I Love being in the South!!!!!

I absolutely LOVE being in the south. We were checking out at Walmart and an old lady in a black sun hat waltzes over and starts talking with the cashier. Here’s how it went down…

Cashier: “oh, praise the Lord, how’re you doing?
Lady: “oh, just getting some exercise carting around Walmart”
Cashier: “mmm, that’s what I need, some exercise”
Lady: “naw guurl you lookin’ goooood”
Cashier: “ aw thanks, you’re looking good too”
Lady: “you did real good at church yesterday, real good”
Cashier: “all the glory goes to God, praise the Lord”
And then they went their separate ways, you can’t find that anywhere but the south. This place is special. Even Utah with all it’s Mormons, could learn a thing or two from these Christians out here.

It's kind of ridiculously wonderful how every time we try to show our love and gratitude to our Heavenly Father and Savior by being obedient, or sacrificing something, he pays us ten-fold with blessings!
A mission for example, the devil/world would have us think it's a huge sacrifice, but truly is the greatest investment I've made for my life thus far. All y'all should seeeeriously consider serving a mission, annd then serving another one. Elder Holland once said that we need 2 or 3 good missions our of our members.

onto the the week!!!

A few weeks ago we brought up to sis tate about how we wished we could come to girls camp. She loved that idea and said she’d take care of it, a few days later she formally invited us to come for bishop’s night. We got president’s permission and this evening we drove out there with the Helms. Driving into the campground brought on a flood of old memories; matching shirts, braided hair, crafts, clotheslines with cups clipped on, and lots of good food. It was beautiful, no matter what side of the country you’re on, girls camp is the same. They fed us Hawaiian haystacks and then we did a presentation on repentance, and how our decisions now-whether they are good or bad-will determine our destiny. I think it went really well, not that those emotions equal the spirit, but there were a few tears shed, which is always a good sign. The best part was singing come thou fount with them and then we had them close their eyes as we painted a scene of them in the pre-mortal life. It was their time to come to earth, and the Savior pulled them aside to tell them how proud he was of them, and how special they were to be chosen to come to earth at this time. Then most importantly we told them that they promised Christ they would do whatever it took to make it back, they he needn’t worry because nothing was going to stop them. We then had them open their eyes, and we proceeded to share with them that repentance is a beautiful thing, not something to be avoided to afraid of. We were told by some leaders how some of the girls are struggling with self-esteem, eating habits, alcohol and immorality. I was praying the whole time that something the spirit said would help them have that desire to change. Living or NOT living the gospel will have the BIGGEST impact on their lives. I love them all so much, and don’t want to see anything bad ever happen to them. After us, sis and bro helm spoke and then we got a little time to see their campsite. They even let us use the luxurious bathroom facilities.

It was such an off day today, one of those days where everything is falling through, or everyone’s cancelling. But what’s awesome about those days, is that I can have faith that God is directing us to something special. We knocked into Jackie. She let us right in and we had a great lesson with her, she gladly took a Book of Mormon. She told us that she’d seen the LDS commercial many times and that she’d always been tempted to order one (I prefer to use the word prompted over tempted, but whatevs). We told her, “well Jackie, Heavenly Father knew that, and he wanted you to have it hand delivered by us”.

We went over the plan of salvation with Melanie, and it was beyond great. What she wants more than anything is to be sealed with her husband and when we told her how that could happen within a month of her baptism she lit right up. She told us how she’d tried other churches before, but her current church pastor hadn’t been by since her kidney had been removed, but she was touched that we’d been by multiple times. All teary-eyed she told us she’d been praying and studying. Pointing to her book of Mormon she said she felt that that was where God wanted her to be, and it was where she needed to be.

The world is just a bit too small, it really messes with me sometimes. We’re teaching tiffany and *knock knock* (not a joke, in waltzes our favorite less-active/part-member family Noah and Sabrina). Turns out their buds with Tiffany’s mother and were coming over for dinner. Awesome, our lesson just turned into a member present.

Also, wednesday night a pipe burst somewhere in Anderson and ALL of anderson city was put on a boil alert. Meaning that no water was to be consumed until it was boiled for at least a minute. When we made it home our water had already been shut off. We managed without showering, and had some bottled water, we even used the water from our dehumidifier to manually refill the toilet. The biggest problem we faced was that once we were out in our area, none of our typical gas stations or fast food places had toilets we could use either. Luckily we were able to come in contact with sis busby who had her water piped through a different source, and still had running water.

...update...about a day later Anderson was taken off of the boil alert, but the water coming out of the tap is still a lovely shade of brown.

love y'all!
Sister Smith