Sam's Mission To Zambia Blog: May 28, 2018

From Mom - Courage:

Dear Sam,

I’m not sure if you remember a discussion we had with the family when you were younger. We were trying to decide if there was a difference between “being brave” and “having courage.” After talking about it, we decided that bravery is the act of having courage; where courage is a life skill of doing difficult things in spite of feeling scared. A small distinction, but we decided that developing courage happens as we are brave doing hard things. I’m not sure why this story popped into my brain this week except I needed to remember that striving to do hard things is part of our family culture. ... because I needed to be brave this week.

Every now and then, I get hammered with a horrible depressed feeling. It comes randomly with no warning and for no reason I can think of and I just want to hide in my bed under the covers. Doing simple things like getting dressed, eating food, or picking up Mia from a friend’s house feels impossibly difficult. And I want to cry all day. Weird, right? Well, it happened this week ... for three days. I hate it (and you know I don’t use that word lightly.) I woke up with this feeling on Thursday and I thought “uh oh.” So, I had a choice. Do I stay in bed and let it pass or do I get up and push through it? If I stay in bed, the family suffers; but if I push through it, I’m short tempered and make bad decisions and the family still suffers. I knew I needed help.

So, I forced myself to my knees beside my bed (remember how I said simple things feel impossibly difficult?) and poured out my heart to Heavenly Father and asked for help. When I’m in this black mood, I can’t feel the Spirit like I usually do and it feels like a vital part of me has been cut off, like Heaven is closed to me for some reason. (This is where being brave comes in.) Then I got up and just focussed on whatever task was right in front of me. And you know what? It took three days but I was able to function almost normally just doing one thing at a time and slowly that blackness lifted until it was gone. It may seem like a small thing to you but it was huge for me. Suddenly, I could feel the Spirit again and there was an unmistakable feeling of love, peace and comfort I’ve come to trust and rely on. I value it even more highly than before because I was without it for a bit. I feel humbled and amazed. So maybe now I feel l have more courage than before. I hope that depression never comes again but if it does, I think I can face it better.

I spent last weekend with Grandma Bruce, Joshua, Stephanie and Tyler and loved every minute. We were there, mostly, to see Steph’s documentary and it was so well done and heart touching. But you know how it goes ... the best parts were funny little unexpected moment ... like when Steph and I finished hanging the last picture (of 22). She was taking a time lapse video of the hanging, so as a celebration of finishing the job, she and I took turns walking sloooowly in front of the camera and striking a pose. When we saw the hilarious fast motion we laughed and laughed. (Maybe she will send it to you.)

And there was that moment when we were doing last minute things for the show and I looked over and saw Tyler taping the video cords to the floor and realized what a supportive husband he is to Steph.

Then there was that moment when we were all cuddling on the couch (except Tyler) helping Grandma figure out a word game on her phone. She is given 7-10 letters and the player(s) need to figure out all the words those letters make. Towards the end, Grandma gets stuck so we were helping her. Josh accidentally created the word “podle,” which, we decided, means to yodel while paddling. Lol! We laughed and laughed. So silly but a good moment nonetheless.

And that moment when Steph and Tyler brought us to an artisan chocolate maker that imports fancy vinegars and olive oils. Quirky right? We had ice cream with fruit vinegar (very tasty), chocolate tea (made with cocoa nibs and cacao husks) and a few other decadent chocolate delights. I love trying new things.

The best parts of life are made with these moments, and I would miss them all if I stayed in bed under the covers!

Anyway, I’m home and life is going on. I’m SO HAPPY with my Mother’s Day gift of a new garden. Dad dug out an area with the bobcat (on the left side of the property at the end of the driveway) and got rid of the clay and hauled in two loads of garden mix soil. The mower is working again and the grass cut. The girls love driving it around. In fact, last night at 10 p.m. we heard it fire up then we see Mia whip past the window with Abby behind her on the seat. We had a good chuckle over that. Today, we are prepping our now flat yard (no more helter-skelter piles of dirt) for grass seed.

*In other news, Bailey is home from her mission with Ava, Jake, Erik and Kallie (the Rice’s daughter) following close behind. It seems fast, but then again, they aren’t my children.
*Ben brought a girl to grad ... he can tell you more about that.
*Josh is loving school ... and he can fill you in on the details ... but we had fun Skyping with him last night.
*Steph and Tyler were in Virginia attending the wedding of his sister, Hadley. And they are busy with plans to relocate to St. George, Utah where there are lots of climbing opportunities.
*Renata and Ede just had another baby. A little boy named Gino.

And it’s regular life for the rest of us.

River on hot days.

The Patrick’s got a pool. Yay for us!!!

Scripture study and discussion.

Dad helping Ben get ready for his grad date. Haha.

I know what you mean when you say time is a funny thing. When my Grandma Sanders was dying, my Mom asked her for words of advice. Grandma said, “You know ... life passes like a flash. Make your moments matter.” And Sue Bolan said the same thing towards the end of her life. It may not feel like it now, but your mission is going to “pass like a flash.” So make your moments matter. And remember, we can do hard things. Trust in the Lord. He loves us and wants us to succeed. We love you dearly, Sam. Work hard. Feel peace. Watch for tender mercies because they are all around us constantly.

Love you forever,

Mom

From Sam - Prayer is Real

Hello all! This week has been a blast.

I had to go to a district/zone leader training and learned a lot about planning and the importance of it. Not only on my mission but for the rest of my life. This week I applied lots of the principles taught and found great success. Not only the application of the principles but through lots of prayer. There were so many times where me and my companion had no idea where we would find new investigators, with goals for 2 or 3 and no time to find. Through lots of prayer and diligent work God was kind enough to bless us with people walking into lessons and them really wanting to know more. God is there and wants to bless us. But, just like faith without works is dead, prayers without action is vain. If we're not willing to be part of the solution, we're not showing God we want help or an answer.

One of the investigators we found was a pastor, Pastor Robby, we had a good lesson. Him and his family were really into it, then, when we introduced Joseph Smith and the Book of Mormon the father looked sort of worried. But the rest of the family were really interested. After the lesson the wife took pity on us and gave us some free food from her stand.(Biscuits, Jiggys(50 ngway snacks) and a FreEshivakadoo) Try guessing what that is. Hehe.

On Friday, we had a combined zone activity. We did sports: Basketball, volleyball and ping-pong. It was a really nice work out. I also had so much fun. Because it was a combined activity I was able to see my mtc companion, he's in the other zone. The best part is, he's training a Canadian. He was on the other team and we just kept saying, every time we got a point, that we were conflicted. Happy that one of us got a point and sad that it was against the other Canadian. My mission presidents wife got a kick out of that.

This week was great. I'm loving every minute I'm in Africa. The people here are amazing. The Gospel and the Church is true.

-Elder Smith

Pictures:

-Free Snacks after a lesson with the pastor