prayed that she would finally be home. Well we dropped by and she wasn't there. I was pretty disappointed, but we decided to talk to their neighbors instead (they are members). We asked Brother Stephans if he knew when their neighbors would be home and then we see a car pull into the driveway. It was them! We quickly tell Brother Stephans goodbye and walk over. Greta (the mom) invited us in and we had a lesson with her family! I know the Lord places us where we need to be at the right time. Such a miracle! 

This past week we had zone conference. It's something I always look forward to every transfer because you receive so much revelation! We talked about the importance of the Book of Mormon in helping people convert to the gospel. We can't just help people change their behavior, but we need to help change their hearts. That can only be done as they accept the Atonement of Christ through the scriptures. Once they know who Christ is, they will want to change on their own in order to become more like Him. I have seen the Book of Mormon literally open doors for us this week. People who were closed off to us at first had their hearts change when they heard a verse or two from the Book of Mormon. Many asked us what book we were reading from and wanted to know more about it. The Book of Mormon is the sickle in helping reap the harvest.....I am sure of it. 

This week I was reading about Nephi being commanded to build a boat. He had absolutely no knowledge of how to build a boat, but he did have total confidence that the Lord would show him the way. Instead of worrying about everything that could go wrong, he simply asked the Lord where he should go to find ore to make the tools. His desire to act was a manifestation of his faith. A quote that has been running through my mind lately is "the Lord calls the weak and simple to do the impossible." Nephi was called to do the impossible and he accomplished it by faith. As a missionary, I feel I have been called to do the impossible sometimes. I certainly didn't feel an ounce prepared when I came out here, and yet the Lord has turned me into someone I never thought I could be. I went from this timid person to someone who loves talking to random people on the street. I have seen the Lord make me an instrument in His hands. The mission has been such a blessing...as hard as it may be. 

Well that's all for this week! Have another amazing week and pray for the people of Washington! They don't handle snow as well as Utah folks.😊

love,

sister smith

Another beautiful sunset

Sister Zhang passed out after service...this is basically us everyday

After church...before the snow storm

SNOW

This isn't even half of how much snow we got