Sam's Mission To Zambia Blog: May 6, 2018

From Dad - Good to be Home

Hi Sam,

It has been a good week at home. Coming home after a holiday reminds us how much we love this land (both Canada, and our own wonderful 10 acres). The folks who bought the 6 acres between us the old Milner house are starting to get ready to build this year, so we will have neighbors... mixed feelings about that.

This week the girls finally finished filling up the bean jar so we took everyone (including Cody who contributed 50 beans) out to dinner at Original Joe's and to see the new Avengers Movie "Infinity War" in order to preserve our families nerd status. Knowing you you already know how it ends, but it was mind blowing for most of us. Many shouts and exclamations in the theater after. I won't spoil it if you don't know how it ends.

Cody was pretty stoked about just coming back from the Comicon in Calgary with Calvin. Calvin was a storm trooper and participated.

This week I prepared my lesson for Sunday School only to get to the church and realize I got the date wrong and I'm teaching next week! Luckily it is still the right lesson I prepared, so less stress. But the lesson was on Deuteronomy. I'm amazed at how little I know the Old Testament. I learned that Deuteronomy is essentially Moses's farewell sermons to the children of Israel as they prepare to enter the promised land without him. Such a strong message about searching after false God's and the consequences of either choosing to serve the only true and living God vs. idols and false God's. This is your message as a missionary and it is the message the world needs as it tries to save itself without God.

When we were climbing with Tyler and I saw him climbing up without an anchor and looking carefully to anchor himself safely into the wall, it reminded me of our Priest motto of "Clip in and Cinch up". Our covenants and trust in God are like anchors to keep us safe in our climb through this life back to God. Amelia bore her testimony today of that and compared Heavenly Father to a Belayer who will always catch us when we fall if we turn to him and have him as our spiritual 'belayer'.

You probably saw Grandpa Smith's email regarding fasting for Great Grandpa Smith. I'm so grateful for the legacy of faith in our family. I'm excited for Great Grandpa and Grandma to "graduate" to the next life and be free of pain and sorrow and be reunited with family. Continue to pray for them.

We spent another Spring Saturday doing the highway cleanup. Cody came with us after some prodding and together with the girls and Bro. Mark McKee we did 8 km both sides of the highway. It was 5 hours of enduring to the end. A couple of experiences were significant during this time. As we were finishing up and we (read Amelia) was about at the end of her rope, Ben commented to her that this was a lot like the parable in the Bible of the 10 virgins and that by enduring to the end of this experience we were filling our lamps with oil. I loved his insight. We also were blessed when someone came by and gave us $50 out of the goodness of his heart because he had done the same in 4-H when he was young. Allowed us to treat everyone to milk-shakes! That helped the motivation for at least 10 min :)

Today in Fast and Testimony meeting, Mom bore her testimony about why she loves to come to Church. On the drive to church, she asked the kids and got insightful answers that she shared like 1. To take the sacrament and remember the Saviors sacrifice 2. Learn the stories of Jesus 3. Server and share our light with others 4. Be with good friends. I'm grateful for her faithfulness and support. Amelia also shared her testimony as I mentioned above about Heavenly Father as our spiritual Belayer.

One final thought. Grandpa Smith (My Dad) has often referred the book "The Infinite Atonement", and I borrowed it from him on the way through last week. This quote struck me and I'll end on that:

"By deeper delving into the subject, my intellect also gives its full and complete assent to the soundness of the philosophy and the absolute necessity for the atonement of Jesus Christ....I account it for myself a new conversion, an intellectual conversion to the atonement of Jesus Christ; and I have been rejoicing in it as of late, exceedingly" - B.H. Roberts

I know the atonement is the key and foundational doctrine of the gospel. Keep sharing that good news!

Love,

Dad.

A few pics attached that were on my phone to share:

Us at Temple Square

A sunset with Ben enjoying the outdoors

Abby and Mia enjoying brand new baby cats at Grandma and Grandpa Smiths.

From Sam - Full blown Awesomeness

This week have been awesome. The major highlights are: Doing exchanges with the Zone Leaders, Gospel principles, a Baptism done by me and a Seminary Scriptures chase/Dinner.

I'll start with the exchange. I did exchanges with Elder Harmon. He's a huge guy as in he goes to the gym and is crazy strong. We were able to have a really cool lesson about the Book of Mormon. It was only 10 minutes but it was a lesson of pure testimony. (I had a lesson like this, but i'll tell you later) I can honestly say it was nice to be using a truck all day because my face got a break from the sun and I'm slowly recovering. During the whole exchange we were having deep doctrine discussions about the atonement/repentance, the holy ghost and a deep deep doctrine talk about the fall. My mind was blowing up with all this insanely awesome deep doctrine knowledge. I love the gospel.

The other lesson with pure testimony was with an investigator names Sister and Brother Tembo. We talked about the Book of Mormon and resolved their concern over there being only the bible, no taking away or adding on. We went over the history of the Book of Mormon and did lots of bearing testimony, I even told her my story about the first time I found out the truthfulness of the Book of Mormon. I felt the spirit and I could tell they were feeling the spirit. It was really powerful.

Yesterday, during church, my companion taught the Gospel Principles class on the Atonement of Christ. During the lesson he broke down the word, At One Ment. He taught and I learned that because of Christ we can be "At One" with God if we turn to him and keep his commandments. And it's because Jesus Christ "Ment" to do it, that's what makes it possible to return to live with God. You know that you have a great companion when you learn from his teachings. It's awesome.

After church I had the opportunity to baptize(For the first time in my life) an investigator. She is amazing and really funny and really shy. It was a really cool experience. I would love to do it again, and I probably will.

Yesterday all the missionaries and the american embassy families were invited to a year end scripture mastery challenge/dinner. I had so much fun reliving the seminary scripture chase experience. The food was also really good and I had a blast. I also got a trophy for the Book of Mormon trivia and lots of american candy. I'm pretty happy about that.

I had a truly amazing week and I love being a missionary.

Here are a few quotes from some of my ward leaders.

-Success can only be achieved through change-Bishop Chikopa

- None of us can start over and have a new beginning, but all of us can start today and make a new ending.-Someone whose name I can't remember

I love you all and I want you all to start today to make a new and better ending for yourself. Stay Awesome😉

-Elder Smith

Pictures:

-Taco Night