Baptism September 29, 2014

Gretchen and the true waters of baptism

Mary in the cathedral

Basilica in Minneapolis

Waters of baptism

September 22, 2014. Fall in Minnesota

This week was great! We did a lot of service, taught a few new people and had a baptism. I tried to share pictures of this and also last week we went to the Basilica. The printers at Target were not working, so no pictures this week. :( I don't have a lot of time to write today, we are going to the Como Zoo!!! I love zoo's and this one is in St. Paul!! I love St. Paul. I'm so excited.
Love, Sister Smith

This is what it looks like in Minnesota right now!

Another baptism! September 22, 2014

I get so excited for Monday to see if I have a new Nephew or not! So I had no idea that Scott and Sandy Verde were the witness couple to your wedding! How cool!
Spanks would not cover much, especially of my garments. But I do wear biking shorts. I feel fine now, my bruises are mostly gone, I do have headaches mostly daily i am not sure why, it is so weird.

Let's hope Lindsey does not need you on Thursday. . . ha! I don't even know what Jury duty is except apparently something bad.

I did find a new coat, I will send a picture maybe next week. Gretchen is BAPTIZED!!!!!!!! She is the coolest person ever, she just loves the church and she recognizes blessings from living the gospel every day. and she shares them with us every day. No investigators, mostly we are working with recent converts and less actives right now, and of course trying to find new investigators. The temple is closed for cleaning this month, plus my companion has already been this quarter, so I have to wait until October when the new quarter starts anyway. It is awesome that you are finding so many names to do work for!

I love you too! My scripture masteries have been super bad, I have not really been working on them at all. I will do better! Love ya!

With Love,
      Sister Smith

September 15, 2014. Love hate relationship with my bike

Dearingest, Darlingest, Momsy and Popsicle (and rest of family)!

I have lots of pictures for you today. This is my companion Sister Nelson. She is from Oregon. She has been out for 4 months, I love her!!

Photo 2: Me on my bike. We've gotten to be best friends and worst enemies this week. On Wednesday I got my new companion. Our car was still in the shop so we were still on our bikes. It was raining and I don;t have a rain coat, so I grabbed my pea coat hoping it would protect me at least a little. I hate this pea coat, but I've been trying to endure with my coat until I get home then I can get a nice coat and keep it nice also I have one less thing to carry home.

Well, (photo 3) is the result of me riding my bike with this coat. My arm looks like I was attacked. I didn't want my arm to look any worse and the rain stopped, so I tied my coat to me. Later my companion informed me how silly that looked. We are asked to be dignified. So I took it off, folded it up and I thought I was so clever as I tied this coat to my bike. Now I had no worries. We continued biking around. 2-3 hours later we are biking along (my coat still tied to my bike) and in a sudden flash my coat gets sucked into my bike tire and I am flying over the handle bars of my bike, face planting into the cement and 100% humbled by my bike. Ridiculous. As if the scar on my arm wasn't enough, now we have the coat totally trying to kill me! I was fed up and threw the coat away. I could not stand it any longer. I mostly just laughed about how dumb the accident was until I woke up the next morning and I was running into walls, unable to walk a straight line, dizzy, nauseous, very very sore and tired. I have bruises all over my body. (Photo 4)

The Mission President and doctor suppose I had a small concussion. Good thing I was wearing my helmet or else I definitely would have been hospitalized (that may or may not be an exaggeration) Thank you mom for teaching me to wear my helmet. :) But no need to worry. I am on the mend. My shoulder and legs are less sore. I am no longer nauseous and I got a blessing and it said that the Lord does not want me hurt. So I will be fine! Really I'm well and enjoying my mission. (Photo 5)

Family, I want to tell you why I invited you to a scripture mastery challenge. Beginning of my mission we had to memorize tons of stuff, so it was easy for my mind to stay focused on the work because my mind was busy thinking about it. When I memorized all the stuff, my mind began to wander. I recognized the connection between the two. when we keep our minds focused on the Lord and his work, even just the gospel, it is easy to live a virtuous life with virtuous thoughts. But if we don't put good thoughts in our head, Satan will have a greater influence on us. When we fill our mind with good, we get good back and it becomes a powerful tool against Satan. Morgan, Cassidy, (and everyone else) there is a scripture mastery app. Get it on your phone and do something worthwhile instead of snap chat or temple run or some other game that only wastes time! Use the technology you have to further the work! Like Elder Bednar said in his talk "Share goodness" Have you heard that one? You should watch it. Remember 2 Nephi 32:3 --scripture mastery, Who knows it!?!
With love, Sister Smith

In tune with each other. September 15, 2014

Great example of how we are guided and there for each other. I was going to send out my letter to Emily last week. Something always got in the way and so I sent it this morning. This was her response. My letter is also included. 

Mom, seriously the Lord guides you more than you know. I was just sitting here, after filling out an evaluation from the church thinking about all the things that I have done that have not been like a totally consecrated missionary, and thinking about how I used to be really good at those things, or how awful I have been lately, and getting down on myself completely.  I needed to hear that today, not in a letter last week or even in my e-mail last week. Now, here I sit crying in the library, because The Lord guided you to share what you learned in your lesson, to me today. It is hard to always remember that the Lord can make up the difference, but he does! The Lord can make me the missionary I need to be, and the missionary I want to be, as long as I let myself repent for my own mistakes.  Thank you, you were the words I needed right now. 

The other day I learned Hello in Swahili, Jumbo! isn't that a language Rick learned on his mission too?  I am recovering from my bike incident, more than anything it scared me to work too hard for fear I'd overdo it and not be able to safely drive home, or be safe where we were at. I will go find a coat that I like, that will not kill me! haha!

With Love,
      Sister Smith

On Mon, Sep 15, 2014, Christy wrote:

Rick was here this morning to help me with the good morning in tswana (from his mission) How are you doing? Hopefully you are recovering from your bike incident! Can't believe that happened. When I was reading the letter to Morgan about you tying your coat around your waist, he said then "bad idea" little did he know how true those words were. Maybe your companion should have let you look undignified and leave the coat around your waist. haha. You have 374.54 in your checking account now. So go find a good fall coat. One that won't kill you!

I never did get around to telling you about Gini's lesson in Relief Society. So I will paraphrase it here. It starts out with a mom walking her son to school one morning. She doesn't often walk him because he is in second grade and pretty independent. She is usually getting herself and his sisters ready for school. As they got halfway to the bus stop, he reaches up and takes her hand. She knew that wouldn't happen many more times. He's seven now but growing and how many 12 year old boys swing hands happily with their mommies? She squeezed his hand and told him that she loved him. Just at that moment the thought came into her mind, That's awesome that you're walking him to the bus stop and putting on this "mother of the year" act today. What about yesterday and the day before that. He is probably holding your hand because he is so desperate for the love and attention you haven't been showing him.

Anyway then come all the thoughts about what an awful mom she is. She starts thinking of all the times she does something good while beating herself up for all the times she hasn't been perfect. "You're worshipping in the temple? Whoopty how long has it been since you came here last?. Wow you cleaned the kitchen today. Want a cookie? That rag on the counter has been there for a week"

Anyway on and on it goes with the negative thoughts. For every positive one there are four or five negative ones. 

Drop of Awesome--everytime we do something good, something kind, something productive, it's a Drop of Awesome in your bucket of Awesome. You don't lose drops for every misstep. You can only build. You can only fill.

I walked my son to the bus stop. Drop of Awesome!

I fed him fruit with breakfast. Drop of Awesome!

I told him I loved him. Drop of Awesome!

When we start thinking about life in terms of adding little Drops of Awesome for every act of good, we will find that we are doing more and more of them, because it is a lot more fun to do good when we reward ourselves with joy instead of being guilted for every failure in the past. As we add up our Drops of Awesome, we can become the person we always wanted to be. In the end, it's really about allowing yourself to feel joy and allowing yourself to be proud of the small victories of life.

Now for the religious implication of the story. . . . You are not the only one adding these Drops of Awesome in your bucket. Christ commanded us to be perfect, but through his atonement. He is with us every step of the way.

Gini went around the room with an empty glass labeled positive thoughts asking everyone what one awesome thing they did to add to our Drop of Awesome bucket. Then she would drop water into the cup labeled positive thoughts. She had a glass labeled negative thoughts that was full of water (of course). Well at this point she pulled a pitcher out that was labeled ATONEMENT and poured water into the positive thought glass until it was spilling out all over.

When we are in a relationship with Christ, striving as God's sons and daughters to do His will, He pours more into our buckets than we can ever hope to imagine. He can fill us to overflowing with peace, with joy, and with perfection, with Awesome.

At this point I am just filled with the Spirit and crying because I realize again that I have a testimony of the Atonement. I know when we do all we can, Christ makes up the difference. He loves us so much.

To close the lesson she concludes, We need to just keep working, one tiny drop at a time. Don't compare today's drops to yesterday's or tomorrow's. We live and we love and we repent when we do wrong and we allow ourselves to be glorious, beautiful and perfect in Christ. I believe in a God who loves us and roots for us and cheers for every Drop of Awesome we can manage. Our victories are His victories and He wants us to feel joy. Not later, when we no longer make mistakes, but right now!!!!! Alma 37:6. 

Small and simple. Tiny drops. Go forth. Be Awesome!!

Just wanted you to look for your tiny Drops of Awesome every day. Don't focus on the things you don't do, but concentrate on the things you do. Hope this all makes sense and that you can feel the spirit tesitfying of the truth of the Atonement. He makes up the difference. Love you, Have a great day. Momsy

September 1, 2014. Biking and Captain Moroni

I have had such a fun week. On Thursday we took our car into the shop to have some body work done. There they told us we would not get our car back til next Thursday. A whole week without a car! Needless to say, we've been biking. First day we biked ten miles. The second day we got stuck in a flash flood storm so our bikes stayed locked up in the same area for a long time and I was worried about my bike. The area was not the greatest neighborhood and the words of my father kept coming to mind "we got you the cheapest bike because it's just going to get stolen." This week I kept thinking about that while we were running for sheltered places. Then that night when we got back to where we locked our bikes, guess what happened? No bikes stolen! Both of us had our bike lights stolen. Mine was a rear light and the Elders had a spare one, so all is well it was just funny. On the third day we bikes all the way downtown. The days total was ten miles again. Sunday and Monday weren't bad we found a ride to church and to shop. It is such an adventure! My companion tries to complain or get sympathy from the Elders in the ward, but they are on bikes all the time so it's just funny. Also today was transfer week and Sister Fullwood is leaving. My new companion is Sister Nelson. I know her already. She is super happy and sweet.
How are the scripture masteries coming? Hopefully well! A scripture that I loved that I read this week was Alma 48:12-13. It talks about Captain Moroni "a man whose heart did swell with thanksgiving to his God for the many privileges and blessings which he bestowed on his people; a man who did labor exceedingly for the welfare and safety of his people. Yea and he was a man who was firm in the faith of Christ." I want to be able to be described that way! Firm in the faith, my heart full of thanksgiving.
This week we began to plan a baptism! We have a great investigator. She loves to study and after only two lessons she asked how much does baptism cost? Obviously she is excited for her baptism and so are we!
With love, Sister Smith

Lesson about attitude August 25, 2014

So nothing super eventful happened this week. Today my companion and I sang at a funeral of a recent convert. But it was not too sad for me at least, she is finally out of that nursing home and out of her body that I'm sure caused her a lot of pain. Hopefully we can stop having funerals soon. Enough about that I just want to talk about attitude and what a huge effect it can have on people. As you are aware this transfer has been a more challenging one for me. But as I think about it, in the beginning I started out with a "oh no, what is going to happen to my spiritual progression" kind of attitude which is. to necessarily bad but I was not happy thinking about it. As I changed my attitude to how can I help my companion be more happy. It became easier to love her. Often it is still not easy to accomplish all that is at hand. It is not always easy to be humble when I get ignored or when I have to do things on my own, but it is easier to love her and to say positive things about her. I never realized the effect an attitude can have on those around you. In a talk by Elder Holland (The best is yet to be) he talks about how we need to forgive and forget and when it comes to mind again, forget it again. That is the key. Keep forgetting. Something I have learned this transfer is to never say negative things. They don't benefit you or those around you. All they do is drag everyone down until everyone is miserable. I encourage each of you to reflect on the things you say. Are they about someone else? Is it negative? Hopefully Sister Shumway's tendency to be positive about everyone rubbed off on me at least a little bit. If,you want to be happy, be.

With love, Sister Smith

Letter home. Why I decided to serve a mission August 25, 2014

Mom, you asked me why I decided to serve. I always told myself that if I turned 21 and was not married, I would go. The name change happened and when we heard it I instantly knew I would go. But I was resisting. When I kept going to school. I could not focus on school very well. I could only think about if I wanted to go on a mission. I prayed about it and no sting answer came. Finally I decided to be real with myself. If I had the chance to go and decided not to I knew I would regret it forever. Honestly, I was SO scared and I was praying that I would hurry and find someone to marry so I didn't have to go. Ultimately Stephen and James were big motivators as well. I liked the attributes they had. It was obvious they had developed them on their missions. I could tell a distinct
difference between their lives and Taylor and Eric's lives. Eric was a returned missionary too but it became apparent that he was not very committed to the gospel. I knew I'd regret not going. I knew I wanted to become like a returned missionary I knew the only way I'd push myself enough was if I was on a mission. So I decided to work on my papers and see where that took me. Well . . .it took me to Minnesota. I never received a spiritual witness that. Needed to be on a mission until about a week and a half into the MTC. And I was scared. I was scared from the time I heard the name change until a month into my mission. I was resisting change because it's hard. But I knew it needed to happen. My journal from then is funny to read. One day I'm going on a mission, the next I am not, back and forth until I just decided to go. So, that is how it happened.
With love, Sister Smith

September 9, 2014. Reprimand to Morgan and Cassidy

How are you doing on scripture masteries? If you can give me 1 good reason that you aren't working on it, it might be acceptable but this challenge is kind of like life. We succeed or fail as a family. If one person fails to keep covenants, that person can not make it to the celestial kingdom, therefore we are not a complete Eternal family. This is much less extreme, but if one (or two) people fail to do their part of memorization then the whole family fails. I know you are busy but you've gotta make time for the gospel if you want to be happy. At baptism we promise to "always remember him" what better way than by keeping his scripture/his words in your mind all day. You only have 4 months!
Write me, I miss you two a ton. With Love, Sister Smith

Leter to mom September 8, 2014

Before I forget, can you send me a fall coat. or put money into my account so I can buy a new one.

President Forbes wants us to use family history more in our finding, especially where we have an awesome family history center in our building, but we don't get on very often. Plus when I do I know you have tons of stuff you're working on so I wouldn't know where to go.

The teaching is going well. As of right now we only have one solid investigator.

I thought scripture mastery challenge was a good idea. What better things do they have to do when they are bored in class than to memorize scripture? Oh well, I guess I will have to write to them.

I am so excited for Lindsey's baby too! If he was born on the 26th that would be easy for me to remember cause that's when I went into the MTC (different month but month marks are a big deal on a mission)

You are I are so synced it is weird (mom).

I did get moved before the scripture mastery challenge with the seminary students. I'm still in the same zone as Sister Shumway so I'll have to ask her if they still did it. We got the whole district involved, except Elder Shrestha refused because "English is not his first language" haha. So silly.
Well I love you so much and I emailed you a novel so this letter is kinda short.... xoxoxoxoxoxoxo Sister Smith

Cassidy September 8, 2014

I can not believe how grown up she is. It makes me so sad, I feel like a terrible sister because I am missing out on so much of Morgan and Cassidy's life. all of her queening, and Morgan's first date and prom, etc. . . I never get to talk to them anymore, and it is so sad. one of the Elders here reminds me so much of Morgan, so that makes me miss my little brother even more and it makes me sad!

With Love,
      Sister Smith

Sept. 8, 2014 email. What to do with teenagers

I have not eaten out anywhere cool yet because my last companion was a cheap-o and would only eat at McDonalds!!!! haha! I will do better at sending pictures!
Mom, I LOVE my new companion. Seriously this transfer will be full of miracles, seeing how much the ward already changed in one transfer, from how they treated me when I got here to how they treated Sister Nelson was night and day difference. They are starting to care about who we are! Sister Nelson has so much faith and so much desire to change herself, the area, and the ward, it is incredible! I am so excited to see the miracles that we are blessed with because of her faith! Now we have 2 sister missionaries who want to be a blessing not a burden, and who are willing to work to gain the trust of the members! I am so grateful for her mom, I'm so happy!!!!
Something that I realized today is that there are three sets of missionaries in our ward, so it is a lot of missionaries to feed every night of every week. Utah and  is a lot different, it is rare to even see the missionaries because they are assigned to a whole stake, where we are assigned to a ward, usually 2-3 sets of missionaries assigned to one ward, so we demand a lot more from each member, because there are less members here. So the ratio for members to missionaries is a lot smaller, and we have a lot more non-members to watch after too. I think the attitude of the missionaries towards the ward makes a huge difference, all this ward needs is to know that we do love them, and we do want to help them, and we will see more of a willingness!

"Gretta" is the baptism we are planning. She referred herself on mormon.org, and she was 100% prepared for the gospel. The Elders started teaching her, after 1 lesson, she quit drinking coffee, and all caffeine. In the pamphlets we give out there are questions in the back, and she fills out all of the questions. After the 2nd lesson, she started asking "how much does baptism cost?" and "When do you need to start wearing garments?" Then we began teaching her at the 3rd lesson, she asked a lot about baptism and at the beginning of the lesson she told us "I'd say yes to baptism." She has literally taught herself everything because of her study and her desire to learn. She began fasting after the 3rd lesson, and she is just preparing herself for baptism! I love her and I learn so much from her amazing study habits!

I do know Lane, he went to school with Jenn

I am a little crazy, and I don't know anything about snap chat or things kids have now-a-days :) but i say (jokingly) NO MORE SNAP CHAT! haha! I feel like I have developed this hatred for all of the electronics that people have now, no one has lives, no one can have a conversation that is not on the phone. It is annoying! But I think if you ban it then she will just rebel. When I was in High school it seemed like my friends had a lot of rules with their phones, like the phones spent the night in the parents room, and they could not do this or that. I know that I really appreciated not having tons of silly rules like that. I just understood that you payed for my phone, so you were entitled to anything on there, and I honestly never had any desire to hide anything from you.  If anything questionable ever happened I always wanted to tell you. Whereas my friends the first thing they would say was "don't tell my parents."(I think Bryson was the one that said that the most haha!) I knew that I did not have to hide things from you. I think the trust you placed in me made me want to be more open with you because I wanted to have that good relationship and I felt like you trusted me, and in return I felt like I could trust you and talk to you about anything.

I think defining the difference between "dating" and "hanging out" would probably be helpful for her because I know I did not know the difference, and I just assumed as long as there were an odd amount of boys and girls we were fine. We will all want to hang out with friends but when does it become a dating situation? What qualifies a date? What is appropriate for just 'hanging-out'? no one really knows and it would be helpful if you and dad and Cassidy decided together what is appropriate, at least so she knows what you expect. Did you read the Ensign with the dating academy article in there, I LOVED that, those kids knew what their parents expected of them without their parents enforcing all sorts of weird rules about strange things that did not even make sense.

Something that seems to be a recurring theme on my mission is a quote from President Joseph Smith “I teach them correct principles and they govern themselves.” it is so frustrating sometimes to allow people to make their own choices but they need to in order to grow and to learn for themselves. I feel like that is how you raised me, there were not all sorts of rules, but you taught me the gospel and I had a desire to follow it. I think the most helpful thing is to just communicate more of what you expect, and spiritual experiences that you have so that she can see more of your testimony and how the gospel affects you DAILY. That was one reason I felt close to you, I always heard your testimony in YW's because you were my leader. Does she get to hear the testimonies that you give to me weekly?

I know that is really long, sorry for the novel. I hope that it makes sense and is helpful:) I love you, you are truly the best parents ever for me. I am convinced that we have the best family. I know you worry, that is a mother's job but Morg and Cassidy are doing well too, they both have testimonies, and they have great examples all around them. They are sent here because they are needed to prepare the world for the second coming of the Messiah. They are strong enough:)
Yeh Eh Nah!

With Love,
      Sister Smith

Email Sept 1, 2014. short and sweet

Take your time on your temple experience, it will be a good history if it is complete:) That is good that you got to go visit with grandma! How are the drill team dances looking this year? are they winners again?
That is cool that people in the ward sign up to teach Sunday School, I feel like usually they  would never have a teacher if they left it up to the people to sign up.  our leaders always tell us that we should let our investigators talk as much as we talk, and that is definitely something I need to work on, it is sometimes hard to get people to talk.
That is amazing all the family that you found to do the work for!
Jamie told me that Megan lost another baby, that is so sad:( I will definitely keep her in my prayers. I have not seen any pictures of them lately. I saw his baptism invite, he's so adorable!
I LOVE the shoes you sent me they are broken in. I usually keep them for meeting days, because they are so nice, and I hope to keep them that way!

With Love,
      Sister Smith


On Mon, Sep 1, 2014, Christy wrote:
I promise I am working on my temple experience. I have it typed up at home just wanting to think about it more before I send it. We came to Idaho again for Labor Day weekend. The boys went to St. Anthony to ride at the dunes. Cassidy had to stay home because the drill team had to dance Friday night. It made me sad and caused me much grief deciding between coming here and staying home. I'm having fun with grandma. I think she has been pretty bored cause grandpa is working so hard. We just have been to the farmers market, prepared pantry and another Chuckars game. It was military appreciation night so they ended with fireworks. It was awesome and we won the game too.
I love coming to the ward here. Such nice people and they always seem to have the Spirit when they teach. The ward members sign up and teach the Sunday school lesson. I would be afraid to teach, but they always do a good job. The class participates good too. Seems like our lessons at home the teachers just teach and don't require a lot of interaction. Well in relief society anyway. I always try to involve the class when I teach. I like their stories and opinions. I love my genealogy class because we all get to share our experiences and hopefully inspire others to get the bug. I have been really successful lately finding ancestors. I spent three hours Wednesday morning on family search. I just couldn't turn it off. I have a whole bunch more names to take to the temple. Like 8 women, 7 men and 4 couples. I'm excited to take Morgan and Cass to do the baptisms. Hopefully next weekend.
Megan lost another baby this weekend. It is so sad. She wants more kids so bad and she has the cutest kids. Have you seen pictures of them lately? If not I will send you some. Andrew was scheduled to be baptized next week, but now I'm not sure when that will happen with all Megan is going thru. Last time I was here Megan and her kids came to pick raspberries with us. I made Morg and Cass go and help too. Those little girls worked pretty hard picking.
So are the shoes I sent you broke in yet? I can't remember, did you like them? I'm glad you love the skirt. We really thought it looked like a good skirt for bike riding. Well I am working on a letter to send out so I better not say more here. I loved your last letter about your decision to serve a mission. Thank you for sharing that with me. I love you tons! Have a great day. Mommy xoxoxox