Craziest Question: "So, you believe in Star Trek?!"

One thing I now realize I regret... watching Star Trek before I started my mission! 

So much rain!  This is not usually a pond.

Monday: We met with M, who is so cool! She got her temple recommend and just now needs to get to the temple for her endowment :) AAAHHHH We talked about how important enduring to the end through our trials are. I know that enduring to the end is SUPER IMPORTANT and will bless our lives immensely as we continue to live the gospel throughout our lives :) We stopped by the K family’s after not seeing them for a long time. We just talked on their porch to establish a better relationship with them, it was great! At the end of our conversation Bro. K said that we could stop by anytime. Next time we might just have to share a message :) I hope that he will eventually want to read the Book of Mormon. 

Tuesday: SUPER CRAZY FUN DAY!!!! Played bingo with elderly people and as we were walking in I saw a YW in the ward with the kids she nannies! She had looked at the Just Serve website and wanted something to do with the kids. GREAT IDEA!!! Had a lesson on prayer with Sister A (a less active sister). Sister W (who just moved in recently to the ward) speaks Spanish and came with us. Yay for fellow-shipping --  the lesson went well and Sister A said she would pray with her family each night, or try to! I hope they do. Family Prayer is so important! I have totally realized even more so now the importance of family activities. Sister A and Sister W offered to teach us how to make chocolate flan and tres leche cake.  Well... I can't eat either of those (they have milk in them) but that's ok! I will help make it for the fast that we are having with a less active and part of a friendship starting to form because of the gospel of Jesus Christ. It will still be fun even if I can't eat it :) I love Hispanic and Peruvian people! Sister W is from Peru and she is so great, I just love her! Taught N, a 74 yr. old investigator, the Plan of Salvation. She hopefully will eventually want to come to church. This week we are going to see if she will come to our church if we go to hers. She said she will read the Book of Mormon, SWEETNESS!!!!!!!!! She flat out told us though that she is close-minded.. but we don't feel like we should drop her, so we will keep on teaching and loving her :) Nathan's lesson went same as usual... he listened to his mom read the rest of 3 Nephi 11 to him. We are really working on the prayer aspect. Even if he doesn't progress right now, the lesson we had with him was powerful for his mom. His mom is returning to the activity in the church, and WOW!!! She TESTIFIED so powerfully to him. She wants him to join the church SO BADLY. She knows how much it will bless his life and she loves him. How much more does our Heavenly Father love us and want us to teach His children the gospel so they can return to Him? He could do this on His own, but He lets us be a part of His work, missionary work! It's a win--win situation! They are blessed as we bear testimony and we are blessed as we bear testimony because ours is strengthened. Lesson with a 17yr. old less active, J.  We talked about faith and repentance. He said he would pray this week, WWOOOHOOOO! Then on Friday he showed up to the ward BBQ. SWEET!!! I love seeing progress, even though I just met him :) So it was about 8:25 at night and we needed to see B, since he was getting baptized at the end of the week and we need to teach him a few more things (usually by this point we would have taught everything but B gets side tracked and we end up talking about other gospel things other than what we needed to teach him, which is good, but just not the basics that we have been asked to teach). So we got there around 8:30ish and it was just a doorstep lesson. We taught 8 principles, yes EIGHT, within 15-20 minutes! Obedinece, prayer, scripture study, tithing (clarified that one since we had taught it before), teaching and learning in the church, service, missionary work, and enduring to the end. IT WAS AWESOME!!!!!!!!!!! B got it, too :) It was a MIRACLE we were able to stay that focused and it flowed so well!! We got in the car and freaked out, it was so funny!!! We planned to teach a few principles and Heavenly Father just guided that conversation, it was SO COOL!!!! 

Fort Collins temple under construction

Wednesday: Got to see the temple, yay for progress!!! District meeting was so good. Revelation through prayer, love it!!! It is so important to pray, and I am working on making my prayers more meaningful. Prayer is key for those we teach. Through prayer they are communicating with our Heavenly Father to come to know if this is all true. Finding out what God wants them to know, it's awesome!! Stopped by a less active’s home, and she has gone through some tough things but she is coming back to the church, which is great! She came to church on Sunday! I am excited to do service for her this week.

Thursday: B passed the baptismal interview  WWOOOHOOO, it’s a “go” for Saturday :) He wants to draw a picture for the church building, sweet!!! We asked him who he wanted to give a talk at his baptism. His answer: "Monahan, I want him. I want him to do it." I BUSTED UP LAUGHING!! He can never get President Monson's name right and calls him Monahan! Well, President Monson did not give a talk at B's baptism.  Lesson with N, who is investigating the church, was really good but hard. We watched the Restoration video with her because we wanted to talk about the Godhead (she believes in something like the trinity but a triad?) At the end of it we asked her how she felt when Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ appeared to Joseph Smith and she started out by saying "Honestly?..."  Uh-oh. But it went well; we understood more of what she believes and how we can now go from there to best help her. At least she is still reading the Book of Mormon. We had a crazy lesson at the B family’s. Oh, the B’s who were in Longmont moved to Fort Collins and are now in one of the wards I serve in, that was funny when they opened the door and I was like "Oh, HI!" Taught a non-member at their home and wow, he is interesting! He believes Jesus Christ was light-- beamed to the Americas from a UFO and people just thought that was a miracle. But people all over were being light--beamed and that UFO's were present during the time of Native Americans... uh, ok! He is atheist. One of my comps asked him, "So you believe in Star Trek?!" funniest thing ever! We just all started laughing, but yeah that was essentially what he says he believes in, the Satr Trek theory! ok, yeah we don't think he is ready to hear the gospel yet, he kept shooting us down. But it was cool to see the B’s testify and when people were testifying the Spirit was there, but he would kind of just shoot it down, SO SAD!!  

Friday: Mission Leadership Council. It felt so good to be back, but it was different! I was a Sister Training Leader (STL) with the older people in the mission... some Sisters were the same as when I was an STL, and some Elders, which was fun! It was a great meeting and I was spiritually edified. I also was like AAAHHHH I really need to step it up even more! I only have a few months left of my mission, NO! I love President and Sister Brown.

Lesson with K, she's 8 getting baptized next week! We didn’t set up a return appointment since we pretty much finished the lessons but then her grandma asked if we were coming back... uh sure if you want us to! She TOTALLY wants us to! She wants us to help her grandson understand that his prayers are getting answered, OK!!! It was awesome that she knew that we could teach him and that it will help him! I love this lady :)

Sister C, me, J, B, and Sister M at B's baptism

Saturday: Fun day! We met with the Zone Leaders to go over zone meeting and had breakfast with one of our zones with the stake president. Helped someone weed their garden, and then well... B GOT BAPTIZED!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! It was a great service. Pretty much that was the highlight of the day :) What made it EVEN COOLER was that when I got to the stake center we saw J and he told us that he was going to baptize B instead of the Ward Mission Leader!! Aaahhh, I GOT SO EXCITED! J was leaving the NEXT morning for Utah, because he enters the Mission Training Center (MTC) on August 6th!  And right after the baptism he was going to be set apart to be a fulltime missionary, SWEET!! It was just so cool to think that J, who went over with a member of the ward to B's house weeks ago asking if we could come by, since getting  us an appointment, was now baptizing him! It was awesome!! B is so funny! He waved to everyone after he was baptized and he was still in the font! haha I loved being able to sing at his baptism!

Sunday: The Sacrament is one of the best things of my life! I am so beyond grateful for that ordinance. I love the fact that we have a chance to repent and change DAILY and then take the Sacrament each week. The Spirit was so strong during testimony meeting, I just loved it! I didn't want it to end. I am grateful for a loving Heavenly Father and a Savior that is always there! B received the Holy Ghost. Sister Cardon and I went out later that evening and taught two lessons.  The temple is the ultimate goal, think about that and then ENDURE TO THE END! 

I went on Mormon.org and typed in "Kelly mission," and this is what popped up!

This is real, this is true, and I love you! hahaha that rhymed, how fun!   Continue to have faith in Jesus Christ and the atonement He performed -- amazing strength can come from it! 

Love you all, 

Sister Kelly Smith