Latter-day Saint Mission Prep Jimmy Smith

This video and audio is episode 19 of the Latter-day Saint Mission Prep podcast recorded on Feb 12, 2024. In this podcast you will hear Hannah Smith talk about her transfer home at the end of her 18 month mission to Lisbon, Portugal for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. We talk about the last weeks of her mission and her first week back home. We cover topics such as:

• How she approached the last week of her mission

• Saying goodbye to friends, members, and missionaries

• How to not get trunky

• Going to the mission home for her farewell interview with the mission president

• Traveling home and meeting her family at the airport

• Being released: meeting with Stake Pres

• Homecoming talk and open house

• Getting back into life with family and work

• Goals, My Plan, challenges, growth, testimony, and much more

The transcript of the interview can be found below (it’s automated, so I apologize for any typos) and an audio version can be found at the bottom of this post. For other video/podcast episodes, check out the Latter-day Saint Mission Prep podcast page.

***Begin Transcript***

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Smith, Jimmy

Welcome to another edition of the Latter Day St Mission Prep podcast.

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Smith, Jimmy

I’m here today with my daughter Hannah, who just got back from her mission to Lisbon, Portugal.

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Smith, Jimmy

So she’s gonna tell us all about that today.

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Smith, Jimmy

The topic for today’s podcast I’m calling it.

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Smith, Jimmy

This is my draft, I might change it when I published it.

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Smith, Jimmy

I’m calling it the transfer home.

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Smith, Jimmy

We’re we’re primarily going to talk about the last week of your mission and your first week back home after you mentioned you’ve been home.

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Smith, Jimmy

I think about two weeks, but we’re going to focus on that.

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Smith, Jimmy

Last week in the mission and the first week home after the mission, so that that that transition from being a missionary full time to being a.

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Smith, Jimmy

Uh, yes.

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Smith, Jimmy

Uh, a normal ladder?

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Smith, Jimmy

Non missionary, Latter day St.

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Smith, Jimmy

So anyway, that’s what we’re going to talk about today.

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Smith, Jimmy

In fact, I prepared a little agenda.

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Smith, Jimmy

I’m going to share briefly.

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Smith, Jimmy

We’ll see how how this works.

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Smith, Jimmy

Uh, OK, not not as smooth as I thought.

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Smith, Jimmy

But anyway, we’re gonna talk about.

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Smith, Jimmy

Uh, uh, you how’s the approach?

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Smith, Jimmy

The her last week in the mission field, we’ll talk about your interview with your mission president.

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Smith, Jimmy

I’ll talk about traveling home.

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Smith, Jimmy

Uh,

This video podcast is part 3 of my interview with my daughter, Hannah Smith, a young woman who recently began her full-time missionary service for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. In this episode, Hannah talks about her mission farewell sacrament meeting, her setting apart, and her two weeks of Home MTC before heading to the actual physical Missionary Training Center in Provo, Utah. The transcript of the interview can be found below (it’s automated, so I apologize for any typos) and an audio version can be found at the bottom of this post. For other video/podcast episodes, check out the Latter-day Saint Mission Prep podcast page.

Smith, Jimmy

Hello and welcome everyone. My name’s Jimmy Smith. I’m here with my daughter, Hannah, on another episode of the Latter Day Saint Mission Prep podcast.

Today we are talking with Hannah about her home MTC experience, so Hannah has been doing home MTC for the past two weeks and two days from now she is flying to Provo for four more weeks of MTC training. So. Welcome, Hanna. Welcome all viewers and listeners. And let’s jump in.

I guess just a brief background, if you haven’t seen part one and Part 2, this is part three, but if you haven’t seen others go back and watch the others in the first time I interviewed Hannah, I talked Sister Smith, I guess I should be calling you now. You’re officially set apart missionary. The part one we talked about the mission application process and paperwork and medical stuff and talking to your bishop and stake president and getting it all applied and sent to the church.

Part 2 we talked about. What did we talk about? Getting ready to go, going to the temple, going to the temple. I think opening my opening should call. We talked about that. Ohh like applying for a visa and a passport? Maybe mention prep class taking them that anyway. Part 2 was really good now. OK, so now here we are. Part three. We’re going to talk about primarily about home, MTC and a few other topics about maybe packing and getting ready to go and.

You know, and anything else you’re experience is getting set apart as a missionary. Your farewell talk. We can hit on all those things that have happened roughly in the last month. So in fact, one we do take it chronologically there, so. About I guess it was it 2 weeks ago today. You had your farewell talk. Yeah. So two weeks ago. Farewell talk. So we’re recording this on a Sunday in August. And so two weeks ago you had to farewell talk in Sacrament meeting and then that night set apart by the state president. Why don’t you talk about those anything that stands out?

Hannah:

Yeah, and those experiences. Ohh. No, no. Giving my talk was good. Mm-hmm. They, like, assigned me a topic to speak on, but I don’t really know if I really spoke about it. I just talked about, like. I don’t know. I talked to him a lot about. And then the willingness it takes to go on a mission and to like, just serve the Lord in general, but I don’t know. I thought that it went good. Yeah, we, me and my brother. That’s just sang you than me. We did a musical number together as well. So that was really good. Yeah. That turned out really nice.

Smith, Jimmy

Hannah plays the piano very well. Her younger brother Abe plays the trumpet and in the band and is very good as well. I had never heard a trumpet played in Sacramento. Yeah before. So I was surprised. I was surprised that you asked the Bishop because I don’t know that I would have dared to ask the Bishop if Abe could play his trumpet in sacrament meeting and he said yes, as long as it was reverent. And as long as it was a hymn. And so I thought it sounded excellent. I thought it was very reverent and very appropriate for sacrament meeting.

This video is part 2 of an interview with Hannah Smith, a young woman in the process of submitting her application to be a full-time missionary for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Hannah talks about submitting her mission application, receiving the call, preparing to leave, and receiving the temple endowment. The transcript of the interview can be found below (it’s automated, so I apologize for any typos) and an audio version can be found at the bottom of this post as it comprises Episode 17 of the Latter-day Saint Mission Prep podcast.

Jimmy Smith:

OK. Well, welcome to the latter day St Mission Prep podcast. My name, Jimmy Smith. I’m the host of the podcast and this is my daughter, Hannah. And we are here on the video podcast and on audio podcast. For those of you without video support, we’re here for Part 2 of my interview with Hannah about her mission about preparing for applying for mission and preparing to go on a mission.

Let’s see. Let’s start Hannah by introducing you to to the the library sync mission prep audience, and then we’ll review what we covered in our last interview and then we’ll go into some new stuff. We’re gonna talk about today. So Hanna introduced yourself.

Hannah Smith:

Cool well. Like you said, I’m Hannah. I went. I just finished my freshman year at BYU up in Provo. It’s super great, super fun, great experience. I’m studying studio art. Hope you are you and that’s also been great. I really like to play the piano. I like to go hiking. And lots of good hikes in Utah. Yes, so many great, like national parks. Highly recommend. But yeah, that’s that’s kind of me.

Jimmy Smith:

That’s great. Great. And so we’re we’re here at our home in Texas recording this. Hanna just have great freshman year. So we’re glad to have her home. We have her home for just one month before she starts her MTC (Missionary Training Center) experience with two weeks of home MTC followed by four weeks of Provo MTC. And then she’s off to Portugal. So.

In part one we talked about uh deciding to serve a mission, which isn’t required as as a young woman. And what made you decide to go? We talked about the application process of filling out the paperwork. All the online paperwork. Yeah, the missed the medical stuff and the dental staff and all, all the other forms you have to. Fill out. So we talked about that last time we check out the previous podcast. Uh, if you’re interested in that. So when we when I talked to Hannah last, she had finished all the online application process, but she hadn’t hit the submit button. So like literally the next day after we had our last interview, the next day she hit submit and that submits her mission application not to the church headquarters but to her Bishop and stake president.

So tell us, Hanna, if you can about your final interviews with the Bishop and stake president before before your application was submitted to the church.

Hannah Smith:

Yeah. So let’s see. For segment with my Bishop, I don’t know. It was nothing crazy. He basically was just asking me about. Like how filling out my papers want. He had me bring my all of my like medical forms and like my dental stuff and I’m trying to think if there is anything else. Think so? That sounds about right. So yeah, so you have me bring those? Umm, he looked over them. Just like checked. They’re all correct. And then we went through what I had submitted. Umm to him like on the churches website. So we looked through that together and he just kind of went through and double check that everything was right. Like names, addresses, all that stuff. And then there’s a part where like he can add a little comment if...

This video is an interview with Hannah Smith, a young woman in the process of submitting her application to be a full-time missionary for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Hannah talks about what made her decide to serve a mission and gives information about the process of filling out the paper work and the online mission recommendation system. The transcript of the interview can be found below and an audio version can be found at the bottom of this post as it comprises Episode 16 of the Latter-day Saint Mission Prep podcast.

Jimmy Smith:

Hello and welcome to our latest episode of the Latter-day Saint Mission Prep podcast. My name is Jimmy Smith. I’m the founder of the Latter-day Saint Mission Prep website and podcast, and I’m pleased to have with me today, my daughter Hannah Smith who is on the on the call or on the on the video call with me if you’re watching this on video podcasts, you’ll hear the audio.

Hannah is my daughter and she’s here today to talk about her decision to serve a mission and the process she’s gone through in applying for a mission. She’s in the middle of that process right now. Hannah is a freshman at BYU (Brigham Young University). She recently turned 19. She’s been working on her mission application with her BYU Bishop for the last couple of months.

We’re recording this in January of 2022, and she has scheduled her final interview with her Bishop and stake president, and that’ll happen in about a month, and then she’ll get her mission papers turned in. So welcome to the podcast Hannah. Thanks for being with us today. Is there anything else you’d like to say about yourself by way of introduction?

Hannah Smith:

I don’t think so. Thanks for having me.

Jimmy Smith:

Alright. Thanks for thanks for being with me today and I appreciate it all right. I think, what you’re going to have to say and what we’re going to say to the audience today is going to be interesting and beneficial for a lot of missionaries. The process you’ve gone through with applying for your mission, it can be long and complex and as I’ve run the Latter-day Saint Mission Prep website for the past 12 years, that is one of the biggest areas of questions and concerns people have is about this application process, so you’re really going to be helping a lot of people by just telling them what you went through, what your experience has been. And so that they can help maybe avoid some pitfalls as they go through this process.

So the first thing I want to talk about before we talk about the application process is how you decided to serve a mission. Obviously in the church, young men have an expectation to serve a mission as part of their priesthood duties. Every church president in my lifetime has said that all worthy enable young men should prepare to serve a mission. Young women have also been invited and welcomed in serving a mission, but there’s not that same expectation for young women like yourself. So if you could, let’s start out by talking about your desire to serve our mission, why you want to go? What made you decide to serve a mission?

Hannah Smith:

Well so, I guess the main thing that like made me decide to want to serve a mission, I was just I was like I don’t know. I was thinking about it a lot and like oh it’s like this could be an option for me. And like the more I thought about it I was like wow like putting aside like a whole year and a half, so like just serving the Lord and serving other people and like you know,

In this video and podcast, I am teaching Lesson 15 of the Mission Preparation class from The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints to my teenage kids. The lesson is called “Temple and Family History Work” and discusses how temple and family history work are an integral part of missionary work for both the missionaries and those they teach.

I began planning this series of lessons (there are 15 lessons in all for the Church’s Mission Prep course) long ago but the timing could turn out to be very good for people stuck at home right now due to the COVID-19 virus pandemic and government restrictions on travel and personal content. The video/audio is about 42 minutes, so you will want to set aside enough time to watch or listen to it. It could be a great Sabbath day activity to do on a Sunday. Enjoy! Here also is a link to the presentation slides if you would like to download them. And here’s a link to all the 15 online mission prep class lessons I have recorded.

Disclaimer: While I am going by the Church’s Mission Prep manual, please remember this video is not a publication of the Church. I am simply a dad, teaching my children, and I’m sharing our lesson for others to enjoy. This video is not meant to replace the Mission Prep class people can take from their stake or ward or the Church Education System, but for those people wanting to prepare for a mission and unable to take that class, I hope this digital lesson helps fill the gap.

In this video and podcast, I am teaching Lesson 14 of the Mission Preparation class from The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints to my teenage kids. The lesson is called “Teaching the Gospel of Jesus Christ (Part 2)” and discusses how missionaries help investigators complete the first principles and ordinances of the gospel–baptism, receiving the gift of the Holy Ghost, and enduring to the end.

I began planning this series of lessons (there are 15 lessons in all for the Church’s Mission Prep course) long ago but the timing could turn out to be very good for people stuck at home right now due to the COVID-19 virus pandemic quarantine. The video/audio is about 40 minutes, so you will want to set aside enough time to watch or listen to it. It could be a great Sabbath day activity to do on a Sunday. Enjoy! Here also is a link to the presentation slides if you would like to download them. And here’s a link to all the 15 online mission prep class lessons I have recorded.

Disclaimer: While I am going by the Church’s Mission Prep manual, please remember this video is not a publication of the Church. I am simply a dad, teaching my children, and I’m sharing our lesson for others to enjoy. This video is not meant to replace the Mission Prep class people can take from their stake or ward or the Church Education System, but for those people wanting to prepare for a mission and unable to take that class, I hope this digital lesson helps fill the gap.