Sincerely Sister Smith

Dear Loved Ones, We're teaching this nine year old who wants to get baptized. She needs parental permission for that, which is fantastically easy when both  parents 1. Live together 2. Are not in prison. But her daddy is at the OTHER Liberty Jail. Not the fun one where we take tours. So I had to call the prison and talk to Prison Phone-Answerer Dude, who sounds like he loves his job and spends all day every day in a great mood. Prison Dude said I can mail a permission slip there (which meant I had to invent my own permission slip, since these don't exist) but her dad is in charge of coming up with his own envelope and stamp. I can't send him them, or money to buy them. So here's hoping that Prison Dad has money on hand and is nice enough to help out his kid. There's always some kind of baptismal drama, either an interview complication, getting permission from someone, or people wanting to get baptized in a ward where they don't technically live. All my pendin...

Dear Loved Ones, Ever tract into someone who has already read the Book of Mormon, already knows it's true, but already has his own church and he's the minister? That's me this week. I had a busy day and only tracted one door, and it belonged to the minister who presides over the Church of Christ on the Temple Lot.  Only in Independence.  The Church of Christ is a small, self-sustaining church. I've heard their population clocks in at 7,000 people. Latter-Day Saints speculate about them selling the temple lot, but they really don't need the money. They can maintain themselves just fine. The Community of Christ, on the other hand, has a sizable population and needs money from time to time. They sell us things like Haun's Mill or the printer's manuscript of the Book of Mormon. And we can afford them, because of tithing.  Cars are shared between sisters at the visitors' center. When I finished my tour shift a couple days ago, another set handed off ...

Dear Loved Ones, One year ago this week, October 12, 2018, I was watching a movie with my friends when I got a text from my stake president telling me to meet with him immediately. I knew that couldn't be good. Either I was being barred from serving for the third time in three years, or I was getting a two-transfer call.  I never got a call opening party. I got President Davis showing me this already-opened letter with his name instead of mine as the recipient. I stayed up until 3:00 a.m. crying. The only thing more miserable than a two-transfer call is being barred from serving entirely. I think a lot about how Madison is now in the same place I was and, hopefully, she will one day be where I am.  On October 12, 2019, I got up and went to work. I led tours. I did tracting. I have a missionary life now.  I'm always grateful for the land where I'm serving. This week, all the sisters went on a field trip up to Adam-ondi-Ahman and Far West. I once chatted with a...

Dear Loved Ones, Just as I was settling into my life, they whitewashed me out of the Independence YSA after only six weeks. That was stressful and frantic, and of course, I'm sad to leave Madison just after I figured out my purpose in coming to the ward. But I can still help her over email, I know, and my new ward, Raytown, does have more work in it. A nine year old, who I have yet to meet, might get baptized soon and I'm still serving in the visitors' center! I love it here. Conference, naturally, was the highlight of my week. I watched it at the visitors' center, where many of the sisters surrounding me had served at the jail, so they loved the Liberty Jail shout-outs. And, of course, with the constant mood of apocalypse that hangs over Independence, President Nelson's closing cliffhanger prompted speculation that it will have something to do with hastening the Second Coming. One of my favorite talks was Elder Renlund's remarks on the saints in the DR ...

Dear Loved Ones, I figured out why I'm here. For a long while, I've been praying for God to use me to help someone in a similar situation to the one I was in with being barred from serving a mission and relegated to a two-transfer mission in the beginning. I'd envisioned myself getting that by having a companion who is a two-transfer missionary.  But no. It's a nineteen year old girl in the YSA ward where I'm serving. The similarities between her situation and mine are heartbreaking and I want nothing more than to see her mended by being given a mission call. I'll call her Madison. I met with Madison on Saturday and told her I'll see her through this trial, no matter how long it takes and where I go, and coach her on what she needs to do when she goes up against LDS Family Services next. I wish someone had done that for me. The next day, missions came up over and over again at the pulpit. Another member of the ward had just received her call, so it ...