Week #61- Meaningful Scriptures

Monday, October 21, 2013

Hey!

It is so hard to believe how fast the weeks are going by. I felt like I just had P-day. It is crazy how fast the mission is going, but it is nice to know that I can always be a missionary even after my two years of service. Like it says in the missionary section of Doctrine and Covenants section 4 verses 2 and 3.  "Therefore, O ye that embark in the service of God, see that ye serve him with all your heart, might, mind and strength, that ye may stand blameless before God at the last day. Therefore, if ye have desires to serve God ye are called to the work." It is so nice to know that I will always be called as a member missionary; I will always be called to this work. It is my responsibility as someone that has a desire to serve God to invite those that don't have this gospel in their life to a church activity, to listen to the missionaries, or to do service for them. Like it says in Mosiah 2:17, "And behold, I tell you these things that ye may learn wisdom; that ye may learn that when ye are in the service of your fellow beings ye are only in the service of your God." Our Heavenly Father doesn't ask too much of us. He asks us to be an example, to invite and to serve our friends and neighbors around us. He is just asking us to live the gospel. This is a gospel concept that I have been learning more and more on my mission, and I am still learning it. One thing I do know is the more I live the gospel the more I have a desire to serve those around me. There is a scripture that I have been trying to live my entire mission, and it's John 13:34-35,  "A new commandment I give unto you, that ye love one another; as I have loved you, that ye also love one another. By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another." I know that as we live the gospel more fully and love those people we serve our Heavenly Father will be pleased with our desire to serve him. 

Love Elder Smith. 

P.S. I don't think I received any money from Grandma.

Week #59- General Conference

Monday, October 7, 2013

Hey!

Conference weekend was awesome. President committed us all to go into conference with questions, and he said they would be answered. He was correct. All my questions I had were answered through what was said in conference or by my own feelings and thoughts. It's great to know that the Lord will always answer our questions. We just need to do our part. This week went well. We are working hard and staying obedient. Elder Angell is improving every day, and it really has been a joy to be with him. He still has some fear of talking with people. I might have found a conclusion to help him. This week we were on the bus and Elder Angell was sitting by someone. I kept giving him the nod to talk with her, and he didn't do it. He wanted to, he was just too afraid. So I walked over and told the lady that "my companion is learning Spanish and would love to share a message with you. Would you be willing to listen?" She accepted to listen and he did great. He just needed a little help to get started. Hopefully, this week we can get him to do it by himself. The area is progressing slowly but progressing none the less. We have the faith, we just need to keep acting. I know there are people that are ready to listen. Our area is doing well. We were not able to have our baptism this week but hopefully soon. She will get baptized there are just a couple bumps in the road. She still needs to talk to her husband and gain a testimony of President Monson. Conference, I am sure, helped a lot. We also have another person that is super close to baptism named Tony. He is probably the most humble person I have met. I love teaching him and he is progressing well. He has a strong desire to follow Christ. He has been prepared, and it is amazing to see the different ways our Heavenly Father prepares his children. Tony was in a horrible motor bike accident about a year ago and was in a coma for 8 days. He is still recovering, but he now knows the plan God has for him, and it was amazing to see how he reacted when we taught the Plan of Salvation. To see the hope in his eyes was a strong testimony builder to me. Hopefully in the next 3 to 4 weeks, he will take that step of baptism.   

 

The Lord stated in the D&C 68:3 "And whatsoever they shall speak when moved upon by the Holy Ghost shall be scripture, shall be the WILL of the Lord, shall be the MIND of the Lord, shall be the WORD of the Lord, shall be the VOICE of the Lord, and the POWER of God unto salvation". Here are a few highlights and one liners from conference:

“May we show increased kindness toward one another, and may we ever be found doing the work of the Lord” Pres. Thomas S. Monson

“Each day is a day of decision, and our decisions determine our destiny” Elder Russell M Nelson

“How we preserve time for family is one of the most significant issues we face in most cultures” Elder Quentin L Cook

“There is joy guaranteed for the faithful” Pres. Henry B. Eyring

“Our destiny is not determined by the number of times we stumble but by the number of times we stand up dust ourselves off, and stride forward.” Pres. Uchtdorf

“It is impossible to fail when you do your best when you are on the Lord’s errand” Elder M. Russell Ballard

“Dear Sisters, we rely on the moral force you bring to the world, to marriage, to family, to the Church” Elder D. Todd Christofferson

“Just as chalk can be removed from a blackboard, with sincere repentance the effects of our transgression can be erased through the Atonement of Jesus Christ” Pres. Boyd K. Packer

“Spiritual illumination and perspective are poured out through the windows of heaven and into our lives as we honor the law of tithing” Elder David A. Bednar

“This is HIS general conference” Elder Robert D. Hales

“Now is the time for members and missionaries to come together, to work together, to labor in the Lord’s vineyard to bring souls unto him” Pres. Thomas S. Monson

“If we teach by Spirit and you listen be the Spirit, some one of us will touch your circumstance, sending a personal prophetic epistle just to you” Elder Jeffrey R. Holland

"Doubt your doubts before you doubt your faith" Pres. Uchtdorf (This was one of my favorite quotes from conference.)

Well, Got to go! 

Love Elder Smith

Week #58- The Lord Provides

Monday, September 30, 2013

Hey!

This has been a good week, and I am excited to see how next week will go. We are close to something. We have a couple solid investigators that really seem to be seekers of truth, and hopefully, we will be able to pick up this family we were able to talk to this week. We didn't get to talk to them for too long, but the mom really wants this for her kids and her husband is a less active member. It's a great little family. I have loved not having a car, and it has been so much fun talking with people. We are finding so many people and planting so many seeds.  Something that I have learned is that when I had a car, I wasted too much time with investigators that weren't going anywhere. It's nice because I can't do that anymore. We can't waste our time on those people that are not going to progress. We were able to plant the seed and with time the Lord will prepare them for other missionaries. I have found myself working really hard on our investigators that are progressing, and my desire to find those that are ready has gone up too. I always had a desire to find, but there is a different mindset when you are looking for those people the Lord has prepared. Like I said, we are working with a few investigators that are really seekers of truth. We can really see the light of Christ working within them. We have this one investigator named Mayra that I have been working on since I have been in El Molino. She is awesome and she has done everything we have asked her. Her baptism is set for the 5th of October, and we are praying that she will make this date. She has a strong testimony, but she said she doesn't feel ready yet. We are fasting with her, hoping it will help her feel ready. It's crazy! I know she is going to be baptized soon; she just stresses me out sometimes. Everything happens for a reason. We asked her to read Alma 36 during her fast and to put her name in the place of Helaman. I have always known about that scripture, but for some reason that is the scripture the Lord wanted her to read. I always start my personal study by reading a quick chapter in the Book of Mormon. Alma 36 just happened to be the scripture I was on that day, and that scripture talked about everything she needed. It was a strong testimony builder for me on the power of the Book of Mormon, and the Lord always provides if you put your trust in Him. We were not sure what we wanted to share with her, but it was pretty clear we needed to talk about that chapter after I read it. Haha! Our church is so true.

Elder Smith

Week #57- Training a New Companion

Monday, September 23, 2013

Hey!

This week I probably endured my hardest trial of my mission. It was so crazy. My companion and I were on the bus, and I started to contact a guy on the bus. He was wearing a UCLA shirt so I naturally started a conversation with him about college football. As we kept talking he informed me that he was headed to the UCLA football game in the Rose bowl stadium, and he invited me and my companion to go. He informed me that since he was a student he could get one extra person in for free and then one of his friends would get my companion in for free. The stadium is in our area so it would have been really easy to go, but I said no. President has informed us that we are not able to go to a game unless it is on a P day. Haha! They were even giving out free shirts and everything. It wasn't that hard to say no but it would have been a lot of fun to go. That was my trial of the week. My new companion is Elder Angell and he is a really good guy. He is my third companion that has red hair and he is another companion that is taller than me. Could have guessed that one. Elder Angell is very smart. He is from Georgia, and he reminds me a lot of Aaron Whittier. This week we were blessed to find a lot of people to teach and Elder Angell was able to invite someone to be baptized. He said yes, and he seems very interested. He loved what we taught and he has connections into the church which is always better. We will see what happens with him. We were also blessed to have a lot of meetings this week. It is always a blessing to hear from President. He always has a training day for the new missionaries and since I am his companion I was able to go. He talked a lot about the doctrine of Christ and our role as missionaries. I am glad I got to go. We also had an extra hour and a half of studies for the 12 week program. It's weird not leaving the apartment at 10:30. It will take a little getting used to. I am getting used to the bus and train and I am loving it. I love talking with people; it is so much fun. Once you break the ice, it is really easy. You just need to get them to laugh once and then you have them. It is so awesome to be on a mission and see how the Lord works. The only problem with that is you get to see how the devil works, and I am learning it's through dogs and headphones. They both make things very hard for missionaries. Well, got to go.

Love Elder Smith 

Week #56- Learning the Bus

Monday, September 16, 2013

Hey!

I have had a pretty crazy week. It is transfer week and I was informed that I will be training. I am super excited. I am not sure who it will be or what he is like. I am picking him up tomorrow so it will be a pretty crazy week. This week we also got rid of all the cars in the entire mission. So I have been bussing a lot. It's a little stressful. They don't want the new missionaries to know that we had a car, so I feel like I need to be perfect at using the bus so he feels like I know what I am doing. I have only been using the bus for two days so at times I am lost. It will be an adventure. As for the bus, I love it. It's so much fun talking with people, and you see a lot of crazy things. I have already seen some success from doing it, and I am excited to see what will come from it. Our area is growing. We have an investigator that should be getting baptized in a couple weeks. She is awesome and she already has a strong testimony of the Book of Mormon and Joseph Smith. We also found another family in our area that already has member support. They seem solid. It's fun to see all the changes that have been happening and to see all the miracles that come with change. Time is going by faster and faster every week. I can't believe how fast it goes. I love my mission.

Elder Ryan Smith

Week #55- Branch Fireside

Monday, September 9, 2013

Hey!

Sorry I don't have much time this week to write. I had a long letter to President and it took a lot of my time. Everything here is good in the little branch. Today, we are in charge of a fireside for the branch and I am a little nervous. It will be the first time in my whole mission that I have been in charge of something like this. The district leader is always in charge of things like this. It's a little stressful. I have a great district that helps me a lot and takes away a lot of stress. The theme is the Book of Mormon and the importance of reading it as a family. We are going to start with two testimonies from converts and their conversion through the Book of Mormon. After that there will be a discussion by our ward mission leader on the importance of reading the Book of Mormon as a family, and then our district will role play and show them how to read with a family. We are going to end by splitting into groups and reading a chapter out of the Book of Mormon. Oh, yeah. After that the president of the branch is going to stand and commit them to read as a family every night. I hope it turns out good.

This last week was really good. We have some investigators that are really progressing well and it is fun to see.  We are also really struggling to find people to teach. This week we knocked an apartment complex and it was full of Asians and white people. It was a little tough. I am used to every one that you walk by speaks Spanish, but in this area that is not the case. I know there are more people that are ready to listen, we just need to keep working hard and we will find them. 

Love Elder Smith

Week #54- Hastening the Work

Tuesday, September 3, 2013

Hey!

We had another good week. We were able to teach a lot and our branch had two baptisms. A wife and a husband were baptized, and their daughter should be getting baptized in a couple of weeks. They are a really good family. I was able to interview them, and they were super ready to be baptized. They had been investigating the church for a pretty long time and they just needed to commit. Everyone commits at different times, and I know that this was the time they needed to be baptized. I love baptisms. Today we are taking one of our investigators to the visitors' center at the temple. I hope she gets an answer today. She is super awesome, she reads, she prays, she goes to church, but she says she hasn't received an answer still. It's hard when they don't recognize the answer that they have received. We have been trying to help her recognize it,  but we haven't been super successful. Hopefully, the temple can do a better job than us. We have another investigator that is progressing really well with smoking. He gets better every day. It's amazing to see his faith grow in the Lord. It was hard for him at first, but now he is on a roll, and he knows he is getting help from above. This last week we had a  zone conference and president told us that for the pilot program the church is having our mission do we will all be losing our cars. The only people that will have transportation are the APs and president. It started out that only a few areas  were going to do it, but now it is every area. I am really excited for it. I love talking with people on the bus, and I am going to try learning some basic Chinese so I can try getting an address or something. In our area we have so many different cultures, and I don't want the language barrier to stop me from talking with them. We will see how it goes. It is really exciting to be out on a mission at this time with all these changes. The Lord is really hastening his work and it's fun to see.

Love Elder Smith