THANK YOU THANK YOU soooo much for all of the birthday wishes and love. Maybe I almost want to cry because I just feel too blessed to have all of you in my life. Also, HAPPY BDAY to Reesey girl and Chantey!!! I love you so much! And congrats to Camille and Kyle on the new baby boy! Gahhhh I am so excited to have another new nephew to come home too :) in 18 months.

I can't believe I have been on this earth for like 21 years now. Stop the madness. I'm just an old fart now.

Okay so I am going to explode with gratitude this morning. This past week definitely had its ups and downs. We had an awesome MLC in Wichita on Tuesday. I am slowly but surely feeling more confident in that crowd. But it is super cool to work alongside President and the leadership of the mission and help shape the culture of the KWM. On Wednesday we did a lot of service and then had to plan our training for Thursday. It was a zone training combined with a specialized training with the AP's and Pres. I can truly feel the Lord helping me to stretch and grow especially as we have had to completely rely on the Spirit to discern what this zone needs.

This past week I was starting to get extremely discouraged because of the short amount of time we have to WORK in our area. It is hard to have such low numbers especially when we are the "examples" for the sisters. Before Sister Call left she said something that really touched me. She said "You have such strong faith and that is why you always see so many miracles." I have been pondering a lot about faith lately and how I need to strengthen mine so we CAN see more miracles here in Topeka. I need to replace all of my doubts/discouragements with faith.

On Friday/Saturday we did exchanges with the sisters in Lawrence. I got to go there with Sister Mortensen and we had such a great exchange! I have truly been trying my hardest to prepare for exchanges now and make it as meaningful as possible. The sisters up there have been very discouraged because they were both just thrown into the area and are having a hard time finding people to teach. On the exchange we talked a ton about faith and I know it helped the both of us. I can look back on my mission and all of the miracles I have seen and remember that "faith truly does precede miracles". After our exchange, we went out to lunch to a Chinese restaurant. Okay just remember this. My fortune told me that "yellow would bring luck tomorrow".

Fast forward to Sunday. After church we had an appointment bail on us so we got to tract! Yeah maybe I do actually really love to tract and get super excited when we finally get to, even though it is not the most effective use of our time hahah... But anyways we took my fortune cookie to heart and started tracting around some yellow houses! Door after door was slammed and it was a rough afternoon. I was starting to feel discouraged because we finally had time to work and weren't having success. I just kept praying and KNEW that we were going to find new investigators. I asked Sis M if she believed that we were going to find our 2 new investigators right there. She said maybe. We talked about it a little bit and I prayed and prayed and asked for strength to stay positive and enthusiastic. 

We continued to trek on and gave this cute old gramps a BOM. More doors slammed. And then there was this one lady who was pretty short and shut the door. We tried a couple more doors and then we hear this car pull up beside us. It was Jennie, the lady who we had seen a little while back who had sent us away after being super short. She looked like she had been crying and said she needed to say sorry for being rude. She had two cups of hot chocolate for us and it was seriously the biggest tender mercy. I was so touched by her humility and kindness and was about to cry I was so happy. But that wasn't even all! Then she went on to say that we could come back and teach them and that she had some questions. She drove off and I was seriously jumping for joy!!! So beyond grateful. We said a prayer of gratitude right there in the street then headed back to her house. Luckily the hot chocolate was super delicious and not poisoned. We got back to her house and met Ron (boyfriend) and Sol (3 year old son). We taught the Restoration with the pamphlets very simply and powerfully and the Spirit was incredible. They are so prepared and committed to read and pray about the BOM and our message. I LOVE BEING A MISSIONARY. And I love seeing miracles. Oh also, her house had yellow on it ;) 

I challenge each of you to set a specific goal with the Lord and I promise you that He WILL help you when your will is aligned with His. There are people all around us that are being prepared for the restored gospel and it is up to US to find them and share this message with them!!

I love you all. Thanks again for all of the love and support today, it means so much!

Sister Smartt

PS after MLC, we started this competition with the zone leaders to see who could lose the most weight by the end of this transfer. Sis M and I are going to win!!!!!