photos of Hartsville

 One of Sister Smith and Sister Makins investigators have a reflecting door.  Hi we're from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints and we have a message about our Savior Jesus Christ to share with you.

Beautiful Hartsville South Carolina sunset and a random couch  at a pond--- would make a great pondering spot.

Poaching in South Carolina

We returned for an appt with this super cool veteran Dennis, and he was more than willing to meet with us buut he said he mentioned us to his wife and pastor and they weren't too happy. The pastor called us poachers and Dennis told us it probably wouldn't be the best for us to meet. meh. poachers? seriously? we had a good laugh over this one, if poaching means that we're bringing you into Christ's fold then yes Imma poacher, and proud of it!

Later that day we had our weekly visit with Carolyn, and as much as it kills me that she won’t just accept our message she is progressing. We really went deep into prophets today and helped her understand why we need a prophet, but more importantly why SHE needs/wants a prophet. After multiple explanations and scriptures, she finally agreed that she would pray to know if God had a prophet on the earth today. She seemed to struggle with the idea that she would have to go through someone else to hear what God has to say to her, but she was like “I can go to God myself”. She’s so great-and I know it’s taking her so long to come along because she’s so solidly planted in her beliefs, we just have to get her to start questioning those beliefs thennnn, WHAMO, baptism and she becomes the most stalwart Mormon ever. Oh yeah-our lesson was interrupted about 8 times by the telephone. She never answered it but every time we got to hear her voicemail. This voicemail totally embodies Carolyn, a larger, black, fried chicken and God loving woman. It says “whatever you need, God’s got it, leave me a message—BEEEEP” haha, love it!

Had our first lesson with Tammy as an official member of the church. Mark joined us and we talked all about how service is so important and how many opportunities there are for service in the church. Mark loved it all, he loved how organized the church is and how we all look out for one another (through home and visiting teaching). We asked him if he wanted to get baptized and he said to give him a couple weeks. The spirit’s totally doing a number on him though. Their house doesn’t smell so much like smoke, he didn’t resist too much when we asked him to say a prayer, and this weekend because they’re going out of town he was totally willing to go to the nearby LDS branch that we looked up for him on lds.org. Even Bro. Krien said he totally noticed a difference in mark. The first Sunday at church Mark was like, “I’m only here to fulfill a promise I made”-the next week at church he told us he’d only be dropping Tammy off but he came in and stayed for all 3hrs again. He’s gonna get baptized and then a year from now they’re gonna get sealed in the temple-it’s so great! Tammy thinks she’s happy now, oh just waitJ

Such a miracle filled night! We went to try and do a lesson with Tiffany, no luck, but the idea to go out and see Connie arose. And whaddaya know she was actually home, we hadn’t seen her in over a month. Later that evening we go for a lesson with Frankie, his girlfriend wasn’t home and he had the kids so we couldn’t meet, then the idea comes to mind to knock on Calvin/Ivin’s old apt and Ta-Dah! We run into Carmen, a cute little (seriously not sure if she’s even 5 ft tall, makes hugs super awkward) black girl, in her 20’s who had previously been coming to church and meeting with the elders. Her current job now required her to work Sundays so she hadn't been able to come again and after they left she just lost touch with the missionaries I guess. She said she’d be able to come to general conference this weekend though, so we’re super excited for that! OH yeah! And when we were walking away down the stairwell we heard her exclaim “yes!” as she walked inside her apt. BAH! The message of the restoration truly is a reason to exclaim “yes!” :D:D 3^rd miracle of the night, we had about 15 minutes until 9pm so on our way home we stop to try and set up an apt with Z (our Asian friend who’s just curious about Christianity in general) and before we go to Z’s we both get the idea to visit Carol/Susan nobody answered so we proceeded to Z’s. Turns out he had just barely gotten home from a trip, and we were able to chat with him for a bit and invite him to conference, he said he’d try to stop by for one of the sessions.

BAH! only 5 more days until conference!! do we realize how lucky we are, we have modern prophets who speak with God and then let us know all about it! I felt like I had a spiritual overload just from the RS broadcast. BTW-if you're male and didn't see it I'd highly recommend watching it:D can't imagine what it's going to be like to have 8hrs of it this weekend!!

LOVE Y'ALL MORE THAN YOU KNOW! 

Sister Lindsay Mae Smith:):)

Sister Smith's Zone they only meet once a month so she hasn't  got all their names down.
Back:   Elders  ?,  Willie Hawkes, Clifford, Clunker, Bowen, Blank, Tuttle
Middle:  Sister Smith, Raull, Houston, Jackson, Daniels, Dent, Bean, Makin
Front:  Elder Marangi, Bro & Sister Towers,  Bro & Sister ??, Elder Davis

Who would of ever thunk

Who would have ever thunk that on of the most common difficulties people have with the book of Mormon is finding the page numbers. Just one of those things you don't think about until yer on yer mish and your investigator is quietly struggling to turn to the page.but yeah....onto more exciting things.like little excerpts from the week.

I think I just found the little dipper on my leg. Yes, the constellations of mosquito bites are abundant upon my legs, and I’m guessing it’s from when we wandered around the Cole’s farm. The Coles live out in Mcbee and we paid them a visit hoping to inspire them to do missionary work and give us referrals. Missionary work wise, it wasn’t the most productive but I think it helped to talk with them and get them to like/trust us so maybe they’d be more keen to working with missionaries in the future. I NEVER would've guessed that the Coles who give us eggs from their chickens every weekend are originally from Southern California. Bro Cole was an electrical engineer and one day they were sick of living so jammed packed in with the rest of Southern Cali, so they sold their home, packed up and moved to South Carolina where they now make a living off of farming on their 94 acres of land.

September 21-Got a call this morning form Willie’s sister telling us he wouldn’t be up for baptism today because he wasn’t feeling to good. After we hung up we immediately called Willie and found out his knee was super swollen, we promised/testified that the Lord could heal him and get him to his baptism he just needed to have faith. Texts were sent out amongst the zone for extra prayers, the zone leaders went to the nursing home and gave him a blessing, but when the time came Willie and his nurses agreed that he wouldn’t be able to get baptized today…I really thought he was going to make it this time. Something always comes up, I just want to drag him down her and dunk him before he dies or something. He deserves this, wants this and more importantly NEEDS this-just gotta keep trying and having faith, it’ll happen.

Tammy’s baptism was AMAZING! Sis Makin and I gave a talk on the Holy Ghost, we took tons of pictures the spirit was so strong and everything went perfectly. She was so cute and happy, and mark was there and it was just such a nice night. It’s still so surreal that it actually happened. Blows my mind that the Lord allowed lil ol Sister Smith to help someone progress towards and make it to baptism into His church, I’m so blessed.\

it's so hard to find the right balance between doing your best, but then acknowledging that you can do better. but it's worth it, never get complacent with who you are, because Heavenly Father knows you can be so much more. 

LOVE Y'ALL LOTS!

Sister Smith:D

Lindsay said South Carolinans think the pineapple shows Southern hospitality a sign of Welcome.  She finds them all over Hartsville.

This is one house she's not sure about knocking on

                                      

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                         
In Hartsville they paint their fire hydrants all different--pretty neat and easy to find

I'm ok being a middle toe

I am a middle toe. Sis Genevieve Johnson shared this analogy in RS the other day and I loved it (I love all analogies)! She said one day she was reading in the bible about the body of Christ and how each part is important, and she wasn’t feeling too significant. She didn’t feel like she was making that much of a contribution to the world, and she thought-“what’s the most insignificant body part-the middle toe”, she told herself that she was the middle toe and that she wasn’t really that important. She prayed for strength and understanding, wondering if there was a purpose for her life. The next day she was going out to the garden and a metal wire sticking out of a fence went straight through the front of her shoe and stabbed into her middle toe clear under the nail. Oh it it hurt bad, after she got the bleeding to stop it was still throbbing and she wasn’t able to walk comfortably for a few days. It was then that she learned Heavenly Father was teaching her a lesson. That even the middle toe is important. Because if that middle toe isn’t doing it’s job and is making a fuss, or making things difficult the rest of the body cannot function to it’s ultimate potential. Therefore as a part of the body of Christ sometimes it’s best to ask how can I better work in unity, do my job and not inhibit the body of Christ, or the church. Whether it be through raising my kids one day, visiting teaching, fulfilling a calling or simply doing my duty as a member missionary or a disciple of Christ. Everyone is important, even if sometimes you only feel like a middle toe.

What I love about missionary work #28, being His hands. After Cilicia’s we were walking to go knock/contact, right as Wanda (a lady we had recently met) pulled up, we went up to say hi and realized she wasn’t doing too good either. She had just found out her Aunt had passed away, we bore testimony of the Savior and that she would see her aunt again, and most important to her at that time was the hugs, the attempt to comfort her through our words, assuring her that if she needed anything to let us know. She thanked us and told us she still really wanted to meet with us. I know that God loves Wanda so much, and sent us by at just the right time so we could stop and talk with her. If we would’ve been earlier we would’ve missed her, later and she might not’ve let us in or answered the door. But He knows, He loves us, and we need to always be ready to act on our promptings to uplift our brothers and sisters.

We wanted to see if we could track down Tammy and see about sending missionaries in her direction if she was really going to stay in North Carolina, but Miracle of the day! She’s back!-yeah we were so shocked when she answered and said she’d see ustonight for when we set up an apt with Mark. The last time we talked to Mark he seemed very adamant that he was leaving Tammy in North Carolina this time. I’m so grateful his heart was softened. We had a lesson with both of them, Mark had a shirt on, we read from the BOM, the spirit was there, they’re both coming to church and Mark’s committed to help Tammy to quit smoking! Miracles are just abundant!!

Wellll, I love y'all a whole lot. Be obedient and strive to have the spirit with you always. There are miracles out there the Lord needs us to perform through his power, we just gotta have FAITH! (ether 12:12)

Have a lovely lovely day!

LOOOOOVE<3

Sister Lindsay Smith

seriously love y'all and so grateful for your influence on my life, and now my mission!! 

 Sister Smith awesome Nephite sandals line.
In her mission they can wear sandals from April till Oct conference

 Members give the Sisters fresh eggs each week and Lindsay loves making an delicious egg white omelet

Steve and Shadrach people the Sisters are working with 

                                                                                                                         








Sister Smith with Sister Houston on splits in Florence

Famous produce stand in South Carolina

                                     
                                                               

Learned a valuable Lesson

Learned a valuable lesson from our sister training leader sis Houston the other week. (random...she's from Georgia but just happens to be super good friends with Kira Cheney from Lehi, small world eh?) Anywho, she said that all missionaries are alike in the fact that they don't know what they're doing. It's just that the ones going home are more comfortable with not knowing what they're doing, and the fresh new missionaries aren't as comfortable. The Lord knows that we learn most when we're in unfamiliar territory, so as soon as we get to a point where we know what we're doing, he blesses us by throwing us curveballs so that we can improve, progress and choose to react in a Christlike manner.  

So this week NOT in my comfort zone, here's what was a happening!...

Today (Sept 3) I am grateful for something I never anticipated I would be. We set up an apt with John Ritch and had arranged to have Sis Denise Edwards come with us, we were super excited because he had promised he wouldn't stand us up this time. As I was on the phone with…somebody, there was in incoming call from John Ritch. By the time I finished my call he had hung up. DAH! He would only be calling to cancel. We frantically tried to call him back multiple times to see if we needed to bother picking Sis Edwards up at all but he never answered. DAH (x2)!! We said a quick prayer and decided to go grab her anyways. We picked up Sis Edwards and received a voicemail from him. Sis Makin threw out that maybe he had accidentally pocket dialed us. I listened to it while I was backing the car and **SIGH** was so relieved to only hear faint voices, the TV and crumbly-rumbly noises. Today I am grateful for pocket dials!

Sister Rosemary Carroway is the best, she went out with us to visit our investigators and it makes a HUGE difference to have a “real person” explain the blessings of the gospel. It’s especially beneficial because almost everyone is a convert so they can entirely relate to what our investigator is going through-it’s beautiful, member present lessons are just a gift (heh heh, present…gift) I kill myself sometimesJ

We made our way over to Marilyn’s for an apt we had made, and oh ye of little faith Sis Smith wasn’t thinking too much of it, Little was I expecting 2 miracles. First we stopped briefly to talk to this guy who turns out had been meeting with the missionaries but they were transferred and no one ever came by to see him, even though they told him that they had put his info in the area book. But now he had moved to Hartsville so we could run into him, get his info and start teaching him again! Miracle number 2-marilyn was home and let us in (sis Makin said she rarely would do that in the past) and then after being entertained by her dancing 2yr old grandson we had a bomb lesson and committed her to be baptized. YEEEES! Can’t wait to teach her again, and get her the come to church Sunday.

We had the fireside tonight, I was super pumped! Our song was solid, all of these people we had invited said they were coming, a bunch of ward members were going to be there and had told us they’d be bringing friends, there was going to be cookies for afterward, it was gonna be great! We got there early to set up and warm up and by the time 6 pm rolled around the only people there were the ward members who were performing and a few other families. I was so bummed, and anxiously glanced behind us every few minutes praying someone would show up…nothing. Even the elders had only one investigator show up. Otherwise is was real nice though, our song went really well and the other numbers were perfect. But my favorite part was when bishop McDaniels offered some last minute remarks. He mentioned a few things. He told the ward that Mormons need to stop being so stuffy. We weren’t at the temple and this wasn't sacrament meeting, so it would have been entirely appropriate for us to applaud and congratulate those who participated tonight. He also told us this wouldn’t be the last time we’d be doing this, and that next time he fully expected the ward to invite friends, bring missing ward members and to have more energy. I loved it! I was feeling a little bit sorry for ourselves because no one had come, but ya know what-that doesn’t matter. We’re not giving up, we’ll try harder next time. No good effort is a wasted effort. Take that Satan! I will NEVER give up, this is too important. The fireside theme was “Come Unto Him”, and all of the musical numbers were centered around Christ. It is such a beautiful thing to sing and praise our Savior. He is the most important person to have ever lived, and he’s my older brother who performed the most important thing in the world for me. I love him so much, and I want to do everything he’d done. Just like how growing up I wanted to be just like my sister Jamie. She was my idol, I didn’t wear pink because she never did, I swam and played soccer, because that’s what Jamie did. The more I come to know and learn about my savior the more I want to be like him so I can better know him, and come closer to him. I know that my Redeemer Lives, How Great Thou Art, I Stand All Amazed, what would I do If The Savior Stood Beside me, would I more valiantly proclaim I Believe in Christ?

DISCLAIMER-we have a limited amount of time to email, so I have been perfecting the art of typing like mad woman, so I apologize for any typos or other errors of the sort...also it proooobably doesn't make much sense most of the time. So use the spirit to discern my intent. LOVE Y'ALL!

Sister Lindsay Smith:D:D

It rains super hard in South Carolina, but this does not stop the missionary work. This happened Aug. 31st.   The lightening and thunder suddenly got a lot worse so we sought shelter under a pavilion of an apt that of course had a lady we could talk to under it. As we were sharing the miraculous message of the restoration it started down pouring  it was like insta-shower, with lightening flashing throughout the entire sky, and thunder so loud I was shouting about how God has a plan for each of us to the woman. We knocked the rest of the apartments protected by the overhang, after only 2  doors the bottom of my skirt was drenched from the rain that was blowing inward. Little miracle: by the time we had to make a run for it to our car the rain wasn't coming down quite as hard, which was nice because I get to oversee sis Makin’s backing skills from OUTSIDE of the car. I didn’t mind it at all though, I LOVE the rain! It just re-energizes me, mmmm, so invigorating. Especially when it’s coupled with lightening and thunder.

P-day going to play volleyball with District
Below: picture of Lindsay with 31 new Missionaries that came to South Carolina to preach and teach about Christ's church.  With President Holm and his wife.

ANYWHOO-here' s wee bits and pieces from me week:D

It's sad but so many people we teach don't have basic reading skills and it can be a real struggle for them to read the tough names in the BOM. One of the ladies we're teaching, Shareba (SHA-reeba) never gets the name Nephi right no matter how many times we urge her in the right direction. She always says Nehemiah instead, so we were in a meeting and they told us to turn to Nehemiah for a scripture and not thinking I flipped to 1 Nephi.

ANYWHOO-here' s wee bits and pieces from me week:D

Little miracle of the day! We were out knocking at like 8:40pm, which is the worst time to knock because it’s so late, and everyone tells us so, but we had an apt fall through so it wasn’t planned. Anywho, we walked past an apt that we had tried to contact and I saw a lady inside, we walked on but I felt the prompting to go back. So we did, and it turns out she was super nice, had actually visited our church before, and we set up a return apt!

John’s had a complete turn-around. When I first got to Hartsville, Sis Makin kept telling me about how hard headed John Ritch was, and about how he was so contentious when they’d been meeting with him. Wellll, we stopped by today and he reminded us he wanted to get baptized, and he wanted us to do it right. So we taught him about the WOW and chastity and gave him the coordinating pamphlets, and he was like “where’s the rest of them?”, we were like “rest of what, the pamphlets?”, he was like yeah, give it all to me, the complete set”. So we gave him every pamphlet we had, made him promise to watch the conference talk we gave him, and after this week he’s promised to start coming to church (he has a funeral to go to this Sunday)

Repinosa, pronounced Reponza=so GREAT! When we got there she was helping her niece out with Algebra 2, me and Sis Makin were able to settle a dispute about a math questions (I miss math! The only math we ever do here is when we’re determining mileage, or counting up our key indicators for the week) theeeeeen, after that I sneakily was able to relate life to a big math test, and how  we’re given different aids to do that math test (aka scriptures/prayer=calculators/algorithm’s). Haha, she just laughed and said she would be in big trouble if life was really just one big math test. I like her though-and I like even more that she’s willing to learn more and seek after the truth.

Transfers were yesterday annnnd, we’re both staying! I tried not to make it too obvious, but I was babysitting the phone all day anxiously checking to see if the *beep* meant Pres. Holm was calling, and then that night *drum roll* when they listed off the transfers, our names were never called. I only want to do exactly what the Lord needs me to do, and I’m more than happy to continue the work here in Hartsville-gah! We gotta get John, Tammy and Maggie baptized!!

 mmm, that's nuff I suppose-I hope y'all have the best day ever.

The worst it gets is wonderful, seriously we have so much to be grateful for, why would you EVER waste your time being unhappy-don't do it:)

LOOOOOOVE<3

Sister Lindsay Mae Smith