New Mission President

Stephen Watkins Forbes, 58, and Mary Faith Wenzel Forbes, four children, Perry Park Ward, Castle Rock Colorado Stake: Minnesota Minneapolis Mission, succeeding President Jordan W. Clements and Sister Julie A. Clements. Brother Forbes is a former counselor in a stake presidency, bishop, high councilor, ward clerk, Scoutmaster and missionary in the Brazil São Paulo South Mission. Vice president/attorney, SunGard. Born in Richland, Washington, to Homer Robins Forbes and Alene Janette Forbes.

Sister Forbes is a former counselor in a ward Relief Society, Young Women, and Primary presidencies, Cub Scout leader and seminary teacher.

Friday, June 27 we get a new mission president. President and Sister Forbes. I am so sad and excited a the same time. I am excited to get to know the Forbes. But I'm going to miss the Cements a lot! I always told myself that the Clements would be out until I had been out for a year, so that was never going to happen. Well here it is.
I want to share an experience from this week, but I am prefacing it by telling mom to stay calm, DO NOT CALL THE MISSION PRESIDENT! I am 100% better now. Since I got to Maple grove it ha been very challenging. we tract ALL the time and tracting is not the most uplifting experience usually. And this is a more challenging companionship than I have had on my mission so far. So there is a lot of stress, plus President Clements is pushing us for his grand finale and trying to leave the mission rolling for President Forbes. It has been nuts and I have not been very happy. I have cried a lot, but this week it was so bad I just broke down in the car and cried for a good hour telling Sister Shumway everything I felt. Then we went to an appointment with a recent convert. Our joint teachers were an older couple in the ward. I really was not full of the Spirit, and wanting to teach anyone. As we began to teach and the joint teachers totally took control of the lesson and testified and shared experiences about faith and the Atonement in their lives and how we all need to repent. I am confident that the lesson was not for the convert, it was for me. I learned so much and the spirit was so strong. I was reminded of the strength we can all receive from the atonement and that lesson changed me. I have been happy ever since. I am much happier now than I have been for a while. Because of the Atonement of Jesus Christ, and the enabling power it has. With love, Sister Smith

conversation about forgiveness 6-30-14

You asked how do we know when we have been forgiven. Something I heard from I think President Clements, was that when we feel the Holy Ghost in us again we know that we have been forgiven of our sins, because the Spirit can not dwell in unholy temples. The Spirit can not be in you if you are still not forgiven of your sins. But if you ask the Lord if you have been forgiven, he will let you know! kind of like it says in the Restoration video: "if we ask in faith God will show us"

I do often feel Satan trying to get me down. He seems to be trying to push me down every day, but sometimes it affects me more than other times. I know you said that you were going to study the atonement so I was going to give you some of my favorite things I have read about the atonement on my mission:)
one is called "The Atonement: Our Greatest Hope" by Elder James E. Faust
another was "His Grace is Sufficient" by Brad Wilcox I could send you a better list next week:)

Letter (novel) to Lindsey

Okay, sorry I did not get to respond last week when you e-mailed, it was a rushed week and it was a long e-mail, that I LOVED! Here it goes:

Mom, sent me a video of you on the trampoline showing off your belly, it is cute! Is it hard to have a vbac? Did you not have a good experience last time you gave birth? I bet it would be hard going from Logan to Duchesne, as far as doctors go, there is not a lot of choice in Duchesne. 

Any news on your house yet? How long do the people before you have to sell their house before you get it? Nevermind, you answered later on in the letter:) Patience is one of the hardest lessons ever. to keep your faith bright and fired up for such a long period of time that the Lord wants you to wait before he makes it known to you what you need to do.

I do pray for specific things I want. We do pray for baptisms often. We pray that we will be able to teach Restoration lessons to people, but after we ask for specific things we want we almost always follow up with "if it is thy will." My favorite model of prayer in the scriptures is Enos. He is so faithful, and has such a change of heart. Also Alma 36:12-25 it does not specifically say that Alma prayed but it says he cried to the Lord, and asked forgiveness, that sounds like prayer to me! Forgiveness and Repentance is kind of a theme for my favorite prayer scriptures! 

Teaching primary was my favorite calling ever! Besides being a missionary of course! haha! It is a challenge but I loved teaching them, I remember Cameron Brady being a stinker in Sharing time though. . . good luck!

My companion and I do not plan weekly meals, usually we have a lot of member meals throughout the week, so we do not have a lot of meals, besides breakfast at home. We are companions, we do everything together;) jk, It depends on the companion if we shop together or not. Sister Beeson and I did plan meals and split up who was going to buy what. Some people like to have their own food and others like to buy things we both like and share. that is what I prefer, that is also what Sister Shumway and I do. we do not plan meals but we share the food that we do buy.  I have not had any companions that like to cook, so we do not usually cook together. Usually they just eat the food I make anyway. Sister Shumway is really good at helping out in the kitchen though, she will usually wash the dishes as I am cooking, or do something else that I have been planning on doing but am not able to do because I am cooking:) we get $152 a month to spend on food, postage, laundry, and all necessary things to live. Now that we live in a member home and do not have to pay for laundry we will get more money to spend! I usually spend around $25 a week for food. but it varies by week.

I love personal study, it is usually the best hour of the day! it is expecially my favorite to study the Atonement. A while ago our mission studied a packet that President Clements put together all on the Atonement and I grew so much while reading it. It was so great! Mostly companion study is sing a song, pray, quote Our Purpose, and Doctrine and Covenants 4 (or the 1st vision, or the How to begin teaching points, or anything we are working on memorizing), sharing what we learn in personal study, then planning the lessons we are going to teach that day. I like companion study most of the time. Sometimes my pride makes me annoyed when we do not get to plan what I want to do for a specific investigator. 

The members in this area take the best care of me out of any ward that I have been in so far. They LOVE the sister missionaries, they have not had Sisters for 3 years, so they do a good job of letting us know we are loved. I would say an average of 3 or 4 meals per week. they always go teaching with us, and the Parkinson's are letting us live in their home:) So that is great! They do not help us find many investigators but that is about to change! Bishop Miller is a very inspired man, and he gave us great directionon how we can get more referrals from the members. Becasue a lot of them really really want to share the gospel they just do not know how. so we will be their teachers in the MMTC (member missionary training center).

The weirdest thing I have eaten on my mission so far was a chicken foot, that I had to eat right off the bone. yuck, Karen food was super weird. I DO NOT like Rice noodles at all, the texture and taste is gross. The nastiest thing I have eaten on my mission so far though was Pho (said Fuh) it is Hmong food and it is not yummy. it has tripe in it. . 

I had one scary experince, one day we were going to meet a member and the people directed us to the back of the house, adn so we went there and an old man who was very very much on drugs came out and wanted us (Sister Beeson and I) to come in. He kept asking us if we were college girls, and if we had ever made-out with anyone, and he got kind of mad at us that we would not come in. Then he came out of his door. then we just ran down his stairs and drove away as fast as we could. That was the scariest moment of my mission.

I do have a car, we get to go 1000 miles a month. that is about 35ish miles a day. The weather is Minnesota, so it is super hot and humid, one day then the Rain is the craziest thing ever. The storms are nothing like the ones in Utah, much more intense. THe Bugs are OUT OF CONTROL but I think I am getting really good at ignoring the constant desire to itch my skin.

any fun findings in the FHC? She did not tell me about the Holder family. Cooper is getting so big, I am so excited to see him again! I love you so much!

With Love, 
      Sister Smith

Letter to dad dated June 23, 2014 full of questions

Dad!
We sure are doing our best to be busy. We do a TON of tracting here and it is not very effective. We have been here for 8 weeks and we still only have the 1 investigator that we started with. We teach a ton of people during the week, but no one holds their return appointments. So we just keep tracting. It is kind of discouraging some days but we are doing well to keep going.

Did all the vehicles break down at once? I am so glad you are able to fix cars. That is so handy. It is so annoying to have to take our car to the shop whenever it breaks.

How are the Elders in Duchesne? Do they still live with the Hoopes? Do they have many investigators?

Did you say they got a headstone for your dad? Where would they put it? Do people who are cremated normally get a headstone?

Here is a quote from Preach My Gospel: "The Spirit is the most important single element in this work. With the Spirit magnifying your call, you can do miracles for the Lord in the mission field. Without the Spirit, you will never succeed regardless of your talent and ability." Page 176 I love that! With the Spirit we see miracles. I know it says mission filed, but it applies to all of us!

With love, Sister Smith

Our new home

 The kitchen in our new home

 Living area

Bedroom. Don't judge it's laundry day!

my day is going great! We just cleaned our home, i cleaned the bathroom while Sister Shumway cleaned the Kitchen. Then I vacuumed. Then we did laundry while we studied, I read Jacob 5 today, and received some cool insight about how it can apply to me! then we came right straight to the library to e-mail! Today I killed 3 spiders in the first 30 minutes of me waking up. it was terrible, but it had to be done. there are not usually so many spiders in our basement but I guess today was special. 

Who is the manager of the pool? is it still Angie? what is the usual turnout for Water Aerobics? How is the weather in Utah? it is still SO rainy here. usually we get 3 inches of rain in June, this June we have gotten 13 inches of rain. . . it is just NUTS!

Did Cassidy get to dance at Drill camp at all or was she sick? I would hate to be sick then because then you do not get put into the dance in a very good spot. 

I will pray for you while you fly to Idaho! haha! 

We are not allowed to use member computers unless it is a holiday. So we do still go to the library, but with the move, we are a lot closer to a library than we were before. There was one is Osseo but it was not open on Mondays so we had to drive to the Maple Grove library which was around 4 miles away but now we are only 1 mile away from the Library, and we shop at Aldi which is on the way to the library! So it is really nice unless we Need to go to Walmart, because Walmart is super far away. (not really super far but if it is more than 4 miles from our house it is just a lot of miles to use just for one trip). We have a Target less than a Mile from our house but we can not go to it because it is just outside of our ward boundary, and we can not go outside of our ward boundaries.

I heard from Emma once, she seemed like she was really enjoying the MTC. Which is good, it was definitely an experience like nothing else to be there.

How fun! I love the motor home! I love going camping, and Sunday drives. How far away is Flaming Gorge from home? I do not really have many memories of there. Is that where we always got our boat stuck in the middle of the lake?

That article is really neat. I love how he says when you feel like there is nothing else you can do to kneel and pray. Knealing prayer is a principle I have learned a great deal about on my mission! it really is a different experience to kneel in prayer. I am out of time, I love you so much! TTFN <3

All settled in June 16, 2014

This week seemed like it was consumed with the move. I am just so glad that we are all move in. Our old apartment smelled like smoke and it cost $1.75 for each wash and $1.75 for each dry. Laundry was so expensive! But it is so nice to live in a home where the Spirit can be felt and I don't have to deal with crazy neighbors. We live with the Parkinson's. They are a cute couple. They have two kids. Their daughter lives with them and their son is going to U of M in Minneapolis. I just love them. They are so concerned for us. They were so nice when we moved in.
How are your scripture mysteries doing? On Saturday we got rained on all day but at 7:30 it started to lightening and thunder super bad and we were not allowed to tract, and we were not allowed to be outside. But we could not go home either because it was not 9:00 yet. So we were praying to know where to go and we got a picture sent to our mind of where we needed to go. It is so cool when that happens. I know The Lord is guiding our lives and hearing our prayers!
~ere you left your room this morning! did you think to pray?~
With love, Sister Smith

Letter to mom June 16, 2014

I have three letters to respond to so bear with me. What have you heard about Emma in the MTC? How is she doing? Morgan read the Book of Mormon? Wow! What does he think of it?
Sister Shumway is great and even if she wasn't I would never know. She is such a hard worker, if she is. It ok she will just keep working til she is ok. It is like pulling teeth trying to get her to talk to me and tell me how she feels. She suffers from plantar fasciitis, her arches are so high that her ligaments are stretched and they tighten and it feels like a broken heel. The only way to fix it is to be a couch potato. And it hurts worse when we walk and are on our feet. We tract a ton, so we are on our feet a lot. I just wanted to do something fun for her a while ago (Em cut a letter short so she could help out her companion, I asked her why) we have been having tons of fun the last few p days. We are ready for a relaxing one now.
I was glad your birthday fell on a Monday too. That Mother's Day video made me cry too. How is family scripture study going? Ann is doing great! She keeps praying, and reading, and coming to church. Which is usually the hardest part of missionary work (getting investigators to church). She went to California for a week and a half so we won't see her this week.
I love all the family stories you send me. It is so cool! It would be super cool if Nic were able to teach  family. (The Holder family are mostly from Morganton, NC) That happened to an Elder here. He tracted into an uncle he never knew he had, now he is teaching him! So cool! Sounds like you had lots of fun on Memorial Day at the cemeteries. Well, I love you, Sister Smith

Happy Father's Day

Happy (very belated) Fathers day! Sorry it's so late, but better late than never!
Dad you are a pretty cool guy. This sunday they asked us 20 questions about our parents (the lesson was about family history) and I knew 18 out of 20! I am so glad that I know you and that you are my dad! Happy Father's day. Hope it fits.

Love you, Sister Smith

Family letter June 8, 2014

Your emails were all so inspired! They all gave me something good and inspirational to think about. Last week was on the rougher side. I just got overwhelmed with setting goals and not having enough baptisms and achieved goals and investigators. But I got a blessing and all is well. No need to worry. Every single email I got today had something inspirational and uplifting in it. You are all amazing and super in-tune to the Spirit and the ways you can bless my life.
So school is put here, it's summer time. And Bishop's kids love to play games so we got to spend all of our p day playing games with his kids. We played Ticket to Ride. I won of course! (With Anna's help) then we played a game called "wise and otherwise". I was losing and then we stopped playing to get our hobo dinners ready, cause they invited us to have dinner with them.
Transfer news came. Both Sister Shumway and I are both staying! One of the Elders in the ward is leaving, but another elder that served in North St. Paul with me is coming to Maple Grove. He's cool.
All is well in Zion, I love you! Sorry this letter is not super spiritual, but I was playing games!
With love, Sister Smith

pictures June 9, 2014

 This week is transfers. . . SO I am moving again... JK I am not moving to a new ward, but a ward member is taking us into their home. So this is my new home! We are moving on Saturday.
I totally missed the memo this week. ALL of the missionaries in my ward were wearing purple except me! My companion was borrowing my cardigan. . . it was just funny.

Lyrics from Wicked new missionary song!

Thank you for that! I needed it this week! You are amazing!

With Love,
      Sister Smith


On Sun, Jun 8, 2014  Christy wrote:

(Emily) I've heard it said that people come into our lives for a reason, bringing something we must learn. And we are led to those who help us most to grow, if we let them, and we help them in return. Now, I don't know if I believe that's true, but I know I'm who I am today, because I knew you. Like a comet pulled from orbit as it passes a sun, like a stream that meets a boulder halfway through the wood. Who can say if I've been changed for the better? But, because I knew you, I have been changed for good.
I thought about you today while I was listening to this song. As a missionary how you were talking in your last letter about testimony of the missionary leaving. How he had promised people in the preexistence that he would find them. Just think about all the people you are changing for good. Whether is results in baptism or not. You are affecting people's lives and probably lots you don't even know about. Do you know that song was about missionaries. Well it is. I love you and admire all you are doing to change peoples lives for the better. Xoxoxoxoxo Love, Mom

Challenge 6-9-14

Dear Smith Family,

I hereby challenge you to a Scripture Mastery duel! I have set a goal to have all 100 Scripture masteries memorized before I come home. To keep me motivated I need competitors (and my companions are not always competitive people) So, do you accept the challenge to memorize the scripture masteries? we can have a duel when I get home! Each of you do not have to do all of them, one person could take the 25 book of Mormon ones, another the 25 Old testament ones, another the 25 New testament ones, then another the 25 Doctrine and covenants ones. Do you accept or reject???

With Love,
      Sister Smith

Testimony of the Restored Gospel

For youth conference Morgan and Cassidy are getting letters with our testimony of the restored gospel. I thought it would be nice to have one from Emily too. So here it is:


I would love to share my testimony of the Restored Gospel:)

My testimony kind of started of course when I was young, but the first identifiable time that I could say that I had my own testimony was in 8th grade, when I prayed about the Book of Mormon for the first time, I had a sincere desire to know and the Lord granted me that desire to know that in a very real way by the Power of the Holy Ghost, I knew that the Book of Mormon was true, and when you know the Book of Mormon is true, Joseph Smith has to be a prophet, and all of his revelations are from God. Then as I grew I gained a testimony of the power of the Priesthood. That it truly is the power of God; the same power that he used to create the Earth, that is the power that we have on the Earth today!

Then when I went into the MTC (whew, that was a rough 2 weeks for me) I began to doubt my faith, I was so scared to go and to teach, and share the gospel with people. As I read Enos a peace came over me and I knew that the Lord knew what my challenges were and he was there to help me.

As I came into the mission field and began to share about the restored gospel every day. I gained an unshakable knowledge that this is true. We are encouraged to teach at least one restoration lesson daily. I challenge you to try to share the first vision, every day for 18 months and not gain a testimony of it! Sometimes when I share the first vision, in Joseph Smith's words I am so overwhelmed with the Spirit that I know that it is true. Overall where my testimony is at right now came from having tons of little experiences with the Spirit as I am sharing the Gospel. When we teach we always begin a lesson with the How to Begin teaching points. They are in Chapter 10 of Preach My Gospel but one of them says: Our message cannot be learned all at once. Understanding will come over time through prayer, study, experience, and keeping God's commandments." You gain knowledge as you gain experience! That I how I know, because as I share this gospel, as I share the restoration every day, I gain experience. I am 100% convinced that the reason Elder Ballard is challenging everyone to share the gospel and to invite people to be taught by the missionaries, is not so the missionaries can have millions of people to teach. It is so the members will become more firm in their faith as they share the gospel. If you want to gain a stronger testimony of the Restored gospel, share it! That is why missionaries come home converted, not because they baptized tons of people, but because they shared the gospel despite the circumstances and the fear that was inside them.

BIrthday wishes for mom 6-2-14

HAPPY BIRTHDAY MOMMY!!! I know this video was for mothers day but today is MY mother's day. . . if that makes sense:) I Love you!
https://www.lds.org/media-library/video/2013-01-1010-to-every-mother?lang=eng

How did your birthday breakfast go? There is a place in Eau Claire that has really good breakfast food, We will have to go there sometime when we come to visit Wisconsin again:) I love breakfast too, the worst part about fast Sunday is that the meal we skip is breakfast. the idea of eating breakfast is the only thing that gets me out of bed in the morning.

This morning I was studying the conference Ensign, thank you so much for sending me one by the way! I love to have my own conference issue so I do not have to share with my companion. The one I studied this morning was Spiritual Whirlwinds, by Neil L Anderson one part that I liked was:
"Brigham Young said, 'It was revealed to me in the commencement of this Church, that the Church would spread, prosper, grow and extend, and that in proportion to the spread of the Gospel among the nations of the earth, so would the power of Satan rise.'2
More concerning than the prophesied earthquakes and wars3 are the spiritual whirlwinds that can uproot you from your spiritual foundations and land your spirit in places you never imagined possible, sometimes with your barely noticing that you have been moved."

Satan is throwing everything he has at us, he is lashing out in rage that the gospel is being spread so quickly, and often when we are taken off the path we do not even recognize that we have been deteriorating, that is why we need a righteous companion, I know I appreciate it when my companions help me to live the commandments, and mission rules. I am so joyful when they have the love for me to correct me when I make mistakes. when I am searching for an eternal companion I want to look for the same thing, someone who will correct me when i am disobeying.

I did get my package! Thank you! I am so excited about all of it! We are having district P-day so your letter might not be super long but it will definitely be there! My Companion adn I have been eatign so much of the granola recently, it is so yummy! and you are getting really good at making it chunky:)


I did get a picture of your sunburn! haah! When we were doing service for 2 hours I put sunscreen on like 2 or 3 times, I do not want cancer, or sunburns! HAHA. But I am all itchy for a completely different reason. Mosquitoes are unbelievable here, they are relentless. I counted 15 bites, just on my legs and then more on my arms and hands. it is out of control, but I will survive, I survived last summer. . . :) TTFN,
YEH EH NAH PAH DO!  DA THA KU MU DUH NEE (that means happy Monday, because I do not know how to say happy birthday).


With Love,
      Sister Smith

email June 2, 2014 to Jamie

Date: Mon, 2 Jun 2014


I did hear the Ben got a job in Pocatello, still close enough to visit often:) that is great!
The work is going well. Last week we were teaching an investigator and we were more bold with her than we ever had before and we had prayerfully considered specific blessings we could promise her. This week, was the next time we saw her and the difference was amazing! She had read her assignment in the Book of Mormon, and understood it all. The most amazing part though, was that she also received personal revelation! She learned something that the chapter did not talk about at all and it was so exciting to see her learning on her own and finding her own answers. Then as we went through the lesson, she had so many great questions that the join teacher answered all of them! The Spirit was strong as we were in a member home and the member was testifying to the investigator about her concerns. Then she came to church this week, the ward just made her feel right at home! It was such a blessing to have a ward we feel comfortable bringing investigators to because we know the ward will be good at taking care of them!

Also, The testimony meeting in the Maple Grove ward this week seemed like it was tailored to fit my needs. We have been spending a lot of time finding, and I have been sort of discouraged with the lack of people that we find that actually turn into investigators. There is a young man in the ward who is leaving on his mission on Tuesday and he shared how he knew that there were people he promised in the pre-earth life that he would find them. As he shared that I was rejuvenated! I feel so strongly that there is a reason I am here in Maple Grove, A family I need to find, and many lessons I need to learn from my companion and from the ward members here. Then as a youth went up and shared a simple testimony of the Book of Mormon, and the church being true, the Spirit came and witnessed to me that what she said was true. Her testimony was so simple, literally, "I know this church is true, I know the Book of Mormon is true" and after she said it I was holding back tears. a testimony does not always have to be grand and long and wordy, ya know? Simplicity is great! Recently I have begun searching for a confirmation every day and that was definitely my confirmation for the day! I was spiritually re-fueled at church!

President Forbes comes in 7 weeks. We have more time with President Clements! yay! I am sure whatever needs to happen in your life will happen:)
https://www.lds.org/pages/temples-are-a-beacon?lang=eng
Random video but I love it and it is so good!

With Love,
      Sister Smith