Sincerely Sister Smith

Dear Loved Ones, This week, we went to visit a member of the YSA and her dad was picking tomatoes in the front of the yard. He came up to me and said, "Hey sisters, you know how this is the Garden of Eden?" "I do." "Would you like a tomato from the Garden of Eden?" I took it and ate it. People in the church worldwide talk about the Garden's location surprisingly little. Independence has so much focus as the location of the Second Coming that we brush over what happened first.  Friday morning, all the visitors' center sisters held a meeting at the temple lot across the street. It's cared for by the Church of Christ, who don't mind us wandering around it. It used to be a battleground. Women and children sheltered from the mob on the temple lot and the Union and Confederates skirmished here, too. There's a lot of blood in Jackson County. And I'm striking back with light. I am walking in the ancient battle lines drawn by Eve....

Dear Loves Ones, My mom and her friend Michelle met on their high school cheer squad. My mom grew up to marry a used car dealer. Michelle married Jon Schmidt. There are some perks to being married to a famous concert pianist, like being invited to speak at a women's conference in Kansas. The conference just happened to be near where Fia lives. Michelle's on this newsletter, so she's been following updates on Fia's story.  On Friday I got an email from my mom informing me of Michelle's plan to get Fia a free ticket to the conference the day of. I worried Fia would be overwhelmed at the last minute offer, especially because it was coming from a random stranger over FB messenger, but she went and she took notes in the little journal my mom shipped to me as a baptism gift! It thrills me that I've been able to make other people fall in love with Fia over email. She also, in that same 48 hours, got to go to the temple for the first time! We got her started on f...

Dear Loved Ones, Teaching is slim in my little branch, but there are some definite perks to being in a YSA. Our area is huge, so we get to roadtrip everywhere and see cool old houses in Kansas City on one side and green countryside with huge midwest sunsets on the other side. And the people are chill. I've been given rides by middle aged ladies before who have normal music playing when we get in the car, and then they shut it off or change it to churchy music, as if we're somehow rarified and exalted and need to be untouched by the things of this world. We had a YSA barbecue with music playing from a speaker hooked up to someone's phone, and I told the guy, "Hey, I haven't heard Jasmine's song from the new Aladdin movie." And he blasted it for me. I lead some really great tours this week. I took this elderly man through the area where I talk about Mary Elizabeth Rollins, and as I finished my little spiel, tears rolled down his face. He said, "She...

Dear Loved Ones, I can feel myself falling in love with Independence. This week the city held its annual SantaCaliGon festival. Independence was the starting point for the Santa Fe, California, and Oregon Trails. And then there's that one group that got kicked out of here in the 1830s and headed west later. Most of it was pure carnival (rides, funnel cake) but a sliver of it had pioneer crafts, cosplayers, and backdrops. I got to dress up in an apron and bonnet and spend the morning making rag dolls. How very in touch with my roots of me.  The Saturday I idled away making rag dolls was also Fia's former baptismal date before the Miracle at Liberty Jail bumped it up. I'm so grateful it got moved up! I love her and miss her so much. I promised her before I left that I will visit her after my mission in Kansas or anywhere else she ends up living in the future. She has changed my life, I have done my little part in changing hers, and I am determined to be her lifelong frie...