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