My name is Dan Smith. I am a husband, a father, an ice cream enthusiast.
Oh yeah and I’m a Mormon.
I was born in Towshend Vermont as the last child in a family with 4 older living siblings. Looking back now I see that my childhood was absolutely picture perfect. I was raised in Chester VT on a 100 acre dairy farm that dated back to the 1800s. We were not dairy farmers by any means, but I enjoyed the spacious barns, open fields, Vermont forests, natural ponds and rivers, and the apple orchard that surrounded my childhood. On any given day I remember coming home from school, throwing my book back down and running outside to go frolic in the forest for hours until I would hear my mother ring the large antique school bell letting me know that dinner was ready.
When I was 19 I left our home town and served a full time 2 year mission for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints in the Tempe Arizona area. It was during this 2 year period that I solidified my beliefs in the teachings of Jesus Christ and focused my convictions to dedicate my life to being a faithful member of the Church. During this time I also crossed paths with my future wife. (The story of how we got together will be saved for a future posting)
We were married very shortly after I returned home and began our family and schooling at BYU-Idaho. It was there that we had a number of learning experiences between school, church, and community leadership that would bless our family. I graduated with a Bachelors degree in Economics while my wife graduated with a Bachelors in Horticulture. We had 3 children at the time of graduation.
We settled in Rigby Idaho and I began a promising career as a Loan Officer at a local Bank. It seemed like everything was going great, until we felt a push in another direction. I was hired as an instructor with the Church Educational System in 2011 as a seminary and institute teacher in the Salt Lake Area. This was a big change for our family, but we have seen a number of wonderful blessings as a result of it.
After moving to the West Jordan area outside Salt Lake City, we have continued to expand our family to 6 happy healthy children. We are extremely active in our Church service and community leadership. I continue to teach Seminary and Institute classes along with online teaching for BYU-Idaho religion courses. I finished a masters degree in education, climbed the highest peak in Utah in a day, ran a marathon, and recently just finished a 700 sq. ft. expansion on our home to accommodate our growing family.
My wife continues to remain active in raising our children, driving them everywhere, and keeping our home clean while serving in her church responsibilities, help organize a neighborhood preschool, babysit for others, teach our children to play instruments, and the importance of learning and being kind to one another.
We love our family, we love our home, and we love having the Gospel of Jesus Christ as the center of everything that we do.
Daniel Spencer Smith 