Miracles on the daily my friends.... The Lord is incredible.

Saturday was a roller-coaster. It started out great/ended great! We attended The Bourm girl's baptisms.. LOVE them. And Taylor, Trace, and Debra were able to attend and witness their first baptism :) Hopefully it got them pumped for theirs coming up! But anyways.. the rest of the day, allll of our solid appointments kept falling through! It was hard not to get discouraged but we kept trekking on.. I remember feeling so lost and didn't know where to go next because our backups and backups to backups fell through. Which happens some days :) When we are needed elsewhere.. So we turned to the ward roster and a less active stood out to me. It was just a subtle prompting but we took it and left.

Here's where "Cornelius" (Gerard) comes into the picture! We were walking around these apartment buildings to find where the less active lived and this guy, who was sitting in his truck, starts calling after us. He asked who we were looking for and what we were doing. He was a very kind man and we got talking to him. He explained to us that he was literally just praying and knew he needed to go to a church again but he felt lost on which one.. He had been feeling very empty lately and "wanted to fill that hole in his soul". The Spirit was soo strong in our encounter with Gerard and he is SO beyond prepared by the Lord. We shared a Book of Mormon with him and he was so excited! He said he had always felt like something was missing from all of the churches he attended and he felt that this was the answer. Say whaaaa?! We just kept looking at each other in awe. Yes, Gerard, the gospel of Jesus Christ has been restored! And through it, we find the fullness of God's plan and teachings. After talking to him for a bit, he shared that he believed we were his angels and he could literally see "light around us". This was thee biggest boost, especially after being so discouraged/lost. The gospel DOES give us light and others WILL notice. He told us that he would come to church the next morning.. and guess what? HE DID! We had some members pick him up and he loved church. Everyone welcomed him with open arms. I LOVE being an instrument for our Father in Heaven. I know that the Holy Ghost can guide us to those that are truly prepared and ready for the gospel. I know that without the gospel we WILL have a hole in our soul, like Gerard has noticed. The gospel is amazing and fills those holes, whether we acknowledge it or not.

Friday night our appointments kept falling through as well... but we found out why. We got a text and a voice mail from the zone leaders inviting everyone to meet at this gas station immediately. One of the elders was missing. Elder Macarthur (macdaddy) is one of the sweetest spirits I have met. He has some special needs but we all LOVE him!! Hearing that he was missing literally ripped all of our hearts out. We raced across town to a gas station in Mulvane. President Bell, the AP's, and most of our zone gathered and after praying like crazy, we all set out to find him.. Sister Gurr and I were assigned to this specific neighborhood and walked for miles and miles. It was hard not to cry, hoping and praying that he was okay! He had been lost for several hours, without water and it was a HOT/HUMID/KS day near many open fields, a train track, a bijillion trees/hiding places and not much else.. We reported back to the gas station at 9 with no luck.... Salt Lake asked for all missionaries to go home and to have the police take over. It's times like these where we have nothing else to rely on but the Lord. For strength and for guidance. But luckily we KNOW He is always there. No matter how dark the day seems, light from the Lord will ALWAYS overcome it. I know this is true.

None of us were planning on sleeping that night.. until we received a text late at night, that he was found. Prayers work :)

One last miracle find from yesterday:

A few days prior we had given this kid, Ian, a BOM so we went to check up on him. The dad came to the door and said "You must be here for my wife!" We were slightly confused and said "Uhhh well kinda! Our message is for everybody. :)" He explained that his wife has been talking a lot about the Mormons with her friend.... We were like okay whaaat! The Lord is amazing. Soo anyways, they let us in and we met Jennifer. The past couple of weeks she has been talking with her friend a ton about the church! Her friend gave her a BOM, Restoration pamphlet, and Jennifer has already been praying about it. Holy prepared right? She also has received two priesthood blessings the past couple of weeks and believes the church is true. She also has felt like the other churches she attended in the past were missing something and she believes God has helped her to find this. AMEN sista! LOVE her already and am soooo happy to begin teaching her.

I love being a missionary with all of my heart! It truly is the work of the Lord and He leads and guides us every single day. I love all of you and I hope you have a fantastic week!

Sister Smartt

ps Chris couldn't come to church yesterday because of work :( buuut he still knows the church is true! And he will be getting baptized on the 23rd. We had some amazing lessons with them this past week. SOOOO prepared it's not even funny! He was already choosing to live all of the commandments so he could be baptized. Also, we are still working with the Thompson's a toon! Their kids will be baptized on the 30th :)