Wk 48: Abigail's baptism!

Area: San Carlos

Companion: Sister Lara

Abigail our convert and Luana a child of record :) so cute!!

This week has been a little bit better. I honestly haven't been turned down so much! Neither has Sister Lara. But it's truly a blessing in disguise because now we have time to go look and search for new people. We found a less active on friday and invited him to church. He said he was active, but turns out he isn't and he came to church on sunday!! It was amazing! Like all he needed was to be invited back. It was amazing!!

We also found some investigators that wanted to come to church yesterday but they said that one of them wasn't there so next sunday they will come :) They were right by the house of the Less Active. We also had someone walk up and ask us if he could hear about Jesus Christ because he loves Jesus Christ and he said see and showed us a big tattoo that he has on his arm of Jesus Christ's face with thorns. We were like yeah brother haha and we prayed and gave him a pamphlet, said we are going to come back wednesday. It was incredible. A place Sister Lara hasn't seen much but just down this one path, we met these 3 people miracles! :)

We got some more rejections but it truly did open these wonderful opportunities to be able to go search for the elect people who are ready to hear the gospel. I am so excited to continue!! :)

I am so stoked and cried a little watching Jade's video of him opening his call. Thank you for that! I am so happy to be able to be serving and he's so lucky to be able to go serve!! He will be truly an amazing missionary!! :) I am so excited to see what miracles he performs :)

 I love this work and it's truly a work of God!! :) I know Joseph Smith is a true prophet and he truly saw Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ. I love this gospel and am so grateful for it! So happy our family has been so close to the gospel also. We are truly so blessed to know the truth!! :) I love you all and am so grateful for you!! :)

Love, Sister Smoot

                                  outside :) the street

and the street we always call for a tricycle on :)

  down the street from our house :)

____________________________________________________

we have a shower head but we just use the bucket here.
and yes that is our toilet :) haha funny huh! i love it :)

(questions about the cockroaches and rats in the house!)

yes dad we spray them and they just take a bit to die and usually when we see them they are dying or dead then we just sweep them out and i don't know about the rats there aren't the huge ones for what we've seen though just the normal sized ones. It doesn't bother me too much unless they surprise me or are running fastly around but it's only happened a couple times and i just spray them :) haha

inside our house

Q: Are you staying away from the rats & the cock roaches?

A: yes haha you think i'd get close to them?! haha :) the other day i was studying and there was a crockroach on the wall right next to me! I just jumped and screamed a little but it's ok :) then i moved my chair haha but it's dead now because of permitheran and the only time we see the rats is when they come and get into our garbage and we can hear them upstairs running

Q: Are you enjoying being close to the beach?

A: it's not really a beach just seaside but it's nice yeah :)

Q: Can you see the beach from your apartment/house?

A: i am going to try :) i took some just for you!

Q: Can you send us pictures of your new place both inside and out and the view of the beach?

A: i will for sure :) the sea pictures i took are blurry it didn't really work but i'll try to send one or two

 

the beach :) 

i am not sure if but hope they work ok :) 

these are the best ones 's really beautiful!!

Wk 47 - What a week!!

Area: San Carlos
Companion: Sister Lara

Sister Lara & Sister Smoot at
Saturday District conference meeting

This week has been kind of a rough week. We have gotten turned down so many times! (i didn't know philippinos could turn people down) but 2 times we've been told not to come back this week, because they are their religion, so it's pointless for us to come back. Then the person who was interviewed last sunday for baptism last saturday told us fridaynight that he had doubt and didnt want to be baptized. So he dropped out and then our baptism next saturday told us on saturday that her mom didn't give her permission which she lives with her lola and her mom is in bacolod and her lola who will also be baptized on march 8.

Anyways, on the bright side our baptism this saturday is on still :) she talked with her mom and sister lara did too over the phone and she said ok, now that she has a little understanding. Then the little girl said she didn't want to anymore because she thought she had to confess her sins if she was baptized or something and then we told her to pray and then she came and said i want to be baptized. This was all within saturday night and sunday. So we got interviewed sundayand will be baptized on saturday. She is 8 and is amazing! Her name is Abigal :) I am excited for her! So that helped our week end a little better :)

Other than that, we are slowly trying to help our investigators progress and come to church. They are all doing pretty good but some that we thought were really progressing didn't come to church yesterday for what we saw but one that doesn't want to be baptized came to church with our recent converts but sister said he's done that before. so i guess we will see what happens :) Hopefully we can talk to our canitate, JR, to see if we can help him again want to be baptized (he was suppose to be baptized saturday) but anyways, its been a week of fighting against Satan.

I do want to testify though of fasting. I fasted saturday just for some miracle to happen because we were turned down so many times and now abigal turned around and is getting baptized and her mom accepted and everything! So amazing!! :) I love this work here and how many little miracles happen each day.

Thank you for everything you do! I look forward to a good week this week :) Have a wonderful week and Happy Birthday to DAD!! Love him so much :)

Love, Sister Smoot

At the Sunday session of District Conference

..with an investigator

The choir that sang at the District conference

(Answers to my questions:)

(your new apt.)

in this apartment we have rats. we don't use the upstairs there's a ton of rats we hear them all the time and they sometimes get into our garbage. we have cockroaches like crazy and mosquitoes i'm getting bitten again but am trying my best not to be even with bug repellant the get me. but i'll keep putting it on.

(need a new memory card?)

i don't know... i think i am ok i think i still have a couple more. i'm good for now though but i do have another full memory card i want to send home maybe i cna give it to sister sinema again to put in her package so it's safer.

(who is regie that got baptized: Angela (fromBata)posted it)

regie is her exboyfriend in manila haha he did come and i met him and he continued teaching in manila and got baptized. She highered her expectations of a boy she wants to marry and next thing i know he's coming to visit and has a baptismal date. haha the elders taught him while he was in bata

(valentine's day?)

they all wear red haha... no just kidding. not really anything special everyone works here always no matter what holiday. but we did get a gift from recent converts :) cute! they weren't baptized while i was here though but the are a cute family :)

(do you have a view of the ocean- or sea?)

if we walk to a certain area yes we have a view in our area and there's a little island too that's in our branch but the elders have that area you have to take a little boat to it but i didn't take a picture i didn't have my camera with me. but it's a little different. we aren't in a subdivion but we do have a gate :) it's a cute house with two huge mirrors inside!

(the dress you're wearing on the sunday district conference-and you both match in your orange!)

i got that dress for 150 pesos at an okai okai (thrift stores here) and yes our favorite colors are orange. she changed before we went there so i was dressed first ;)    (150 pesos= $3.36)

They rented a truck to bring members to the Conference

Wk 46- SAN CARLOS!

Area: San Carlos
Companion: Sister Lara

This week has been really good. I know for a fact we have been called of God and he loves us so much. We have had little miracles happen this week that are amazing! I love being here! I was super sad to leave Bata, but I know and am excited to serve here in San Carlos. 

My companion is Sister Lara, She is from Davao city (i don't know how to spell it) but she is incredible! She is a convert from the church when she was baptized when she was 18 years old and is just always happy, smiles and so bright. She will hit a year on March 15 and will be 25 on March 13 :) She is also going home in september. She arrived the batch before me :) She is an incredible missionary and I am so excited to continue to serve with her.

We've had little miracles happen and one i will just tell you about real quick because i don't have a tone of time. (mom wrote me two letters and i read the one i was suppose to print out first oops sorry) but we have a member who has a less active son and we had an appointment close to them we walked by her and said hi and went to go to our appointment that we had. Nobody was home so then we went and OYM'd a family and then returned and the wife was home but the husband who we'd scheduled an appointment with wasn't, but we shared just short to his wife and then when we were leaving we had a little bit of time and Sister Lara stopped and said lets go back to this member. We did and we finally met her son which i guess they'd been trying to meet for a while. But he's a working student providing for his family (which rarely happens here if you are in school you don't work but their father has passed away) but we sang with them and he was almost in tears and his mom bawled and bore a testimony that was amazing! The spirit was so strong. no he didn't come to church he had class at 10 but i know that one day he will be able to come back and want to come back. 

I love the little miracles that happen each day and i now if we trust in the lord he will ALWAYS be there for us to help us. I love this gospel and love this work. JADE, YOU ARE GOING TO LOVE YOUR MISSION. Never let the hard times get you too far down because like everyone says, there are times that make up for it and it's truly incredible!! Just continue!! :)

I love you all family and am so grateful for your missionary work and so happy you had the missionaries! Love them support them and help them be successful in their work. :) Love you all!! :)

love, Sister Smoot

the boy is our baptism. but we haven't taught him since i've been here. she said they schedule times to teach him at the church. He's 18 and is amazing! i loved his testimony :) 

(other answers about new area):

it's wonderful! haha my apartment i forgot to take pictures of our apartment but i will and the other pictures i took won't load. so we'll see what i can do it won't register that i have plugged in a card. it's really pretty we are on the edge by the sea.

my companion is amazing! so happy! we both go home in september. Her birthday is march 13 she hits a year on march 15my birthday march 16 and a year on the 27. cool huh!! haha she is a convert and is amazing! She is from Davau City. She's so happy and amazing! I'm making her speak english  this week :) haha She is very talkative unless she trys in english she always slips into cebuano or english but i love her to death!! i love it! :) 

yes i am in san carlos 2B is our area we are with the zone leaders in this branch. 

yes the climate is pretty much the same as Bata- it's just hot :) haha but sometimes it gets cool at night it's nice :) but pretty much the same. 

my cebuano??. it's about half the same (as ilonggo). but some words have a different meaning. like karon means later in ilonggo but now in cebuano. Then like prayer is pagpangamuyo in ilonggo and pagampo in cebuano. words are just different but the format is the same so i understand about half the time but i'm catching on really fast with god's help :)

we do exchanged every transfer with each sister and we only have 4 sister so 2 companionships so only twice every transfer :) so not very much. but it's amazing. We just call and check up on them also about once a week it's fun :) but two of them are transfering so we may only have two until the end of this transfer but they already did exchanged this transfer so just after the 26th i think we will do them again. 

i'm trying to send pictures but it won't register that i have a card in it's saying insert a removable disk when i try. 

Wk 45- STL ko na, Going to San Carlos and speaking Cebuano!! AHH!

Area: San Carlos
Companion: Sister Lara

(we received a short email) 

AHHH!!!! i am transfering today, just found out to San Carlos and it's Cebuano.. I'm also becoming an Sister Training Leader. I have never been so nervous but i know that doubt is opposed to faith. I will be going to galo at 12 to go with my new companion just to talisay because we have  missionary leadership training tomorrow and then i will travel to san carlos with my companion. I don't know who she is yet but i will be with a short term missionary for a couple hours and will probably eat lunch with her before but i will email longer later today when i find a minute. just know i love you!!

Sister Sinema sent these!
Sister Smoot and Sister Hogge- Sister Hogge returned to Tacloban mission

Elder and Sister Sinema! 

(then another one later)

I don't have much time to write because we have to leave now, but I will just tell you Sister Lara is now my companion. She is amazing!! Super nice and sweet!! I am excited to get to know her and learn so much from her and how to be a Sister Training Leader! I am so excited to be able to serve the missionaries and people in San Carlos! :) 

I am nervous to speak cebuano, but it's ok :) I know the Lord will help me because this is his work for sure!! :) Tonight I will go and stay in Talisay which is right next to Bata my previous area and then go to Missionary Leadership Conference tomorrow before heading back to San Carlos. My luggage and everything is still in the mission office, I haven't yet gone to San Carlos, but tomorrow I am excited to see it! :) Sinema's will be taking us there tomorrow. :) 

Love you all!! Padayon na gid kamo!! 

Love, Sister Smoot :)

ps dad yes i would love to be companions with sister smoot too... hopefully one day soon but we'll see what the lord has in store :)