Dear Sam, (and the rest of our amazing family!)
This has been a good week. From many perspectives. Here’s some highlights:
This week Mom and I have been working together on our mud room. It is fun to do it together and to see progress! This week we were able to stain and paint the bench and trim, cut the closet door and install a couple of Ikea cupboards to help with the organization. It is looking really sharp and a testament to Mom’s vision and Dad’s sometimes begrudging carpentry skills. If there is one truth we’ve learned from building this house it has been the power of small and simple steps forward inevitably leads to progress.
I was reminded of this today in Stake Conference when Elder Dikes taught us that “Nothing of consequence happens by coincidence” as well as the encouragement to take responsibility for our expected outcomes.
I had the experience of receiving a small and simple answer to my prayers this week. I have been working on a lot if AIRDAR contract work on the side as we have a big contract opportunity happening in the company. I hit a roadblock getting some equipment communicating properly and was feeling worried as we are approaching a milestone to test it out that requires it to be working. After a week of banging my head on it, and praying for ideas, I woke up yesterday morning with an idea that kept tugging at me and seemed to be a ray of light. When I was finally able to try it out, it worked!! The small simple idea was to try a different cable and a different COM port on the controller I was using. Small simple idea that was a break through and I felt grateful for a Heavenly Father who loves me enough to help me with all my troubles and cares.
Last night, Mom was able to give a talk in the Stake Conference Adult session and we were privileged to hear her. She has been thinking for the last couple of weeks about the topic of helping the rising generation understand and appreciate the importance and power of the sacrament. With her new responsibilities as Primary President, she was able to go to the Stake leadership meetings yesterday at 3 pm. At that point, she had lots of thoughts around her talk, but had not had a chance to sit down and write any of it up. Her plan was to do it in between leadership meetings and the adult session at the Stake Center. When I texted her around 6 pm (meeting was at 7 pm) to see how it was going, she texted back that as she was preparing to find a place to sit down and write her talk, she started talking to Kenny McKenney and felt prompted to have a meaningful heart to heart with him that ended up taking 1 ½ hours. She asked me to pray for her and later told me that as she prayed for help she felt a strong feeling of peace that the spirit would guide her words, and that ministering to Kenny was the best thing for her to do at that time. As I was home and the meeting was being broadcast to our ward building, I went into Devon instead of the Riverbend Stake center. I was excited to hear Mom talk and wasn’t surprised to see her stand up without any papers or phone and begin to speak by the spirit what we needed to hear. Here are some of inspiration she shared:
She described a silver bullet as something that has been symbolic in folklore and stories of the ultimate weapon against evil. She then gave us three silver bullets that would help us to protect us from the evils of the world as we teach our children about the sacrament and the covenants it renews.
- Write the doctrine of the gospel on our hearts. As we do so and we partake each week of the sacrament with real intent, our children will sense our sincerity and genuineness. She shared the quote “Children have never been very good at listening to their elders, but they have never failed to imitate them”. It rang true.
- Share stories. Share with our children, family and peers, stories of faith and devotion from the scriptures and our own lives.
- Invite and engage in discussion with your children, families and peers. Questions and seeking for their answers are critical to learning and progressing. Talk about the sacrament, the atonement and not only give answers to our children, but show them how to find their own answers. One of my favorite time and memories with our family has been discussing important things.
In light of Mom’s #2 suggestion, let me share a small story from yesterday. Grandma and Grandpa Smith, along with Auntie Liz and Rachel, drove up on Friday night to watch Lindy sing in the Alberta Youth Choir. Ben and I attended with them and enjoyed some uplifting and exciting music. They stayed overnight and yesterday, while Mom, Grandma and Auntie Liz went shopping, my Dad and I put together some Ikea cabinets. To hang the cabinets on the wall, we bought a long 7 foot hanging rail of metal. To get it to the right length to hold the two cupboards, we had to cut 2 pieces 18” each. The only tool we have in our house to do this is my old Hack saw with a rusty, slightly dull blade. So we set up the saw horses and I started sawing away at this rail. After about 50 swipes at it and only being about ¼ the way through, I thought my arm was going to fall off. That’s when Grandpa offered to take a turn. So he went for about 50 swipes and got ½ way through. From there on, we kept trading back and forth until we had prevailed and succeeded in cutting 2 pieces. The cupboards went up like a charm, and I felt so grateful that I hadn’t had to cut through those rails alone.
By that same token, I’m so grateful that I don’t have to go through this life alone either. Having you kids and your mom beside me to help cut through my struggles and challenges is a wonderful blessing in my life. I’m especially grateful to your Mom for being willing to step in and pick up my slack when I’m struggling or down. She is wonderfully forgiving and kind to me.
This Stake Conference, Ben and I were able to sing in the Stake Choir together. I’m grateful he dragged me out. It was such a wonderful way to worship the Lord by singing hymns. One hymn we sang was called “Take Time to Be Holy” (attached). I’d never heard it before, but the message was powerful. I hope each of us takes time to be Holy and to ponder and spend time with the Lord. He it real. He is powerful. Powerful enough to save us and lift us up in our times of trouble.
Well, my son, winter is coming here. I’m sure you’ll miss the cold that we’ll enjoy, but try not to get to sunburned over it 😊 This week we took down the trampoline, cleaned out the garage and are generally hunkering down for a long cold winters night. The girls are excited for Halloween. Mia’s been decorating everything and has made 3 costumes so far. We’ll send you some Halloween pics next week.
The other exciting news this week was the cat. Just when we thought all was lost after Hawk had yet another still born kitty, she went and surprised us by having a kitty in the Halloween costume box.
Mia started a YouTube Channel this week with visions of sharing her Ukulele songs, videos of her pets and making easy money 😊
Some Questions for the week:
Do they celebrate Halloween in Malawi?
Can you describe more about where you are living? Are you in a protected compound area like in Zambia? How often, if ever, do you work outside the city?
Tell us more about the language spoken there and how you are learning some of it and using it?
Hope you have a great week, Sam! You are loved and cherished. Your choice to go on a mission is an example of taking responsibility for the outcome of your life. It will pay everlasting rewards. Stay excited and work hard and the Lord will bless you in ways both great and small.
Love,
Dad.
Sam's Response
Hey Dad(and everyone else),
I miss all of your goofy looking faces. Thanks for the update. I love hearing the details and I guess I have been slacking at giving details in my emails. Peponi. I'm excited to hear how everyone is doing and what everyone is doing. I feel like as soon as I left everyone got more creative and more proactive.
I sang "Take time to be holy" while I was in Institute choir and I love that song so much.
1. Malawians don't celebrate Halloween
2. I am living inside a compound that has 8 flats. 2 of them are used by missionaries making us 4 Elders. It has a swimming pool on the side, which I do say is a little tempting, It's protected by walls and a day and night guard and we have some wielded together weights that are actually really nice to work out to.
We are only working inside the city, we only work inside the center of strength which is a 40 minute walk from the church building because no one has a vehicle except for the self reliant. So everyone we teach is close enough to the church where they can't make excuses.
3. The language here is Chichewa, It's like Chinyanja but so much more structured. It makes it easier to learn and I am learning a little bit. When people ask if I speak chichewa I just say "Pangono pangono" Which means "Small small". I use it in greetings and thankyou's, goodbye's and small talk. I'm keeping a book of all the chichewa words I know. But we are not aloud to teach in chichewa because the church and everything about how it can help them is in English. I'm excited to share it with you all and for all of you to hear my "African" accent.
--Elder Smith
Sam's Letter - Work, Baptisms and Awesomeness
Hello everyone,
This week was a blast. It's been hard but it's called missionary work for a reason. This week we had an opportunity to do some service for a recent convert. We pretty much moved and stacked bricks for a couple hours and sometimes we got bored and got creative in how we moved the bricks. You will see in the pictures.
We have been doing a lot of teaching because two people we were teaching were getting baptized on Saturday and we still had a lot to teach them, we powered through it all and were able to baptize them. One of them stays super far away but is so powerful that he comes to church every Sunday. He stays in Area 23(Which not a lot of you know), which is about an hour to an hour and a half walk away from the church. His name is Jackson and he is super solid. The other one is a girl named Eunice, The first time we taught her was an accident where we were teaching her friend Prisca, and we were teaching about baptism. We taught it really boldly and talked about if you don't receive the Holy Ghost by the laying on of hand by by the priesthood you can't go to heaven. It was funny because from that lesson on she started coming to church and kept coming to the lessons. The one thing I'm worried about is the reading of the Book of Mormon. Anyone can join the church, but not everyone will stay in the church. Those who leave the church are those who don't read their scriptures daily, especially the Book of Mormon. One cool thought I had in relation to vehicles. "If you want to go fast you have to gear up" or "How can you go fast if you stay in first gear". Sometimes people want to go fast but are afraid to leave the easiness of first gear. But when people learn how to gear up(Man up) and go for the gear shift they find themselves having lots of fun and doing better then they have ever done before. Lot's of things in life prevent us from gearing up, some of those things make us gear down. Things like pride are called the great stumbling block for a reason. And we also have to know that the vehicle we drive is not ours. It belongs to Jesus Christ and he trusts us to keep it safe and make good use of it.
On the fun side, the language here in Malawi is Chichewa(Well, it's English but everyone speaks chichewa), It's like Nyanja but so much more structured. It makes it easier to learn and I am learning a little bit. When people ask if I speak chichewa I just say "Pangono pangono" Which means "Small small". I use it in greetings and thank-you's, goodbye's and small talk. I'm keeping a book of all the chichewa words I know. But we are not aloud to teach in chichewa because the church and everything about how it can help them is in English. I'm excited to share it with you all and for all of you to hear my "African" accent for when I get home.
I love you all and I'm excited for the future,
-Elder Smith
Pictures:
-All my Service project pictures
The rest of the Pictures
-Fun exploration of animal artifacts. There were skulls Hippo Bone and Tooth and a leopards skin. It was so cool.
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B
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Baptismal Pictures
-Hot Cocoa with E.Funaki
