week 16

Hello!

I am sitting in a basement internet cafe in the cute little mountain city, Vanadzor. There are picturesque snowy peaks surrounding us while huge, slushy snow flakes quickly rush down.... Sometimes I try being poetic but it just doesn't go over so well. Oh well. So, yeah. I am in Vanadzor with Sister Burnham. How President thought it was a good idea to put two new missionaries together for 3 days is beyond me, but here we are, and we have survived so far. The real test will be later on today though in our appointments. We had an appointment last night, and it was a little heinous (I finally learned how to spell that word! Go me go). We were teaching a less active woman but she wouldn't let us teach her because she already "knows everything". But then she didn't understand why Mormon wasn't in the bible. I did my best to clear that one up and leave a spiritual thought. In the end she said she wouldn't come back to church because she's going to another church and according to her there's no difference. But she did say she would read the Book of Mormon every day.... we'll see about that one haha. It was weird, I couldn't really understand her, but at the same time i could. Basically the Lord enables you to do what you have to do. I just pray that that will continue for the remainder of the day. And tomorrow. And my mission haha. It's kind of nice being motherless though. I am being pushed to say and do more than I would normally do. And I think it is really good for Sister Burnham too, to be in control of her area for a couple of days and to see that she is capable and a great missionary. She was awesome last night... I may or may not have started raising my voice a little in the appointment last night (not angrily, but just so that the lady would hear me over her own voice haha), and Sister Burnham reminded me who I was and brought the Spirit haha. My bad.


This last week has been really good. Having General Conference this weekend was so great. I needed it so much. I love the Prophet! And the apostles and general authorities! They are so inspiring and so inspiring. There were SO many amazing talks. Did you all notice the shoutout to Armenia? I believe someone told a story about an Armenian boy... I haven't heard that talk yet though, we had to go check on our investigator right then. I can't even remember what all I loved from conference. Elder Bednar's, E. Scott's, and then that one about taking correction were all so good. I am going to watch them all again cause we have them on DVD.


So, the big exciting news for this week is that out investigator, *M*, is getting baptized this Saturday!!!!!! I AM SO EXCITED! Her second baptismal interview went so well. Before hand we showed a short video called Healing Waters (Irena, I bet you know what that is), and I almost started bawling. We are so excited for her and we just keep praying that her husband will be ablet to follow in her footsteps. He is a good man, he just always has to work. We're hoping he'll be able to make it to the baptism though. We have a couple of other new investigators too. I will just tell you about one of them. When we first met with *J* we were very skeptical. I think she mostly just liked having two American (/Canadian) girls over to feed and talk to. It took us forever to get her to finally start reading the Book of Mormon on her own, but once she did she has just changed so much. It seriously is miraculous. The transformation that the gospel makes is so amazing. She just has a different light about her. She is less apathetic, she is happier. She came to conference this Sunday and then when we met with her that night she was like quoting it to us and applying it to our lesson! Ah! SO good! She also invited her friend over to learn from us too, so now they're both investigating! It's so cool!


Well, I can't think of anything else to tell you, so I guess that's it for today. I love you all! You are in my prayers! Samantha, Chelsea and Aleksandra ya'll better be sending me packages or something to make up for the SERIOUS lack of love in the form of emails lately.


Love,


Sister Smith