hi family!
okay so sorry - just kidding about the subject line only email. this week was really good. we are still working a lot with the young women, which meant that we got to go to their sunday school class and it was a riot. loved it. we had some really cool stories this week so i'm just going to get into it. we were sitting on the train the other day and this man was sitting across from us - he was on his cell and he saw us and then crossed himself and then his conversation went like this "stop saying that. i can't respond. i can't curse because you wouldn't believe it, but there are two nuns sitting across from me. man i'm serious. this is the first time in my life that i'm speechless because there are two nuns sitting here. i swear it man. they are even wearing big black plaques that say SISTER on them. i promise! one says sister smith and the other says sister robinson. i really can't say anything" -- well, that went on for about five stops on the train and then we gave him a card with our number when we got off - we couldn't talk to him because he was still on the phone. well anyways, the next day we were getting ready for an appointment and he called and told us that his wife just left him with their four-month old baby because she was cheating on him. he started crying and telling us how he wants to change his life and all he wants is to be a good father and have a family and he told us about how he is trying - he bought the crib for his baby, but now he doesn't have a baby to put in the crib. so, we set up an appointment and we are going to try and go teach him with some other elders this week - the only problem is that he lives in a different area.
another cool story - andre. andre is the guy that we met a couple of weeks ago after the big snowstorm that messed up all of new york - we taught him and it was amazing. the lesson was going - not super well. his eyes were glazed over and you could tell that not too much was sinking in. well, i had a very clear thought to ask him a question. i did and we found out the real problem. he has never felt God's love for him. so this week we watched the testaments. i was SO PROUD of the elders because, let's be honest with ourselves, most of the time when we have meetings we run into the church and talk for a little while before the meeting starts. well, the elders had a leaders meeting and they all warned each other to be extra quiet so that our lesson wouldn't be disturbed. and it wasn't. the movie was AWESOME and we talked a lot after about how andre felt and about how Christ knows each of our names and loves us individually. he said that he has felt different when he meets with us and that it has been quite the rollercoaster. he said that he has already been baptized three times and the next time he wants it to be real. :) :) he is coming to church sunday :) :) and i have to give a talk. probably my last sunday in midwood. transfers are next week and i'm about 97% sure that i'm leaving.
we also met with the family that i told you all about a couple of weeks ago. the family that sister robinson and i found when we REALLY didn't want to go out. they are AWESOME. we met with the wife with a member who is absolutely amazing - she just got baptized a few months ago. well, it went really well. we just talked about her family and how they can be a family FOREVER :) :) and then we took a different member with us the next day and met with the dad and the whole family. it was really cool.
we are serving specific members in the ward and we visited the johnston's yesterday - well as soon as we left their dog got out and ran clear down the road and it reminded me of rusty when he would run away from us :) well, the next service we did for them was go and find their poor little dog.
we deep cleaned our apartment this week... well, we switched the day that we were supposed to do it because our building was turning off all of the water - yeah they ended up not turning off the water until right as soon as i was trying to clean the tub. so -- we had an interesting deep clean (don't worry, we really did clean) but we ended up not being able to shower for our appointment that night. one of the spanish elders saw me and said WHOA! i've never seen you with your hair in a ponytail and with glasses on. well elder, congratulations, there is a first for everything :) it was pretty funny.
and i don't want to end on that lame story, but i don't have any more. i love you all! you are the best. thank you for your support. love love love you!
sister michelle smith
1.24.2011
"the life of a missionary isn't real exciting" and "this week went good. still alive. a little cold" -- just said by my DL elder wright (1/24/11)
have a good week!
love you,
sister smith
love you,
sister smith
creativity + gone. subject line = 1/17/11
Hi Family!!!!!!!!
Well, this week was pretty awesome. Obviously the biggest highlights were Blaise's baptism and both Blaise and Rachel's confirmations. it was AWESOME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! first off however i would like to say thank you. i got my care package with my coat and beef jerky and it was a little actually a huge piece of heaven and all of the elders were so jealous because they haven't had homemade jerky in forever. i thought about sharing with them - well, the mission hasn't changed me THAT much to have that much charity.... but i enjoyed not sharing with them so much! thank you family. my coat keeps me VERY warm and i love it.
okay so here are the stories that didn't make it into the highlight reel. sister robinson got pooped on by a pigeon and i rubbed it out of her hair with hand sanitizer because we didn't have time to go home... :) oh the life. and we had an activity with the young women of the ward - we sang to some people in a nursing home and on the way one of the young women started coaching sister robinson and i on our "attitude" -- so don't you all worry, we have been practicing and we are getting really good at our "whatever attitude" :)
aight here is the good stuff:
monday we went and visited rachel and it was awesome. that day alone was completely worth the seven months that i have been here. her face has totally changed and the atmosphere in her home has totally changed and it is incredible. she is SO much happier and more peaceful and she has changed. it was really sweet. she came to church BY HERSELF which obviously is a really big deal because i put it all in caps to come and get confirmed. she and blaise were so excited and it was way cool.
saturday was blaise's baptism. so awesome. he asked us if he needed to rent a tuxedo and we told him that wasn't necessary :) he wanted to get food for everyone and we didn't know until he had already placed the order -- well, getting the food ended up taking him FOREVER. we told him to be at his baptism at 630 because he is always late (it started at 7) WELL, he didn't end up showing up until 745... at least he already has the mormon standard time down! but he was so excited and nervous and happy. however, sister robinson played prelude music for 45 minutes -- she said that the notes got pretty fuzzy by the opening hymn :) the baptism was awesome and blaise was SO HAPPY. his cousin came with him and wants us to start teaching him -- way WAY cool. blaise worked all night after his baptism, but came straight from work so that he could come to church and get confirmed. he texted us during sacrament and told us that his life has changed and he is so happy and feels like he has started a new life.
needless to say, i'm so happy. SO HAPPY. stacie came to church with us yesterday too and it was awesome. i love my life. i LOVE LOVE LOVE being a missionary and getting to see all of these miracles. brother johnston (member of the bishopbric) bore his testimony at blaise's baptism and said how much his missionaries have changed his life and how much of an impact we have. WELL, that compliment is DEFINITELY not what i deserve. we just go around and let people feel the spirit and people think we do a lot. yeah, we don't. we just are really blessed.
family, thank you so much. thank you for all of your support and your letters and your prayers and your love. i love you so much. SOOOOOOOO much.
love you,
sister mich smith
Well, this week was pretty awesome. Obviously the biggest highlights were Blaise's baptism and both Blaise and Rachel's confirmations. it was AWESOME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! first off however i would like to say thank you. i got my care package with my coat and beef jerky and it was a little actually a huge piece of heaven and all of the elders were so jealous because they haven't had homemade jerky in forever. i thought about sharing with them - well, the mission hasn't changed me THAT much to have that much charity.... but i enjoyed not sharing with them so much! thank you family. my coat keeps me VERY warm and i love it.
okay so here are the stories that didn't make it into the highlight reel. sister robinson got pooped on by a pigeon and i rubbed it out of her hair with hand sanitizer because we didn't have time to go home... :) oh the life. and we had an activity with the young women of the ward - we sang to some people in a nursing home and on the way one of the young women started coaching sister robinson and i on our "attitude" -- so don't you all worry, we have been practicing and we are getting really good at our "whatever attitude" :)
aight here is the good stuff:
monday we went and visited rachel and it was awesome. that day alone was completely worth the seven months that i have been here. her face has totally changed and the atmosphere in her home has totally changed and it is incredible. she is SO much happier and more peaceful and she has changed. it was really sweet. she came to church BY HERSELF which obviously is a really big deal because i put it all in caps to come and get confirmed. she and blaise were so excited and it was way cool.
saturday was blaise's baptism. so awesome. he asked us if he needed to rent a tuxedo and we told him that wasn't necessary :) he wanted to get food for everyone and we didn't know until he had already placed the order -- well, getting the food ended up taking him FOREVER. we told him to be at his baptism at 630 because he is always late (it started at 7) WELL, he didn't end up showing up until 745... at least he already has the mormon standard time down! but he was so excited and nervous and happy. however, sister robinson played prelude music for 45 minutes -- she said that the notes got pretty fuzzy by the opening hymn :) the baptism was awesome and blaise was SO HAPPY. his cousin came with him and wants us to start teaching him -- way WAY cool. blaise worked all night after his baptism, but came straight from work so that he could come to church and get confirmed. he texted us during sacrament and told us that his life has changed and he is so happy and feels like he has started a new life.
needless to say, i'm so happy. SO HAPPY. stacie came to church with us yesterday too and it was awesome. i love my life. i LOVE LOVE LOVE being a missionary and getting to see all of these miracles. brother johnston (member of the bishopbric) bore his testimony at blaise's baptism and said how much his missionaries have changed his life and how much of an impact we have. WELL, that compliment is DEFINITELY not what i deserve. we just go around and let people feel the spirit and people think we do a lot. yeah, we don't. we just are really blessed.
family, thank you so much. thank you for all of your support and your letters and your prayers and your love. i love you so much. SOOOOOOOO much.
love you,
sister mich smith
1.10.2011
Another week in the life :) (1/10/11)
Hi Family!
Well, we will just bust out the highlight of this week: RACHEL GOT BAPTIZED YESTERDAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! yesterday was so good - it was sister robinson's birthday and we picked rachel up for church, church was CRAZY and i have never tried harder to not laugh in relief society. questions were asked about why we have relief society and why is it a society because we aren't doing anything and blah blah blah and then the comments afterwards were just really funny. i love relief society, really it is AWESOME. first because it's so cool to see all the women in the ward reach out to each other and to all of the people we bring :)
anyways, the baptism was incredible. there was a lot of doubt and opposition the night before because a ton of things happened. well, let's just say that prayer is incredible. it's also amazing how much opposition comes right before good things happen. but, the result is always absolutely incredible. love it. so proud of rachel. she was so so so happy and has overcome so much in order to be baptized -- but she did it!
other incredible things that happened -- we met this guy named andre. we met him right after the storm and talked to him literally in the street because no cars were going down the street because they weren't plowed (oh dear) anyways, he called us back and we met him and he is agnostic, but he was so receptive to the gospel. after we explained the book of mormon and gave it to him he stopped paying attention and started reading the book of mormon. i LOVE IT when that happens. so yeah, look for the andre updates that will follow in the weeks to come.
we had interviews with president nelson this week - it amazes me to see how much work he and sister nelson do for us :) we also had a zone finding activity that was AWESOME. we did an activity like the amazing race with challenges like "get someone to read from the book of mormon" anyways, it was amazing. we found some people that are so ready for the gospel and is was incredible to see the inspiration and just follow any feeling we had like "i think we should take the train to parkside" and then we found three or four people there that are amazing.
next week is going to be awesome too - blaise is getting baptized on saturday and i'm so excited. he is so ready for the gospel and he is really really excited to be baptized and especially get the gift of the holy ghost. incredible.
love you family! more than you know
love
sister michelle smith
Well, we will just bust out the highlight of this week: RACHEL GOT BAPTIZED YESTERDAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! yesterday was so good - it was sister robinson's birthday and we picked rachel up for church, church was CRAZY and i have never tried harder to not laugh in relief society. questions were asked about why we have relief society and why is it a society because we aren't doing anything and blah blah blah and then the comments afterwards were just really funny. i love relief society, really it is AWESOME. first because it's so cool to see all the women in the ward reach out to each other and to all of the people we bring :)
anyways, the baptism was incredible. there was a lot of doubt and opposition the night before because a ton of things happened. well, let's just say that prayer is incredible. it's also amazing how much opposition comes right before good things happen. but, the result is always absolutely incredible. love it. so proud of rachel. she was so so so happy and has overcome so much in order to be baptized -- but she did it!
other incredible things that happened -- we met this guy named andre. we met him right after the storm and talked to him literally in the street because no cars were going down the street because they weren't plowed (oh dear) anyways, he called us back and we met him and he is agnostic, but he was so receptive to the gospel. after we explained the book of mormon and gave it to him he stopped paying attention and started reading the book of mormon. i LOVE IT when that happens. so yeah, look for the andre updates that will follow in the weeks to come.
we had interviews with president nelson this week - it amazes me to see how much work he and sister nelson do for us :) we also had a zone finding activity that was AWESOME. we did an activity like the amazing race with challenges like "get someone to read from the book of mormon" anyways, it was amazing. we found some people that are so ready for the gospel and is was incredible to see the inspiration and just follow any feeling we had like "i think we should take the train to parkside" and then we found three or four people there that are amazing.
next week is going to be awesome too - blaise is getting baptized on saturday and i'm so excited. he is so ready for the gospel and he is really really excited to be baptized and especially get the gift of the holy ghost. incredible.
love you family! more than you know
love
sister michelle smith
And 2011 is here (1/3/11)
Hi family!
Well, happy new year! It was pretty funny, a lot of the ward asked us if we could watch the ball drop or if we could go to Times Square and well -- that is definitely not what we did :) on new years eve the whole mission had to be in at 6 pm because the streets get crazy. so we came home and planned for the week and went to bed at 1030 :) the spanish sisters are in our building so they brought some sparkling cider and we just laid down because we were pretty tired.
WELL, this week our district did a LOT of planning to get organized and get all of our efforts going in the same direction. we met with the bishop and did a SWOT analysis of the ward to see what we could do. SWOT analysis is a marketing tool and i felt really special because i had done it a lot and yeah. so we decided that sister robinson and i are going to start working a lot more with the young women and it is going to be really cool. we taught the lesson in YW yesterday and it was REALLY cool. the spirit was really strong and it was one of those times (there are a lot of them) that the words just came. and i knew it all was for one of the girls that i'm pretty sure is having a hard time. we talked about D&C 18:10 and how the worth of souls is worth the blood of the lamb. yeah. really cool.
dad asked about the baptisms for yesterday -- they didn't happen because of a lot of things. however, they will happen. and we had a really cool miracle this week. we were supposed to go somewhere and it had been a really really long day and me and sis. robinson were really tired. well, we went anyways and these people were AWESOME. it was a whole family that is so excited to read the book of mormon and they wanted us to bring the together forever dvd. really cool miracle.
sister robinson is awesome. i love her so much. she is the funniest little thing in the world. she comes up with songs to answer the phone when the elders call and they are really funny. yesterday we went to dinner at a less-active home and their little girls freaked out that we were there. they started painting my nails almost immediately and then they started doing my hair and they were SO CUTE. their mom called me sister wright which was really awkward because ELDER wright is my district leader. so, we told them that it's actually sister smith and we had a good laugh.
well fam, love you. so much!
have a good week! happy new year
love,
sister mich smith
Well, happy new year! It was pretty funny, a lot of the ward asked us if we could watch the ball drop or if we could go to Times Square and well -- that is definitely not what we did :) on new years eve the whole mission had to be in at 6 pm because the streets get crazy. so we came home and planned for the week and went to bed at 1030 :) the spanish sisters are in our building so they brought some sparkling cider and we just laid down because we were pretty tired.
WELL, this week our district did a LOT of planning to get organized and get all of our efforts going in the same direction. we met with the bishop and did a SWOT analysis of the ward to see what we could do. SWOT analysis is a marketing tool and i felt really special because i had done it a lot and yeah. so we decided that sister robinson and i are going to start working a lot more with the young women and it is going to be really cool. we taught the lesson in YW yesterday and it was REALLY cool. the spirit was really strong and it was one of those times (there are a lot of them) that the words just came. and i knew it all was for one of the girls that i'm pretty sure is having a hard time. we talked about D&C 18:10 and how the worth of souls is worth the blood of the lamb. yeah. really cool.
dad asked about the baptisms for yesterday -- they didn't happen because of a lot of things. however, they will happen. and we had a really cool miracle this week. we were supposed to go somewhere and it had been a really really long day and me and sis. robinson were really tired. well, we went anyways and these people were AWESOME. it was a whole family that is so excited to read the book of mormon and they wanted us to bring the together forever dvd. really cool miracle.
sister robinson is awesome. i love her so much. she is the funniest little thing in the world. she comes up with songs to answer the phone when the elders call and they are really funny. yesterday we went to dinner at a less-active home and their little girls freaked out that we were there. they started painting my nails almost immediately and then they started doing my hair and they were SO CUTE. their mom called me sister wright which was really awkward because ELDER wright is my district leader. so, we told them that it's actually sister smith and we had a good laugh.
well fam, love you. so much!
have a good week! happy new year
love,
sister mich smith
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