January 25, 2016 - Come What May and Love It - Last Email

Allyson Smoot <allyson.smoot@myldsmail.net>	Mon, Jan 25, 2016, 10:50 AM
to Steve, Stephen, Jessica, Hannah, Megan, ashley.smoot, Ashley, Sierra, Derek, Corinn, me, braithwaitebryn

My freind hanna (returned sister julien) explained what the last mission of the week felt like by comparing it to the Do-do birds in Ice Age. The all think the end is coming and are FLIPPING out about these 3 melons that they have as food stock. They lose one by one and when they are left with one they all start screaming, THE LAST MELON. I thought it was a very aproprate analogy for my brain at this moment. My head has been exploding with the usual thoughts of "Did i do enough? Did i work hard enough? Did i enjoy it enough? Did i learn what i was supposed to learn?" Then on top of it my half chilean heart is being torn in a million peices while the aticipation of seeing you all is making me so excited I don´t know what to do. All the while i´m trying to stay focused on finding, teaching and baptizing. Basically it´s been a good week.

We saw a lot of miracles this week. We were actually able to have a few lessons and we are seeing a little progress. I left my bag on a bus during a comp exchange. They have a certain bus rout that they follow all day long so we ended up praying really hard and asking every bus that came to the stop for about 2 hours. And then suddenly when i was about to just give up, one of the bus drivers hoppèd out and opened the trunk of the little bus and gave me my suitcase. I couldn´t even say anything. DIOS EXISTE! We also had an church open house to find new investigators and all of the six missionaries made typical food from their country and we gave tours of the chapel. It had very little planning but we ended up having a really good time and finding quite a few people. (I made SO much chili -hehe- and it was a success)

I know thise last missionary letters are supposed to be an amazing summary of all the things that i´ve learned but that would be literally impossilbe. But one of the themes that stuck out this week, enlaced among the many, are described in two phrases from our dear apostles:

Come what may and love it (Wirthlin)

Foreveor is Composed of Now (Uchtdorf)

There are so many things that we learn as missionaries and as children of God. So many mistakes we´ve made. Regrets. Problems. Experiencias of Joy. Of pain. Beginnings. Endings. Continuations. Laughter. MOments where we´re so tire we´d just rather fall over and die. And moments we wish would last forever. And beofre we realize it, all of them are suddenly in the past. And all of those little experiences make up our eternity.

I don´t want to life my eternity focused on my mistakes and the "should haves" and the "could haves." I want to focus on being the best i can now, and loveing whatever comes my way. Enjoying. Now, I wish i could say that after 18 months i can apply this perfectly and that i have a total eternal perspective and I´m happy all the time becuase of it. But i´m still just a human, 20 year old kid that´s learned a lot and strengthened her testimony. And who still as MUCH to learn. But that´s what life is. On big learning experience to make us more like our heavenly father. But even though I lack a lot of knowledge, there are a few things i do know now. And I want everyone in the world to know. I know that my savior lives. His atonements stretches far beyond my understanding. His restored gospel is on the earth once again and we have leaders and prophets that are guided by him. The book of mormon testifies of him and i know that it´s true. It has helped me so much. I love my savior. And hope to continue onward progressing, becoming the daughter he wants me to be.

I love you all so much and thank you for all the support that i have recieved. I can´t even begin to thank you enough.

See you soon

Love,

Hermana Smoot

Jan 18, 2016 La Prueba de Fe

 Hello one and all,

Despite the denial that I am clearly in with respect to the date, I'm doing great. It's funny though because in the morning for personal studies I write the date in my journal and i have double checked it every single day the week. I can't really accept it. But hey, that's just life.

This week was really funny and tiring...mainly becuase all of our investigadors decided to disappear just as all of our goals were so high and our enthusiasm had peaked. But heavenly father knew what he was doing. At the beginning of the week i went on an exchange with the other sisters in our ward that we live with and it was awesome. We had like a million lessons and they have a ton of people with a baptismal date... and i felt really bad for feeling jealous of them. We are really struggling number-wise and it's funny becuase we are supposedly supposed to be the example....

We kept working hard and i was just getting more and more frustrated becuase nothing was turning out right. And we were SO tired from all the walking and stressing.

So on thursday during weekly planning we literally spent roughly 2 hours on the "plans to find new investigators" and tried to think of every way possible to change what we have been doing to get different results. And then, we worked. And contacted and worked. and walked and used different tactics and prayed and prayed and.....did i say pray? haha. But at the end of the week we finally started having few lessons. We FINALLY had a member present lesson and our appointment yesterday didn{t fall through! We found her the other day outside her house and she is awesome.  :) her name is carolina and she WILL be baptized. I just know it. 

Sometimes life is just funny and we are doing all that we can (which tends to be very little) but still nothing seems to go right.  And we just wonder, what else is there? What can i do? when really, we are doing everything that heavenly father want us to be doing. He is just testing our faithfulness and letting us grow and learn. And that, my friends, is the purpose of this wonderfully crazy beautiful life here. I hope I can remember that even in the darkest times :) 

I love you so much. ALL of you. I hope everything went well with the funeral. I love aunt charlene and will always remember how Grandma told me that the three of them always sang trios in the feilds of their canadian farm where they grew up. :) I'm sure she{s singing praises up with her sweetheart and meeting all the people that she's helped over the years.

Have a beautiful week :)

Love

Hermana Smoot

Week #75 ( Jan.4, 2016) Happy New Year! Run Forest Run!

Hello beloved family and other humans

HAPPY NEW YEAR: yay Goals and stuff.

Time is both slowing down and speeding up. But this week was a good one. First the funny: So here in chile (and in the world) people like to drink for new years. And a lot. So after having our 20 minute new years eve party in our house we went to bed and the four woke up bright and early to go running on the lovely lake coast. Only to find SEVERAL people still up, still drunk and still celebrating the new year...it was hilarious. Everyone we passed said "wow....que deportistas" how athletic. Then the best of all were i´m guessing some tourists that yelled "RUN forest RUN" I cracked up and had to explain it to the other hermanas. It was a good time. 

Thanks to the obvious partying, the day was slightly difficult with respct to finding people that were awake and ready to change there lives. It was hot and i was tired and not really excited to contact and continue knocking doors. So we kept plugging along for a few hours. Then we rested. And said a prayer. Just aksing for the desire to want to keep walking....we climbed another hill, a few other people rejected us. And then we decided to stop a young man with long hair and an anime t-shirt and headphones. Becuase what are we going to lose. He politely struck up a conversation and had a lot of questions. His name is Sebastion. But he likes Seba. And he is agnostic and doesn´t believe a lot. But we ended up talking for about and hour in the street and setting up another appointment. We both went away with SO much gratitude in our hearts. For the hue miracle of just letting us talk to someone. Heavenly father really loves us. 

This fast sunday I was contemplating a lot about what to fast for. There are so many things that we need and things that i ask for every day. But i just decided to do a gratitude fast. Just fast to say thank you. For all the miracles that i´ve seen in my whole life and on my mission and every hour of every day. And i realized that they are MANY. And the keep coming. I hope that i can continue to have an attitude of gratitude during this whole month. It helps to focus us in the things that really matter most. 

In other cool news, the FAMILIA SANTANA came to visit me on sunday. Marcelo actually grew up here and he found some old school mates in our ward. It was really cool. AND SO SPECIAL. It made me so so grateful. They had a baby. They both have callings. And they are planning to be sealed in August when the ward goes to the temple. UG. I just feel unworthy to have been able to see so much of their progress in the gospel. They are amazing. 

I love this gospel so much. Some days are long and some days are hard, but as we just remember him, every day can be full of joy and miracles. :)

I LOVE YOU ALL. And wish you the happiest new year!

LOVE,

Hermana Smoot

week # 74 ( Dec. 28, 2015) Miracles

There were so many lovely miracles that happened this week and I just want to name a few:

1. We had an awesome christmas open house at our church this week and we were madly handing out invitacions to everyone and their dog. (kidding, there isn´t enough paper in the world for all the dogs....) But, even though there weren´t a ton of members there, we pulled it all together with our awesome mission leader and a TON of investigators came. Marcela, who we are teaching and wants to get baptized (and is waiting on a divorce case to get married) and her daughters. and THREE people who just came to see who the mormons were. :) This really funny lady was really glad at the end that her doubts had been cleared up. Apparently her preacher told her we didn´t believe in christ. It´s funny that that still happens... :) So success! Hopefully there will be more great activities to come. 

2. My christmas we really cool. We woke up and did weekly planning. Then we decided to do some service and go to an old folks home. A lot of them haven´t had visits from there family in a while so it was really neat to be able to lift their spirits a little and be their foreign family for christmas. It was really beautiful. The streets were pretty dead, but we decided to go to the downtown area and ended up finding (miracles) two people that had entered the church before and were willing to learn more. Cool. Then we talked to th family (LOVE you guys so much) At this point I was pretty exhausted from all the emotions and walking. But we still had ten minutes left of the day. So even though we didn´t want to and my head was throbbing, we went out to try and do something before the day ended. There was one teenage boy walking with his headphones in and as we offered him a passalong card, he said that he was athiest and wasn´t interested. But he talked to us anyway and we ended up setting up another appointment with him. It was the coolest tender mercy ever. We ended that day well, totally thrashed, but satisfied that we at least tried to give the day to Him. 

3. Sunday was also AWESOME. I realized that I wasn´t really enjoying the sabbath day for a long time. Because of all the stress with the investigators and the members and everything. So i really tried to enjoy it and i felt like i saw so many miracle. A big one was GUILLERMO y ROCIO cardenas came to see me (and give me something to send...) They are from the family that got baptized and i thought he was totally lost and inactive. The one with the drinking problem. I´m not sure if he is totally active. But he stayed there and took the sacrament and there is still hope. When i saw them i totally started crying. It´s been almost a year. GOZO. I really enjoyed the sacrament. Got a lot out of relief society. My favorite 90 year old grandpa wanted me to sit by him and gave me a little candy. So cute. It was just a good day. It´s incredible how we just have to choose to be happy and it´s like seeing a whole new world. Sometimes that choice is really hard. And sometimes i don´t even want to make it. Or i have to pray to want to pray for help. But I´m learning every day, little by little, how to see the good in the world and keep progressing.

One thing i do know is that my savior lives and that heavenly father loves us SO much. And wants the best for us. He really does want us to be happy. I love the book of mormon and know it´s true.  I´m so grateful for all of you and all you do for Him. Choose to have a beautiful week. :)

Love,

Hermana Smoot

Marcelas family. the mom has come to church twice now.

All four of us ate a christmas eve dinner with this family. They are great and have a daughter in argentina. We at so much....

Hermana Mota and I! She is beautiful.

Me and this crazy old lady. We went to an old folks home to sing with the primary as a service activity. This old lady kept yelling at everyone. It was hilarious. :)

Week#73 (Dec. 21, 2015) (learning Portuguese and strikes

Companion: Hna Mota

City: Pta Varas

Oi como vao voces?

Yes, I´m learning portuguese. I´m going to come home TRILINGUAL. WHAT. I´m so cool. Ok, so I only know how to say like 4 things. But our house is now a chilean and two brazilans and the weird blonde girls over here. :) But my companion is awesome. Her name is Hna Mota and she is 24, a convert, the only member in her family (the gospel hasn´t even gotten to where her family lives in brazil. She met the missionaries when she was studying) WHAT. She is so awesome. She is a super hard worker and loves life, fried food and missionary work. I just feel really blessed. This week was actually really funny becuase we had a slight complication with all the missionaries going home. Chile is really funny and they like to go on strike for everything. Literally. And so the airports decided to go on strike and none of the missionaries from the US could go home....It was quite shocking actually but we learned a lot about not counting the losses and just having an attitude of gratitude. So we were in a power team super trio for a couple days. Hna Wyatt left on saturday though so we´ve just been the power team duo this weekend. :)

I really have been learning so much this week. It´s a holiday season and really there isn´t much difference. Like i don´t feel the normal christmas spirit where i just want to bake and make pretty christmas gifts...but i do feel the spirit of christ. It´s actually been really cool how heavenly father has helped me stay focused on him and the missionary purpose. Together we just want to baptize everyone even more than before. :) So, even though we have hardly had any set appointments this week, we have doné SO many contacts and are determined to have a baptism. 

It´s hard to say everything that i´ve learned in so little time. And all the things that we do. Just know that i know christ lives. I know that he make it possible to be truly happy in this life. That there are second chances and new beginnings. We just have to take them. I love you all so much. I´m so grateful for the love and  the christmas wishes. I hope that you can all take a moment amidst the bustle and business of christmas to remember him all all he has done for you. Have a beautiful christmas week :)

Love,

Hermana Smoot

PS Sorry I havençt sent fotos. My card isn´t working....boo. I will send lots next week. .:)

Week #72 (Dec. 14, 2015) Animo ( mood, spirits, encouragement, purpose, intention)

WOW.

This week was SO cool. Mainly because Elder Teixeira from the Seventy came to Pto Montt to talk to the missionaries. IT. WAS. the best. ever. We left that meeting literally wanting to baptize EVERYONE. I feel so humbled to be able to be a sister leader because there was a little meeting with the zone leaders and the STLs where he and his wife gave us special instruction. I don´t know why i was special enough to be there but it was incredible. I feel such a desire to keep repenting and to keep going. Every day i realize more and more the importance of what we do as missionaries. We are just praying to keep up the enthusiasm to do the work. Which is actually a very difficult task being a human being. We get tired and discouraged. A lot. But Heavenly Father recognizes that our hearts really do want to do the best we can.

I was talking to my companion, hermann Wyatt who is like the Gandalf of my mission in all of her wisdom. Seriously I love her. She finishes her mission this week and it has been such a blessing being with her. She gives me so much advice and more than anything just teaches by example. We were talking about christmas the other day. I have really been trying to think about something special i can do for christmas. Some sort of service project or something. And she told me that really it will be a special christmas. Even if we spend the whole day knocking doors or if President says we have to stay inside or if we do a big service project. It will be special becuase we are giving it to the lord. I really liked that. And pray to remember it during christmas and after. 

As my companion leaves, we got news that I will be with a BRAZILIAN. That means living with 3 latinas. Latin American missionaries. Chau english. haha. It´s fine!  I´m really excited though and know that all will be well. 

I really love you all SO much. You are all the best and most supported family ever. I pray for you always and wish you the BEST week ever.  :)

Love you,

Hermana Smoot

Week # 71 (Dec. 7, 2015) Christmas and attitude.

Hello loved ones.

It´s so funny how much you can change in a week. Heavenly father just makes us grow so much in all the little things that we do. I´m so excited about christmas! We got a little tree and our new christmas pass along cards that we are sharing with EVERYONE we see. Except for those that dont celebrate christmas. 

LOOK UP THE VIDEO IF YOU HAVEN¨T ALREADY. (A savior is born) (Funny side story, we kept contacting people in the street and handing out the cards and all of the sudden we talked to this lady who said, "I´m jehovas witness and i don´t celebrate christmas. Then she chewed us out for not following the bible. We walked away chuckling a bit and then about 10 minutes later we asked another guy, "Hey can we give you a card about christmas?" and he said "I´m jewish, i don´t celabrate christmas. Bye." Ok fine christmas haters. We got a good laugh out of it though. :) 

I think the biggest lesson I learned this week came from an inspired companion that told me an experience that changed my whole outlook on my mission. I got really tired this transfer. But REALLY tired. Tired in a lot of different ways, not just physically. I just felt like I´d been working so hard for so long and my battery was running really low. I went a few weeks like that, trying really hard but just dragging. And finally one day while we were planning I just couldn´t feel the spirit and couldn´t make decisions and just felt like a zombie. But my companion (who finishes her own mission in 2 weeks) told me a story that really helped me about 2 different missionaries. The were both great missionaries. And worked hard. One of them however, her last transfer was really tired. And let that overtake her. Every day she told her companion just how tired she was. How she was so utterly exhausted. How much she had given. How much her body hurt. And that she just couldn´t any more. And she ended her mission, but ended up wishing those last 6 weeks away. The other missionary was tired too. Really tired. and ended as a trainer. But she did everything in her power to focus on other people. To never dwell on her exhaustion or her problems. But to always look on other people. And she ended well and satisfied with the work she did. I thought about that good and hard after she told me. And i realized that, like we always say, happiness is a choice. Sometimes that choice is a lot harder than we´d like, but it´s always possible. I´ve tried really hard this week to implement that into my life this week. To really try to think of others. And more importantly to think about the atonement. Christ was much more tired that I will ever be during his mortal ministry. I can choose to be happy about my circumstances and choose to focus myself in others. It´s been incredible to do it this week. And i really haven´t been perfect. And i´ve still had moments of exhaustion. And hard and frustrating things have still happened. But i feel energized in a really cool way. I think i´m finally beginning to understand that attitude really does determine altitude.

Sorry for all my rants. Andres the guy we found in the phone is doing well. He hasn´t accepted a baptismal date yet becuase he has SO many doubts. He´s a very proof based person. But we are praying and fasting that he will find an answer to be able to make that covenant with god and recieve a remission of his sins. Ah. What a blessing that is. 

I really love you all. If you haven´t had the chance to watch the Christmas devo, it was amazing. Remember christ this year and everything that he did for you. My comp and her family have a cool tradition where they write down something they are going to sacrifice or do better for christ. The write it down and put it under the tree and it´s the first gift they open. I INVITE you guys to do it. :) 

Sorry these thoughts are all over the place. Know that i really do love all of you and I´m deeply grateful for the love and kindness and caring that you have given me. I wish you the very best week!

LOVE,

Hermana Smoot

PS. I want to ask all of you if you could try not to mention the time i have left in the mission or what might happen after. I know being trunky is a choice but hearing about it doesn´t help very much. Help a poor missionary wouldnt ya? haha thank you!

Pics!

Our 3 dollar christmas tree and a ginger candle. YUM. #slybyupride

Remember Hna Harvey?! (the trio last year) Old compy. We had a little get together with 6 other sisters today. Pizza! (that one´s only christmasy for our family haha)