I searched for the promised blessing

Dearest Family!!!!!

This past week was pretty up and down--it seemed like all of our plans came undone, but then the Lord would step in and direct our paths to go where we really were supposed to be. We are very grateful for the Lord's guidance in doing this His work. One of the biggest miracles we saw this past week is that we were able to find a new investigator who is AMAZING. We called her off of an old contact card and then found out she related to a sister in our ward and had actually gone to church just last Sunday!!! I thought she was already a member--surprise! So she is looking really good for her goal and her extended family is starting to get excited about it too. Since our first lesson with her we have really focused on enduring conversion and it has set a really clear expectation for our visits. She is awesome!!! Other than her though, a lot of our investigators stopped progressing--we are still having a little difficulty finding. But our new district leader, Elder Liu, is great and has given us some great new contacting approaches to try. We will keep doing our best!

As for our RCLAs, we have been working to help them strengthen their relationships with other members. For FHE we took a Sister who just barely passed her year mark over to another new members house. They both have a lot of interest in family history and both haven't been to the temple yet, so we had a lesson on how family history can give us the motivation to work towards the temple. It worked well.

Something I learned this week during my studies is that I have to be actively seeking for all of the Christ-like attributes so much more than I already am! I really needed to learn patience this week and as it turns out that is the virtue of the month. What I learned is that in order for me to develop the patience I need to endure and not feel anxious, upset or frustrated, I need to focus on the end result--the promised blessing. As I was reading scriptures on patience from the topical guide I searched for the promised blessing--and found one in almost every verse. Thus I learned that when I start to feel impatient, I have forgotten what I am working towards/ waiting for. So I am going to work on that!

So a member in our ward said we could use her house to SKPE!!! I thing I will probably just type in Dad's cause his is for sure his work address...not sure if Mom would use hotmail or yahoo. So we will probably get on at around 8:15pm your time Sunday night--- so I will be using it around 10:15am Monday morning over here. That will be fun, huh? We will only have 40 minutes this time though--but meh, you will all see me soon enough right? I can't remember my skype stuff, so it will probably be on Sister Thomas' name or something.

Other highlights from this week--my companion had pinkeye! It was soo sad!! But our relief society pres. provided relief and took us to the eye doc. After getting meds, it cleared up really fast. She is a trooper. Also the R.S. pres. took us out to a really nice Italian place for lunch--so delicious. Us Sisters really do get it good. Something else pretty fun is that we attempted to teach on of our recent converts (she was baptized before I moved into the ward) in this area how to ride a bike! It was also pretty fun. She inherited a missionary bike and so has been wanting to learn. We had to break it down to learning how to get on and off her bike while maintaining balance...so she is still a ways from biking. But it was fun! Also, we played the commandment game with my recent convert from February-it is like spoons but instead of face cards they are cards with commandments on them. The loser has to explain the commandment the winner collected. It is great for reviewing commandments and for having fun! The game got a little intense when Sister Thomas stole the pen from her and she said, "But I touch it first!!!! You are robber!!!" in English...it was HILARIOUS. And then when I stole a pen from her she said, "I now know your true color!". It was awesome, I just love her!

Well, look forward to "seeing" you all next week! LOVE!!!!!!!!!!

--Sister Brooke Smith