Sister Smith

Here it goes….. My last email

Week 76—Jan. 2, 2017

I have thought a lot about what I´d write in this last email my entire mission. Now that the moment has come I can´t find the words of what I should say or how I should say them......

The day I received my mission call, my life changed. I remember holding my call in my hands and feeling this overwhelming love for the place I’d be going and the people I´d be serving. When I opened my call I knew it was revelation sent from God and that He needed me and wanted me to serve in Brazil, Goiania, speaking Portuguese. At the time I was scared and nervous and didn’t know how I would be able to accomplish this big of a task. But Christ helped me a long the way....

With Christ I learned......

How to forget about myself, my worries and fears and go searching to help others with theirs. I learned that Love, Patience, and Charity are not qualities we will master in one day and then check off of a list. They are qualities of Christ we have to learn and work hard for each day of our lives. I learned how to speak Portuguese after 8 months of tears, laughs, doubts, and miracles. Learning Portuguese is a testimony alone that God lives because I couldn’t have done it without him. I learned that I need to become more like the Brazilians. They are the people with the biggest hearts. They meet you for one second and invite you inside and give you all their food and clothes because they love you. They don’t have to meet you and get to know you well to love you. They love everyone and accept everyone as they are. Just like our Savior Jesus Christ. It doesn’t matter if you are rich or poor, beautiful, funny, or smart, they love you and find the good in everyone and everything. I learned that the only thing I need in life is God, The Gospel of Jesus Christ, my family, and my testimony. I learned that with faith in Christ and in his power, miracles happen. I learned from President, that I just need to keep going, when I fall or mess up, keep going. I learned we can find good in every single person we meet. I learned that I know nothing and that God knows everything. I learned that every miracle that happened out here, every victory, every baptism, every thing good that happened wasn’t because of me, it was because of Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ. I didn’t save anyone, or prepare anyone, that was Gods doing. He is the only one that saves and that prepares. I was simply an instrument in his glorious hands. What an honor. God doesn’t need you or me. He can bring people to his gospel however he wants. We need him. We serve him to bring salvation to our souls. D&C 4.

I learned a year and a half worth of things that I will never forget, that I hold dear to my heart. I met people, members, investigators, and companions who have changed my life. Just like everyone says, it´ll be the best 2 years or 18 months of your life. It truly has been. It is hard like everyone says but it is a different kind of hard, its enduring the hard times, keeping the faith, remembering that Jesus Christ is by your side and that you are never alone. A mission is something indescribable; I never imagined a mission would be like this. You´ll just have to serve one to know exactly what I´m talking about. It truly was the best 18 months.

TE AMO!!!!!

- Sister Smith

Celebrating my 21st Birthday with these wonderful members!

Lets just say the members spoiled me.....It was the most amazing birthday I think I could have every asked for!!!

Members in the ward are amazing!!!

Look, all my companions and two daughters are Sister Training Leaders....this is one proud mommy right here! xoxoxo

My last leadership meeting with all these

wonderful people!

Strive For Progress, Not Perfection

Week 75--Dec. 26, 2016

I can’t believe I am winding down here. What is this? It was so wonderful to talk to you fam bam yesterday!! Sister A. Smithie said, “Wow, your family looks exactly how they do in the pictures! They are all so pretty!!” .....Well what can I say? But I agree that my family is just so beautiful, but most importantly beautiful on the inside(: Hehe! So grateful for you all!! xoxoxo

All the members spoiled us and we have like 5 plastic containers from 5 different families that gave us dinner and ice cream and cake and cookies. The Members rock. They are my families here while I’m away from mine. I will never forget the love all that the members have shown me on my mission. I truly believe that when you help missionaries, you are helping God´s servants and the blessings are BIG!

This week was a week full of tender mercies! We left our area and went on splits with some sisters and I learned so much! It’s cool because I think I am learning more from going on splits. I get to help other sisters and learn more than what they learn from me! For example, I learn new ways of teaching and new working techniques. I get to share the things I learn with them and things that could help them. Every time we teach or preach we are strengthened and learn more. I’m grateful for the opportunity to serve and to teach because it strengthens my testimony and helps me think more of our savior. So we didn’t have a lot of time to work in our area. The time we did have, the Lord worked some miracles. We marked dates for baptisms; we visited lots of people, less active people, and had lots of investigators at church. Taliesin (the one who got baptized last week) he left on vacation for a month and his dad stayed in his house for Christmas. We tried passing by to invite him to church but no one answered. Yesterday we walked into church and he was sitting on the row he always sits on with Taliesin...my heart was so happy. He was alone on Christmas and came to church all by himself (: I was so proud of him and it gave me hope that one day he will want to get baptized (:

Yesterday in Sacrament, a lovely talk was given that left sister and I crying. It was about the miracles of our sweet Savior. Remember the miracle of the leper in Luke 5? The leper saw Christ enter and he fell on his face at his feet and practically said, (if I am translating from Portuguese) “If you want to heal me Lord, you can.” When do we do this in our lives? Think about it. We should do this more. Kneel down and ask the Lord if he wants to, he could take away our burdens, our loads, our habits, and our difficulties and then have faith enough to believe that he will do it. If we ask the Lord with faith and believe we can be free, God will heal us. He may not take away the burden or situation right away, but he will help us find happiness and peace. I love the other story of the 10 lepers and how only one turned around to thank God. They were all cleansed physically but only one was cleansed both physically and spiritually. I think its crazy 10 people were cured and only one of them said thank you. It made me think, “how many times in my life have I had a victory and forgotten to thank the Lord? How many times has a miracle happened and I forgot to thank the man who gave me the miracle?”

You know those talks that change your life? Well I read one of those this week. (I forgot the name of it but I will let you know later, so you can all read it.) It talked about how we all have this ideal dream. This perfect future in our head of how we want things to go and how sometimes things don’t go the way we want them to. Then we get discouraged because we think we did something wrong, but we didn’t. Nothing is perfect. We aren’t perfect. Only Christ was perfect. We are working to be perfect, but it won’t happen in this life. I love the quote my mom gave to me that says, “Strive for progress, not perfection.” We can’t be perfect, it’s impossible right now. But we can try to be a little better with Christ in our lives. We can try to follow his example everyday. We can think, “With Christ I can love a little more, with Christ I can forgive, Christ will give me more faith, Christ will make up for my weakness and shortcomings.” We must always remember that weakness and shortcomings are there to humble us, to help us turn more toward God. Ether 12:27 If we didn’t have weaknesses we wouldn’t need Christ’s help, if we were perfect we wouldn’t need Christ and if we didn’t need Christ WE WOULDN’T BE ALIVE RIGHT NOW. Christ is the center of it all. Christ is why we are alive. I love Jesus Christ he´s done a everything for me. He is my happiness and joy (:

Joshua 1:9

“Have not I commanded thee? Be strong and of a good courage; for the Lord thy God is with thee whithersoever thou goest....” I have a testimony that he is by us where ever we go. He has been there for me these last almost 18 months. HE LIVES!!!!

- Sister Smithie

Christmas Miracle

Week 74—Dec. 19, 2016

What an amazing week it has been!! I am so grateful for my mission presidents. They do everything in their power to help us have a holly jolly Christmas when we are away from home. Our Christmas party was a BLAST!! It was super fun and spiritual. I am so grateful for their love and devotion to our Savior Jesus Christ. They were both sick and not feeling good but they continued to do what the Lord has called them to do! They are awesome examples, I want to be just like them when I grow up someday hehhee, especially Sister Bührer, she is so amazing!

This week we had a Christmas miracle and our investigator Taliesin got baptized. You guys he is 8 and he is the most pure, spiritual, intelligent 8 year old I have ever met. Let me tell you the cutest story. So we were teaching the first vision (I hope I didn’t already tell this story) Anyway, I was teaching the first vision and then I asked Taliesin who he thought Joseph saw in the vision. His little cousin who is 5 years old says Jesus Christ! I answered, that is right! Who else do you think he saw? Then Taliesin says Heavenly Father! The parents look at each other in amazement because they didn’t know that. Then, Taliesin’s aunt says, “our kids know more than we do!!” We all started laughing, but sometimes it is true. A child is so humble and so pure that they say things that shock the parents, like in Alma 32:23 “little children do have words given unto them many times, which confound the wise and the learned.” This scripture happened that day. I know that each one of us can learn by a child’s example. We all need to be humble and teachable like a little child. That is why it says it about a million times in the scriptures. Children are so pure and full of love!