Snowpocalypse

¡Hola!

So the weeks seem like they keep getting shorter! Wow Wednesdays come so fast! But we did have a few exciting days this week! We also got to meet with lots of members this week, mostly for meals. We went out to eat in Chinatown once...kind of got a bit sick. I think I'll be sticking to Dominican and American food! But we had a lot of awesome meals that were super delcious. One of the newer couples in our Ward had us over on Sunday and made the most amazing pizza. One of the pizzas had cauliflower crust - which we LOVED. Such awesome and they're adorable. We're going to spend next Pday as a "spa day" at their apartment. We're so excited!! She uses a ton of natural products, she used to have a business in Utah so that's pretty awesome!! 

So kind of crazy...but Friday was my 6 MONTH MARK. Can you believe it? I sure can't. Time is flying! To celebrate all the sisters in the mission got together in Scarsdale!! ...Haha okay so maybe it wasn't just to celebrate me ;) but we did have an amazing sisters conference Friday, we had fabulous speakers, and break out sessions, and a salad bar, and we all got adorable scarfs, and we decorated sugar cookies. Best of all we were spiritually fed. Seriously i received so many answers to questions I've been having, and it was just such an amazing motivator for the next segment of my mission - to try a little harder to be a little better! And as we were coming home, the Chinatown sisters gave us this amazing Spanish family as a referral! We have an appointment this Sundaythis Sunday so we're super excited to get some more actual investigators!! 

   Saturday was pretty eventful too! We started out the day cleaning the nasty church bathrooms...haha not the best. BUT then we went to correlation, and we visited an adorable super old less active member. Her name is Neli, and it was one of the highlights of my week she was just so adorable! And we watched part of a Spanish version of dancing with the stars? But with kids? Haha whatever makes her happy, mostly it was just really amazing to spend some time and talk about the relief society lesson with her. After Neli we went to our Ward party which was KARAOKE. Yep it was awesome. Super adorable decorations, food, and of course the missionaries sang a little, super fun. English Ward parties are fancy! And fun :) 

Monday things got a bit crazier. So we went out for bagels with a member before district meeting, everything seemed fine. But then at district meeting the zone leaders started warning us about the "Snowpocalypse" or "Juno" or whatever they were calling it. Haha it was kind of crazy all the precautions. So we had to go buy some water and check our 72 hour kits and stuff, and be home by 6pm. So I got a haircut thanks to amazing sister Torres that night :) and we just stayed inside hearing the brutal wind and watching snow fall. We even got a text from the state closing down all the roads, kind of crazy. When we woke up Tuesday it really wasn't as bad as they thought, it got really icy and windy overnight but less than a foot of snow actually fell in the city. But we made some pancakes, did studies, and helped shovel in Chinatown. Most of the places in the city already were being done, but it was super fun to help out! We had tiny shovels...and I used part of a caution sign haha. Ghetto. I'll send some pics! To funny. But it ended up being a really awesome opportunity to serve! The city definitely shuts down for a typical snow storm in the standards of Utah. I mean MTA was closed most of Tuesday morning. But it's all up and back to usual for the most part - we're just super lucky we didn't get hit as hard as some of the east coast! 

Well I think that's sums up the most exciting things of this week! It was actually super eventful :) so that's always fun! Oh and today for pday we went to the MET and then had an "Olympics" with our zone complete with temple making out of cakes! Haha too fun. 

OH and I forgot to tell y'all Guarina (from Inwood) got baptized on the 17th as planned! I got to see all the pictures at the sisters conference, and see seemed so happy and her husband was there. It seemed to go super well :) she's adorable! 

Well I hope you all have an amazing week! I'm so grateful for your continual love and support!! :)

xoxo

Hermana Smart 

Poco a Poco

Hola mi familia y amigos!

Another week has flown by! It seriously feels like I was just emailing y'all, super crazy. This week was a good one, and we took some pretty cool pictures today too! Should be a decent email, hope you read until the end ;) 

We've been having dinner with some really amazing members this week, and we even got to go over the the doxfords on Thursday! Which for those of you who don't know is Lindsay Larsen's sister! (Friends of Daniel) super crazy I ended up in the same Ward as them to but they're amazing. Seriously the nicest, cutest people every and their little girl Gracie is adorable. Daniel came over to join us too, so that was just a really good night! 

I'm getting to know a lot more people in the area, which is by far my favorite part of missionary work is all the people you get to work with. Three of the less actives we work with met with us is week, and we met a new one, and it just kind of hit me how amazing of an opportunity we have in this area. Less active work is super important to building up or Spanish group in this Ward, and just in general. It's so cool to bring people back and remind them of the sacred covenants they made at baptism. Sometimes we even reteach everything (they're practically like investigators) and just this week we were able to explain the plan of salvation and it was so amazing to bring the joy of that knowledge to someone! I know we may never see a huge pool of investigators during my time here, and that's not even a problem if I can see some of our less actives return to the path! Wow I really just don't have words for how excited I am for the less active work. 

On that note, we did kind of get an investigator family this week! So we've been trying to meet with one of our potentials, Patricia, for a long time but we keep running into her mom and having little lessons with her. And this week we just kind of realized how interested her mom and kids are, so that's super exciting! Patricia has a few siblings that are members so it's even a part-member family, apostasy and they're Dominican. It's all so perfect! I'm really excited to see where things go! 

Saturday we went on a FREEZING cold run to the financial district in order to help a member move...and I didn't exactly have warm work out clothes so I may have tried to wear a coat. Epic fail haha. Just thought I'd put a splash of humor in this. Crazy redhead sister missionary trying to run through the fancy financial district in a huge coat. Yep.

Also Saturday we got to go do some lookups and visit a member from the ward we used to be over on...Roosevelt Island! It's was super gorgeous, I'll send some pictures of the tram ride. And? The members we visited spoke German! And I actually understood way more than I thought. Super fun, they have a daughter serving a mission Spanish speaking in California which is cool too.

Sunday we got to go have lunch with a member (she made AMAZING cookies for us...side note) but on the way we accidentally got on a near empty subway car...big mistake. Haha crazy hobos and smells we had a fun ride haha, and almost did it AGAINST later on, haha never a good mix to have crazy rain and homeless people and confined spaces. 

Anyway on to a good note Tuesday morning we got to go serve at this really cool soup kitchen. Seriously such an amazing experience! It was just this small place and we just served coffee, and soup and bread. They do it almost everyday too! We're going to start going every Tuesday and I'm so excited. I really can't even explain....oh and I even got to speak to some people in Spanish!! Souper cool....haha

Well those are all the highlights of this week. So I should probably explain the title of this week's email...so I've been doing a lot of reflecting this week kind of on life, and myself, and missionary work, and the gospel. Kind of everything. But my motto that I've kind of had since the beginning of my mission came to me a lot, and again while I was emailing! So in Spanish "poco a poco" means little by little. That's really how we do EVERYTHING. Gaining a testimony, learning new skills (like Español)... We just have to keep moving forward and little by little become a little better, grow a little stronger. I just love that thought so much, we just have to keep trying, keep reading and praying and taking everything one day at a time! 

Well I love you all so much and hope you have an amazing week!! :) 

xoxo

Hermana Smart 

Life as a Spanish Speaker sister in South Manhattan

¡Hola! 

First off I hope you guys all had a great week and stayed warm wherever you may be :) I know it's been pretty freezing here in NYC! 

Well today officially marks a week in my new area! So crazy. Sometimes time on a mission can be so strange. Some days it feels like this is where you've lived your whole life, yet others feels like you just got here. Anyway this week was good, definitely different than Inwood but still awesome! 

Well life in South Manhattan is still city-life but a lot different from "Domincan Heights". I think I told you a little about our apartment last week but it's this adorable little 2-man Chinatown apartment,it's really nice but it's also pretty small { our bathroom is shower, sink, tolket with jaut a 2-foot square of standing space} But somehow we actually have a bigger kitchen than Inwood which is nice. Mostly it's super fun and we have a set of English sisters at live right above us. We get to do laundry at a real laundromat (my first time ever) haha gotta love getting lots of quarters! Living in Chinatown is super fun, even when it smells horrible outside like fish haha. We cover from 59th street and down so we actually get to see a lot of really cool things everyday. We'll be in the middle of lookups and I'll look over and see the Chrysler building, or the Manhattan bridge, or the freedom tower.  It kind of hits me every time, woah I'm in New York City! Haha sometimes it's easy to forget. 

The work here is a lot of look ups of less active Spanish members, and potential investigators, and helping the other Ward since they don't have sisters (like if they need to visit a single sister). We call this area our "fetus" it's definitely still growing and developing, but it has so much potential! Our little Spanish group in the union square Ward is starting to pick up, we had like 8 people in gospel principles which was amazing. We practiced translating sacrament meeting to each other this week and failed a little...haha yikes. Super hard when people jump from one story to the next and use big words haha. 

We have an adorable Ward, even though it is kind of different being in an English Ward, (we even have a dinner calendar!) it's always a contrast from our usual day. We spend most of day in projects doing lookups and then we'll have this amazing dinner appointment in a nice apartment of one of the members haha. A lot of times it's just the wife, because the husbands work in finance and such. Kind of like a girls night. We also got taken out to eat by a newly married couple that just moved into the Ward, it was super awesome. Definitely a change from always eating Dominican food! (Though we still get that too sometimes from less actives and such) Oh our Ward mission leader is amazing too! They're new to the ward and his wife is a NYU professor, so he stays at home win his 3 little girls and is always so willing to help out! It's kind of awesome.

Anyway sorry for the overload of random information, I'm horrible and telling stories so hopefully that kind of gives you an idea of what my new area is like! It's pretty awesome and my companion Hermana Hoyos is super amazing. We work hard and always have a blast! Different from life in a trio but still fun. I love this work so much, and I love learning more about the gospel every day! Being a missionary is seriously so incredible, it can be tough especially when all your doing is lookups in the freezing cold but then you have little moments and you realize why you're doing what you're doing. The gospel changes lives. The atonement is so powerful and so real. We are all literal children of God, we have a Heavenly Father who loves us so much! When the world around us is full of chaos we have a solid foundation to fall upon. Words can't even express my gratitude,love, appreciation,mans my testimony. Hope y'all know that I have a testimony. Can't wait to see what's to come with the work here!! Hope everyone has a fantastic week! Love you all lots! 

xoxo

Hermana Smart 

New York, New Year, New Area!

¡Hola mi familia y amigos!

      So Friday we got to go to MLC up in Scarsdale and it was amazing as usual. Always good to hear from president and eat yummy food and see missionaries.

But then....Saturday night we got transfer calls, and....IVE BEEN TRANSFERRED! 

...to the SOUTH MANHATTAN ZONE. crazy right!?!? 

So I say zone because that really is our area. Me and my new compañera Sister Hoyos cover the whole zone (59th street and down). We go to the Union Square English ward an apparently translate for anyone that needs it and then we have a group for the other classes. It's definitely going to be super exciting! Oh and we live in Chinatown too in an adorable apartment with just us, but English sisters like above us so that's fun. 

I'm super excited for a new year, new area, and of course I'm always grateful to be living in New York. It's seriously the coolest to just be walking around in one of the most famous cities. I'm sure I'll have lots of crazy stories next week.

Well I don't have a ton of time, lots to do! But I mostly just said goodbye to everyone in Inwood, which was actually really sad. It's definitely so hard to leave the ward members and investigators that I have come to love so much. But as I told people as I was leaving, someone else needs my testimony and I need to be learning from this new area and these new people! I'm so excited for all that's ahead! I love you all and hope you have an awesome week! 

xoxo

Hermana Smart 

Happy New Years!

¡Hola mi familia y amigos!

HAPPY NEW YEAR!! While all of you probably watched the ball drop in
New York from your TVs I was fast asleep in New York...haha I hope you
all are excited for 2015 New Years are always amazing it's always fun
to have a fresh start!

Christmas was amazing, seriously I think it definitely will go down as
one of my favorites. It was so good to talk to most of you :) but even
more than that just being able to be on a mission during the He is the
Gift campaign, and in New York too was amazing. Christmas Eve was
filled with member appointments, Levain Cookies, and new pajamas.
Christmas Day we opened out presents, made an amazing breakfast for
all the sisters in our zone, took a long nap, went to another members
house, and called home! Seriously the most relaxing and happy day :)
we may not have gotten any snow, but the spirit of Christmas was so
strong and amazing!

A few fun things from this week: first off both me and sister Hall got
Spanish banana grams for Christmas! Which meant we got to play banana
grams for district language study which was the best:) also sister
dodson's birthday was Tuesday and we ate some pie to celebrate and
then Wednesday we went to this awesome local burger place (picture
included) it was delicious! We also had a "funeral" for the two elders
that are "dying" or going home tomorrow! Super crazy. They're going
home a few days early for school...we're losing a ton of elders so
should be exciting to see what happens next week at transfers!

          We've surprisingly still found a ton of people to teach, we may not

have been double booked during Christmas but we still had a lot of
work to do! Guarina is still doing amazing. She's older (74) and LOVES
to feed us. Like every time we go over. And we've been seeing her
almost everyday. Haha. She moved her baptism to January 17th so her
husband will be back from the DR but she's still super excited! She's
so willing and excited for everything, it's amazing.

Sorry this week is a bit shorter, I do have awesome pictures though! I
love you all a lot and wish you all an amazing New Year! :) next time
I talk to y'all it'll be transfer day! So crazy how quick these 6
weeks as a trio have gone! Love y'all have an awesome first week of
2015

xoxo
Hermana Smart

MERRY CHRISTMAS EVE!!

¡Feliz Navidad!

Happy noche buena! Hopefully you guys have all had a wonderful Christmas season and are ready for Christmas tomorrow! I know I am :) 

So I know I'll be able to talk to most of you tomorrow, so excited, but I just wanted to still catch you up on my week! 

This week was super amazing :) even though it's tough to schedule during Christmas time, we still had a few miracles and cool lessons. Friday night we watched finding faith in Christ with Gloria and Fernanda and they really opened up to us about their concerns, we're praying hard that they'll find their answer soon. The elders had a baptism Saturday and it was also our ward party! The ward party was all decked out, it took them most of Friday andSaturday to set up and the primary kids even did a play. We, the missionaries, all sang this classic Spanish Christmas song too...the ward LOVED it. They all joined in and recorded it, haha I think we even ended up on a few of their Facebook pages ( I'll send a picture) Sunday we had a less active that hadn't been to church in like 10 years come!!  Yay! 

Awesome update on guarina (who's name is also Maria) she came to church again! Even after she had spent the whole night in the ER! AND yesterday we taught her and she asked us when she could be baptized!!! So we set a date for January 10th!! :) she's so amazing!!! She even gave us dinner yesterday (even though we had just eaten pizza with America Cruz at a famous pizza place...)

Oh hey one last miracle! Yesterday we went to Sister Hall's follow up appointment from her CT scan....AND they can't see the stool ball, appendix, or abscess anymore! So she doesn't even need surgery at all!! It's probably the biggest Christmas miracle ever. 

Well I hope everyone has a amazing Christmas. It's definitely going to be sad to have the Christmas season over as a missionary. It gives us the so many opportunities (we've even been giving bus drivers Christmas cards with pass a long cards) BUT I know we'll find other ways:) 

I love you guys! Have the best Christmas! Don't forget among the craziness The true reason we celebrate Christmas. I know my Savior lives. I know that he loves each and every one of us and suffered so that we can have the ultimate gift, to live with him and our Heavenly Father again. I know this church is true and love it with all my heart! HE IS THE GIFT!! ¡Feliz Navidad!

xoxo

Hermana Smart