I just wanted to post some of the most beautiful pictures of Alison here. She has turned into such a beautiful young woman. She works hard, she plays hard, and the cleanliness of her spirit shines through her eyes.

This is one of her favorite signs. It’s right outside a church of another faith and is right down the street from the library where Alison goes to email home. She says that it inspires her every time she see’s it, although she’s pretty sure thats not what they put it there for! Our Alison is a good missionary, a good example, a hard worker, a loving daughter and sister. We look forward to her return in about 8 months with great anticipation!

Alison’s mission presented her some challenges. She discovered that as a desert rat she was subject to panic attacks when she felt enclosed by all the trees and greenery. It took a little bit to discover that it was panic attacks and then she just felt silly. But as with most things once it was identified then she could talk herself out of it most of the time.

However, she also discovered that she has developed some allergies and they have required medicine and even an inhaler at times. She has asthma type symptoms that the doctor believes are just because she comes from a very different climate. It took her a bit to figure out how to use the inhaler correctly and she doesn’t like it much. Then there were all the bug bites and the injuries……. But I think the worst thing she has encountered so far is having to clean her shower drains! Poor thing has long hair and Sister Smiths is even longer, so eventually the drain has to be cleared of all that hair. Adam always did it at home and when Alison had to do it for the first time, she reports that she nearly lost her lunch! You will notice that she started in her church clothes, I’m sure she didn’t expect it to be a big deal. Then she progresses to changing into work clothes, then she puts on rubber gloves, then……just look at that face! I think that’s the point where she just tries to hold onto her lunch.

All missionaries should have magic fairies to take care of them while they work so hard to serve.

Here I’m just going to post a bunch of pictures of Alison in snow and watered down apartments. With the freezing temps in Cary she has had the pipes in her apartment freeze twice. The first repair took quite a while to accomplish and left them with a hole in the wall for some time. Alison said it was quite cold! This is the second time the pipes burst, while they were out at meetings of course, so they came home to wet carpets and flooring. this time the repair work was done fairly quickly, but the clean up took a bit longer.

And then there was snow! She had a lot of fun with the first snow, but after that she was really done! The ice storms and lack of power kept them home bound and without work to do missionaries go a little stir crazy. So when the weather clears and they are able to go out and work they get very excited.