One more week TIL Christmas

December 17, 2014

¡Hola mi familia! 

Wow this Christmas season has flown by! I can't believe that next pday is Christmas Eve....so crazy!! 

Well I don't have much time since we decided to go shopping in the Bronx today but I just wanted to send a quicker message to let y'all know I'm still doing well! We've still been crazy busy with work, but the work is super awesome right now. We're receiving a lot of referrals and a lot of new investigators because of the He is the Gift initiative which is amazing! Even though people seem to be busier during Christmas, they are also a lot more receptive. 

We just started with the AMAZING new investigator names Guarina.....we've only had two lessons and didn't even get to the restoration yet. BUT she already came to church!! We found her tracting...actually we were on a split that night so Sis Dodson and Sis Hall found her. She had a dream that she was picked up and landed in our church!! She's so amazing and the ward received her so well on Sunday! We couldn't even sit next to her by the time we got to relief society she had already made too many friends :)

Also on Friday we got to go up to Ossining and have a Christmas devotional with the entire mission!! They had a musical program, sis Morgan read us an amazing children's book, president spoke, and then we had a delicious classic holiday meal including turkey and pumpkin pie. It was such an amazing time to feel of the Christmas spirit of our mission and catch up as well! I took a lot of pictures that I'll send :)

It's just such an amazing thing to be a missionary at Christmas I can't get over it! I've probably talked about He is the Gift and Christmas a lot, but it's just so incredible. I'm definitely thinking this will be one of the best Christmases I've ever had. I hope you all can really focus in on the true meaning of Christmas this week, to slow down and refocus on the ultimate gift of our Savior Jesus Christ. I love you all so much and am so grateful for you all!!

xoxo

Hermana Smart 

It's beginning to look alot like Christmas!

¡Hola!

Wow this week has been CRAZY!! (Also it's snowing for the first time today hence the title) 

Every night when we get home I wonder how we even accomplished all that we did. The scripture D&C 123:17 sums it all up really well. We truly are doing everything we possibly can, and we're having lots of fun as a trio, and by the time we get home at night and take a second to breathe we realize how many miracles are happening each and every day. Last week we taught 26 lessons, and that was on a week that we had to be home by 7/8 because of the protests, and we had the Christmas concert downtown we had to help out with. We are usually double booked most nights, which gets crazy when we don't have members to split with us. BUT we've had so many amazing things happen to us. 

I don't have a lot of time to go into detail about all the lessons we taught already this week (I'm sure no one wants to read the novel at might become either) but I'm just going to share a few of my favorites. Freddy, one of our new investigators, told us he really wants to get baptized at our first real lesson with him! We got another new investigator named Milsia who is super prepared and adorable! I had a few instances this week too when we were on the bus, or knocking a random door I felt prompted to that we were able to share the He is the Gift video with and its amazing, the door is really being opened this Christmas. One of these was when we were knocking a few doors after an appointment juked. I felt like we should knock on 2B (there may have been a Shakespeare joke involved) a young kid ended up answering and we had a really amazing powerful lesson with him (he invited us in with him and his mom) we already have a return appointment for Thursday. It's incredible the people that are prepared during Christmas to hear our message. OH and also this guy game up to us at he subway stop saying he'd recently emergency moved here from, Connecticut where he was meeting with the missionaries and needed to be baptized!! Super cool. I'll have to let ya know what happens with him. Also both of those last two stories happened in what we call our miracle moment morning, because it was down pouring and crazy but because we just kept pushing through (sis hall even forgot her metro card we had to go back for and found the guy at the perfect timing) it was just crazy.

I also finally realized in church this week that I know who everyone in our ward is, it was a moment of confidence for me. Sometimes I still feel like I just got her and know nothing, but looking back on the progress I've made its kind of crazy. Even being able to understand so much more Spanish and everything, I just kind of had a reflection moment this week.

Well I'm sure this isn't making a ton of sense, but I hope it just give you a glimpse of all the miracles and the craziness of our schedule right now! It's awesome and crazy

We also had an really amazing zone meeting as well as the Christmas devotional Sunday night. Between both of those and the musical concert we helped out with downtown at the temple it's been such a Christmas focused week. It's incredible the Christmas spirit that is around as a missionary, even though it may be different to be away from family, I can already feel like this will probably be one of my favorite Christmases. Truly focusing in on the savior, and the true spirit of Christmas 24/7 is such a huge blessing. Sure I might be living in the craziest city (I mean someone even peed on the subway a few days ago) but amidst it all is the true meaning of Christmas and the He is the Gift video being shared with so many!! The work is moving forward! 

I hope you're all really able to focus in on Christ this Christmas. It doesn't take much just a little more simplicity and focusing in on what's truly important. It's so amazing the gift we were all given, discover and embrace the gift of our savior Jesus Christ! 

I love you all and wish you the best week, I promise I'll have more pictures and stories next week (we went to the temple today so didn't have too much time) but I love you!! Feliz Navidad!

xoxo

Hermana Smart 

It's Christmas time in the City!

Hola mi familia y amigos!

       Well before I jump right into Christmas I guess I should recap how Thanksgiving went! I hope everyone had an awesome day. Even though holidays tend to be a lot different as a missionary, I feel like you really discover the true meaning of each holiday, and it's actually really amazing. We were able to spend some time with Sis Spencer y Sis Findlay which was like a little bit of a classic thanksgiving feel. Then I'm really fortunate and we got to go down to see Dano! :) and then we got to go visit Ylaura, our recent convert! It was a great thanksgiving :) 

      I know I mentioned the Christmas Initiative with He is the Gift last week, but it's really become a huge part of our everyday proselyting, especially since there is such a huge focus with it in New York City. On Friday we had some really cool street contacts using the He is the Gift pass-a-long cards (if you want some they were sent in every issue of the ensign this month!) we even contacted a man selling churros who was super interesting!! Getting 3 churros for a $1? That's just the added bonus ;) we also got two new investigators through showing the video to a less active! She had two friends over and they were super interested so we're seeing them this week too!! It's incredible the impact it's making. 

      Funny story of the week. So we're at a lunch appointment with a catholic lady who just really likes the missionaries. One of the dishes was super nasty pumpkin pastry things with like bones and chicken. So.....we may have snuck them into our bags with napkins and threw them away after. Haha oops. 

     On Saturday we had an MTC for the members (CCM para Los miembros) and it was a huge success!! We had cool missionary name tags for everyone, breakout sessions about how to share the gospel (including one on social media and with He is the Gift), the bishop spoke AND president Morgan came and spoke at the end too! It was so cool! Hopefully it will get our members really excited about missionary work!

    This week was packed with a lot of amazing lessons and success and finding....and I can't share it all. BUT I do have 3 last really amazing things that happened this week. First of all Sunday Ylaura came to an investigators with us as a member present and was amazing! She bore a strong testimony and participated, you would never know she's a recent convert. Second on the way to a member dinner after that appointment we were on the bus and this guy turns to me and asks if we were Mormons. We ended up having a really amazing conversation about how he's passed by our church in the past and has been wanting to learn more and find a religion, and ours has always kind of stuck with him. But since he works a lot it's been hard to pursue anything. But he was super excited to give us his information and hopefully the English elders will have an appointment with him soon! It was just a really amazing experience to have someone approach us first for once! Okay last miracle of the week was yesterday....we taught 12 LESSONS!! Yep 12. Pretty incredible. We taught 4 on the street during our APF and showed the He is the Gift video. And then Sis Gifford's sister is visiting (she's also on medical release from her mission) so I went on a member split with her and taught 3 lessons while Sis Hall and Sis Dodson taught 4 lessons, on and we all four taught one together too. It was incredible. And I learned a lot from Eliza (sis Gifford's sister) it's always cool to see how different people do missionary work and understand people. 

     We got to go to the city today! So sorry if this email has a ton of typos, it's never easy to write while on the subway haha. Also I'll be sending quite a few pictures with this! Trio life has just been so fun and we've done so many cool things...I guess a picture is worth a thousand words? 

     I hope you all have an amazing week! I love you all and am so excited for this Christmas season! It's such an amazing time of year to refocus our lives on the savior and start feeling the true spirit of Christmas! Make sure you watch the He is the Gift video and visit Christmas.mormon.org and #sharethegift 

  

xoxo

Hermana Smart 

HAPPY THANKSGIVING

¡Feliz día de acción de gracias!

       If you don't speak Spanish or want to google translate, that means happy thanksgiving! No matter the language I hope y'all are able to really think about what your are grateful for the little things everyday as well as the big blessings! I'm so grateful for all of you and the chance I have to be serving a mission, it seriously is the most amazing blessing. 

     So transfers are today and I'm staying in Inwood....but....crazy news I'm going to be in a TRIO!! Yep. They're combining the two Inwood spanish sisters areas and so me and Sister Hall (yes she's been my roommate since I got here) and then we're getting Sister Dodson who will be the new sister training leader. It should be super crazy to combine two super full areas, weekly planning should be interesting. But I'm super excited for the adventure!! I'm sure there will be lots of crazy and exciting things ahead this cycle! 

     We saw a lot of members this week as well as our investigators! Sister Baker was saying goodbye to everyone so that meant for a super packed week but it was awesome. It's always fun to be able to also see a lot of members too! We also have been helping out Zenia as service we've been walking her dog while she's on vacation with her family. It's been interesting...because they have a car and a German shepherd. My allergies have been crazy but all is well. We love every opportunity people will allow us to serve them. We also got a new senior couple in are area, the Ladles, and we helped them move in this weekend:) they're so cute! It's always fun to welcome people to the area and realize how much you actually know about a place after living in it for 3 months. 

      Some more exciting/ funny news from the week. So first off we went to this referral with a sister in the English ward. It ended up being this old catholic lady who wasn't super interested just really lonely. I don't honk she even took a breath the whole time we were there she had so much to tell us! Haha it was all in Spanish and Sis Baker was trying to translate for the English sister. It was hilarious to actually hear the translations out loud. It was crazy. She jumped from talking about dishes to, oh I made those curtains, oh my sons don't visit me, oh my sister tells me my house is messy, oh should we use forks....seriously we got stuck there forever! Too funny. We also got to see Sis Bakers grandparents this week! They're leaving on a mission before she gets home (Hawaii visitors center) and so they came and took us to lunch and such because they had been visiting family in Connecticut! Super fun, they were adorable. 

       One last thing before I wrap this email up with some pictures! So the church is starting a really amazing Christmas initiative this Friday and it's going to be amazing!! I'm so excited. They created a video called He is the Gift. It is so powerful. I seriously get the chills and/or cry every time I see it. We also have a specific I website (Christmas.mormon.org) pass-a-long cards, they have the biggest space in Times Square, you tube space...etc. It's such an incredible time to be a missionary with the tool of online proselyting! The work is hastening! I will be getting Facebook soon since I'm done training and it's going to be such an amazing tool to use during Christmas time. Holidays are different in a mission but there are incredible things ahead! I hope y'all get excited and join in with sharing the gift! 

      Hope everyone has an amazing thanksgiving! Eat some turkey but also remember to be grateful! I'm so grateful for the gospel in my life as well as all of you! Have a great week! I love you all :)

xoxo

Hermana Smart 

And then came the cold....

¡Hola mi familia!

      First off, sorry for my email last week not sending and sending all crazy....sometimes technology is just weird and way smarter than I am haha. I took a lot of awesome pictures of Central Park, the museum, the park in Inwood, and other things so hopefully you at least got some of them! If not I'm sorry....but there's some pictures this week so all is well! 

      Anyway this week was really good! Despite the fact that yesterday decided to become bitter cold winter it's been a really good week. Thursday we were able to go to do baptism with the ward with a recent convert we are teaching, Miguelina and Ylaura went too! It was so amazing. Miguelina was so happy we took a really adorable picture! Sis Baker has it but I'm sure I'll eventually send it to y'all. 

     And then this weekend I was on a back to back split! In my area...with the English sisters. Yep that's right. And it actually went really well even though I was the only one who spoke Spanish and I don't even know that much! Friday I was with Sister Keeling, We had a few really awesome lessons, went to a wedding of the English sisters converts, went to a Spanish relief society activity, and even accidentally looked-up an active member trying to find a less active...haha I guess it was her daughter we were trying to find but I had no clue. Haha good times being in charge of an area. Saturday I was with Sister Hall! We had to help this kind of crazy move...but she had hired a moving crew? But just wanted us to be guardian angels for 3 hours because she thought there were demonic people in the building she was moving out of?? Haha it was interesting. We also had a ward finding activity handing out pass a long cards in the cold for 2 hours but it was really good street contacting practice which was awesome! And sister hall is a really good street contactor so I learned a ton! ALSO WE GOT TO MEET GLESAIDYS!! Sis Baker came back for that part! I don't remember if I told you about her, but she's the 13 yr old who her family used to be active members, her dad still is, but her mom is now anti and they're divorced. She is so amazing and has an amazing testimony and wants to be baptized but can't right now since she lives with her mom. But we are teaching her usually through Facebook so she'll be ready when she can! But Saturday she was with her dad so she came to the church and we had an amazing lesson and such with her!! It was so good!! 

       Sister Baker finally came home for. The English program...haha two days was actually quite a bit of time! Anywho some other awesome highlights from the week, Sunday Ana Chan (one of our investigators we haven't seen forever) came to relief society and the lesson was an amazing lesson on prayer! She has recently been diagnosed with breast cancer and has to have surgery soon. We were able to have the elders give her a really amazing blessing. Wow she's so amazing! She's the home attendant to an investigator of the English sisters...and we used to only be able to see her if they went too since she's technically working. Which is why we hadn't seen her, but she quitting soon and so we should be seeing her a lot more! She's so strong and faithful!! I also was able to try tostones for the first time this week! Super good and we also had tostadas gotta love all the good Spanish food! 

      The weather has been crazy! Monday it was down pouring...the park across from the church was flooded and the cars were half submerged, we have videos, it was crazy! Then Tuesday decided to turn freezing luckily we had a lot of inside appointments and English class, and I have a super warm coat! New York is crazy. I think the coldest part is the wind! Winter should be fun:) 

       Well those are all the exciting parts of my week! So crazy that thanksgiving is so soon! Also transfer calls are Saturday night and Sis Baker should be leaving, so we shall see what happens!! I'll have to let y'all now since next Wednesday is transfers! Also this transfer means I'm done with training....so crazy how fast that went! 

       I love you all so much and am so grateful for all of you! I hope you have the best week and stay warm! :)      

xoxo

Hermana Smart 

Why do you believe?

¡Hola! 

     I hope everyone had a really good week! It was another great one here in Inwood AND I took a lot of pictures this week too...what can be better than that? Haha

    This weekend I started to back to full capacity from being sick and it was actually really amazing! We had a cool finding activity using family history in Inwood park, we were able to watch The Testaments with Gloria and Fernanda and they loved it! Saturday I was on a split with Hermana Alexander in her area which is always scary since we're both still training, but it actually was really fun and we even got some compliments on our Spanish which is amazing! All four sister met up for an FHE Saturday night at Ylaura's and it was awesome. We watched the 20 min version of the restoration and we had a really cool discussion after! Then we played this hilarious game...honestly I can't even describe it well. But on of the ward members was like wearing Indian feathers and we had to stay in another room and then one by one were brought in and had to repeat all this gibberish and in the midst of the crazy you sit on a wet sponge? Haha it was SO HILARIOUS we were dying. Sunday we had 5 investigators come to church! We even had 2 of them go to the English sacrament meeting even though they don't speak English just because they were late! (They came to Spanish relief society after). We also have a young women aged investigator, Erika. She LOVES church! She went with her cousins in the DR so she come to all 3 hours, she went to a stake youth activity all day Saturday. She's amazing and it lets me go to young women's every week which I love :) Monday we had to go to another funeral...which was really really sad. Hermano Mota in our ward had a heart attack this past week, our ward has really had some hard times! He was really involved in missionary work too so he definitely will be missed! 

    Yesterday we had my first zone conference! It was SO AMAZING. Seriously. We were physically fed of course: Sis Morgan made this amazing cream cheese that tasted like cookie dough and homemade strawberry cream cheese with bagels, members made us lunch, we had kettle corn) BUT a the spiritual food was even better!! We had a really awesome, discussion about the Savior. Do we really know the Shepherd? And what do we do because of that knowledge. We talked about how being on a mission we really need to learn to turn to the Lord in all things, to learn that process of being brought to our knees and as we learn to have that proximity to God how incredible a difference we can make! We were also able to spend some time in groups making a video around the city about Why do we believe? It was a really cool opportunity to realize that when we unify for one cause, the faith we have in Jesus Christ, and use all of our different talents how amazing the results are! I wish you guys could see all the videos (we had a little viewing party at the end of zone conference) it was so inspiring! It's kind of easy to get caught up in the day to day but when you stop and ask yourself why. It's incredible to realize the deep rooted reasons we all have! 

    Thanks you much for everyone I have in my life! I'm truly so grateful for all of you:) I hope you all have an amazing week and enjoy all the many pictures I have from this week! 

xoxo

Hermana Smart 

Hello November

Mi familia y amigos,

    Hope everyone had a fun Halloween and an amazing week of Fall weather! It's so crazy that it's already November, time sure does fly! The weather here in New York was pretty cold for a few days especially Sunday, but today its been pretty warm and beautiful, and makes me really love Fall and all the gorgeous leaves and just everything about fall:)

    Halloween actually ended up being a really fun day for us! We went up to the Scarsdale chapel (by the mission home) for Mission Leadership Council (MLC). I'm pretty luckily I got to go since it's only for zone leaders and sister training leaders, definitely a perk of being a companion to an STL. We took the Metro-North up and upstate has so many more trees....we took a lot of picture, it was just too pretty not to! 

    President gave a really awesome training on how we can become more prepared for 2015 and all the changes it will bring. We talked a lot about the Doctrine of Christ, which is amazing every time president gives a training but this time it was really cool to focus in on specific aspects that individually can help me to improve, to become a better missionary and person. Overall it was just a really spiritually uplifting day and I really learned a lot of things that I personally needed. Also President and Sister Morgan a few weeks ago went to a mission president's seminar upstate and spent the weekend with Elder Holland in the sacred grove. As you can imagine that was probably one of the most amazing experiences, and I am definitely jealous of the spiritual fulfillment I'm sure happened. And being the amazing people they are, President and Sister Morgan brought each of us a leaf back from the sacred grove! Just the fact of where it came from was amazing but then President related the leaf to us and the side of the leaf that is turned towards the Sun has color and pattern and definition, whereas the reverse side is colorless. He then said we need to look to the Lord for our true character and definition. All the leaves are unique and beautiful but only when they are turned towards the Son, we are facing the right direction, we look to God and live. SO AMAZING.
   Sister Morgan made homemade chili in sourdough bread bowls, and homemade donuts all from family traditions, it was perfect. Sometimes it really amazing to have more of a taste of home on holidays! We came home through the Bronx and I got my first bodega sandwich (picture included) and then we mostly went home right after that since we had to be home by6pm for safety and such! But it was just a really fun day and it was nice to get caught up on some journal writing and sleep and such. We even went and chatted with Sis Spencer for a little while so she wouldn't be alone the whole night. Great Halloween for a missionary, spiritually and physically well fed is always good!

   Despite the pretty cold and rainy weather saturday and sunday we still had a lot of good lessons this weekend! We even, after waiting over 40 minutes for a bus, got to have dinner with the Giffords sunday night and his parents were there visiting so that was super fun! It's always awesome to have a good sunday dinner appointment makes it feel a little more like home :) we also got to go to a lady in the English ward's house too, kind of a second dinner? haha it was really good. Monday we had a really cool zone meeting that kind of followed the pattern of MLC but ended up being a really cool spiritual time for the zone. After that this cold I've been fighting really caught up to me, but somehow we still were able to teach 4 lessonsmonday! We met with a member and got fed mashed potatoes and sorbet (among other things) which is always great because I love those and was getting sick so it was perfect! And then we taught 3 of our investigators and had really good lessons so it was good we pushed through me being sick....but by the end of the night I was pretty sick. So Yesterday, and mostly today we've just been home sleeping and me taking nyquil and drinking fluids and all that good stuff. But I'm already starting to feel better today, so hopefully we'll be back to our full working schedule this weekend!

  Well sorry this email isn't super exciting, it was a bit slower of a week due to Halloween and me getting sick, but it was still a good week! And we took lots of good pictures, hope y'all enjoy them! :)
Have an amazing week! I love you all so much and am so grateful for the support you continually give to me, seriously wouldn't be who I am without all y'all so thank you:)

xoxo
Hermana Smart 

HAPPY Almost HALLOWEEN

 We got to go to the temple today too! It's crazy how peaceful and amazing it is even though you're surrounded by the most busy city. So incredible.

On Oct 29, 2014, at 4:28 PM, brittany.smart@myldsmail.net wrote:

¡Hola mi familia y amigos!

     Another great week here in the Big Apple! The weather has been a bit crazy from everything to crazy rain and wind to hot and sunny! Welcome to fall:) the leaves are finally starting to change though and our church (which is kind of like home base) is across from a park filled with gorgeous trees so it's super beautiful! 

    So this week me and Sis Baker were walking home and she told me this really cool analogy that fits perfectly with this week so I'm going to share! Sometimes missionary work feels like you're running up the downward escalator and getting no where and putting forth so much effort. There are little moments when you realize you're making progress, and sometimes it's really fun, but then sometimes like this week you're able to make a huge jump up and it's so exciting! We had one of those amazing jumps forward this week. We were able to take two members with us to our lesson with Gloria and Fernanda because we were taking Fanny and then Maria wanted to come too last minute! We talked about sabbath day, fasting, tithing and it was a good lesson with really good testimony. But then as we were wrapping up and asking Gloria if she felt like she had been receiving answers she paused and told us everything that was worrying here with not following the catholic traditions of her family and just everything, Maria was able to share an amazing testimony of her experience with prayer and then we stopped and we all knelt down together and she gave a specific prayer asking if this is what they were supposed to be doing and wow. The spirit in their apartment were so strong and we were crying a little and it was such a powerful moment. I'm not sure what's in their future but I love them and sir family so much! It's so incredible the power of the spirit! Personal revelation is real. I know that with all my heart that we can communicate with our Heavenly Father and receive answers to all our questions in life!! 

     So Monday was a day of food....I know I've told you that the Spanish program gets fed a ton but it's been a little while since we've eaten a ton. But Monday Leo made us a delicious brunch after district meeting, then we ate pizza at a members house, AND THEN immediately after ate tacos at another members house and luckily took the tamales on the road. That's just one day. It's crazy here haha.

    Yesterday was a true New York experience! We went downtown for the chiropractor for sis Baker and saw crazies as usual, then we did this awesome scavenger hunt for Halloween/ APF where we street contact so many different kinds of people! We talked to this amazing lady at a bus stop who was super interested and loved how young we were and sharing messages about Christ and in the middle got interrupted by this crazy guy asking for food, we also stopped this amazing family in the subway and the daughter was adorable and kept showing us her tooth she lost, I stopped two families on the street in Spanish haha it was hard, met a man from Africa on the subway. Also we went to do a lookup from a lady that the elders had met...telling us she was super awesome and ready! So we get in the door and she's kind of interesting...she asked us at one point if we only spoke English. But we had been speaking to her in spanish the whole time. And she didn't understand that we spoke two languages? any way throughout the lesson she just seems super confused and then we look down and look up like half a second later and she's asleep. We try and make a little noise, and nothing. I had to try to contain laughter and we both just looked at each other like ummm what do we do? Haha. Luckily a little while later she opens her eyes and we kind of just continue and try to wrap up. Needless to say she is a very confused older lady. She was super excited to pray, but thought she had to pay us to come back, and when we invited her to church said she was catholic? It was crazy, and then the chair I was sitting on as we put it back the cushion part falls off and she tells us this whole story about where the nails went. It was an experience hahaha. And then later that night going home on the dyckman subway stop there was human poop just chilling on the platform. So yeah. Yesterday was a welcome to New York! Haha seriously though New York is amazing and wonderful and the people are awesome! I just love meeting so many people and knowing they're children of God and want to just share that love with everyone! It's great. 

      Two quick things before I wrap up with pictures! Sunday was the primary program and so adorable! Little kids singing and saying things in Spanish is the cutest. AND we got the huge surprise of a new ward mission leader being called! He seems really excited and wanting to do more! So hopefully we can get the ward super involved :) 

     Well I hope y'all have an awesome week, stay safe on Halloween, share the gospel with someone, and keep smiling! Hope y'all know how much I know that this gospel is true and how much I love it with all my heart. It's so exciting to see that light come into people's lives more fully! I absolutely love being a missionary and serving the people of New York! The church is so true! Love you all:) 

xoxo

Hermana Smart 

Subject: A hospital, a funeral, and some cookies

¡Hola mi familia y amigos!

      Well if you can't tell my the title of this email it was quite an interesting week! I'm gonna start by explaining the hospital part :) 

      So last pday like I mentioned we were kind of waiting to see what was happening to Sister Hall. That night we ended up dropping stuff of to her and Sister Alexander at the hospital in Bronx...since it was after the time of needing to be home we went with our zone leaders...we ended up having the wrong address, there were buckets of rain, and it was just a crazy night. Shortly after getting home we got woken up with the call that her appendix had indeed burst. Thursday I did a 12 hour shift of waiting with her in the ER to get a room on the surgery floor. Let me tell you New York ERs are crazy! It's like a game of Tetris with all the beds...it's so crowded!! And there are the most random people (see my people of New York section below for more detail) Sis baker stayed the 12 hour night shift right after me while and and Sis Alexander went home to sleep. Luckily Sis Hall finally got a real room thursday night so no more ER! It was definitely a few crazy days. I'm not a doctor but I'll kind of try to explain what happened. Her body walled the infection into an abscess and the appendix is now a stone? But by Friday night her infection levels were gone so she got to leave the hospital Saturday afternoon and headed up to Scarsdale until Sunday night to rest! She'll have to get surgery in like a month but for now she's back in our apartment and normal missionary life has resumed! 

       As for the funeral, one of our ward member's son passed away last week. I don't know if you remember me telling you about Miguel Reyes, but it was his son (who was only like a year older than I am.) So Friday night (after being in the hospital most of the day) we went for the last little bit of the funeral. It definitely was a hard experience to see their sadness, but also the culture of mourning was really amazing. The ward has been such an amazing support for them! 

      Stake conference was this weekend too! Saturday night we got to go downtown to the adult session with Sis Spencer, the new senior sister that moved into our apartment building. It was a really amazing session and so diverse! We had speakers that were new converts, spoke sign language, new to the area, lived here forever, so much diversity. The theme was aligning out will to god's will, and it was really incredible. Sunday during stake conference all the 80 or so missionaries that are serving in Manhattan we asked to come sing. So halfway through we all stood up (we were sitting in the back) and sang the first verse of Called to Serve as we walked to the front, then the congregation joined us in singing the second verse. There was such an amazing spirit, and a really cool experience! 

      So the cookie part of this email is kind of random haha, but yesterday we had interviews and Sis Morgan made cookies, then a member in our ward gave us cookies yesterday too, and then for zone activity we made sugar cookies (while we watched ephraim's rescue)! If any of y'all know me...I do love cookies. Haha 

      This week I've just come to the realization that I just really love the people of New York!! Seriously I don't know if you can really go anywhere in the world and get as much culture as here in NYC. Yesterday we did an APF and we handed out free lemonade kind of by the Columbia hospital and we met so many amazing people! Also I've forgotten to tell y'all but there is this guy named Russell that is the elevator operator at the subway stop by our house. He's one of our best friends! Haha seriously though he's always watching movies, or listening to music and we always chat with him it's the best. Also there is this crazy lady named Alice in our apartment building that apparently has lived there since forever. She is kind of a hoarder and never goes inside her apartment? So she just sits outside her door, since she lives on the first floor, and yells at everyone and talks to us. She's also next door neighbors with Sis Spencer now and that has been a treat. Haha. Also yesterday at the bus stop this Jewish sat and talked with us forever just because she loved my red hair :) OH and the people of the ER!! So I'm just going to tell you about this one guy. He was waiting with us for like the whole 24 hours, he had like 3 of his toes get cut off in the street but because he left and then missed his return surgery appointment they stuck him in the ER to wait for an available surgery...and he was crazy. He was blaring music, and would leave on his power chair every so often to go to his house around the corner, he offered sis hall drugs and weed and even smoked in the bathroom in the ER. but he was hilarious and was quite entertaining! Well that's just a few of my favorite people recently! People of New York are the best:) 

   Well due to the fact we spent almost all the week in the hospital, I don't have pictures but it was a really good week! :) we had a lot of amazing lessons the past two days and it's good to get back to a normal routine! I love y'all so much and hope you have an amazing week!! Thanks for all your support :)

xoxo

Hermana Smart 

10,000 Bottles of juice & Grape Soda

Hola mi familia y Amigos!

          It was another amazing week here in Inwood! First to explain the email title this week, haha. So we get offered juice at pretty much every house we go to either that or it's grape soda! A fun little culture fact but sometimes it's comical to think about how much of that stuff we drink as missionaries- Grape soda and juice siempre! Well I had an awesome week, so I'll just jump right into it:)

          Wednesday after last pday our appointments all fell through but we had a member, Tati set up to go as a member present. So instead we went over to her house to get to know her a little better and she ended up giving us amazing NYC pizza (the lady she lives with went and got us the by the slice good stuff) she was just so amazing! We shared with her about Preach My Gospel and how it's for all members and she was so excited and had so many questions on how she could do more missionary work and how she can help us more. Pretty much it was a little miracle because member missionary work is so important and she's so willing and ready to help! She was relief society president back when we had 70+ sisters a week a few years ago and investigators were paired with members and it was perfect. So excited to see how she'll be working with us!

           Thursday night we were able to go to a recently reactivated members house, 

Zenia. She had also been one of the few names that came up when we prayed who to ask for referrals from. So we had a fun little FHE thought about strengthening her family (she has 2 kids) and the kids were so excited we brought them a little jar with paper to write things they can do each day to strengthen their family. Then she made delicious steak sandwiches. And then we proceed to ask her for a referral. She the. To,d us this amazing story about this girl she had grown up with. This girls dad was a drunk and eventually got kicked out, but later on found the missionaries I think I'm Puerto Rico or something? He was converted and changed his life around. He now tries to get his girls to go to church, and one of his daughters was baptized and now one of his granddaughters is getting ready to serve a mission!! All from just the dad! But that being said the daughter that is Zenia's friend has kind of been an investigator in the last but  that we should follow up! She speak English, so it goes to the English sisters but when we gave it to English sisters they said they had been looking through past investigators and were thinking they should see her!! So crazy how the Lord works, revelation is real!!

           Friday was kind of an unusual day... We started the day off with helping one of our members Maria Lall in her garden. Well it's kind of a garden haha. She used to be a volunteer at the park behind her building but after crazy disagreements and stuff she removed herself and now gardens on he other side of the fence to the park in land her landlord owns. Haha there's even a movie about this whole situation with the park department she created called The Power of One. It pretty great. She from Spain and very passionate and  little crazy. It was fun to work in her garden most of the garden is from pieces of plants she find and then turned them into huge plants. We mostly helped her put her homemade mulch on. After we had chips and salsa while she told us some of her crazy stories. She also told us her conversion story which is crazy! She would tell the missionaries they had to stay until all her questions were answered even if that meant 3 am....eventually they worked something out no worries, but one of the elders teaching her had a brother die in the process of making the vernal temple in a construction accident and before he died he said 3 people would live by him dying, and she has 2 kids so she was baptized! Now she's got a really strong testimony and she's hilarious and so nice to the missionaries, also we committed her after our little message to bear her testimony in church and then she did this Sunday!! I took lots of pictures of her house and garden, so I'll send a few!

          After gardening we got to go to dinner at Maria Espinozas which was delicious as usual and the other Hermanas came with and brought an investigator/friend of Maria's which was awesome. THEN we got to go to our ward misson leader's, Jose's, wedding!! Haha it was so great they are the cutest and they had fun music (wish we could dance sometimes) we had to leave early so they let us smuggles some food before we left! But it was an awesome way to end an unusual Friday. 

        Saturday FIRST OUT OF AREA SPLIT...DUN, DUN dun. Haha worst part is having to pack a bag to go like 10 blocks away haha. But it was a good day in the English program with Sister Keeling and I even still managed to have a Dominican food appointment haha (English ward less active) 

        Also Saturday night we got to go down to the temple building for REUNION DE MUJERES! Or the general women's meeting if you don't yet speak Español ;)  they provided dinner and it was one of the most spiritual experiences I've had in one sitting in a long time! It made me SO EXCITED for general conference this weekend, and I hope y'all are so excited!! I received answers to a lot of questions and gained insight I needed just from the women's meeting....challenge y'all to think of questions, ponder before general conference this weekend! Some thoughts that I want to share is that everything is just by consistent effort, drop by drop, little by little we don't become something overnight it takes the baby steps. There was also a lot of amazing talks about the temple and cove gas but I really gained a lot from President Uchtdorf so here's a few of my favs: 

    

               You are ALWAYS a child of God, it's not something you earn and he loves you ALWAYS. Despite every flaw, you're value to Heavenly Father NEVER changes. The one who created all loves you always, despite what the world may think. 

                KEEP THE COMMANDMENTS, God knows the best way for us, he sees the big picture and is trying to guide us back to him, he will never force us but he desires us to return. He is constantly raining blessings upon us all we have to do is close our umbrellas of disobedience, pride, etc ☔️ it's NOT a to-do list to live the gospel. It should be something we desire, we obey because we love God and Jesus Christ. Little by little it becomes who we are!

                 

         Sunday there was a medieval festival at the cloisters which caused so many people to be walking through our neighborhood in all sorts of strange costumes haha. Also we went to the Giffords for dinner which is always the best. And we ended up having an amazing correlation type discussion about the ward since he's now the bishopric member over missionary service and it just got me so excited for all the work we have to do in ward here! also midway into this discussion one of their little girls climbs up on my sits down, farts, and the says "I tooted" and then gets down and proceeds to play. It was HILARIOUS. 

        Monday we set a baptism date for Valerie and we're bringing her to general conference and to the special youth lunch after on Sunday! Also midway through Monday we got a call from a member that wanted to come with us to our two appointments that night! It was so awesome, we visited a member/less active and they fed us, and then we got to visit the Castro family and Hermana Familia (the member) got along really well and we had an awesome discussion about conference and read in the BOM and it was just amazing! We've had so many tender mercies with our members lately!

        Tuesday I went on split with sister hall into the English program (yes another split, that's what happens when your companion is a solo STL) we had such a good day! We started off my jogging down to this really cool skate park by the water with awesome graffiti (I'll eventually get some pictures). We constantly talked to people all day, a crazy old man ripped part of his fruit strip thing off for us on the subway (picture included), we had a really cool APF with chalk in the park about conference, we met with amazing less actives and investigators and it was just amazing! 

Sorry these are always such long emails but we just meet so many people and are constantly having great experiences! I wish I could share it all! I'm going to send some pictures of this week for all y'all's enjoyment :) I hope you have an amazing conference experience this weekend! Love y'all and hope you have another great week 

xoxo

Hermana Smart 

Movies, Baptisms, Apostles & Another week in the life of a sister missionary

¡Hola mi Familia y amigos!

     So crazy that another week has already gone by! I'm still here in Inwood and loving every minute! This week we had a lot of exciting things happen which is always fun :) Also Sister Hall is really sick (they had a doctors appointment today, right now they're transferring here to the hospital thinking its appendix I'll keep you updated, our night might turn out a little exciting)...so between going on splits to get Sister Alexander out of the house, a trip to the ER Thursday, a few hard to sleep nights, and other fun things associated with a roommate being sick it's also been a little bit of a different week, but still amazing! 

    Like I mentioned last week we got to go down to the Lincoln Center chapel (same building as the temple) to see Meet the Mormons! It was so amazing!!! Seriously I was crying by the end of the movie it was that good! We also had a discussion after about the movie, and it's incredible to realize what an amazing time for growth of the church that we live in, and what an awesome time it is to be a missionary! The church's marketing and outreach is continually growing, I think this movie will be really successful in explaining that we are normal people, that aren't perfect, but we have strong faith and knowledge as to why we are here, and that the gospel of Jesus Christ can help our lives! I hope everyone gets a chance to see it soon. Also we got to go to this place called Steak and Shake after...and wow. I have missed good burgers (since we never really eat out) it was amazing! And their shakes were delicious too. Overall Friday was just a really good day! 

    Saturday was Ylaura's baptism!! She is one of my favorite people ever, she is just a sweetheart! We got to do her last lesson before baptism (since sis hall is sick) and it was just so amazing to see her excitement the day before and then how happy she was on Saturday. She invited her mom and her sister and they were all crying and happy and you could tell that they were feeling the spirit so strongly. I think it's definitely one of my favorite moments on the mission so far! There was a primary baptism at the same time and it was actually really cool to have the primary singing, and giving a few of the talks, mixed with the speaker Ylaura wanted and her favorite hymn. It's just a cool reminder that we are all children of God! It was truly and amazing experience and really cool for how many non members, like her family, that were able to be there! Also we found out that her husband, who lives in the DR still, is a member and they recently got married this past spring so that's awesome because they can work towards going to the temple soon! Sunday she was confirmed and she brought her mom again, and again it was just such an amazing experience! Seriously words can't describe how much love I have for her! 

   

      Sunday night there was a devotional with L Tom Perry and Elder Halestrom down at the Lincoln center chapel! We had to bring a less active, recent convert, or investigator in order to go down there. So we tried pretty much everyone we could think of and really tried to see who would benefit most from it. We had pretty much run out of options when we thought of Jose, a recent convert, he's supposed to be working with the elders but sisters were the ones to originally teach him, any way we called him and he wanted to come! It ended up being an amazing experience! He'd never been that far downtown and was amazed at Columbus circle and the city all lit up at night, and then after we got to shake L Tom Perry's hand and L Tom Perry jokingly shook the Yankees hat he had on telling him he was a Red Sox fan (haha Jose doesn't know any English) but Jose was just so excited to have met a prophet of God, it was just really cool. (Also fun fact L Tom Perry is really tall and used to live up by the mission home so he loves visiting New York and comes occasionally! Though he was here this week for the anniversary of the worlds fair?)

       Those are the amazing experiences of the week:) we also had a lot of awesome lessons, ward conference, we starting to look up some of the inactive young women in the ward which has been really cool, and we just had a senior sister missionary move into our apartments (her companion doesn't come in until November) and she's so amazing. We spent some time at her apartment last night just chatting and it's definitely going to be fun to have them in the building with us! Also something cool we did this week was during our APF yesterday we went around asking people to write words of encouragement, something kind you would say to someone having a hard time, things that Christ might say on cards. We posted them (well my companion did) to Facebook with the #KindnessKard hashtag and it was just a really awesome way to talk with so many different people in a positive way! You'll definitely have to check it out sometime. (One of the pictures this week I'm sending came from that). 

     Well those are the highlights of my week! I love all y'all so much and love hearing about your lives every week:) just keep swimming and I hope y'all have an amazing week!

xoxo

Hermana Smart 

General Conference = Christmas

¡Hola!

       I hope y'all had a fantastic week! And especially I hope everyone enjoyed General Conference!! Isn't general conference just the best weekend ever? It's kind of like Christmas while you're on a mission, and I really love Christmas so it's truly that amazing! 

      Conference as a missionary makes you really appreciate the amazing opportunity we have to hear the prophets voice, and also get a chance to be spiritually filled! How cool was it too that we were able to hear people's talks in their native languages?!? The church is growing so much it seriously is amazing!! I had all of my questions answered and there were so many amazing talks that touched me, I can't even share. But if y'all didn't get the chance start watching them little by little...because it was amazing. Also we had quite a few investigators show up to conference (7 total) and it was just a really cool experience to watch it through their eyes, to try to think about what they might be thinking of it! Well I'll get off my conference soap box, but seriously it was just so good.

     Humorous moment of conference. So we had he English broadcast set up in the chapel and the Spanish in the relief society room. All is well but them out of nowhere for the very last session Sunday afternoon the Spanish decided they wanted to switch rooms and watch it in the chapel. Which was all good until the conference started and the relief society room starts in Spanish and there was no way to switch it, AND the chapel was in Spanish it was insane. Long story short we ended up watching half the conference on an iPad until we could switch back to the chapel (since the chapel was able to switch languages) hahaha good times, good times. 

     I'm going to do a much shorter wrap-up of the week....we had a lot of amazing lessons this week, set a baptism date for Gloria and Fernanda (they came to conference too!), we gained 3 new investigators! (Family too!!), had a few meetings(an awesome, zone meeting about the spirit), watched conference and had a stellar week! Yesterday too we were able to start teaching the most adorable family that wants to start the process of deactivation! They are amazing so now with them and Zenia's family doing FHE every week we get to be around young families a lot which is my favorite! Also yesterday America Cruz, a lady in our ward, took the whole zone out to dinner at the Malecon this Dominican restaurant that was pretty great! Super fun and I guess it happens every cycle! :) gotta love a zig. Members! I don't have anything too exciting about lessons or progression of investigators, BUT the lady that I extended my first baptism date to is getting baptized this Saturday!! Even though she's in the other sisters area I'm so excited!! :) 

     Transfers are today and I'm staying here in Inwood with Sister Baker!:) AND my MTC companion, Sister Alexander is he new companion of Sister Hall so we're roomies! Super exciting!

    Well sorry this was a short email this week! Kind of getting into more of a pattern in the schedule and there are too many amazing things every day to tell everything, seriously a week happens in like a day there is so many things in a day as a missionary!! But I love Inwood and these people so much:) it seriously is the best!! 

    One last thing before I send some pictures....I hope y'all have heard about movie Meet the Mormons that is coming out?! Super exciting! We actually get to watch it as a mission at the temple chapel on Friday!!! Yeah!! I'm seriously so excited. We aren't allowed to go to real theaters  to see it, since it's not meant as a proselyting movie and hey don't want people bombarded by missionaries in the theater, it's more to just raise awareness and kind of spread the word about who we are! I'm super excited to see it!! Also L Tom Perry is coming to speak to our stake his weekend, it's going to be a great weekend! 

     Well I hope y'all have the best week ever! Thanks for all of your love and support I love hearing from you and hope life is going well!! :) 

xoxo

Hermana Smart