Week 44 - Filipinos and Exchanges

Happy Monday! I have lots to tell and little time to do it so bear with me if my writing is all over the place!

Monday night: We had a lesson with our friend Delmer who came to church last Sunday for the first time ever! He's pretty cool and will eventually be referred to the YSA ward but for now we are teaching him. He's reading the Book of Mormon right now and we taught him how to pray (he has no religious background and praying was a new thing to him).

Tuesday: We had our last district/zone council which was kinda sad. They have become like family to me and I love them all! Many of us have been in the area for awhile which means we will probably leave after this transfer. It was a bittersweet moment. Tuesday afternoon we started our exchange with the Normandy Park sisters. They cover the area around the Seattle airport and also some of the coast. I was fortunate enough to go to Normandy Park with Sister Lilagan (she's from the Philippines and she's half my height!) Their area is BEAUTIFUL! We walked down to the beach and there happened to be a park nearby so we street contacted people that evening. I LOVED walking along the coast and talking with people from all over the world. We talked with this Native American man and he taught us about some of his practices. I'm amazed by how diverse Seattle is and the different religions found here. We had a dinner later that night with one of the people the sisters are teaching and the husband is from Hong Kong. He works as a flight attendant and likes to bring back food from each place he flies to. He gave us an assortment of pastries from China on top of dinner. I felt like I was going to explode after!

Wednesday: We had a lesson with our friend from the Philliphines. Her name is Teresa and she is the cutest lady! We weren't planning on visiting her that night, but we passed by her house twice in the same night. We took it as a sign to visit her and she happened  to be home! We taught her the Restoration and she fed us Filipino food! She's so funny; she kept saying "You ladies are so lucky you know me because you won't get amazing food like this anywhere else." She gave us pancit (rice noodles with veggies and chicken) and this purple yam stuff that's supposed to be a dessert. 

Thursday/Friday: Weekly planning and our last exchange! Sadly, it was raining so we couldn't weekly tan. Sister Campbell came to Tiffany Park and we had a blast! We finally introduced the Book of Mormon to the family we are teaching and invited them to baptism! It was such a good lesson and the father (Efren) had tears in his eyes at the end. We know they felt the spirit and hopefully we can get them to church again! 

Saturday: We were lucky enough to visit Carnation (kind of by Redmond which is north of Renton) for a baptism. Someone Sister Adair taught in her old area had her baptism that day and I got to see my companion from the MTC! After we had a lesson with our friend JP and he said he'll come to church eventually. He then proceeded to show us more articles on the success of members from the Church. 

Sunday: The sun was out and we had a beautiful blue sky! We spent our day teaching lessons and making a "tree of life" for our zone conference training this week. Oh and some members invited us over for cake because it was their son's birthday. The father is from Africa and the mother is from Cambodia and they have the craziest kids ever! 

Today the mission car coordinator took our whole zone bowling and our ward missionary made us lunch....so I'd say today has already been a success! 

Have an amazing week and enjoy the sun whenever you can! 

love, 
sister smith

District Council

Zone Council

Bowling with the Zone

Teresa the Filipina gave us some "house shoes" to wear

contacting at the beach on exchanges isn't a bad idea 😏

Sister Lilagan is like my child (she's so tiny!)

went to a baptism for Sister Adair's friend

exchanges with Normandy Park sisters

Week 42 & 43- God's Power is Raining Down on Us

The beauty of the world never ceases to amaze me, especially here in Washington! Even with all the rain we've received this week, flowers are popping up everywhere and the mist in the mountains is breathtaking. I'm so lucky to be living here at this time of year. Ok now for some miracles:

God has just been too good to us and we can't even keep up with everything! We've met so many amazing people in these last two weeks so hopefully something good will come from it all! We met this man named JP who is from India and he likes to send us articles on why "mormons are so successful" from the Times magazines. Of course we can't read any of them on the mission, but it's still really funny.  JP is super cool and maybe one day he will come to church, but first he needs to go the new Avengers movie (his words, not mine.) 

We had three exchanges since I last wrote and they have all been super great! Exchanges definitely keep you busy in the mission. I've never had a transfer fly by this fast before! For the second exchange, I got to go to Maple Valley with Sister Bowles. My trainer (Sister Morris) trained Sister Bowles before she finished her mission and so it was fun to be her companion for a day! We stopped by to visit this lady who was a potential friend and she shared her Easter candy with us. To thank her, we shared a video talking about the need for a Savior. Her heart was touched and she told us she wanted to have a better relationship with God. We told her reading the Book of Mormon and praying daily could do exactly that. She committed herself to pray and start reading and then invited us to come back next week! Too bad it's not my actual area or else I totally would go back! She was such a sweet lady!

Easter Sunday brought miracle church attendance! We finally got the new family we are teaching (Kathya and Efren and kids) to come to church! They loved it! We had a member who had introduced herself the day before to us save them seats in sacrament meeting. The family stayed for the full two hours and the member was amazing! She had Kathya talking to everyone and even gave her a tour of the building after the meetings ended. We also had a new person show up to church named Delmer. Delmer was someone I met on exchanges with Sister Painter and we invited him to come to church. We honestly didn't know much about him other than he is mid-twenties and he lives in a nice house by himself. We did however give him our phone number, so guess what happened?? I was sitting in sacrament meeting on Sunday and I had put my phone on silent. Well, I had this thought come into my head that I needed to check my phone so I did. I saw that Delmer had texted us saying he had arrived at the church, but left because it looked too full. We quickly replied that he could still come and we would make room for him. Delmer came back and was wandering around the building until we flagged him down after sacrament meeting. He stayed for Sunday school and wants to come to church again! We are going to eventually send him off to the YSA ward in Kent, but it was such a cool miracle! Delmer will be baptized one day!

Ok that's literally all I can think of right now, but I'm sure there was more! Hope you all had an amazing holiday and enjoy the sun when it does decide to come out! 

love,

sister smith

Week 41 - Springing Into the Work🌸

April is here and the weather is improving in the glorious Seattle area. Sister Adair and I went weekly tanning this week lol. It's actually kind of an inside joke in our zone. Each Thursday we have to set 3 hours aside to plan for all of our friends and whatever else the area needs. We call it weekly planning. Since the sun happened to be out this last Thursday and we did not want to be stuck inside all day, we did our planning outside. We just slathered ourselves in coconut oil and let the sun do its thing. You get so pale living in Washington because the sun is never out...hopefully our weekly tanning sessions will bring back some color. 😊🙏

This week was crazy busy. We had our first exchange of the transfer and it went well! Sister Kwak came to Tiffany Park with me. She is originally from Korea, but lived in Ghana her whole life. She speaks 4 different languages and is the sweetest human being ever. We saw so many miracles! We visited this one lady named Sandra who we were supposed to do service for and when we arrived, she had everything set up for a lesson. She said she wanted to hear us read from our "bible" aka the Book of Mormon. We ended up teaching her the whole Restoration and now she wants to come to church! Huge blessings! 

The rest of the week was great! Lots of meetings and my favorite: GENERAL CONFERENCE!! Isn't President Nelson just the cutest prophet ever? I loved how each talk focused on the simplicity of the gospel. With all the changes happening in the Church right now, it can be so easy to get caught up in the excitement and forget the real reason behind these changes. The gospel never changes and will always be focused on faith in Christ. This is truly the Lord's work and He is hastening it at a rapid pace. As we draw closer to our Savior, we will have an increased desire to share the gospel. I love what Sister Becky Craven said about the members of the Church. "As a covenant people, we are not meant to blend in." We need to stand out because we represent the Savior. 

Ok sorry it's not much, but just know that the work is going well and miracles are on the way! Tiffany Park is blessed! Love you all and go watch General Conference if you have not done so! 

love, 

sis. smith

Sister Kwak!

Our sushi date on exchanges 

Sister Cowley, my soul sista

 My companion sister Adair

STL squad at mission leadership council

Weekly tanning/planning

 We tried dried fish at an Asian mall today and it wasn't half bad 

Week 40 - Moving Forward

What a week!

Honestly, we have been so busy so I'll try to remember everything that happened this week, but I'm definitely going to forget some things. 

First of all, being a sister training leader is a lot of work. We are over six companionships in our mission which also means we have the most. We are required to go on an exchange with each companionship during the transfer and report back to our mission president how each sister is doing. Each exchange includes all the phases of missionary work like finding people, studying, and working with the members. We will have our first exchange this coming week so I'm super excited! We also call a companionship each night to see how they are doing and we have to keep in contact with all their district leaders to see what they think. Basically, it's a lot of phone calls every night! I enjoy it though and I'm excited to serve my fellow sisters in the mission. Just know that this is going to be the craziest transfer yet!

We had a lesson with Evan this week and it went well! He's still struggling with some things, but he's on the right path and hopefully we can figure out how to help him more. We also had a lesson with our little friend Mauricio! Also, Mauricio came to church this Sunday! We went over the day before to make sure he set his alarm and then called him Sunday morning to make sure he was up. We taught Mauricio about the Restoration and he said the most precious little prayer after the lesson. I just love teaching kids because their hearts are so pure! 

Yesterday we had a little miracle. We met this person named Denzel a couple of days ago on the street. We just walked up to him and said "Hey, we felt like we needed to tell you that Christ has restored his Church back on the earth and you need to be apart of it." He was like "woah, yeah, I totally feel that too. I've been meaning to get back to church." Long story short, we gave Denzel the Book of Mormon and invited him to church. The next day we found fellowship for him and they were able to come with us to introduce themselves to Denzel. Yesterday, his fellowship picked him up for church and he loved it! It was funny because Denzel is a talker and he kept saying "amen" to everything lol. I have a feeling he's going to enjoy watching General Conference this weekend. :) 

We had stake conference this weekend and it was incredible. President and Sister Rasmussen came to speak about missionary work specifically in the Pacific Northwest. They told us how the First Presidency of the Church is focusing much of their time on this part of the world in helping the Church grow here. Sister Rasmussen basically said "we are preventing the Savior from coming because we have not gathered the four corners of the world yet." The world is wicked enough, but the gospel has yet to be preached all over. It's up to us to help our friends know what source (Jesus Christ obviously) they should look to for spiritual strength in a world so focused on temporal pleasures. Let us put off those worldly appetites and seek for a greater, eternal cause. 

Just one little thought to leave with you for this week by one of my favorite apostles aka Elder Dieter F. Uchtdorf: "Often the deep valleys of our present will be understood only be looking back on them from the mountains of our future experience." 

This life is NOT easy and we may not understand why a loving Heavenly Father would put us through such unfortunate situations, but I know that these experiences are for our own good. They build our character and make us stronger. And trust me, we need a strong generation if we are to endure the times ahead of us. We are in a spiritual battle and we need to decide who's side we are on. 

Love you all and have an amazing week! Go watch some General Conference this weekend :)

love, 

sister smith