Hello!

We saw deer this week, right next to a house, as we were walking last week.  It was very exciting, so I took some pictures!  We moved very slowly as we were taking my camera out of my bag...then I had to carefully turn off the flash so they wouldn't be startled into scurrying away...And boom.  Pictures.

So many things have happened over the past few days to refocus our lessons and studies on Christ.  In the 12 week training program we've been doing (because I'm a new missionary, we get to spend an extra hour on studies every day with this AWESOME program.  Seriously, it is awesome) we came across an important idea that Book of Mormon reading will always emphasize Jesus Christ, because it is "Another Testament of Jesus Christ."  Sometimes as we explain principles to people, we forget to tie it all back to Christ, and that makes our explanation basically pointless.  This is His Gospel, His Church, His work, and if we aren't helping people understand that, then how will they come closer to Him?  I don't think you can know Christ until you know of Him.  And we can't take the Gospel or a testimony into a person's heart, we can only bring that to the heart and then they have to accept it inside, accept the Spirit of God.  How do we gain a testimony?  Why are we members of this church?  Personal revelation from our Heavenly Father's Holy Spirit.  And we aren't just Mormons--we are Christians.  We believe in Christ and our actions should show that belief.  Christ is the Head of this church, and we have access to eternal truths that remain pure because of this glorious fact.  Everything comes back to Christ.  We just need to remember that.  Ways we can do that are focusing on the references to Christ in the Book of Mormon as we read daily, asking Heavenly Father in prayer to help us remember, partaking of the Sacrament every week...Lots of things, I'm sure.  How many times have people suggested putting a penny in your shoe to help you remember something every time you feel the penny?  We could do things like that to make sure that we are always remembering our Savior and Redeemer, the Son of Almighty God, because that's what we've promised to do.  Anyway, it was a good reminder to me to keep everything focused on the Savior. Tie everything back to the Savior.

 Have I mentioned that Ithaca is indeed a melting pot of cultures?  Seriously, it is so ethnically diverse here.  We meet with people who speak Laotian, Cambodian, Karen (a Burmese dialect), Spanish (slash Puerto Rican), Arabic, Chinese, Finnish, Russian, Luxembourgian...many different ethnicities.  There is even a member family in the ward from Kenya!  Yeah!  And we've eaten some authentic Kenyan food--it's really tasty, with lots of rice, veggies, spiciness...yum.  And I've noticed that I know generally where the countries are that different people have emigrated from because of the world draw in 9th grade.  Funny, right?  I don't remember exactly where Laos or Burma are, except that they're in southeastern Asia.  Maybe?  And the members here are so diverse, too, and they really help with the different languages that our investigators speak.  This is a neat place.  Despite all of these differences, we have seen how the Gospel of Christ, His teachings, positively influence every single person's life.  If they are willing to try them out, the miracles appear.  Just like with these new friends of mine, if we try out the Gospel of Christ--I mean REALLY try it out, REALLY live it--then we will see the miracles as well.

 We are meeting with a luuurvely lady who is getting prepared for baptism and I have been amazed at the impact of the Gospel in her life over the past month that we've been meeting with her.  It's incredible!  The Gospel is all about change--if we repent (change) then we will feel more inclined to follow Christ and accept Him.  "[The] natural man is an enemy to God," right (Mosiah 3:19)?  As we come to see that Christ and our Heavenly Father really do love us and have given us so much to be happy now and to be eternally happy in the future, it is far easier to accept this course of repentance.  It has been this way for C (our lurvely friend); as she's learned more and felt the goodness that comes from reading the BOM and praying to our Heavenly Father, she has accepted the course of repentance and change.  What a wonderful opportunity we all have to prepare ourselves for that time when we meet God again and stand up for the works we've done and the desires we've had.  This Plan of Happiness, Redemption, Salvation, is such a gift!

Anyway, the week has been pretty good, except most of our appointments canceled on us.  It was a bummer.  But I went on splits with members!  And I was terrified!  And then I got over it!  Hahaha.  Snow has come again.  Huzzah!  I remembered Crash Bandicoot randomly yesterday, and to my delighted surprise Sister Takapu knew Crash as well!  "Boogie woogie woogie"...Remember that little tiki man face thing?  And the sound he'd make?  hahaha it made me laugh.

Thank you for the Valentine's Day box!  Oh so lovely and tasty!  Thank you!  I LOVE YOU!!!  I was amused to see the "Sour Lips" in the box, Mom.  But then I thought about it and laughed, because I won't be smoochin' anyone for a long while yet--sour lips, indeed!  Hahaha.  Good grief, it's funny.  And the rose card is so cool!!  We love it!  And it has pink sparkles on it.  We decorated a box for C last week with treats inside and we had cut out hearts from sparkly purple and white paper!  Funny.

I think I need to end this, because I want to go back to the apartment and take a nap.  We finally have time after about...5 weeks, and I wish to take advantage of the opportunity to rest my mind and body.  It's hammered.  :)  Such is the life of a missionary!

 I love you so much!  Happy Valentine's Day!  So many things out here remind me of home and the family; don't worry, though, they do not distract or depress me.  I'm still a fresh helium balloon that could fly up to the moon (actually, that's impossible for many different reasons).

I love you!

Sister Smith