Week 84

AREA: Tucson—Midvale

COMPANION: Elder Edward

Friends and Family,

Monday: Today was pretty good. This morning we were able to relax and
regain some energy which was nice. Had lunch with my trainer Elder
Young which was awesome! He looks so much more different than he did
before! I posted a picture in last weeks email. Did laundry at Roy's
house since we were pretty close to that and then had a great dinner
with a family in the ward, then had an appointment with a member.

Tuesday: Awesome day:) Highlights for today was that we found a new
investigator named Barbara Brewster:) she was a media referral and she
was very interested to learn more about the church. Had a lesson with
Faith and dropped her so we will see how that goes. We should be
picking up again in about a month. There was no progress being made
with her and felt it was the best option. Had a crazy lesson with a
part member family casting out some evil spirits that were in their
home. It was a cool experience for sure and we later got a call from
the member who told us he could definitely feel a lot of the tension
in the one gone and things were working out better than they hoped for
with things that were going on.

Wednesday: district meeting was today so I had fun preparing a
training for that. The training was on finding although I tried to
focus more on the preparations to find rather than the actually
finding part. Everyone has been trained on that too many times to
count and they talk all about different ways to find in preach my
gospel. The discussion was on how we can be best prepared when it
comes to actually applying the things discussed in preach my gospel on
how to find. Afterward I went on exchanges with Elder Patteson and had
a great time. He is a very cool missionary and we had a great time. We
were able to visit a good amount of people and we had some good
teaching moments that evening.

Thursday: This morning was a little disorganized and off task. When
you get two people with ADHD together, we can really find some weird
things. The desk that Elder Edward used was the desk he was using and
noticed that there were a lot of legit apostate writing engraved in
the top of it so we decided to do a small project and fix it. God some
wood filler, electric sander from a member, and some paint. Turned out
pretty good and Elder Edward was happy to have a nice clean desk now
that didn't take away from the spirit as he studied. Other than the
desk we also had a visit with Sister Cole. For the lesson I set my
hand on fire with hand sanitizer. Its an object lesson about how
baptism by water is preparatory to baptism by fire. (The Holy Ghost)
and how without the Holy Ghost we can not truly receive that remission
of sins. We then went and visited some people on our visiting list
which went great. Finished the desk completely that evening with Elder
Edward.

Friday: Today was pretty fun. Had to drop off Brother Collingwood's
electric sander this morning and on the way home we drove on some very
crazy roads which was super fun! After we got back we did some studies
and planning before going off to Kim's place. Kim is doing real well
and we happened to share a scripture with her which really related to
her at that time :) spirit really does work though the missionaries to
help guide them in the work:) what a fantastic opportunity it is to be
one at this time in my life. Henry took us out to dinner this evening
which was a lot of fun. He is such a great guy. While we were out with
him we got a call about a baptism that was in the area so we rushed
over to that and it was one of the worst/unorganized baptism I have
ever been too in my life. I was very disappointed with how the elders
who planned the baptism treated this brothers special day... I did
have a word with them and hopefully nothing like it happens again the
way it did. Other than how unorganized it was, I am very happy for
Ronald and glad I was able to be apart of it:)

Saturday: Today was very productive. This morning we started out with
doing weekly planning quick before taking off to go to a lesson that
ended up canceling unfortunately. Brother Collingwood was with us
though and we ended up visiting a bunch of people in the ward. There
are so many people that should be getting visited more regularly but
are not:/ its sad because who knows if they would be coming back to
church if they saw that someone actually cares about them. We visited
with an excommunicated member this evening and he is AWESOME! His
story is so unfortunate and I have a lot of compassion for him. I hope
we will be able to help him out as much as I can before I get
transferred. Hopefully one day he will be able to get re baptized...
especially before he dies because he is getting kinda old and has post
polio syndrome or something. We gave him a blessing and it was very
interesting to give him a blessing. I felt some of the pains he was
going through and how lost he feels. It was sad and the blessing was
very powerful and comforting to me because it shows me that God loves
every single one of us no matter how bad of a mistake we have made.
That was pretty much our day.

Sunday: Church was great! We had church in Sells after normal church.
The Whitlocks, who is a older couple that we visited with on Saturday
with brother Collingwood came to church!! It was great to see them
there and it shows that prayers really do work! We challenged them the
previous day to pray for the strength to come to church. Only I went
to Sells while Elder Edward stayed back in Midvale. Had a tough time
leaving because a members key wouldn't work so we had to drive them
home to get the spare key and come back. Ended up getting back pretty
late. It was a lot of fun though. That night we had a great time at
the bishops house and Elder Edward burned a shirt.

Monday: just thought I would update you on Monday already since its
over anyway. Today was my surgery and everything went great! I feel
fine and should be back to normal missionary work by Wednesday at
least. I'm not in very much pain as of now and have already been
walking around doing things I would do normally. I just do it slower
than usual is the thing. Will let you all know though how I am feeling
next week:)

This week I want to bear testimony on the power of the Holy Ghost and
how we should always strive to stay worthy of it. The past few months
of my mission I have been struggling with stress which has made it
difficult to be willing to even try to listen to the prompting of the
spirit. I have been really focusing on controlling my stress and it
has helped me recognize the spirit more everyday and aloud me to be a
happier person. My conclusion to this experience is, don't trust my
judgement until I consult with the Lord because he knows what's best
for me... I don't.

Thanks for all the love you show and the prayers you say!

Love,

Elder Smith