A Wonderful Week!

Dear family and friends,

This past week was full of many bountiful blessings, and it was just a wonderful week. Good grief. The pictures are from Return and Report for Sister Palmer, and...I can't remember which other ones I just loaded. Let me check. Oh, the first one is taken from a bridge we cross every P-Day. It's pretty green out here. :) And that body of water you see? Cayuga Lake. Well, just the southern tip of it. Oh, and the last one was taken at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology (that's the study of birds). Elder and Sister Timothy took us there after District Meeting on Wednesday, before we headed to Cortland to exchange with the Fayetteville sisters. Yes, it's true, I went on my first exchange! We can exchange once every transfer, but for whatever reason I hadn't in the four that I've been out, so it was kind of fun. :) It was nice to get Sister Palmer back to Ithaca with me, though. Hahaha.

We met two people last week that we're going to meet with again this week! I'm so excited! I've just been struck this past week by the Lord's timing. We plan for our next day every evening and quite often I feel like I'm scrambling in trying to know where we should spend our time. But we pray for guidance, and the next day--BOOM. We end up right where we need to be. It happened over and over again last week, that we made plans the night before and gone out and met with those people whom the Lord intended us to--well, I'm assuming He intended us to because of the Spirit I felt and the GOOD fruits that came. :) Am I overusing the smiley face? We met with two investigators this week that we hadn't been in contact with for about a week, so that was a miracle. And we met a very nice lady that the sisters had talked to before, and she invited us to come back. She seems very open to the idea of having modern day prophets, and she told us that the sisters had had her watch a tv program that's on once a year with a bunch of speakers and some lovely music...We didn't know what she was referring to. Just kidding, we did. We explained that what she'd watched was General Conference and that it happens twice a year, that modern Apostles and the Prophet speak to us during those meetings. She was excited about that. And we're excited to be able to tell her more this week!

We met our other new friend while Sister Ross from Fayetteville was here on exchange. We may or may not have been following one of the less active members of the branch, trying to catch up with him, when we met this nice lady...He stopped and talked to her, so we stopped and talked to them both! When he left, we sat down and chatted and she seems interested in learning more, so we're going back this week. She's a funny lady. While we were talking with her, her neighbor called to ask her if she could see the landlord still outside because she didn't want to talk to him. She called back about 15 minutes after the first call to ask again. What was so funny is that the lady we were talking with explained all of that after she'd gotten off the phone as if it were completely normal. I guess I've never felt the need or urge to avoid my landlord.

Carol (our lovely friend who was baptized in March) bore her testimony for the first time in church on Sunday!!! It was really incredible. She'd written down some things she wanted to remember to express during her stay at the pulpit, and it was so powerful. This gospel that we learn and live, it's truly the way to happiness and the only way to Heavenly Father's home. People have asked me what my favorite part of "the mission" is so far, and I generally reply that it's been working with those people who've recently joined the church and whose testimonies are just so strong and continually growing! It's so humbling to me to see the challenges that they face after they're baptized into Christ's church, because Satan doesn't want them to stay as strong in their faith as they are. I've been thinking a lot about the analogy of the refiner's fire and how necessary and wonderful it is for us to choose to stay in it. It gets hot in there, right? Yeah, I feel pretty burned right now--way more burned than the time I spilled piping hot hot chocolate on my arm in CA (do any of you remember that? probably not, but that's okay; it was in my performing years). It's easy to jump out. It's a lot easier than standing still inside while everything that's not fit is burned out.

Anyway, we found out this week that festivals aren't the great contacting events you'd hope/think them to be. It was Ithaca Festival this past weekend and we planned on just talking with hundreds of people who were at the festival on Saturday, but it was less than effective. People don't like to talk to strangers for more than a moment when they're in a festivous (?) atmosphere. We learned our lesson! Hopefully next year the missionaries in Ithaca can set up a table at the festival for people to seek them out, rather than infringing on their enjoyment time.

Well family, I'm not sure what else to report. I'll be staying another transfer in Ithaca with Sister Palmer (the poor soul)! Sister Takapu will be training another missionary this next transfer so I'm told I'll have a new sister! You can send congratulations in the regular way.

I love you so so so much! Thank you for your love and letters and emails and support! Thanks for helping me to grow up well. Oh, speaking of growing up--I made eggs for the two of us yesterday while Sister Palmer made waffles, and I also made a tasty smoothie. Your foolish daughter is slowly progressing in the ways of the kitchen.

Have a most magnificent week!

LOVE for always,

Sister Smith