20 October 2013

To keep your marriage brimming with love in the loving cup,

Whenever you’re wrong, admit it.  Whenever you’re right, shut up. ~Ogden Nash

Satan has a powerful tool to use against good people.  It is distraction.  He would have good people fill life with”good things” so there is no room for the essential ones. ~Richard G Scott

All knowledge is not equal in importance.

Birthdays this week....

29 Emmalee Smith 1998  She has the week to herself!

Updates from missionaries

Liam in Madagascar- As for other things this week we attended a mission call opening of a member in our ward. His name is Eric. He has been baptized for less than 2 years and is the most faithful, dependable member our ward, along with his brother Willy. Eric got his mission call this week and we were invited to attend the opening of the call! How exciting! It brought me back to when I opened mine. Lets just say he cried much less than I did haha. Brownie points for being a softie! Eric has been called to serve French speaking to the Kinshasa, DR Congo mission! It covers 4 countries and sounds like a big adventure from all the RMs I have met from that mission. He was super excited and will make an excellent missionary starting in January.  he adds a picture and says,  Sarodroa branch that we visited this weekend. It is an amazing little branch up in the mountains. Very secluded. Over 100 members and about 95% tithing faithfulness. A true miracle.

Malagasy mother

typical malagasy road block and mountainous villages/rice fields

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Cameron in California- So this week we did lots more walking. We have 1 investigator, we have taught him twice now, and he has a friend that asks very interesting questions....yeah... That is okay though. We have 5 referrals as of today, so that isreally cool.  It will build.

This week we had a day of rain and around 8:30 at night, as we were out

walking, we got hit by a wave of water- from 2 cars within the same minute.

We were wet for a while...I found a place that is going to have an awesome burrito when I can

customize it. Uh, not sure what else.  I have been trying to write out things to write home

about during the week, but mostly it has just been walking around and going

by people who are not home.

Kieren in Brazil- (on the bus ride back to the apartment...) I decided to go sit by a woman probably in her 50s. Her name is Branca and she lives really close to the CTM (Casa Verde) so we had a lot of time to chat. She owns her own art shop downtown and loves what she does. She lives with her two daughters who are 25 and 30 years old. She is a non-practicing Catholic and part Spiritist (Spiritismo). She loves Christmas and Easter and cooking and cinnamon and butterflies. It was amazing to me that I was able to understand basically everything she said and to speak back conversationally. I can see the hand of the lord in preparing me generally and specifically to be able to do the best that I can. For example, I had randomly learned the words canela (cinnamon) and borboleta (butterfly) in the last couple of weeks, and then she used them in conversation and I knew exactly what she was talking about! Anyway, I she has a Book of Mormon and I gave her a part to read. She told me her favorite Isaiah chapter for me to check out. She gave me her information and I passed it on to the missionaries in the area. I am so grateful that I was able to understand the people and hold good conversations. The tender mercies of the Lord truly are over all those whom he hath chosen, because of their faith, to make them mightly even unto the power of deliverance (1 Ne 1:20).

Easton in Canada-We [had] an investigator at church. His name is Max and he is from Iran. He has been here in Canada for 30 or so years and has had a really tough life. He has been to church a few times and loves it and after church Sunday we had one of the most powerful lessons I have ever had on my mission with him. The Spirit absolutely filled the room and took over the lesson. We were able to testify to him how much God loves and cares about him and the member we had with us bore the sweetest, purest testimony about eternal families. We were all in tears. I have never felt the Spirit so strong. Amazing things happened in that lesson. It is one of the most sacred moments of my life. I feel so blessed to have been a part of that lesson. I am not sure if it changed Max's life but it changed mine.

Family updates.  Alas, not very many, as only two people sent me their blogs this week.  I KNOW MORE OF YOU POSTED, AND I EVEN WROTE EMAILS TO SOME OF YOU ASKING FOR YOUR BLOG, BUT I GOT NOTHING.  What would Mom/Grandma say? She would tell you to send me your posting, and the rest of you, she would tell you to drop me an update!!

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Cara wrote, We ran (loosely speaking) a 5K as a family this past weekend.  

The boys truly "ran" it, stopping only a couple times to walk.  And the 

girls pretty much did the opposite.  It was a bit chilly, but very beautiful!

After the race...we were so proud of ourselves!

It was a beautiful course and a beautiful morning!

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Katie updated her blogs as well. Funny story.... This morning I was doing Emmeline's hair, and twice she said I hurt her while combing her hair.  Once was legit (the corner of the comb scraped the side of her face by her eye, so there was a red mark there), and the second was more Emmeline being sensitive (apparently I hurt her when I combed on her neck while brushing her hair up).  Anyway, hours later, we were out somewhere, and while we were walking to the car, I accidentally poked her eye.  She was crying about it for some time, and after we got to the car and I buckled her in her car seat, she held up three fingers. She pointed to the first and said, "You poked my eye," then the second, "You hurt my neck," then the third, "You poked my face with the comb."

I just thought it was hilarious that she was remembering and counting and keeping track of all the times I injured her today.  Poor girl.

The family went to the pumpkin patch.  

Emmeline and I went to the pumpkin patch this morning, a yearly October tradition. I found the pictures from each year--so fun to see how she's grown.
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Natalie sent some pictures too.

Addie

Truman

At the pumpkin patch this week.

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Here is a lovely picture of me in my NEW MISSIONARY TAG!  I love the tag!

Finally, while we all love dearly the posts from those who regularly send them, we would LOVE some occasional posts from those who aren't sending any.  Please!  When you post in your blog, when you write a letter to a friend, when you update your facebook status, SEND A COPY TO ME!  This week, I would especially like to hear from those who are in the M-R part of the alphabet.  Please! ............When you post in your blog, when you write a letter to a friend, when you update your facebook status, SEND A COPY TO ME!  This week, I would especially like to hear from those who are in the M-R part of the alphabet.  Please! .........When you post in your blog, when you write a letter to a friend, when you update your facebook status, SEND A COPY TO ME!  This week, I would especially like to hear from those who are in the M-R part of the alphabet.  Please! 

OOPS!  I have now officially become a broken record. :)

WOW! I just now got a post from Lissa.  That was fast.  I hadnt even posted the newsletter yet.  JK.

I am about to post this and won't  have time to add Lissa's post this week.  I am heading to the airport shortly, so I will put it in the folder for next weeks post/letter.  Thank you, Lissa!

Everyone, have a good week!  Hopefully I will see a lot of you at the family gathering on Sunday at Karen's at 5 pm.  Potluck food.  Great company.

Work hard, study hard, pray hard,

Carol