Week Sixty: 10/14/2014 to 10/20/2014--I've been on this beautiful island for a year already??

Ladies and Gentlemen,

This Thursday marks my 1 year on island. That's super nuts. That's like a man's 50th birthday. I'm old :(. I might as well get measured for my coffin or something. Psych. I've still got 10+ months left but no time to waste! I need to make these months count so that when I get on the plane home I can look back without regrets. 

Also, attatched is a funny picture of me from Yongkang. Rod sent me a bunch. Sigh...

Anyway, lots happened this week. We have a few investigators who are making some good progress. One is Vicky. She seems super prepared and excited to learn and be baptized. We meet with her once a week and she came to sacrament meeting with her boyfriend this last Sunday. She also just has this super optimistic outlook on life already. Her work is pretty rough, but she told us "Your attitude is important. If you look at the lot you've been given and think of it as unfair or inconvenient, then your life will be terrible. But, if you look at these challenges as experience builders and hold out for better days in the future, you can be happy." Pretty profound. I was super impressed and I'm glad we're able to teach her. 

We also met with Brother Cai(the guy with the baptismal goal). He didn't pray this last week. I think he felt a little silly doing it and we didn't really follow up with him, so we took some time yesterday and taught him the role of prayer and the Book of Mormon. He committed to read and pray every day this week. I hope he does. He seems really sincere about learning these things and finding out if they're true for himself. 

We also had this sweet lesson/road trip/party up in one of our secondary areas on Friday. The Elders Quorum President took us up there with his home teaching companion to visit a couple less-active members we have been working with. We shared the message for this month which was about prayer and we also shared about fasting. While one of the members was talking about it, I thought about how when I'm fasting, the sacrament tastes way better. Just that feeling of not having eaten for a long time and getting a little morsel of bread is probably a feeling everyone has experienced. I also thought about the "Daily Bread" videos that Elder Christofferson did(if you haven't seen them, check them out here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RTlJUuFDlrE&index=2&list=PL7C7E87DF812F1A31 there's 3 of them. They're all GREAT!). So yeah, I was thinking about those videos and that concept that we're so reliant on The Lord for our daily spiritual sustenance. I'm just so impressed by all the symbols that God puts in our life. Maybe it's because I'm kind of an art junkie and I love looking for meaning in literature and art that may or may not actually be there, but I think that God made the world this way for a reason. He made our bodies this way for a reason. It's hard to explain the epiphany I had, but it was pretty rad in my mind. 

I'm so glad I'm a missionary. I'm so glad I can be engaged in this work and even though I feel like I'm thwarted so often by the uninformed or unwise decisions of others, I'm still able to find true joy in my personal relationship with Jesus Christ and through His words in the scriptures.

Love you all!

-Elder Smith

P.S. This week, I did "Be Still, My Soul" at the request of my mother. I hope everyone enjoys it:)