Christmas get together 2014 in GA

Sisters Andrus, Garcia, Smith @ Christmas get together

Happy New Year (Almost)

Happy New Year this week!

Had a wonderful Christmas. Sadly, there's not much to report on because everyone is telling us to get back to them after the holidays... Fun. 

On Friday the Cornelia Elders got permission to call and we talked a good while about Barry and his move and baptism. It felt good being able to discuss which members would be best for him to meet and how we'll help  him feel welcomed in the ward. It was reassuring and thankfully one of the Elders feels obligated to make sure that they retain Barry and that he'll adjust well. It was cool too because Brother Prichard told us that Barry gave some great contributions to the discussion on Sunday during Elder's Quorum or something. He's making progress and doing well.

Also, our ward mission leader and his family dropped off a box of gifts to Barry and his daughter. It made Barry's daughter feel bad because she's never really had anyone be so nice to them. It's been really amazing to see the ward come together and help Barry and his daughter out. It's truly inspiring and I wish every ward was like this one. A lot of willing and helping hands. 

Lanay was sick with the flu so she couldn't come to church, but she still wants to meet with us this week when she's feeling better. 

We met this awesome lady on Saturday. We knocked and got talking to her, and it was easy to strike up a conversation with her because she went to Harvard. She went for her Bachelors all the way to her Phd. Impressive. And she had two of her three kids all while still in school. She now teaches at a small Baptist college so we talked to her about the concerns that they have for the future generations and such. We had a really good discussion with her, and ended it by showing her the He is the Gift and then directing her to the beta.mormon.org website. She seemed to be surprised by how well organized the site and the Church seemed to be. I think it sparked her interest. We left her a Book of Mormon, but she didn't want to meet with us until she read some more. Which is sad because that could mean she'll get into anti, but if not, then she's elect. 

Everything's good. Don't know what else to report on.... Sister Kafoa is doing well, she's talking more and coming out of her shell. She's a quite one, but  hopefully by the time I leave she'll be out of her shell. She is enjoying the work even more. It's great.

Love you all!

Sister Smith

Highs & Lows of Mission Life

Highs:

Wednesday we had meant to stop by some less actives and such, and we picked some streets that we thought were close to those less actives to tract at. When we were going to tract and began driving toward said street, it was farther than anticipated. But, I just kept on driving deciding that I was too lazy to try and pick somewhere else to tract. Just kidding, I just felt like we should go with what we had planned so I didn't say anything. We get out and begin tracting. To me it's a typical session of tracting, some pretty good contacts, no one entirely interested, eventually one will come, so we move on. We keep going and determine where we will end. After we're finished we start heading back and suddenly Sister Kafoa says, "Sister Smith?"

"Yeah?"

"Can we just do one more door?"

Earlier she and I had been discussing spiritual promptings and acting on them, so naturally I said, "Sure." Not really thinking it was an actual spiritual prompting. Go me. 

We knock on the door and this cute red headed lady answers and tells us to come in... ! Don't mind if we do. We get to talking to her and she informs us that her sister is actually a member of the Church. In fact, she grew up in Arizona and she knows that most of the stuff out there is fake. She then proceeded to tell us that she and her husband were recently talking about how she wants to find a church and the one she's interested in is "Mormon Church." She had actually met a couple of Elder a while back, but she couldn't find their card and wanted to give them a call. Instead, we showed up. :) We set up a lesson with her and it went really well! She came to church and she's already excited to come next week and she's going to bring her husband with her. We can't meet with her this week :(, but we'll keep texting her and making sure she's still reading and such. Oh and after our lesson with her she was surprised with the entire lesson. I don't think she expected it to make as much sense as it did. It was kind of cool. 

Other High: Temple Trip :D and Christmas party all day. Woot woot! So much fun, I sent a couple of pictures. I took none with my camera since mine dies after taking like two photos, so I have to wait until other Sisters send me the pictures they took. 

Low:

Friday I woke up sick, I was able to go to a lesson and we helped make cookies to give to our investigators. I got a fever, and it was horrible! So Saturday I was basically recuperating. I had absolutely no energy. I only had enough so that we could do a church tour, and we came back for lunch and I was out. I slept basically all day and I slept through the entire night. No bueno. Yesterday I began feeling better. My voice sounds hideous, so I didn't get to sing yesterday as planned, but that's fine. And now all I really have is a cough which I'm hoping will go away sooner than the mission nurse said it would. 

Barry is sick too :(. But we'll be seeing him and his daughter on Christmas Eve and Christmas. 

Love y'all,

Merry Christmas!

Sister Smith

More pics with Jocey and Kafoa

 Good to see that girl laughing...

Pics for Jocey in GA

 #sharethegift

 Sister Kafoa made me a Lei

New companion: Aloha...She's from Tonga, Fiji, Hawaii

My new companion is Sister Latai Kafoa. She was born in Tonga, at the age of two her family moved to Fiji where she was raised, and about 8 months ago her family moved to Hawaii. She used to work at the Polynesian Cultural Center and was a dancer. She's awesome.

Monday-Tuesday consisted of preparing the place for Sister Kafoa and getting Sister Winegar ready to go. Wednesday morning we went to the Mission Office where I dropped off Sister W. and stayed for some meetings and met Sister Kafoa. On the way home I asked Sister Kafoa about her feelings on obedience and she said in her Fijian accent, "Can we say 'exact obedience?'" Why yes. Yes we can. That makes it easy! She's totally fine when I need to correct or remind her about obedience things and doesn't get upset, she just tells me "Oh, thank you for telling me." And does the right thing. It's great. 

She working on opening her mouth and talking. She gets lost and/or nervous in the middle of talking to people. Which is fine, her barriers will break down by the time I'm gone, so it's fine with me. We've been practicing teaching like crazy. Every single companionship study I try to have her role play teaching me what she just learned from Preach My Gospel. When we practice with the members she bears a solid testimony! Her Spirit is very strong. She could probably say the completely wrong thing, but so long as she ends by bearing testimony, the Spirit just comes in. So I keep telling her that that's her strength, if she doesn't know what to say, just bear your testimony. Sometimes she gets a little nervous doing that as well, but when she does it it's powerful, so I'm trying to use that to her advantage. She studies the lessons in Preach My Gospel in her spare time even. She's determined to get it down. It's been really cool to watch her. It's only been a few days, but I think she's got a great mission ahead of her. 

Saturday one of the most spiritual experiences happened. This week we've set up two lessons with Barry, had a team up for both, and he hasn't been home. I was getting a little nervous. Wondering if he'd been trying to avoid us, but the hard thing is that he doesn't have a phone, so we just have to show up at his house and hope for the best. I had been praying all week for him, to know how to help him be prepared to make a covenant with God. I came across a scripture in Alma 7:14-15 and felt like we needed to be bold and just tell him he needs to be baptized.  Sister Kafoa had also found a scripture in Mosiah that relates to baptism, and she agreed that we should do that as well.  

We showed up at his house and he's home! He informed us that he would be moving to Cornelia at the end of the month. While he was telling us, I kept feeling like we should commit him to baptism. When we discussed it later, Sister Kafoa said she was getting the same feeling. We read the scripture to him, and after we read it, I looked up and Barry had tears in his eyes. I swear the Spirit spoke through me, and so quietly I said, "Barry, you need to be cleansed." We sat for a moment, all just soaking in the Spirit. It felt like a long time before we said anything else. He nodded and said, "That's exactly what I needed to hear."

Barry is on date to be baptized! However, the Bishop was worried he could go less active if he's baptized here, moves away, and is in a whole new ward with a whole new group of people. We talked with Barry about it, and he promised that he would be baptized on January 10th in Cornelia, so long as Brother Wernli and us could come to the baptism. It felt right, the original date was this Saturday, but that didn't quite sit with all of us. Typically I would be nervous to postpone the date, but we want him to transition into membership smoothly and for him to have fellowship in Cornelia. 

I'm so excited. The Spirit was SO strong when we met with him, it was amazing! Probably one of the most memorable experiences on the mission. Crazy how that can keep happening. 

Love it. Love y'all,

Sister Smith

#sharethegift

Sister Fabulous with her new companion and #sharethegift

pics from Jocey

 We have Santa holding a Book of Mormon for all us sisters at the mall for our Christmas photo....

 A nice member who took us hiking....Sister Waldron

 Sister Jocey with Sister Winegar

 ​Allison, on the left, is an RM and she comes out with us. She's awesome! (she's also going to BYU I for Spring... YAY!)​        There's this family that has the funniest dog ever that I'm obsessed with!

I'm expecting.....

I'm PREGNANT! Hahaha just kidding. I'm training a brand-new missionary for my last two transfers. I didn't think I would because they typically make trainer calls on Wednesday for the trainer meeting on Thursday, but this week they called us Thursday for our meeting on Saturday. I was surprised, but here I am. I'm going to be a mom :)

This week was great. Sunday was the first Sunday in five weeks we didn't have an investigator at church and that made me sad, but it was nice to see how consistently we've had investigators coming to church and progressing. Truly, it's been such a blessing. The new missionary is coming to an amazing area to start in and I'm in a great area to end it. It couldn't get any better. 

Thursday we had a lesson with Wyatt, the 14 year old. Finally! We haven't been able to meet with him yet for a myriad of reasons and he's come to church and young mens, just hasn't had a lesson. But on Thursday we finally met with him and it was so spiritual. He was a little confused over the Restoration, so we're going to break it down even more. But we asked him how he's been liking church and he said, "After that first Sunday I came home and a couple tears came out of my eyes. I actually cried a little. The songs were about family and I realized just how important my family has been for me." His first Sunday was the primary program and the entire program was focused on eternal families. He said that the first time he walked into the church it felt like a sanctuary. He wants to learn more and he said, "I think I'll stick with being Mormon." Hahah! He's not even baptized yet. We invited him to be baptized and he said he will. We'll probably present him with a date this week and show him a baptismal calendar. That will be interesting to show my new missionary.

Barry is doing well. We taught him the Word of Wisdom and he cut out drinking tea and coffee. He actually isn't supposed to drink either one of those anyway because of his health, so this is more motivation. He didn't come to church on Sunday and when we stopped by his place he wasn't there. We're planning on seeing him tomorrow and seeing what's up. Also, his daughter actually talked to us and didn't leave and freak out when we came. One step at a time. I think she's seeing how much the people in the Church have been blessing her and her dad. It's been great. 

It's been great. Sister Winegar received some really good advice last night from a member that I aspire to be like. He told her, "I don't like the whole 'getting back to normal thing.' If something, like a movie, or a place, makes you feel uncomfortable, there's a reason it's making you feel uncomfortable." He said a few more things that were well put. It's a good ward to end in because the members here are stellar, it's a great way to see the type of person I hope to become someday. 

Anyway, love y'all. 

Sister Smith

Sister Jocey Fabulous with Sister Winegar

 Sister Winegar & Sister Smith in Buford GA

Lucky sisters... Thanksgiving treat made for members

The Spirit Works!!

Good, great, wonderful Week.

Merry Christmas y'all! 

Update on Barry:

On Friday we brought a wonderful team up with us, Sister Sheridan, and went over to Barry's. He answers the door and says, "Sorry guys, we won't be able to have a lesson today. My sink is broken and I've been working on it all morning." To which we reply, "Don't worry, there has to be someone we know who can help fix it." With a few phone calls we get a hold of the handy man of the ward who talks to Barry and they arrange a time to fix the sink. Perfect. Then he's calmed down and feels ready to have a lesson. We read 2 Nephi 31 with him and discussed the Gospel of Jesus Christ. It's so easy to teach him because he's already learned all of the doctrine from the Holy Ghost. He understands the importance of Faith, Repentence, Baptism, etc. We had a beautiful discussion. He just gets it. Afterward when we were talking to Sister Sheridan she was saying, "He's a really good investigator. He grasps everything so well. And the gospel will change his life. When he sees and comes to know that he is a son of God, then he will see how much he deserves in this life." She says that because he lives in very humble circumstances, life seems to have gone wrong at some point in his life, and it has all prepared him for this time to find something that will uplift and change him. Truly, he's an amazing person to teach. 

We thought it was funny that we were happy that his sink was more broken than anticipated, so the handy man in the ward apparently is going back today to continue helping him. I think that will be a great influence and help, for members to feel the spirit of serving another in need, and for Barry to feel the love that comes from the members. 

Then, on Friday we found out that Barry's daughter has taken an interest in the violin. Which is crazy because Sister Wernli-- the wife of the couple who has fellow shipped Barry-- plays and teaches violin. Yesterday we set up an impromtu lesson with Sister Wernli to come over to Barry's with us and bring her violin. Barry's daughter, Faith, does not like us at all. She's 14 and has been through a lot in her life and she is not interested. But, Sister Wernli played "Nearer my God to Thee" and Barry invited Faith to come out. After some coaxing, she and Sister Wernli connected. Sister Wernli showed her how to hold a violin and told her what the proper size of violin would be for her. Afterward Sister Wernli told us that she and her husband want to get them a violin for Christmas and teach Faith. Oh, and let's not forget the fact that Sister Wernli was literally just called as the Sunday school teacher for Faith's age group. Brother Wernli calls those types of "coincidences" "architectural moments."

Saturday we set up a lesson with Gabe, the 16 year old, and Mallory, the girl that referred him. There was a baptism going on for an 8 year old girl, so we planned on having him come to the baptism and then have a lesson afterward. It went really well. We went over the first part of the Plan of Salvation and focused on the Atonement. We showed him the "He is the Gift" and "Because of Him." We're teaching him in more segments because that's to his level and it's been really cool. It was interesting teaching about the Restoration to someone who really has never learned about how he can truly rely on Christ's Atonement daily. Most of the time, down here in the South, people get that, but Gabe wasn't raised with a religion. It's been pretty neat. 

That's about all that's super exciting. Everything has been good, we had a good Thanksgiving and our landlord and her husband made us potato pancakes the next day out of the leftover mash potatoes. That was a first. Pretty good thought :)

Love y'all,

Sister Smith