Week 47 - The Weight of the Calling

Ok, not gonna lie...this was a hard week for me. Mission life can just become so stressful and you don't realize how much you take on until people tell you to slow down. Then it just hits you all at once and you are reminded of the many problems you face in the field. As missionaries, we literally just absorb the hardships of others and it can be quite a burden. Not only that, but Satan is the WORST out in the mission field. He wants you to feel like you aren't doing enough and the work is hopeless. I think my mind became accustomed to feeling that weight so I was totally numb to all the stress my body was going through. Well, then it started to affect me physically and that's where I drew the line. After receiving a priesthood blessing and some additional help, I'm headed in an upward direction again. I'm telling you this because MISSIONS ARE HARD. We talk to people everyday that come from all over the world. People who have terrible family conditions or are working 5 different jobs just to provide food for their kids. As representatives of Christ, people tend to open up to us and they just want someone to understand. With our calling, we have the ability to heal those wounds and to give these people hope. And that's what made these past 10 months worth it. Even with all of the stress we take on, the ability to bring peace to a broken family mends this fragile heart of mine every. single. time. 

Currently in Cougar Mountain, we are still working with our friend Mona. She is a superstar, oh my goodness! She is one of those special people you dream about as a missionary. The kind that just absorbs everything you teach her. Mona has suffered a lot and just wants a clean start. We taught her the Plan of Salvation this week and she just kept commenting how "beautiful" it was to know this. She told us how she wished more people knew this plan, that they could receive that peace of knowing there's more to this life. It was a humbling experience to me because I had grown up having that knowledge my whole life, and yet, there were still so many who feared life after death. There are still so many who worry about loved ones who have passed on. How lucky are we to know God gave us a way back to Him!

Mona has been having a hard time reading the Book of Mormon and we finally found out why: her vision makes it hard to see the words! We had her download the Book of Mormon app on her phone and made the font 3x bigger. Yesterday we invited Mona over for dinner and a lesson at a member's home. Mona told us she read the introduction...and the first four chapters of Nephi! And...she understood it all! She has just a desire to learn and come closer to Heavenly Father. I can't wait for the day when she enters that baptismal font and feels the cleansing power of Christ's Atonement wash away her past. She is an amazing soul. 

Cool little miracle for the week: We have been trying to get in contact with this amazing referral all week. They moved here from Hawaii and the father was about to be baptized there, but then life got super crazy. Well, we had their phone numbers but both phones were disconnected so we couldn't call them. We tried multiple times to see them at their apartment, but they were never home. I had kind of given up hope on them until last night. We were stopping by to see our one friend Kevin and there was no parking in the complex. We ended up hazard parking on the side just long enough to swing by Kevin's. When we came back, we saw a Polynesian woman walking across and Sister Cowley called out to her. She turned out to be Irena (the wife of this referral)! She told us her phone will be set up this week and she's been missing church since she came here. We invited her to our church and she said she'll plan on attending! We also friended her on Facebook so we have another way to reach out to her if her phone doesn't work. It was such a miracle that we just happened to be there at the right time!

Have another great week and hopefully enjoy some sunshine over there! Washington is supposed to get into the 80s this week so we are prepping for another dry summer! 

Love, 
Sister Smith 

Pics:

Exploring this cute town

Bubble tea and exchanges

Face masks

Hiking and views

Heart attacking our sweet members

Painting on pdays :) 

Week 45 & 46 - From the Ghettos to the Mansions

Helllllloooooo!

So lots of things happened these past two weeks! My last week in Tiffany Park was spent going to meetings and trying to visit all of our friends. We had zone conference on Tuesday that week and I had to say goodbye to my dear friend Sister Tibbits. Look out for her at Utah State! 

Wednesday we had to drive up north to Issaquah because guess who got a speeding ticket? This girl! We had to go to court and luckily the judge was super kind. He just gave me community service to pay off the ticket! Heavenly Father blesses his missionaries. :) Friday we had missionary leadership council which is an all day event. Basically, President and Sister Rasmussen report to us what the area presidency tells them. Now the area presidency wants us to use family history more so that should be interesting. I've always been terrible at family history so I guess this is Heavenly Father's way of helping me to become more involved in it. 

Our friends in Tiffany Park are progressing! We finally got in contact with Kathya and we're planning a family home evening with them. Also our Indian friend JP came to church and loved it! At least....we think he loved it. When we asked him what he thought, he said "It is good." He's a man of many words. He is planning to attend again so all is well. 

And then came transfers....I've been kicked out of Renton and am in the north half of the mission. I'm currently living in the Cougar Mountain ward in Bellevue...also the richest area I have ever laid eyes on. There's seriously mansions on every street and they just tower over you. There are also lots of Asians here and they are super friendly, even if you can't understand a word they are saying. OH and guess who my companion is?? Drum roll please! It's Sister Cowley! We were in the MTC together and have been best friends in the mission ever since! This transfer is going to fly because we have so much going on! 

We are both still sister training leaders so get ready for all the exchanges! When I entered the area last week, they already had someone preparing for baptism. Her name is Mona and apparently she is a MIRACLE. They found her right before the transfer ended and she just moved here from Colorado. She was looking for a church and came the first Sunday they invited her! She has two kids and wants to be baptized in a good Christian church. Lucky for her, she found the best church for that! We are also teaching a couple of people from China. One of them is named Lei and he's been in the military for years. He sees how families become stronger when they focus on God and he wants that for his own family. We taught him the Restoration this week and he is preparing for baptism as well! Our other friend (Kevin) from the great country of China is here by himself at the moment. His family is waiting to receive their visas so they can live here in America. Kevin is so cute and just loves everything we teach him! He has so many questions and will hopefully come to church this week. 

Sister Rasmussen came out tracting with us this week and that was an adventure. She just called one morning and said "Sisters, I'm going to spend my time with you during your 5-7 finding period today." Sister Cowley and I just looked at each other with panic because this is the mission president's wife! She offered to drive us to the location of our choice and we just street contacted/ knocked on apartment doors. It was actually a lot of fun and every person we talked with was so nice! We found a man from India named Neeraj who happily accepted a copy of the Book of Mormon. We shall see where it goes....

Ok that's all I have time for! Wish me luck in this place! Also we have the temple in our area so we are definitely planning our study sessions on the temple grounds this week! 

Greatest compliment we received this week:
"Y'all got some dope energies" -Ty (the brother of a Seahawks football player whom we also met)

love, 
sister smith

 Sister Tibbits RIP

Sister Adair 

Us planning for our friends that don't want to progress

 Sister Cowley (before we knew we'd be companions)

 STL squad 

 Crashed a ward cinco de mayo party

She makes me food to show her love

 This is someone's backyard view in cougar mountain area

Helping at the "paint and sip" relief society activity 

 Tracting with Sister Rasmussen

Finding friends [and flowers]

 Reunited with my baby

Heart attacked a recent convert and she came 

out right when we were leaving (close call yikes) 

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

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 😁