Another 6 Weeks in Da Hood!!!!!!!

That's right family! I am STAYING IN MIDWOOD!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! yes! same companion. same area. yes! I'm so glad because this last transfer has been so crazy with moving twice (we moved again last week) and everything that I have felt like we have had a lot of proselyting time taken away so I'm really really glad that sis. smith and i can just keep running and not have to stop for transfers. yeah!

SO - this is lame but tooth report :) -- i am so blessed! the crack in the crown didn't break the seal so they just polished it up and everything is good. YEAH!!!!!!!!!!!! dad i will email you a little more about it :) and i love you all

we moved so it's only sister smith and i in the apartment. we just live in a little studio apartment and it is BEAUTIFUL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! so so so beautiful. we have been truly blessed by the work that the senior couples in our mission do for us - they have busted tail to get our zone into separate apartments and they did such a good job. oh - and they really did spoil the sisters :) they saw our apartment and said oh the sisters HAVE to have this one! yeah, sorry all you ex-elders out there --- sisters do get special treatment and we know and we know that we are spoiled but hey - we appreciate it :) :)

well, this week was a lot of moving. we are in another Jewish neighborhood -- which is cool. a little Jewish girl stopped us the other day and asked us to plug something in for her because she wasn't allowed to touch the plug because it was her holiday -- easiest service i have EVER done for someone. and she was so grateful because it was her air conditioning that was unplugged. yeah - she thought we were pretty cool for doing it!

i got proposed to this week - some guy just said that mormons have a lot of pretty girls and he wants to join so he can marry one of them. then he said it was me he wanted to marry. yeah -- don't worry. it is DEFINITELY not going to happen. my favorite pick-up line of the week is "i want more of YOUR bible study" haha.

the elders had another baptism yesterday that was really really cool. she started crying as soon as she came out of the water and just cried for 2 whole minutes. hope the water was warm or that was probably uncomfortable :) kidding. one of our investigators was there and she said she is getting really excited for her baptism on the 10th!!!!!!! we are taking things slow with her though because she is a very extreme person and she walked out of sacrament meeting last week and yeah. just taking things slow so she is ready :)

GENERAL RELIEF SOCIETY MEETING!! aww. i LOVED it! i have never really been SO EXCITED for general conference and i realize now that i was being an IDIOT! we have the opportunity to listen to a LIVING PROPHET. like a living nephi! and i just didn't get it!! but it was really good to listen to the prophet and i LOVED sister thompson's talk about visiting teaching. i didn't realize how important that is either until now when i go to visit soooooooo many sisters that haven't had contact with the church in years. we each have the responsibility of taking care of a few of our heavenly father's children and he trusts us with that ! and it is the calling that i just brushed under the rug most often. oops.

winford is doing really well. we just want to yell at him sometimes and say HELLO YOUR ANSWER IS RIGHT THERE!!!!!!!!!! sometimes we are really stupid when we ask heavenly father again and again and again for an answer and it is RIGHT there. we are just so stubborn! i'm just REALLY glad heavenly father is SOO patient.

this month the mission is having "sister conference" and we get to go to the mission home for the day. holy moly i'm STOKED!!!!!!!!!!!! and i'm also stoked for CONFERENCE!!!!!!!!!!!!! woot. okay fam. i LOVE you. sooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo much. every night i thank heavenly father for blessing me beyond ANYTHING i deserve with such an incredible family and friends. all of your letters give me the biggest strength and i just thank heaven that i am the luckiest girl alive.

i love you. sister mich

Pictures of the week!
the first ones are my new beautiful apartment :) i know - i'm way spoiled! the others are from the staten island ferry

From the NYC

Hey family! so this week has been pretty crazy and emailing is a little crazy today so it's going to be short -- sorry! but i love your letters SO much and they really do mean more to me than i can ever tell you. sooooooo this week -yes there was a hurricane. miracle = sis. smith and i AND the hermanas were inside when it hit. we just had a LOT of rain and lightning and i was just glad that i wasn't outside. we were going to go tracting all night but sis. smith decided that we should probably map out our area instead. so we did :) -as most of you know by now i just talked to mom! i woke up yesterday and something felt pretty rough in my mouth and i broke my stupid crown so i got to talk to mom to get insurance info. it was AWESOME i freaked out when i dialed my HOME PHONE NUMBER and hit send. i love you all so much. thank you SO SO much for your love and support. it means more than you know. -i lost my name tag this week -- thankfully my companion is named sister smith so i just borrowed one of hers. haha. thanks president for putting us together. -it was yom kippur or something this week -- i'm becoming more aware of jewish holidays than i ever have in my life. some of them are really sweet to us. one lady stopped us on the street and told us what good girls we were and how we are doing an awesome job. aww. -BIG OL FAT MIRACLE. we were walking on the street and a man stopped us and told us that he studied with missionaries in haiti and wants to keep going and be baptized. yeah. it was a good day. we are SO guided -- love it! -we got a new investigator that is a fashion designer. he is quite a character. he asked both sis. smith and i if our hair was real. it made me feel good to say YEAH! my hair is so long that he thought it was fake! nope real :) :) and yeah. my brain is SUPER scattered right now -- sorry fam. next week will be better. oh. next week is transfers. so -- we will find out if everything is the same or not. i heard from someone that it's so cool to know that we have a specific place we need to be at a specific time and with a specific companion. and it is up to us to figure out why and make our purpose happen. love it. love you!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! sister mich

Another Day in Paradise :)

Hi Family!

OOOOOOOkay so I totally forgot last week to say HAPPY BIRTHDAY TIFFANY NOODLE!!!!!! (someone make sure she reads that :) ) and this week was so good! We moved apartments this week - I'll talk about it later, but if anyone is sending me a letter (which I STRONGLY encourage and highly recommend) -- do NOT send it to my ocean ave. address. Just send them all to the mission office. :) and i love you all.

soo -- monday was pretty crazy. i never NEVER knew that Labor Day was a big deal -- well it's a REALLY big deal in ny. it's like 4th of July for all of the people from the carribbean which is basically everyone and everyone flips out about their country. and they party. a LOT. the biggest parade in new york is NOT the thanksgiving day parade -- it is most definitely the labor day parade. weird. well, our ward had a bbq on monday and we went -- one of the ward members got lost though and she had a stroke 5 days earlier and was walking around a massive park in the hot sun... the elders had to go get her and it took them a few hours because she has lost some brain power from the stroke and they weren't too happy but hey! some girl is going to really appreciate the lessons they learned in patience :)

we have known that we were going to move for a while, but the office hasn't told us when or where or anything and then we called them on tuesday because we were deep cleaning our apt and we weren't sure if we needed to pack or not because we knew that our lease was ending on the 10th and that we were going to be evicted that day. well, they told us yeah you need to pack because you are moving the day after tomorrow. so -- we got everything ready and moved and we moved to a VERY prominent Jewish neighborhood. Sister Smith said that we now know what it would be like for a Muslim or Jewish person to move to Utah. poor people. we walked into our apt and there were prayer scrolls everywhere and all of this Jewish stuff that we don't really know what it is, but it's cool. we blend in pretty good though because we are wearing dresses all the time -- it's just our name tags that say Jesus Christ on them that kinda set us apart -- a little :) needless to say that we didn't put a picture of Christ on the outside of our door like the last apartment -- we don't want people to hate us THAT bad. and the other news is that we are moving again this week! the Jewish apartment is for the elders and the office didn't have our apartment ready before we got evicted so we are moving into our real apt. this week. and transfers are next week so i just haven't really unpacked and probably won't until i know where i will be for the next transfer. :) it's kinda fun. the first night in our Jewish apt. we all slept on the floor because we didn't have our beds set up and it was a really fun little sleepover party/night under the stars brooklyn missionary style i guess. but yeah. my arm muscles are huge again because i moved a LOT of furniture :)

sooo September 11th was this week. i was thinking about the family Florida trip and how i NEVER in my WILDEST dreams thought that nine years later i would be right there - serving a mission. we saw the laser lights for the twin towers and it was really cool. it was cool to talk to people and see how it was here when everything happened -- it was a crazy CRAZY day that is for sure. a LOT of people here were affected -- it's sad that sometimes it takes a terrorist attack for people to turn to our Heavenly Father and remember what life is really about
so this week our district started talking about our goal -- 8 baptisms this month. well, that goal is definitely breaking midwood brooklyn history and it is going to take several miracles to get there. our district leader, elder olsen, was talking about how none of our goals are going to happen in the first five minutes that we make them - God needs to try our faith and see if we REALLY believe in Him and if we really can give everything to Him and know that it is going to happen. It was an awesome district meeting that i really needed because we were all losing faith. well, that night we met with this lady named lorraine -- we found her on some list that was from 2008 and i called her when sis. de la mare was sick and we were inside for the week. it took us FOREVER to meet with her because her schedule is crazy -- well she is a really really big miracle. she has met with missionaries several times in jamaica and here and is so prepared and things have just fallen through so that she hasn't been baptized yet. yeah - it was a really good lesson for me. God is in control and he can make whatever He wants happen. The hardest part is getting over ourselves and our pride so that we trust Him and can expect the miracles to happen.

another miracle. i'm really hoping something changed in Winford. he has been having a REALLY rough time with anti-mormon literature and he has lost all of the drive that he had. we went over though and Heavenly Father guided the lesson we had PERFECTLY and we all prayed together right there about his concerns. And then we just sat in silence for a while (which iss really difficult for Winford because he really like to talk and may or may not have ADD) After our "moment of silence" Winford said that he heard a voice telling him that he WILL know. so yeah - he is praying about getting baptized on the 20th and i will probably do a backflip on that day. it's going to be REALLY really good. :) :)

well, that's about it. family - i love you SO much (and anyone else reading this email). thank you so much for your encouragement -- your letters mean the world to me and i am the luckiest girl ever to have such an amazing support system. This week when I saw all my Jewish neighbors walking around I kept thinking about how much Christ really does mean in my life and I am amazed. Christ is everything. EVERYTHING. His atonement will heal any wound and He is there for us every single day -- even when we are horrible to Him and reject Him. This gospel is the most amazing part of my life and I am so blessed to be able to share it with so many people.

God is real. Miracles happen. We will NEVER be forgotten.

Love you all.
Sister Mich

Sometimes I Hate the Subject Line Because I Really Don't Know What to Say Here (9/6/10)

My Dearest Family,

Well, this week has been very... busy. I guess that's the best way to describe it :) The Hermanas (Hermana Reed and Hermana Banaswzeski that live with us) had a HUGE rollercoaster of miracles and opposition and stuff. They taught a woman who is the mother of our ward executive secretary and she is from Puerto Rico -- so they taught her. Well, she was here for vacation and the family has been working on her for over 15 years -- she got baptized on Saturday. (with special permission from President Nelson and the Puerto Rico mission president and everyone because she was just on vacation here). But yeah, it was WAY cool. President Nelson came to the baptism and we got to go as well and it was really really cool. The son though, our exec. secretary, was the opposition. He freaked out and was so mad that the missionaries were teaching her and that she wanted to be baptized because he told them that there was no way that she would go home and be active without any support. Yeah. There will ALWAYS be opposition -- even in the ways that we really don't expect it. But, it all worked out and Brother Cuaves (son and exec. sec.) had a change of heart the night before the baptism. He finally talked to his mom and his wife and the missionaries and realized that his mom WAS ready for baptism and that everything was going to work out. So she got baptized -- on Hermana Reed's birthday. So me and Sis. Smith tried REALLY hard to make that day really special for her and everything. I made an AWESOME cake. :) yeah - I just said that. But it was three layers - funfetti on bottom, brownie middle, and funfetti top. We each had one piece and then realized how much cake was there and how few sisters we had to eat it and so we made the elders' day by giving the rest to them.

For us, we had a crazy week too. Example: Yesterday we went to a less-active's home and we walked in and their grandma who lives with them was just sitting on the couch with only a towel wrapped around her waist. Awkward. And the family was just kind of taking things easy and they told us that they were taking the grandma to the emergency room because she couldn't breathe. So we weren't sure what to do and they told us to keep going and give them our message - so we put in the Restoration movie and the grandma is just sitting there and panting and gripping the couch and speaking in French because she doesn't know English and we were so awkward -- so we just told them to watch the movie with their family and we would call it good.
We met with Stacy and Chris again this week and it was really cool. Like I said last week, it's cool to see Stacy feel like she can finally share her testimony with Chris and he started reading Our Search for Happiness and we have really high hopes for them. We found a family of five people that were really receptive to us and it was really cool. The entire time the one brother (there are three brothers in their 30s ish and two wives/girlfriends too) but anyways the main guy we were talking to - he calls himself "the one" kept bashing the Catholic church and telling us how much he hates it. Well buddy, do we have a message for you!!

We found one lady this week that is a former investigator -- well we knocked on her door and she said that she wants us to come back so bad and that she wants to go to church and become a member -- the only thing that is stopping her is that she doesn't have a dress for church. Woot! If Satan thinks that a stinking dress is opposition -- oh no. Very very wrong :) The other Sister Smith got proposed to this week by some really drunk dude. And we met this lady named Shemane - she thinks she is a prophet because she has a whole bunch of visions and thinks she can heal people. Well, her last vision was of two guys in white shirts coming to her door and she was told not to turn them away. That was the day before the elders knocked on her door ;) yeah - God is real. We taught her with the elders and it's a little tough to make her realize that she isn't a prophet, but it was really good!

Well family, I really do love you. I'm praying for you everyday and I hope you know how much I love you. Pretend that I'm there and that I'm giving all of you a really big hug. I love you. God loves you. Christ loves you. The church is true.

Love,
Sister Smith (Sister M. Smith -- we have to distinguish now :) )