HUMP DAY

¡ Hola mi familia y amigos !

Wow I can't believe another week has already come and gone! Feels like
I was just emailing! Also thank you to everyone who wished me a happy
birthday, it was such a good day! But before I get to that...I think
I'll talk about Thursday and Friday first.

So Thursday we checked our media referrals during weekly planning as
usual... (we never get ANY. Pretty typical of the Spanish program) BUT
this week we got THREE. I mean it's actually really exciting...so none
of them have responded quite yet but we'll be trying to stop by
tonight and deliver their bibles so that's fun. Also on Thursday
Alexandra (one of the members we visit) taught us how to make a kale,
pineapple, Granny Smith Apple smoothie. Haha we haven't tried it yet
but I'll keep you posted, she also gave us a bag of chia seeds. Gotta
love the healthiness. Oh also Thursday at our dinner appointment with
the Lyon's I got to blow out adorable balloon candles in ice cream
(they even sang happy birthday in Spanish. Too fun) Friday ended up
being a super busy day and we were able to see a lot of the less
actives we have been needed to get in with and it was just a packed
lesson day which is is always the best as a missionary perfect day to
lead into my BIRTHDAY.

So I was so incredibly loved and blessed on my birthday. The weather
all day was amazing. We wore short sleeves all day and the sun was
shining and so warm...We even got to run in actually shorts in the
morning! Also the English sisters spoiled me with all these adorable
little presents...they even made cookies shaped like a 20 (I'll send a
picture). We did have to go clean the church but then we got a call
from Gladys wishing me a happy birthday!! (I guess she saw it on
Facebook) and she was so nice. We ended up going over there later for
a lesson and she even made me a cake! (And coconut bread stuff
too....I need to learn how to cook from here it was delicious). It was
the best to spend the majority of my birthday with Gladys and Patricia
and the girls, I love them so much. It was a member present lesson too
since Larry came! (He brought me cupcakes too, the nicest). Gladys
even called on Monday making sure I had a good birthday, i love them!!
We also got to have an amazing dinner appointment too with Sis
Doxford, and Daniel. Anyway that was kind of a scrambled summary of my
birthday but it seriously was the best day. Everyone was so kind and
loving and I was so blessed!!

Sunday Maria came to church and got her visiting teaching assignment
and was SO EXCITED!! It was so amazing, and we had a "linger-longer"
too which was great.

Anyway I'm running out of time a little bit again. We got to go to the
temple today - THE BEST. We almost even had to watch the whole session
in Mandarin too...luckily they ended up just giving a few people
headsets. But it was so cool because one of the Chinese members was
going through for the first time, there were so many missionaries in
the session it was incredible.

It's been such a good week. It's been raining a ton (April showers are
real). We've contacted so many incredible people of the train lately.
Just the other day we were able to talk to this lady from Paraguay!
Our mission has been putting a huge focus on finding and just this
week as a mission we have a new standard of doing 3 hours a day of
finding....which is actually kind of a lot! But just starting
yesterday we've already seen so many blessings. Tracting last night we
found TWO Spanish families. One told us to come back, but one we were
able to go in right then and have a lesson with them. I just love when
you find the little blessings from all the hard work we put in every
day.

Well tomorrow officially marks 9 months that I have been a missionary.
It's so crazy how quickly time flies. It definitely a reflecting
moment to be halfway (what better time for us to go to the temple too)
I've learned SO MUCH already, And looking back I am noticing that all
the "little by little" changes have evolved into so much more. I love
my mission with all my heart and I'm so excited to see what the next 9
months will bring!!

I love you all so much and am so grateful for each one of you. Have an
amazing week and enjoy the beauty of Spring!

Con Amor,
Hermana Smart

BIRTHDAY

¡Hola Familia y Amigos!

So I don't have a ton of time to write emails today because we did a
"Birthday Pday". We started out by going to Sarabeth's for a classy
New York "brunch" (we just pretended it was Saturday) super delicious.
Then we headed to Rockefeller for some Birthday Shopping, and spent
the rest of the afternoon wandering through MOMA (yes I finally Starry
Night in person) It was a true classy New Yorker experience, I'm
definitely a spoiled missionary.

Well this week was really amazing, I'm truly coming to love the people
we teach and work with so much. Iris this week even asked me to give
her an injection in her arm....so I just did it! Haha I guess I did it
a little too hard? Haha we were all dying laughing. Not supposed to be
a nurse I guess. But not just things like that, but really seeing
people as our Heavenly Father does. It's such an incredible blessing.
I read somewhere before my mission a quote that said "thank you little
black name tag for allowing me to have intimate experiences with
complete strangers" it's so true. It's such an incredible blessing. On
Friday I went on a split to the morning side heights area (which is
gorgeous and has columbia's campus, I'm in love) and I was able to
have the most incredible spiritual experiences with complete strangers
who accepted me even though I was just on a split. It was incredible.
Really helped remind me of the sacredness of my calling and that
immense love we can have for others.

So we had a really cool lesson with Patricia this week. We were able
to take a member over with us, and it was just her since we met her at
an apartment where she is a home attendant at. And miracle of the
week!!! So she has been telling us that she wants to be baptized and
do everything as a family...and we were going to try get her husband's
address in the DR so we can refer missionaries there....but then on
Saturday she said that missionaries showed up at his door!!!!! Without
anyone telling them too (except the spirit) and it's just so
incredible!! The pieces are truly coming together for her, and
hopefully we can just continue to progress with her. I'm so excited.

Well I'm really out of time but this week was really good, and the
weather keeps getting better every day. Just Monday they started to
bring out CocoHelado in the Lower East Side which means spring is
definitely officially here. :)

Oh guess what! I learned a phrase from the Chinatown sisters this week
that means "free English class" and I got to say it to my little
friend at the laundromat this morning. This adorable old lady always
comes in and sits next to us and I always say hi but today Ito to
practice my new skills and she was so happy! She kept saying thank you
and trying to speak Chinese to us haha. It was so precious.

Well I'm so grateful for you all. I promise a longer more detailed
email next week. Hope you all have an amazing week! :) love y'all

Con Amor,
Hermana Smart

General Conference, Easter, and pigeons

¡Hola! ¿Cómo están ustedes?

So first off sorry if this email doesn't make sense and/or has a lot
of typos. The past couple of days I've been fighting getting sick...so
my mental capacity isn't fully 100%. AND we decided to stop in at the
natural history museum and email here and it's PACKED. Must be spring
break or something haha. Anyway this might be a little short and
crazy.

So Friday was the most crazy day I think I've had so far in this area.
It started out normal we did studies, even got to meet up with Daniel
for lunch....and then it kind of started going and going without a
break but we had so many miracles!! We went to Nellie's to drop off
some flowers and randomly the doorman just let us in without even
calling her (never happens) so we dropped them off at her door since
she wasn't home. And then we went and knocked on Jose's door...and he
answered!!! We hadn't been able to get a hold of him for a really long
time and his phone hasn't been working and it was just crazy. But we
saw him and were able to invite him to the Handel's Messiah sing-along
with the stake (spoiler alert: he came and LOVED it!). And then as we
were leaving the building Nellie was coming back with her home
attendant and we were able to say hi. Prayers are answered! We had
been needing to contact both of them without success and finally we
did! After that we went to meet with Alexandra....who happened to have
a pet PIGEON  there. Hahaha I guess a few years ago she picked it up
of the street as a baby and helped it survive? And now it's her
granddaughters pet (along with another pigeon from the street) and her
granddaughter happened to be visiting. But it was so hilarious it was
just flying around, and sitting on her back/shoulder, and pecking at
her wig. Too funny. We did have a really amazing spiritual lesson
amidst it all though so that's good. Then we got to go visit with
Minerva and she's always hilarious but awesome, and then ALSO friday
we got to go visit the Andrede Family again and her mom who's catholic
sat in on the whole lesson. Huge blessing. AND we got to go visit Iris
and that's always a treat I love her so much, and she bore her
testimony to us this week. It was SO POWERFUL. All in all we pretty
much ran all day and didn't eat much but we were spiritually fed so
much and had so many tender mercies and miracles. Such a good day.

The weekend to follow was also really good. We were able to watch all
4 sessions of general conference with the ASL branch which means it's
broadcast with interpretation which is exciting. Conference was SO
GOOD. I was able to receive so many answers that I had been needing
and it's just such a blessing to be able to listen to a living
prophet. Conference is just too amazing I don't even have words for
it, but I've just come to love and appreciate it even more as a
missionary, it truly is like Christmas for me. Add in that we also got
to celebrate Easter this weekend and it was a pretty fantastic
weekend! One of our members, Blanca, had all four sisters over for
dinner on Easter (same place we went for Valentine's Day) AND she
invited her sister-in-law Norma who wasn't a member. Not only did we
eat delicious Peruvian food, but We had an incredible lesson/ mini
testimony meeting, the spirit was so strong even Norma commented on
it!  Such a little miracle she was able to be there.

Funny stories for the week happened yesterday while we were tracting.
So we had many fun experiences but two doors in particular were
awesome. So first this adorable super happy Chinese man opens the
door. And then just smiles and stares. So we try to tell him who we
are, but he definitely doesn't speak English so we try to ask if he
would want the Chinese missionaries to stop by....no response, and we
try to back away....still just smiling. Hahaha luckily we finally got
him to understand and made it to the next door. Gotta love adorable
happy people :) THEN at another door this older Puerto Rican lady
answers, and we show her the Because He Lives video and she let's us
in after....but we're pretty sure she had Alzheimer's or something
because ever few minutes she would tell us we were so amazing, and ask
if we are catholic, and a few other repeat questions/statements...she
was definitely super confused haha. But hey at least she wanted us to
come back? :) could be fun.

Anyway I'm out of time for this week, we still have to go get some
groceries for the week. But I love you all so much and hope you have
an amazing week. I'm so grateful for each and every one of you! Keep
on smiling :)

Con Amor,
Hermana Smart

Bienvenida Abril!

 ¡Hola!

Well first off happy April!! So it may be April fools day....but don't worry no jokes are included in this email, everything you will read is actually from the life of a Spanish sister missionary living in Manhattan. Haha but really sometimes our life doesn't seem quite believable.

Well April is definitely here, let's just hope April showers really do bring May flowers? I don't know if New York weather realizes that it's spring but we have been getting a lot of April showers already so that's always good! 

We took Larry to Lombardi's...which is the first ever pizzeria in the U.S.

So Thursday was pretty crazy last week! We have an awesome new investigator that used to be an investigator from the English sisters. His name is Ramone and he has difficulties with speech so randomly switches between Spanish and English (hence why we needed to teach him) BUT we had an amazing first lesson with him Thursday. We were able to show him the new Easter video "Because He Lives" and it brought back childhood memories and it was just really powerful. I don't know if everyone has watched the new video yet, but it's incredible. President Morgan says that when truth is spoken, truth is felt, and it is so true! The power of a simple video about the atonement is amazing. Also Thursday we had a last minute meet up with Yobanna (literally a drop everything and get there lesson which was exciting) and then a dinner appointment and then the relief society board meeting! We were running non stop...but it was an incredible day! Sometimes those days are the best :)

We also met with this amazing member family this week that just moved her from Spain. They're Ecuadorian and have beautiful Spanish. It's so fun to just be able to sit down and converse with people (understanding almost everything). To think that just 8 months ago I didn't even know Spanish at all and now I can relate and connect with people? The gift of tongues is real. I know the spirit is helping me every day. 

Saturday we were able to do a really cool "APF" as a zone. We went to Central Park (kind of by the big fountain and boat house). We had a sign that said #BecauseHeLives, some chalk, and some pass-along cards. And it was so amazing! We had been praying to find some Spanish people to talk to AND we were able to talk to 2 families. They were both tourists (Argentina and Columbia) but we were still able to share the video/cards and our simple testimonies. We met a lot of other amazing people too! Even though we didn't find anyone we could immediately teach, it was such a blessing to just be out talking to so many people and sharing the message of Easter!

Also Saturday we had another awesome lesson with the Paulino family that we brought Larry to. This time Patricia AND Gladys and the girls and Felix were all there! It was a really good lesson about prophets and we're really hoping they're able to come watch a session of general conference! After the Paulino family we went and picked up Maria to go to the Women's general session of conference. It was amazing! I love Maria so much and it's so cool to be able to experience the power of the spirit like that with her. The messages about family were perfect too! Man I love general conference (it might almost be better than Christmas? Almost.) 

Wow there was so many other things this week too! But we're running short on time...transfers were today, I'm staying here with Sister McAlister, but still traveling to Inwood and back with the meeting takes time....and this email is getting a bit on the long side. 

BUT we did have one more amazing thing happen that I have to tell you about. So Sister Torres was transferred today so Monday we went to get gelato at this place by the church....and the two workers there were Spanish!! There was an older lady from Mexico, and a younger guy from the DR!!!!?! What are the odds?? So we ended up talking to them for a quite a bit, and sister Neilson helped out by transitioning it to asking if they would be interested. And they said they would definitely want to check out our church, and we gave them cards to watch the new video and everything. Such a tender mercy. Just shows you that you should be constantly finding wherever you go because you never know who is ready for your message! 

Well I hope everyone has an amazing start to April!! Also this weekend is pretty exciting with both general conference AND Easter. I hope everyone is really able to listen with the spirit and receive personal answers to the questions we all have. Also make sure if you haven't yet, check out the video on helives.mormon.org (#BecauseHeLives) I'm not just saying this because I'm a missionary....its actually really amazing and powerful. Well I love you all!! HAPPY EASTER  (eat some dark chocolate Cadbury eggs & enjoy general conference)! 

Con Amor,
Hermana Smart