The Field is Ripe!

Here is Jaren's letter for the week.  His title was actually "The Field is Ripe, Ripe, Ripe!!!"  He's a funny kid.  

I was able to send a care package to Jaren with his mission President's wife today.  She has been visiting family in the city all week and Steve knows her brother-in-law. The BIL happened to let Steve know that Sister Ninow would be willing to take a care package back to Germany with her. WOW!  She would do that?  Steve brought a box home from work to use. This is kind of a comedy of errors, actually.  Holly and I were in the city all day yesterday getting college stuff and I told Steve I would take care of buying goodies for the care package. Holly and I thought it would be fun. I mean, we were going to be at Wal-mart anyway, so it would be easy to get what we needed. Well. . . I forgot to add that to my list, so, guess what? Yah, it didn't get done. I even re-wrote the list and organized it by like-items, but forgot to put "candy for Jaren" as an item! Imagine my surprise (and frustration!) when I walked into the den last night at 9:30 or 10:00 p.m. and noticed the box lying there. Steve needed to take the box to work with him TODAY to give to the BIL to give to Sister Ninow who leaves for Germany tomorrow morning. It's not like I live close to any store that would be open all night, or even late, for that matter! 

I told Steve I had to take Erik to the orthodontist today and that I would buy the contents for the box and get the box to him while I was in the city. I planted the box and 2 brownie mixes on the floor right outside the den so I would physically see it and remember to take it. I had my arms full as I was headed out the door, so I asked Erik to grab the brownie mixes and the box and meet me in the car.  I saw him heading toward the kitchen with the mixes and thought he had everything. I had forgotten all about it by the time I got to the car. 

After we left the orthodontist office and was heading to Sister Ninow's sisters home, I turned to Erik and asked where he put the box. He said, "what box?" I thought he was bluffing (he does that often and can really get me going some times.) I was trying to read his face to see if the corners of his mouth would turn up into a smile. Well, that always happens, so I still didn't know. Finally I said to Tanner in the back seat, "do you see a box anywhere back there or in the way back?" After looking around he said no. I thought I was going to lose it! I said, "Erik, what did you do with the brownie mixes and the box they were on top of? I asked you to grab them and bring them out to the car with you." He said, "I put the brownie mixes away in the pantry because that's what I thought you wanted me to do." When asked where the box was, he said, "still on the floor at the house." I didn't know whether to laugh or cry! I had so many things on my mind that I didn't notice he didn't have anything in his hands when he came out to the car. . . man, I'm gettin' old! 

We had to find a UPS store to buy another box. Luckily I thought I remembered where one was fairly close by. I can remember things like that! We finally got the package where it needed to be. I think the moral of the story is, "never send Jaren a package while he is in Germany!!"

I hope the package arrives safely and that he's pleasantly surprised!

Dear Familie,
Well to start off, Mom, you didn´t have any questions! Are you alright! Just kidding. I hope that you don´t mind me sharing a journal entry this week with you all. It pretty much sums up our week which was incredible to say the least, and incomparable to anything I have seen so far on the mission! So here you go:

Thursday, July 16, 09
       

“The Lord is definitely mindful of his missionaries. I watched today as the Lord used us as an instrument in his hands and lead us to those who were ready to hear our message time and time again. It all started when our normal appointment with Frau Backes fell out. Elder Stradling and I wanted to go a little early so that we could go do some finding in an area we had been working in for the past couple of days.  We got to Frau Backes at about 3:20 instead of 4:00. She told us that she had scheduled an appointment with her doctor, but couldn´t remember our phone number to call us and let us know. So Elder Stradling and I just sat and thought for a minute “okay, now what?” I then looked at my watch and realized that it was 3:30 and said, “if we go now, we can try to see if Daniel is home.” Daniel lives in Dudweiler and I met him when I was on a split with Elder Showell our Zone Leader, on Monday. He told us he was available any time from 3:00 to 5:00 all week, so, we wanted to go by and see if he was home. Sure enough, he was. We taught him a very quick lesson, about 20 minutes and gave him a copy of the Book of Mormon. He was excited to read in it and to find out the truthfulness of it for himself. At the end of the lesson, we asked him if he knew anyone that would be interested or might benefit from our message. He said yes, his friend would. So, he called his friend right in front of us and said “The missionaries from the Church of Jesus Christ are here, would you like them to come by and talk to you about the Book of Mormon?” He said sure, “could they come tomorrow?” So we left at that. We were pretty excited to say the least. Daniel is a college student and a Catholic Mess Diener and is about our age and lives alone.
       

“So, with this excitement, we decided to go and do doors where we left off on the other side of the street. Twenty minutes later we came to a man by the name of Herr Schmitz. He let us in and asked us what we wanted. We told him we wanted to talk about the Book of Mormon, and that it is Holy Scripture written by prophets as well as another testament of Jesus Christ; that we know that Jesus is the Christ and that God loves his children and has prepared a way for them to return to him. At first he said that he only believed in the Bible and that he was Catholic. We went further and talked about prophets and asked him if it could be possible that God has given us more apostles and prophets today. He said yes it could be. We then said, "well if God loves his children the same yesterday, then he should also do the same for us today and tomorrow." He then agreed to have us come back later and to bring him a copy of the Book of Mormon next week. Afterwards I was very amazed and thought, "wow! The Lord really has his own timing!" But it didn´t stop there. We went about 10 houses further and came to the Klein Familie. I was up and the first thing that came out of my mouth was, “I know that the family is very important and that we can live together after this life.” Well, these two girls about our age heard us, but their grandma came down and wanted to know what was up. She couldn´t hear me at all, so finally, she asked the granddaughters what we had just said. When they told her that the family could be together after this life, she just turned around and walked upstairs. We then found out from the daughters that their grandpa passed away yesterday, and that that was the reason their grandma went upstairs. We continued talking to the granddaughters and they said that we could come back later because they wanted to know more. They asked us why we were there and we said that that was the reason, to share this message with them.
      

 “After the third “new investigator” Elder Stradling and I were just dumbfounded. We didn´t know whether to laugh or cry or what really! I realize now more than ever how important the Lord´s timing really is, and how important it is to follow promptings or feelings from the spirit. If Frau Backes did go through, perhaps we wouldn´t have received the contact from Daniels friend. And, because we would normally be finished with Frau Backes at about 5:00, we wouldn´t have met the other two, period. It also works the other way, obviously a day earlier wouldn´t have worked for Familie Klein because their grandpa was still living. It was only for today. We followed the spirit and by so doing the hand of the Lord was revealed to us in Marvelous ways. But none of it would have been or was done by my doing alone. In fact very little. I listened and obeyed and the Lords purposes rolled onward.”
       

We then met with Daniels friend two days later, and he is very interested. He is a leader for the youth in his church, and when we asked him if he knew of any possible service activities we could help with he invited us to come along this upcoming Saturday to one. He also told us that it would be a great opportunity to have us talk to the youth there as well! Our investigator pool has tripled in the last two weeks from three to about 10, and it continues to grow. The trick now is remembering what we did, and keeping the same spirit and attitude up! I love this work, I love this people and I love my savior. There are many of God´s children here that are waiting and searching, and perhaps this is what I needed to reaffirm that fact!

I hope you all have a great week and may the Lord bless you all! Happy Birthday Holly, I really do miss you, and I hope and wish you all the best. You can eat my half of the cake okay!!! And the ice cream too.

Your Son/Brother
Elder Smith