November 11, 2018

From Dad - Hello from Canada

Dear Sam,

Hope you’re having a fantastic week. Pretty calm week for us with a few highlights to share. Life is good at home, and we’re so grateful your serving the Lord. Here’s a chronological  breakdown of the week 😊

Monday:

With Mom in St. George with Steph and Tyler, we were trying to keep up our family traditions, especially scripture reading (which we’ve  had to resurrect again since some inspiring words from Regional Conference) and Family Home Evening. We started reading the new Come Follow Me manual for next year and had a good discussion about the importance of reading the scriptures daily. It reminded me a bit about a book I’m listening to called “The Happiness Effect”. In one section he tells about a psychological experiment there they brought a bunch of people into a lab and had them play long hours of the video game Tetris for a number of days in a row and got their reactions and affects. In the end, they started seeing Tetris shapes everywhere and it almost drove them crazy. It completely rearranged and affected the world they saw around them. The results showed that what we choose to put into our brains matters and makes a difference to how we see the world. I think this is true with reading the Book of Mormon and scriptures, on the positive side of things. Then we watched Sherlock Holmes for the activity and Ben called Josh for the recipe to flour fudge and we enjoyed that together.

Mom really enjoyed her time with Stephanie and Tyler and Shannon. They went to Zion’s National park Sunday afternoon and enjoyed the beautiful sites there.

Tuesday:

• Tuesday Jen and Steph and Shannon went to walk around the St. George Temple grounds. That evening, I drove to Calgary to pick them up from the Airport in Calgary and dropped Auntie Shannon off at her parents in Crossfield. Sounds like her kids were sick most of the time she was gone. Hope they’re feeling better now.

Wednesday:

Wednesday was a recovery day for Mom as we’d gotten in so late (2:30 am in the morning). That evening, the kids went to youth night (Ben and the priests went tobogganing even though there was only a couple of inches of snow. Ben says it was lots of fun though.

Thursday:

Mom and Abby have been diligently doing wood crafts for Abby’s Farmer’s Market Table this month and Amelia is practicing to Busk at the same market in Leduc. Wish them luck! Sounds like Grandma and Grandpa Bruce may come up as well to support with some home made dolls clothes to sell at Abby’s table.

This week, the cat decided it wanted to move her kitty from the laundry room to Mia’s bed. At first it was cure, but then fairly inconvenient. After multiple attempts to convince the Hawk otherwise, she finally relented and camped out in the sock box. The kitty has opened her eyes now and is getting active enough that we have to figure out the right place for her again. Good for the kids, though, even if Dad is grumpy about it sometimes.

Friday:

For Date night, Mom and I went out to a movie for the first time in a long time. We saw Disney’s Nutcracker movie, which wasn’t anything like the ballet, but a good clean movie nonetheless.

Saturday:

This morning we woke up thinking we had a completely free day until we looked at our calendar’s and realized it was our turn to clean the church. So to make it funner, we decided to invite friends and cousins to come help and then go swimming after at the Rec center. Turned out well as Mom was also able to do some shopping while we swam for some new running shoes as she wore her old ones out training for and running the ½ marathon. She got a couple of really good deals and is set to train again.

Today, Sunday, we enjoyed a great supper breaking our fast. Today is remembrance day in Canada and we wore our poppy’s, observed a minute of silence at the end of sacrament meeting and sang O Canada. It is always a good time to ponder on and remember the blessings of living in a free country. We also got to practice the primary presentation with Mom at the helm. She’s a natural leader and probably wont be to happy with me posting this photo, but I was trying to capture her in that leadership mode. 😊

Here’s my class trying not to be bored and only partially succeeding.

This week Mom and I started on a cleanse of only eating fruits and vegetables for 28 days. It’s made us get creative and the kids aren’t sure they are too happy with it. This was the remains of today’s meal after fasting. Fantastic veggie soup with the taint of spinach making it a healthy green.  I’m enjoying it and anticipate losing a few pounds along the way and feeling more energetic. We’ll let you know how it goes.

Sure love you Sam. Have a great week!

Dad.

From Sam - A Banana is Actually an Orange

Everyone! I have discovered a truth that the world has been hiding from everyone for years. A Banana is actually an Orange. Just because the world believes something doesn't make it a truth. I've prayed about it and I have received an answer. The Banana is really called an Orange. Don't let anyone fool you. Don't be skeptical because it goes against what you have believed your whole lives. The truth has been revealed.

 This week has been great. It has gone by so fast and through it all I have seen answers to prayers, miracles happen and hearts change.

And I feel like most of it has been because of my companion.

One day, just before we went out to teach he said to me: Remind me, thrice. Then we went for our day. Throughout the day I forgot to remind him: Thrice. But he didn't forget. It was an okay day, at the end we went to find someone who doesn't have a phone and we forgot how to get to his house. we searched and got lost and it got dark and we gave up and started heading back when we ran into someone who my companion(Elder Williams) knows. The good news is he wanted to be baptized and pretty much knows everything he needs to know. It was someone who God guided to us. It was pretty cool and that night my companion told me that he asked me to remind him: Thrice. because he kind of made a promise to God that if he does his best and prays three times throughout the day that God would send someone prepared for the missionaries. And it happened. That's my story about answered prayers this week.

I've also seen the lame walk. When we were teaching Jackson, before he was baptized, his uncle was crippled because of a stroke he had months earlier. And we always said hello to him before we taught Jackson. Over the three months we have been teaching Jackson his uncle was soon able to sit up, then to move around all the way to being able to walk again as if he never had a stroke. He wasn't able to receive much medical attention before we started teaching Jackson. I firmly believe that that family has been blessed with that kind of healing because they let the missionaries into their home and excepted them. It is literally a miracle.

Serving a mission is amazing, it has blessed my life so much. If you are thinking about not serving a mission, pray about it. If God needs you to be a missionary, then there are people that only you can serve. If you have already decided to serve a mission, then good for you. It will be a blessing in your life. If God needs you to stay home then that's your calling. Stay blessed everyone. Jesus Christ is my favorite person ever.

-Elder Smith

Pictures:

-Beautiful Red Tree

-Rainbow in the sky

-Cooking crew(Left:Elder Williams Right:Elder Funaki)

-My very comfortable uncomfortable sleeping spot

-Me and my companion being Benched and Squatted by Elder Funaki, the Tongan

-The kids watching the Azungu's(See video)

Video: The African Zoo

From Sam - Follow up Email

Hello everyone,

Just to make sure no one thinks I'm going apostate the Banana is an Orange was a really funny conversation/argument I had at lunch. But it applies to learning truths. I have met so many people who have rejected the truth because they are afraid to leave what they know.  When you find or hear a truth, do all you can to find if it is actually true and if it is true, do all you can to learn all about it.

Sorry if it didn't make sense.

-Elder Smith