Well, we’ll skip the corny opening cause we got some
straight dope to get to this week! Yo yo yo big news and big headliners! So
transfers are Tuesday and alas, my time with my best friend has come to a close
but it has been a great 3 months as companions! Yo it’s weird to look back on
these 3 months and see how fast they’ve flown as compared to my first 3! But
now it’s finished and time to move on to a new companion! ** We hit new records
in our statistics this week to set Daveyton up to be the best area in the mission!
And what would we do without friends to help us thru the dull and/or rough
times. All this week has been full of crazy happenings and sadly one of them is
that Elder Graham is getting transferred and that means that Typie (*AlphaSpeller) will be no
longer! Haha! Shame no more intricate blog posts for now because I’ll have to go
back to typing it in the email shop and there just ain’t time for that!
But
man eish, it’s crazy that Stilgoe’s and my time together is finished! It was a
killer companionship and we had fun and worked hard and felt the spirit! No
better way to do things! I learned a lot from him in ways that I haven’t
learned before and it’s good; it helps me to grow in many more ways! We were
able to work together to set turn this area around and set it up to be a
baptizing area! And not just for the statistic of baptism but for legit convert
baptisms! One of the crucial things that we are able to constantly learn is the
need for the Spirit in this work. This companionship helped to reaffirm that
within myself. I could go on but in the spirit of brevity, this was a great time
to be the duo of Smith and Stilgoe! Now it’s time for him to move to his next
area and for me to get my new companion! Elder Graham is leaving (as I already
said) and so that means that Elder Kewuti will be staying and getting a new
companion as well as myself. And I can’t wait to see who my new companion will
be!
It was
a great week to finish our companionship on! We were able to achieve the
standard of excellence by teaching 30+ quality lessons this week and 5
father-led families!!! This is the first time on mission that I’ve been able to
teach 5 FLF in a week! Good things are happening! We also got 8 new
investigators to add to our teaching pool so we will not have a dying area! It
was definitely hard work for 3 months but it paid off along the way and has now
been extremely rewarding! It makes everything worth it.
So one
of the nice things about being here, as I think I may have mentioned before, is
being able to set goals to make yourself a better person and a better
missionary. What’s even better is when you add a friend to the mix who sets the
same goals and you can both help each other to get better! It’s been really
cool to become friends with Elder Allen (Seattle) who is serving in Etwatwa
just next door to Daveyton. Yo he’s a honey badger for sure! As we have both
set goals to not talk crap on others and not sing music that isn’t consistent
with our calling, we are able to check each other and help each other keep as
close to 100% as possible! The nice part is that every other night when we go
running with the missionaries in the complex, we follow up with how our day
went as far as our goals were concerned! It’s too nice! Haha And we’ve found
that we can distract ourselves from music by quoting a bunch of movies and as
well as “East vs. West” by Key & Peele! haha Eish it’s too much a good time!
These
are the things that have been happening so far this week but, as my last time
on “typie”, I want to share something that has impacted me this week. I know I
shared a couple quotes by Coach Evans last week but sharing those made me
reflect on my time as a Lax Bro pre-mish. 1st- I couldn’t be more grateful for
the talent I was blessed with to be able to play at the level I did. It was
that which put me in the position to appreciate #2. 2nd- the lessons that I have
learned from all my coaches and all my experiences have benefited me in many
ways here in the mission field. Things as simple as our team mottos: “No Excuses” and “First Time, Every Time” and sayings like “it is what it is” have
turned from a lacrosse perspective to a real life perspective. Coach knew what
he was doing when he gave us those mottos and ingrained them into our minds thru
the use of pushups, planks, Mary-Katherines, etc when we gave an excuse or only
played 50%. For that I am grateful because they come into mind here in South
Africa. Believe it or not, when we graduate and finish high school lax, we
still are able to come up with excuses! Haha they don’t just magically
disappear! But when you are able to take a lesson learned and apply it to post
lacrosse life, you get somewhere! There are many things in the work and in
companionships that are prime opportunities for excuses. There are more than
enough tasks to complete that could be done 50% or even 75% and called “good”.
What we were able to learn however is that isn’t a very good show of
sportsmanship or, as it’s called in the real-world: character. Because I’m a
missionary and I love making parallels to the gospel, our Heavenly Father doesn’t
like it when we give excuses either! He wants us to do his commandments the "First Time, Every Time!" And just like push-ups or what-what to correct our
mistake, our God has given us the ability to repent. Through the Atonement of
Jesus Christ, we are able to fix our mistakes but it means "No Excuses" and we
should really do it the First Time if we want it to matter. One of the things
you realize as well is that whatever you go through, "it is what it is!" You can’t
redo what happened in the past but you can learn from it and move forward!
Because of these valuable lessons that I was able to learn in lacrosse and
specifically from my coach, I feel a step ahead of the game as far as
accountability goes and if I am able to continue learning to not give excuses
and to do my best the first time, every time, I know that I, and all those who
learn the same lessons, will be able to become the person that I, my family, my
coach, and my Father in Heaven know I can be.
But that’s
TTFN! Stay golden and Lax on!
Love,
Elder
David Spencer “Tony” Smith
(** Editor's Note: Elder Smith has been asked to serve as a trainer so his
next companion will be a new missionary.
They will train together for 3 months. Missionaries refer to this as
being a “father” and gaining a “son” because they have the opportunity to train,
teach & serve the new missionary and help prepare them for the rest of their mission.)
