Week 39 - Change

Hello friends! 

I was trying to think of a title for this email and all I could come up with is "change" because it's the most accurate word to describe this week. Changes with this new transfer, changes in the people we are teaching, and changes in my view of life. 

With today being transfer day, I don't have much time to go into all the details, but this week was a hard one. Sister Zhang left me on Sunday night and that was really hard. Hermana Buckwalter and I drove our companions to the mission home to send them off and I became Hermana Buckwalter's companion just for a couple of days. We had to say goodbye and I will miss Sister Zhang so much. She was such a weirdo and I loved all her little quirks. She will do amazing things in China and hopefully will go to school here in the states. Then I can see her! 

Our friend Mona has been having a really hard time and her fellowship, Sister Thompson, asked us to stop by her house last Sunday. We said a prayer with Mona and taught her what the priesthood is and suggested she get a priesthood blessing. I was doubtful that she would actually ask for one, but we got a text from Sister Thompson a couple of days later. She said Mona felt so much better since our prayer with her and that she wanted to receive a blessing! It was a miracle! 

We had a pretty rough lesson with Evan which brought me to a new low. He opened up to us how he feels that he is just going through the motions and none of this is actually making him happy. He doesn't have a desire to quit all of his addictions because he feels it will change his nature. I understand that he is scared to take this next step. I just wish he could see how much the gospel would bless his life if he just submitted fully. Of course that is easier said than done. Evan has been dealing with a lot lately and I know he has felt the Spirit. It can just be easy to forget that feeling when everything else in life is not what we want it to be. We just keep praying for him that one day he will see the light. 

As a result of hitting my halfway mark, I have been reflecting on what kind of person I want to be by the end of this short period of time. Something that has been on my mind recently is how we choose to measure success. Some people measure success only by what they can see. For example, if an area is having a lot of baptisms and finding new people to teach. This is great and I do love having a large teaching pool, but it's not always a good way to reflect a missionary's success. I mean, it's no wonder we as missionaries get so easily discouraged when the numbers turn out to be lower than we had hoped for and we feel like failures. 

Success isn't a matter of just the things we observe; it includes all the moments that happen behind the scenes. Those little moments where we touch a person's life and may never know the impact we had on them. Some missions have been blessed with hundreds of prepared people. They are helping people be baptized almost every week and that's incredible. Sometimes I wonder why I was sent to an area of the world that's harder to find prepared people. Many nights I have just cried to the Lord asking why these people are so set in their ways that they cannot see a greater purpose to their lives. As I've pondered some more this week about this question, I came to the conclusion that Heavenly Father knew I was the type to try and measure my success based only on the things I could see. He knew that if had a baptism every week, I would get prideful about my successes and wouldn't take time to appreciate the small miracles that happen in between. Heavenly Father needed me to work for those prepared people and to struggle alongside them. He wanted to teach me how to build people up when they fall, just as I have learned to do for myself. He wanted me to experience Christ's Atonement firsthand and I'm grateful Heavenly Father didn't make the first half of my mission easy.

Now I know what true success is and that comes from helping a child of God feel the Spirit in his or her life again. By reminding them of their purpose in this life, we invoke a change in their hearts that may take years to be acted upon, but the change of heart is there. We are making a difference whether we see it or not. And that is what my mission has taught me so far. 

Also, I'm going to be a sister training leader so PRAY FOR ME that I don't mess this up! Love you all and hope all is well! 

love,

sis. smith 

I love Hermana Acevedo (she went home the same time Sister Zhang left) I miss her so much!

Look at the cherry blossoms! Spring is here! 

Final pic of the best zone ever

These are my people

Oh yeah..I wore a snake at a member's house. Just for fun

Sister Zhang!! 

Eating pho and drinking bubble tea with Hermana Buckwalter 😁

Week 38 - Here Comes the Sun!

Hello friends! The sun is finally out and so are we! Lots of things happened this week so I'll try to be brief! Also, I guess I hit my hump day on Friday so now I'm officially half way done with the mission. That's pretty weird because I still feel like I'm in training. Everyday when someone asks me what's going on, I just say "I don't know. I'm just enjoying being new." Definitely stole that line from Sister Vanderwerken aka my unofficial godmother.

Exchanges:
On Tuesday we had exchanges and I had the pleasure of being companions with Sister Vanderwerken for a day. She came to help me out in Tiffany Park and we saw MIRACLES of course. Sister Vanderwerken is the most positive person you will ever meet. She is just a little burst of sunshine which is exactly what I needed because we were having a rough time. We had so many lessons planned for exchanges and of course they all fell through the day before. So I had absolutely no idea how we were going to fill up our day, but somehow Heavenly Father made it happen. I felt prompted to visit our friend Tommy who we haven't seen in awhile and even though he wasn't home, his girlfriend (Nisha) was just leaving his apartment. We handed her a Book of Mormon and she told us she was looking for direction in her life. She lives in Bellevue so we won't be able to teach her here, but we referred her to the elders in Bellevue and encouraged her to get Tommy to read the Book of Mormon with her. It was not a coincidence that I felt we needed to be there at that time because we found Nisha!

Long-lost Member:

So we have been teaching this woman named Olivia. We were talking about baptism and she quotes something from the Book of Mormon. We say "oh you have read the Book of Mormon before?" And she says "yeah of course! I was baptized in that church when I was 8 years old." I guess her mom and her are members and went inactive after they moved. Her member record was just floating around and no one knew that she was a member. So now her records are moved into our ward and she's coming to the Relief Society activity this Tuesday! 

Crepes and Sour Cream:

A member found out Sister Zhang is leaving soon and wanted to treat us to lunch. She's from Russia and her husband served his mission in Russia. Basically the whole family speaks Russian, even the kids. She made us crepes and apparently Russians love sour cream with jam on their crepes. I thought it would be weird but it was actually so good! 

Kevin:

So we met this man named Kevin who just moved here with his wife. When we knocked on his door, he got super excited and asked us to come back at a better time. We went back on Friday and brought some members with us. He had already read the Book of Mormon cover to cover. He had SO many questions and it was getting pretty overwhelming. Instead of trying to answer every single question he had, I bore a simple testimony of Jesus Christ and the Book of Mormon. Kevin went quiet and said he would try to read it again. He has so much potential and he's willing to come to church! 

New Friend at Church:

So we met Kenny like 5 weeks ago and invited him to church. He's been out of town for awhile, but yesterday he came to church! I honestly did not expect him to show up but there he was! I think he enjoyed it and will be attending again soon. 😊

Well that's all! Have a good week! 

Love,

Sister Smith

Exchanges!

Eat fresh

My favorite 3 year old named Blessing Allen

Saw my baby at zone conference

Taking joy in the simple things

  Molly Moon's ice cream in Seattle 

Week 37 - Sweet is the Work

Sweet is the work....especially when practically every member in the ward feeds you lemon bars, brownies, and peanut butter cookies throughout the whole week. Good thing the weather is improving so we can walk off our sugar high. 

On Tuesday this week, we had district meeting and three missionary birthdays so of course every companionship just happened to bring treats. That was the beginning of the sugar rush. As a zone, we decided we needed to focus on working with part-member families and less actives, so that is what we did this week. We asked for a list of all the part-member families in the ward and even asked the Bishop if he had any additional insight on who we should visit. We try to just drop by a couple of them each day, but not much success so far. 

On Wednesday, we helped our young women's president set up for her activity that night (New Beginnings). We created an escape room and all the clues had to deal with the young women values. It looked amazing after it was all finished and we were able to get our recent converts, Stella and Khayolane, to the activity. They had a lot of fun and are finally starting to feel like part of the ward! It makes me smile when I see the other young women reaching out to the girls. Yes, the basics of the gospel should always keep our testimonies firm, but a friend or two in the church doesn't hurt either. I am a full believer in fellowship!

Thursday was kind of a crazy day. I finally got a doctor's appointment for my poor toes and of course it was out of our area. We ended up spending half the day there, so not much else happened. The good news is I don't have frostbite. The bad news is I have a disease called Raynaud's disease which means my hands and feet don't circulate blood very well. Basically no matter how many layers I put on, my toes and fingers will always be freezing. Good thing Washington is finally letting the sun come out!

Currently we are working with this part-member family named the Saldanas. The parents are members and the kids are not. They want to be baptized though and there just happened to be a baptism on Saturday for a few kids in our ward. We were able to find the kids (Mauricio and Maya) a ride and they got to watch the baptism. After, we had a lesson on why Jesus Christ was baptized and how baptism can make us clean again. Mauricio said the closing prayer and it was so sweet. Sister Baker (the member who took them) was in tears after. These kids are special and hopefully we will be able to get the parents involved more. We set a date for their baptism on March 30th, but they haven't been coming to church so the date will probably be moved. Keep them in your prayers though because they have so much potential!

Evan continues to progress although we always catch him falling asleep at church haha. He works late every night and our ward meets at 9 so I can't blame him for being tired. He always brings his notebook and Book of Mormon to every lesson and he has started taking notes. He also is continuing to read and prepare for his baptism. I think he still gets scared about it, but at least he's asking more questions so we know how to help him. 

Casey on the other hand is another story. Due to some things that happened, we have decided to not teach him anymore...at least for now. He doesn't have a desire to change his bad habits and we can't force someone to repent if they don't see the importance of it. I continue to pray for their family each day and we do visit Chris once in awhile. She's great and I wish we knew how to help her. We just continue to minister to her and let the ward reach out as well. 

A couple days ago we met a woman from the Philippines named Nora. She is the cutest and when we handed her a copy of the Book of Mormon, she says "wow I get to keep this?" Then she hugged it and promised to start reading. She has family members that joined the Church in the Philippines and she's always had an interest. Let's just say we  are pretty excited about Nora! 

Quick funny story: so yesterday was daylight savings right? So we were at church and we didn't see Khayolane and Stella with their family. So of course I was pretty bummed that they didn't show up and was regretting telling our ward mission leader to not pick them up. I just wanted to see if they would actually come to church on their own. After church, we stopped by their apartment and the kids were all dressed up. They said "Why weren't you at church today?!" We told them we were and they said they didn't see us. We were so confused....but then I figured it out. They didn't set their clocks ahead one hour so they ended up going to the ward that meets after ours. We laughed about that for awhile and I was so proud of them for going to church...even if it was the wrong ward haha!

Ok I think that's all for this week! Hope the sun shines wherever you may be! 

love,

sister smith

Tracting the usual apartments 

 Sorry it's another sky picture 

 Only in pants could I ever do this #tendermercies

Woke up Thursday morning to this and died a little inside

  Had to make a pit stop at Cafe Rio on the way home from the doctors office 

Week 35 & 36- The Healing Power of Christ's Atonement

Hello friends! These last two weeks have been one big emotional roller coaster. I feel like the mission is making me bipolar. 

Good news first: Khayolane and Stella got baptized and confirmed this weekend! They are now official members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. Their dad said the opening prayer and their grandma gave the talk on baptism. So many people came including our friend Evan! 

Speaking of Evan...I experienced a personal little miracle last week that had to do with helping Evan accept a baptismal date: 

As a mission, we have been studying the Atonement of Jesus Christ and I have been able to apply His healing power in my life. While paying the price for the sins of the world, Christ was truly alone in His suffering and I know He understands us completely. He also understands that we have weaknesses, but through him can our weaknesses become strengths. I saw this for myself and I know it is true. We have been trying to get Evan to accept a baptismal date for weeks now, but something was holding him back. We were determined to figure out how to help him. After much calling around, we finally found a member's home to hold the lesson in. Right before the lesson, I had a huge migraine hit me and I felt sick to my stomach. I was upset because I really wanted this lesson to happen, but I didn't know if I would be able to teach. I said a small prayer and we went to the lesson anyway. I hoped that Heavenly Father would see my faith and make it bearable enough for me to teach. As soon as we entered the member's home, my migraine instantly left. I was fully alert in the lesson as we taught Evan about repentance and faith in Jesus Christ. Having that fresh faith-building experience in my mind, I testified of God's love and how He can help us overcome hard things. In the end, Evan finally accepted a baptismal date for April 6th! I know Heavenly Father gives us trials not only to benefit us, but to give us a way of connecting with others. My migraine did return after the lesson, but I was grateful that I was able to remain free of that weakness for long enough. Christ knows us personally and He will do anything to help us. The Lord's work is not something to be put on-hold; it will always find a way to move forward. 

So yeah, now Evan is on date and he is continuing to progress! He is enjoying church and his attitude is changing. I have seen him start to let Christ in and he is much happier than when we first met him. And the best part is that he is starting to recognize it too! 

Casey on the other hand has fallen down a dark hole. As a result of trying to quit smoking on his own, he has abandoned his family and they don't know where he is right now. We fasted for him yesterday and hopefully Casey will reach out to us again soon. Please keep him in your prayers; I still have faith that he can overcome this! 

The same day we found out about Casey, I received a call from my trainer telling me that a man we both loved dearly in Enumclaw passed away. I couldn't do it anymore; I just crumpled up into a little ball and cried. This man (Brother Jack Simmons) was the best member missionary I had ever met and he was diagnosed with cancer my 2nd transfer. I watched his health continue to decline, but he always had so much hope. I figured that one day he would return to his Heavenly Father, but I wasn't expecting it to be this soon. It broke my heart to think about his sweet wife who would be returning to an empty house. But then, once again, Christ's Atonement picked up every broken piece and I was able to see the blessings. A couple of friends we have been teaching also lost people this week and I was now able to relate to them in a way I couldn't before. I bore testimony of the Plan of Salvation to them and it meant something more to me. Even in our darkest times, Heavenly Father gives us a way to help someone else. 

My trainer picked me up and took me to the funeral today. It was a beautiful service and I got to see my old ward again! Sister Morris and I sang "Somewhere Over the Rainbow" during the service and we barely made it through. It was the same song we sang to Jack when he found out he had cancer. There wasn't a dry eye in the room. I know everyone loved Jack Simmons and he will always be remembered. His testimony of the restored gospel was by far the strongest I've ever seen/heard. I'm so thankful I had the chance to know him. 

I'm thankful to be a missionary. I'm thankful for the good and the bad. I'm thankful for Christ's Atonement and God's incredible plan for His children. I hope you all have an amazing week and remember to tell those you love how much they mean to you. Life is too short to hold grudges so just love everyone!!

love, 
sis. smith 

Khayolane and Stella after being baptized

 A member who just returned home from her mission this week wanted to come out with us.  

She said she already missed the work and wanted to keep it going!

Sister Simmons aka the most Christlike person I know

 I got to see my trainer again!!