Preston Smith - Whitest Man in Africa

Preston was one of the first missionaries to hit the field since MissionShoe was launched. He is currently serving in South Africa in the Johannesburg Mission. The following stories and photos are taken from his missionary blog.

"We taught this guy the other day, John. John wants to change his life because he has been shot too many times. It took him 3 separate incidents to make this decision. The problem is if he progresses he will need a baptism interview from a general authority because he has hijacked, mugged, sold drugs, and shot 4 people(he doesn't know if they died because he ran). He tried to refer us to some of his friends who were "real killers" but we refused."

"This past week we tracted a lot and we are finding people that have been prepared. Two of which were given dreams- Edward was told in a dream by a voice: Proverbs 20. He didn't own a Bible so he couldn't see what it said. When he opened the door for us he invited us in. When we were talking about prophets he asked about dreams, and we told him they are sometimes used as a source for revelation. He told us about his dream and we looked up Proverbs 20 and read the first verse. It looked like he was seeing a ghost, he went pale and was silent. Elder Mnamata said to him "Edward, do you have a problem with drinking" he said he did and we talked with him about it. He had a big problem and it was destroying his life. This experience opened the mood to invite the spirit so the lesson went well and we will see him on Friday this week. The second experience happened the next day when we where teaching a lady and we said "This church, The Church of Jesus Christ of... is the only true church on the face of the earth, it is the same church that Christ himself established". She then told us about a dream she had a few hours before we got there. In this dream she had a big list of Churches and she crossed each church name out one by one until everyone was crossed out. She also told us that she had been to many churches in her life but was currently not going to any because of the confusion. We committed her to pray about the message we shared, we will see if she did when we see her on Wed."

"Speaking of the power of the priesthood, I have had many experiences thus far giving blessings to the sick and afflicted. Everyone is sick here! We give an average of 5 blessings a week. I know what a patriarch feels like. It has really taught me how to be sensitive to promptings of the spirit as I give the blessings. I try not to give any forethought of what I will voice (besides the times it comes as revelation)."