Sincerely Sister Smith

Dear Loved Ones, This past week was Pioneer Day. My first Pioneer Day spent around people who don't know what Pioneer Day is. There is, however, this west-facing pioneer monument in Shawnee, Kansas, one of the towns I cover. This used to be the edge of the frontier. I see markers all the time telling me the Oregon Trail or Santa Fe Trail crossed here. I started my mission at one end of the Oregon Trail and now I'm finishing on the other end.  Last Pioneer Day, my brother caught a plane to start his mission. I have a strange relationship with my brother's mission. I watched so many younger friends leave on missions before I was allowed to, but I always thought I'd get to go before my three years younger brother. One night in March 2018, I got into a dicey roommate situation and had to call the cops on her. I didn't feel safe spending the next night at my place, so I drove home. When I got there, my house had been cleaned and our kitchen table was prepped with so...

Dear Loved Ones,  This email starts off with a Happy Birthday shout out to Michelle Vance, my oldest friend, who turned 22 last week! Michelle, you have been at my side for seventeen years. Thank you.  This last Monday was the best day of my mission so far, besides the day in Idaho when I got my call. I got to go to the Kansas City Temple for the first time. I visited the grounds three years ago when I'd been barred from serving a mission and wasn't endowed yet. Now I get to go inside. As a missionary. There's a special kind of victory in going to a place I've been before during my miserable times. I felt the Spirit there just as I walked in and started up the stairs to the second floor. My eyes blurred in moments just from the "finally" feeling. I brought with me a stack of ordinance cards I've had since 2017, when I could only do the baptisms and confirmations. Looking through them a while back, I realized that lots of them are from Kansas and Mi...

Dear Loved Ones, Last week, my brother and I were talking about movies. I asked him which ones I ought to see later and he told me he didn't want to tell me if it made me trunky (ready to be done). I told him, "Girls have to stay committed to their missions for a year and a half. Boys have to stay committed for two years. Mission presidents have to stay committed for three years. I've had to stay committed for four and a half years." I'm an odd mix of tired and sincere. I was rejected on February 10, 2016 and my mission will conclude June of 2020. By fall of 2017, eighteen months after this all began, when I had just been rejected a second time and I should have been in the final months of my mission, I was very weary. Weary of commitment without reward. I no longer wanted to start a mission, I wanted to be home from a mission. Home with sweet memories of people I'd served and a place I'd loved, able to move on. Able to plan out my life instead of m...

Dear Loved Ones, I've had a weird relationship with holidays the last three years. Back when I thought I was in control of when I went on a mission and international missions were a possibility, I thought of putting my availability date after the Fourth of July so I could have one last Fourth in America before missing two of them.  Then I got rejected. Every holiday was a painful reminder that I was still here for another year. I loved Valentine's Day because it was the first holiday where I didn't have to deal with rejection anymore. And now I've had an Independence Day! That's my favorite holiday.  The morning of, I felt like I was missing out on a holiday because I couldn't set off fireworks or blast my favorite patriotic music. But I ended up making a day of it. We had a church breakfast  where they were using flags as centerpieces and my mind immediately went, "Ooh, tracting giveaway!" So I grabbed all of them before they could get discarde...

Dear Loved Ones, This Friday I discovered you can ship cremated ashes through UPS. I discovered this because I showed up to an appointment with a recent convert whose daughter's ashes were sitting on the doorstep. They come with special black labels so you don't confuse them for an ordinary package. I knocked on the door, and when she answered, my companion and I picked up the box and helped it into her arms. It was more a comfort visit than a lesson. I shared a scripture, Doctrine and Covenants 84:88, with her: And whoso receiveth you, there I will be also, for I will go before your face. I will be on your right hand and on your left, and my Spirit shall be in your hearts, and mine angels round about you, to bear you up. When I finished reading, she said, "Read it again." I did, and she looked contemplative. "I've heard that somewhere before. Where have I heard it?" She titled her head back. "Heavenly Father!" She said she prayed ...