A Great 4th of July Week!

All of the sisters that I came out with that are now STLs.

Sister Beach and I at MLC.

Sister Stokes and I at MLC.

This week has been both super busy and fairly slow but still excellent!

Last Tuesday as we were finishing zone sports one of the Elders came running into the gym yelling about how it was raining outside, so we all ran out to see what he was talking about. It was literally pouring! It was so awesome! I love the rain so my first instinct was to run outside... may have not been the best idea because then my shoes where soaked but it was really fun :) It continued to pour the rest of the night so after driving around trying to find people we went to the institute class to talk to a couple of the recent converts. It went really well because hardly anyone had showed up for the class and Brother Grey, the institute teacher, was really glad to have our help.

Wednesday we did a lot of contacting before our lesson with Carolyn. She is doing alright but we are hoping she will start coming to church again. After her lesson with went with a member to go teach a less active we had talked to on the phone. When we got there they all seemed confused because they are supposed to go to the Spanish ward but we don't speak Spanish... Luckily they let us talk to them and several of them are old enough to go to our ward! Then the Sisters from El Paso came up and we drove with them to Albuquerque for MLC (Mission Leadership Council). We got the the mission home early so we got to talk to President Miller. I love him so much, you can really tell that he cares about all of us and he always gives the best advice. We even got to say "family prayers" with President and Sister Miller, it was the best.

Thursday was MLC! This time they decided to start early and have a small breakfast before. It was so fun to get to see all of the mission leaders, we have all become such good friends so it was awesome! Then we had an inspiring day of training. President Miller really wants us to focus on consecrating ourselves to the Lord. I am always so motivated by what he has to say, it makes me want to be the best person I can be! After lunch we had training on the topics under Lesson 5 in Preach My Gospel. The First Presidency recently changed Lesson 5 to a before baptism lesson. I have never really gotten to teach it before but I am so excited to! It talks about the priesthood, missionary work, eternal marriage, temple and family history work, service and enduring to the end. Now rather than just teaching towards baptism we get to teach towards being an active member of Christ church and truly becoming a disciple of Him. It is a much needed change and so inspired. After all of the trainings we headed back to Las Cruces.

For the 4th of July we had our zone training meeting in the morning then we went on exchanges with the Alamogordo Sisters. I got to stay in our area with Sister Hunt! She is a fantastic missionary so it was a great day. We had a lesson with Rene, his is so awesome! He was baptized less than two months ago and he already seems like a life long member! We talked with him about fasting (which he has already done) and about tithing (which he has already set aside to pay on Sunday!), we also talked to him about reading the scriptures and he told us that because he was on a trip last week he missed a couple of days and he could tell the difference; when he forgot to read he just didn't feel as good. There is so much power to be found in the scriptures! After the lesson we went to a near by park that has a fishing pond and talked to lots of people. As we were walking around the edge of the pond we thought we say a YSA (young single adult) age guy fishing, we had been having a hard time finding people to come to our ward (since we only cover the YSA ward) so we were excited to talk to him. It turns out that he was just a really tall 10 year old... awkward. But we did get to talk to his family and they have lots of family that are LDS so they were happy to let us sit and talk! It was amazing to see how prepared they are for the gospel. Since they are from El Paso we have to pass them to the missionaries there but I hope they find and teach them! For dinner we went to the ward BBQ. It was a pretty small group but it was really fun! And it decided to pour so we all had to pull our chairs under the deck so we didn't get soaked. I love the rain so it was a nice treat from the heat. To finish off the day we planned to go contacting at a near by baseball field where they were having a fireworks show. We grabbed the Picacho Sisters and drove over only to find that it was PACKED! There were SO many people there! Because I was the only STL of the bunch I was voted the fearless leader... Which meant I got to be the one to start almost all of our conversations with people; it was actually really fun! By the time we drove home it had started to get dark so we were able to see a couple of fireworks before we went in for the night.

Saturday we exchanged back. We had a lesson with a girl named Alexis but when we got there she was outside working with her dad in the yard. We offered to help but they just laughed and didn't realize we were serious. Finally we told them we would go change and then come back so we ran home, changed into work clothes and ran back to finish helping them. It was really hot but really fun to help move all the rocks for their yard. As we were talking to Alexis we found out that she is only 13, apparently we are really bad a judging age, so we won't be able to teach her but the Mesilla Valley Elders will so it's okay. Afterwards we had dinner with Alma and Joe. Alma told us about her cousin who is interested in the church so we went with her to visit him afterwards. He ended up not being home but she called another friend and we got to go teach her for a little bit. It was so awesome to see how willing she is to share the gospel with her friends.

Sunday during fast and testimony meeting Alma bore her testimony of the truthfulness of the gospel and something she said really stood out to me. It even brought me to tears. She talked about how grateful she was for a friend who was willing to share the gospel with her. She said if they hadn't she probably would have accepted the gospel in the next life which would have been okay but she would have missed out on all of the beauty of having the gospel in this life. I am so grateful for the gospel in my life, my life wouldn't be the same without it. We have the great privilege of sharing this with so many people and if we don't take advantage of that they will miss out on the beauty of the gospel. I love fast and testimony meetings. Afterwards they had break the fast so we got to stay and eat :) Then we had an awesome lesson with Brittany. Brittany is doing great! She didn't make it to church because he boyfriend was in town but we were able to have a lesson with the both of them later Sunday afternoon and it went so well. We got to review the restoration, answer their questions and invite him to be baptized! He accepted but said he wants to know if this is true first. We were able to share our testimonies with him and also talk to Brittany about baptism. She still isn't sure about President Monson but I know that will come soon. He gave us his info so the missionaries in Rio Rancho are going to start teaching him!

Overall it was an awesome week! I love being a missionary, it is the best.

Love ya,
Sister Lexy Smith 

On exchanges with Sister Hunt.

Sister Hunt and I saw a double rainbow

New companion - Sister Stokes!!!

My new companion Sister Stokes with Santiago and me. 

So my new companion is Sister Stokes from Eugene Oregon! She is fantastic and jumped right into the work! She is so positive and has so much love for the people here already. We also had a lot of changes in our zone so about half the missionaries here in Las Cruces are different now which is really fun! I am so excited for this transfer!

At the transfer meeitng I got to talk to one of the Sisters that just came from my last area and she told me that Vanessa got baptized! I don't know if you remember her but she had been come Washington state and was talking the lessons while I was there. I am so happy for her!

This week went by so fast! We had a couple of lessons but mostly have been trying to talk to and find new people to teach. We did get to go to the family history center on Thursday and guess what I found out! The name Black come from a man who lived in 1200-1300 that had really black hair so they called him the "black lad" and they called his son "the black lads son" and they name just stuck from there on! So neat!

We just had a sister return home from her mission so she spoke in sacrament meeting on Sunday. She served in the Independence Missouri Mission and it was so interesting to hear about all of her experiences there. We talked to her more on Monday and she is so excited to help us with the work here. It was awesome to see how willing she is go visit people with us and to hear that she has already had missionary experiences since being home!

We had a lesson with Brittany Sunday night. Ellie had asked me if we could make smore's on the mission and guess what?!?! When we got to Brittany's house she had everything set up for us to make smore's during the lesson! It was so fun. She even used Reese instead of plain chocolate, yum! We had tried really hard to get someone to come with us but it turned out to be a blessing that they couldn't make it because she opened up so much! She told us that she believes that Joseph Smith is a prophet and that the Book of Mormon is true but she still isn't sure about modern prophets. After talking for awhile she said that she actually thinks it is just fear since she had a bad experience with another church a couple of months ago. We were able to share our testimonies with her and the spirit truely testified that this is what she needs in her life. A sweet feeling of peace filled my heart and I know that it filled her's as well. She is now preparing to get baptized on August 23! I cannot wait for that day to come!!

I am loving getting to serve with Sister Stokes and I am so excited for another great week. I am so grateful for the country that we live in and the religious freedom that we have here. Nothing has brought me more happiness in this life than getting to live and share the gospel.

Love ya!

Sister Lexy Smith

Sister Stokes with lizard

Green Chilies, YUM!