Week 90

AREA: Safford, AZ

COMPANION: Elder Inskeep 

Friends and Family,

Monday: Today was a typical pday... didn't do anything too exciting.
Only thing that was "exciting" I guess was that we had FHE with the
YSA Branch. The branch is pretty lame though... nobody wants to
socialize. They did square dancing and none of the guys wanted to
dance and when they did end up dancing they acted like it was the most
horrible thing ever...

Tuesday: Had food bank this morning which was fun as usual. Had
interviews with President Passey which went well. After that we pretty
much did the usual missionary stuff. Nothing exciting happened
unfortunately.

Wednesday: This morning we had a zone breakout and then district
meeting. The district meeting was pretty good for the most part I felt
like... After district meeting we did normal missionary stuff and
ended the day with a coordination meeting with our Branch mission
leader.

Thursday: Had food bank in the morning again and then picked up a free
pizza a Dominoes with some other missionaries. Went back to our place
and ate those up quick. Did our studies and then had a lesson with a
less active named Scotty and had a pretty good discussion on the Book
of Mormon. Got a better understanding of his thoughts and feels of it.
Learned he has a desire to read it but he struggles to sit down and
read it because he hates reading. Our invitation to him was to touch
the Book of Mormon everyday hoping that with that simple of an
invitation, he will do it, and realize how dumb it is then pick up and
read it. Ended the night having dinner with our ward mission leader at
Denny's.

Friday: Pretty good day, made some preparations for next week. Still
didn't get all of our planning done though which sucked. We had the
father and sons camp out though which was a blast! We got to drive up
to mount graham which is a completely different world compared to
Safford. There are huge trees, a lot of wild life, and beautiful
mountains. I love the mountains so much! Had some delicious food! One
of the counselors in the bishopric made smoked beef and pork. Was able
to make the fire which was amazing!! I haven't been able to make a
fire in so long! Gave the spiritual thought and it kinda was really
bad... didn't have much time to prepare anything at all and for some
reason I was nervous. Drove down the mountain that night because we
aren't aloud to camp overnight. Our ward mission leader drove us there
and back too.

Saturday: Spent most of the day weekly planning because we didn't get
to finish Friday. That went well though. Got it finished up and I'm
feeling pretty confident about next week. Our zone focus it finding at
the moment, we are supposed to schedule 1 hour of finding per day.
Everything should be great with that and I am looking forward to
seeing how things go.

Sunday: Today was GREAT! Fast Sunday is always my favorite sundays for
the most part. Both our meetings went really well, I was able to meet
a lot of the members in the ward, and schedule some solid
appointments. Only thing that kinda sucked was that we didn't have any
investigators at church. We did have some less actives at church
though. After church we went back to the apartment and relaxed a
little. Got my back from Tucson and thought we would bike to church.
Felt like a big mistake physically haha I am so out of shape and my
butt is dying. Dinner was great and after dinner we had two very good
lessons. One with a recently reactivated member and another with an
investigator.

"And the Lord God hath sent his holy prophets among all the children
of men, to declare these things to every kindred, nation, and tongue,
that thereby whosoever should believe that Christ should come, the
same might receive remission of their sins, and rejoice with
exceedingly great joy, even as though he had already come among them."
-Mosiah 3:13

Through the gospel we can experience more happiness we can comprehend!
We can have that joy today as well as we follow the gospel of Jesus
Christ. Faith, Repentance, Baptism, receiving the gift of the Holy
Ghost, and Enduring to the end. Follow this basic map our loving
Heavenly Father has revealed to us through a prophet and we can
receive a joy so great, it would feel as if Christ had already come to
us again. I have felt the love of the Savior more and more everyday as
I strive to apply the teachings of the gospel. Have a great week
everyone! Love you!

Love,

Elder Smith