Sincerely Sister Smith

Dear Loves Ones, I've coined a new term for days when everything is going right and I'm happy to be a missionary: sunflower days. I had several of those this week. Days where I see sunflowers. Days I see fireflies. Days my companion and I jam out to Nashville Tribute Band and Alex Boye in the car. Days where everything falls into place.  The Relief Society hosted an activity where the stake patriarch came as a guest speaker. Sister Holdeman wanted to invite this new lady we're teaching. I'll codename her Fia. I was wary about that because patriarchal blessings are deeper doctrine and I don't think people need to know about them before they even know who Nephi is. But I caved, we invited, she came, and soaked it all up. This girl is golden. Fia has such a desire to learn, makes super insightful comments, and even asked me for a notebook (which I gave her) so she could start taking church notes. I looked over after a while and she had four or five pages of notes ...

Dear Loved Ones, My family (parents and two youngest brothers) are all in Lake Powell without me this week, the dirty traitors. We have gone every year since I was fourteen. They also bought jet skis without me. I was feeling bad about missing out on that, but then I remembered that for the past three summers, I was miserable to be still at home and not on a mission. It's not a good feeling, to hate being there to do the things you love. Lake Powell will be there for me when I get back, but for now, I finally get to leave it like I wanted. I have two little wishes that I pray for to happen during my mission. I want to serve in the visitors' center or the Liberty Jail this year and I want to see sunflowers in Kansas. I love being able to pray for little wishes now instead of praying to get on a mission. Way back in April, I met an Ethiopian lady and got an Amharic Book of Mormon for her, but she's never been home when I tried to drop it by. So this book has been ridin...

Dear Loved Ones, As of today, I officially have one year left in my mission! I love milestones.  I would like to start off this email by sharing something my folklore professor boss wrote to me in response to my email last week: Of course you can learn and grow on your mission. I would hope that I have taught you to think of education and intelligence more broadly than what you can read in books and find on google. If I had not been able to learn and grow from people who couldn’t read and write during my time in Guatemala, I would never have studied folklore when I returned home.  Enjoy this time you have to ponder deeply and think for yourself about mighty truths related to the gospel and to people.  I hope you can think of learning and growing and gaining knowledge as a big loop between book learning and experience learning.  I believe this is why the scriptures speak about learning in your heart and mind. You know also that there isn’t an fixed age-range...

Dear Loved Ones,  On Memorial Day, all the missionaries within 25 miles of the Kansas City Temple got to do a 5K around the temple. That 5K was my first meeting with Sister Holdeman, my new companion, though I didn't know at the time we'd be getting together. She served six months at Liberty Jail and I like to joke that she was in jail there longer than Joseph Smith. Sister Crandall has been transferred back to the visitors' center in Independence. I'm jealous of them. I hope I get a chance to serve in the VC or jail at some point. We had another tornado scare this week. Last week's tornado wasn't much of a threat in our area, but this time, the tornado sirens went off. We were in the middle of a lesson with Ace, a hardened military dude who could probably punch out a tornado if given the chance, so I felt safe. We kept asking if he wanted us to retreat to the basement, but he wasn't fazed. There's no one in Kansas I'd rather be stuck in a ...