Dear people I love!
It's Thanksgiving week! And we are so incredibly blessed. Today...I am just overwhelmed with the feeling of how blessed I am! My heart is so tender with the wonderful experiences we've had...I feel so humbled to see God's love for his children.
It was hard to feel blessed at the beginning of this week, to be honest. Lots of our appointments with our investigators fell though at the beginning of this week, and I caught a pretty bad flu/cold virus that put us sort of out of commission Tuesday and Wednesday. :( Don't worry though! I am better now! Sister Biddle is a great nurse :)
It was super hard for me to lay in bed instead of being out, working and teaching. But It gave me a chance to think about how I choose to respond to hard things. When they come, I can either become bitter, or I can become better. Trials are a test, an opportunity to choose to follow Christ. Do I pass the test? If I do...I change for the better! Number one thing I am grateful for: hard things. There are a whole lot of those out there! But for me, hard things are my chance to learn. To give up my will for his.
I am grateful for spiritual promptings. We felt prompted this week to visit B., at the home she works at, instead of where she lives. We had been struggling to get in contact with her! To refresh, B. is a media referral from church HQ. Super sweet, super humble, and super prepared for the gospel. When we contacted her this week, she let us right in, and surprised us by letting us teach her a lesson right there! We taught probably the most scattered and unprepared lesson I've ever taught, about the plan of Salvation. And yet, the spirit was present, and it made up for all our imperfections. We asked her what the Atonement meant to her after we explained it...and she said something that almost made me cry! She said she felt that Christ knew her perfectly as an individual, and that she felt he would have suffered all that pain, if it was just for her. The spirit rushed in and testified to her words...the Lord loves her SO much!! She is ready for baptism. We invited her again to be baptized and she said "I've thought about that...and it's something I am willing to do"!!! :)
I am grateful for the convincing power of the spirit. As missionaries, we really don't teach. We invite the spirit, and then it teaches for us. We visited the K. family this week, a recently less-active family. We got to know them, and then shared Alma 7: 11-12 with them. We asked Sister K. how she's seen the power of the Atonement working in her life through her trials. Then we watched a miracle happen! She told us about all the trials that she's been having lately that have made her angry with God and kept her from church. Then she proceeded to tell us the reasons why God gave her those trials, and what she needed to learn from them. After she had worked this all out, she paused and said, "You know, I think I just had a revelation. I understand now the purpose of what I've been going through." And then, "You'll be seeing us at church next Sunday." The spirit taught and challenged her, we simply opened the scriptures to invite it! So cool!
I'm grateful for family.
I'm grateful for Sister Biddle. Sometimes I pretend to be mad and President Morgan for giving me such a fantastic trainer...now I never want her to leave! :)
I'm grateful for this wonderful area. It is teaching me so much.
What are you grateful for? :)
Update on a couple other investigators-B. is avoiding us again! People's agency is very hard for missionaries sometimes. Not sure why still.
-N. and L. - not sure if I told you about them. A mom and a daughter-she is the sister of a recent convert, M. Pray for them. I've never met a family that is going through such a hard time. They need the Lord's help...It's beyond us missionaries! I love them so much!
We drove up to Champaign, IL a couple times this week for stake conference! SO GOOD.
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| Decorating cookies |
Have an awesome week!! I'm so excited for this week! Lots of good things coming!
Sister Petrie
brielle.petrie@myldsmail.net
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