Back with Sis. Schow!

Transfer Meeting Ladies!

  October 26, 2015

Well I'm back at it with Sister Schow. She is an incredible companion! Already we are setting some great goals and seeing amazing miracles. It's cool--my weaknesses are her strengths. It's such a blessing that we can be so effective together! Great things are coming for this area.

Lots of meetings this week! Transfer meeting was great, there are 5 brand new sisters in our 2 zones! We are SOOOO excited to be their friends and help them with the work! Also, I got to see Sister Tilman from Danville!! So great :)

We also had mission leadership conference on Friday. That was neat! Got lots of great notes to help us plan the THREE trainings we have to give to our zones this next week. That will be an adventure! This is the season of meetings haha, which is good, but I'll be excited to just go out and WORK in our area!

Good things that happened this week! 1. Finding new investigators L. and T., who have been through a LOT in the last year, but told us they felt like God led us to them. (He did). 2. T's BAPTISM. Such a wonderful experience! The spirit was powerful, and a ton of youth showed up to support him! 2. T's confirmation! He was blessed with the desire to go on a mission. It's going to happen! 3. Getting Sonic with Sister Schow (just like old times!) 4. Getting an update about everyone in Centralia. I LOVE THAT AREA! 5. Teaching A., who family is ALL LDS and who we randomly found by asking everyone for referrals! 

T baptism!

T. Baptism!

And lots more. It's been a great week, and we are EXCITED for more great weeks ahead. 

Sorry to not have much time today!

Sister Petrie

O'fallon Youth!

Transfer time again!

October 19, 2015

Well, holy cow, time flies. This morning I dropped my wonderful companion off to go to the mission home, and she's flying home today! Soooooo bittersweet. Sister Hayden was an incredible companion. I'm still amazed at everything she taught me, and at the perfect timing of our companionship! I think I've grown more in the last 2 transfers than I have since the beginning of my mission. She's an amazing friend and has been there for me through everything! I'll miss her a lot, but she'll bless so many people back home! I feel like whether on or off the mission, life is just one constant quest to bless others with the gospel. #missionariesforlife. :)

Speaking of amazing companions. Transfer doctrine is in! :) aaaaaand my next companion in this area is........SISTER SCHOW! Who was also my last companion! Yep, I was just as surprised as you are. Out of 60 sisters in the mission, I get to be blessed with the same companion twice! That is super uncommon, so I know the Lord just has amazing plans for this area. That two transfers in Centralia were soooo successful and the Lord blessed us with so many FAMILIES to teach and baptize, I hope so much to see more miracles like that in this area! AH! Soooooo excited. What a blessing! Anyway I'll go pick her up Wednesday at transfer meeting and it will be amazing. AH.

This week has been incredible. Sister Hayden and I decided to put all distracting thoughts away and FOCUS, 100 percent on the work of the Lord. It was amazing to get lost in the work of the Lord. There were some neat things that happened, and just the feeling of being completely invested was amazing.

We got to teach T. a couple of times this week! He is doing soooo well. Yesterday we taught him and he talked about going on a mission! The other priests in the ward are totally making him a part of their quorum (ward miracles!) and he is just a completely different kid. Yesterday he walked into church with his suit and tie on, and he just glowed! You can tell he has the spirit with him more than he ever has before. His mom says, "T. is totally different. It's weird." hahaha I love how the gospel brings light into our lives!

We also got to teach G. this week! There is a man with so much faith. It blows my mind. He still is learning and trying to understand so much about the church, but he is so committed to changing his life and being baptized. Pray for him? We're going to help him quit smoking soon.

We also had a neat experience at the beginning of the week. We were driving to an appointment, and passed an apartment complex and as I looked over, I felt super clearly that we needed to just BE in that apartment complex, ASAP. So we scheduled an hour the next day to just go be in that complex. First we tried to visit a member in the complex to ask for a referral, but they weren't home. So we picked an apartment and knocked on it, and met D. We introduced ourselves and the spirit was especially strong as we bore testimony, so he invited us back on Friday. We went back, taught him the first lesson, and it was amazing! After we finished we asked him how he felt about it all. He told us that after he had invited us back to teach him he had felt really nervous, not knowing what he was getting himself into. But as he thought about it, he started to feel that God had led us specifically to him to help him with some things he was going through. (We were like, "um, yeah! yours was the first door we knocked on!!!!!) He said he felt a calm and a peace, and said he would be baptized when he knew more about it. So cool. The spirit is for real.

One more story! We got a referral this past week, and the story behind it was amazing! So the sisters Lake St. Louis have been teaching a part-member family, and Sister Hayden met them on exchanges. They told her that the other day, they had gotten a text from a random number saying something like, "Hey, do you want to go hang out at a casino tonight?" Instead of texting back, " sorry, You have the wrong humber" apparently they sent a cute picture of their family holding a sign that said, "sorry, but we're Mormon!" hahaha, not only hilarious, but it started a whole conversation with this teenage girl, A., on what we believe in the church! They kept texting back and forth, and A. was super interested! She is going to a different religious school right now and she says she is "not feeling it" there. So they invited her to their 11-year-old son's baptism, and she CAME, and was able to feel the spirit, and we were able to meet her there! We will likely start teaching her in their home this next couple of weeks. HOW AMAZING. Specifically I was thinking of you, family, and of your goal to find someone for the missionaries to teach before Dec 12th. I firmly believe that God honors our righteous goals, when we have the faith enough to DO something about it! Finding someone to teach is never what or who you expect, but all flesh is in His hands, and he DOES work it out. It's a real thing.

Well I love you all. Have an amazing week. Pray for me taking over this area!

Sister Petrie

The process of carving pumpkins

Finished product!

Hellloooo Family!

Selfie with Sister Hayden

October 12, 2015

Well first off, I guess congrats are in order!!! So happy for you, Alexander, and happy for Emily! You guys are adorable. Ah! My brother is getting married. Time definitely flies!

This may be a little short, sorry about that! This week has been great!

First of all, our investigator T., who is the brother of E., decided to get baptized this week! :) It has been a long time in coming, but he finally felt like this was the right thing to do! We set his date for October 24th. T. is 16, and he is a really fun kid. It's been incredible to see the difference in him from when we started teaching him. This weekend he went with the youth on a Nauvoo trip and came back completely glowing! The support and love he's received from the ward has been a miracle as well, he's found just the right people to look up to and hang around with. The gospel really changes lives!

I felt a powerful spirit this week when we taught the H. family. The parents are not active in the church and their kids are not members, and we got to teach the whole family of 6 the restoration! The spirit was AMAZING. I'm pretty sure I haven't felt anything like it! I just know this message is absolutely true. 100 percent.

Another miracle was J. L. coming to church!! Apparently on Saturday, she up and quit her job just so she could make it to church on Sundays with her family. It was such a wonderful moment to have B. and J. there together. J. has come so far so fast, and the spirit she carries with her is incredible. She is a woman of faith, and I look up to her and B. so much. I LOVE THAT FAMILY!

Well, pray for my dear companion, who goes home in a week! Also for me and for this area, we have a lot of good things coming. I love this work!

Sister Petrie

Happy October :)

October 6, 2015

It's been a good week. What an amazing General Conference we just had! It always seems like no matter my questions or concerns or struggle is, the speakers all seem to be talking directly to me! I know I felt the spirit so powerfully, especially testifying to me that these servants really are servants of the Lord, and not of man. They do what the Lord would have them do. That's how I am striving to be!

It's so hard to pick a favorite talk, but I do have to say I loved hearing the new apostles speak. They are so humble and ready to serve, and I almost felt like I related to them in a way when I was a brand new missionary. I also LOVED Henry B. Eyring's talk on the essential role of the Holy Ghost. I think we take it for granted sometimes, but it really is amazing that the spirit can confirm and teach us truth, as well as comfort and guide us. My goal is to always live in such a way that I can have the constant companionship of the Holy Ghost.

It was really neat to invite all of our investigators to watch conference this week! We had a cool experience with finding one of our investigators this week, K. We pulled up to the house of a former investigator, and when we got out of the car, he was right there so we told him that we were missionaries and explained what we were doing. He looked at us for a second, and then said, "I'll talk to you guys." So we spent the next 45 minutes in his driveway explaining the restoration of the gospel, and the spirit was really powerful. He said he hated that he was too busy to go to church lately, and he loved the way that church made him feel. We were able to testify that that feeling was the spirit, and invite him to take the lessons. He was all for it, and we're seeing him on Wednesday! Just another testimony that God will place us in the path of those who are prepared for the gospel.

It seemed like we had a whole lot of meetings this week. We had two Zone trainings that we had to be at and give trainings for. We trained on how we as a mission can improve our daily scripture study by studying the restored gospel by topic. I have such a testimony of how consistent and diligent gospel study can bring the spirit and the vision of missionary work more than almost anything else. If we study the word of God and have his spirit with us (which comes through obedience) , we will have the power of God unto the convincing of men.(D&C 11:21) Topic studies have been amazing, I have learned so much! It almost fits right into the challenge we had at conference to "ponderize" scriptures. So cool!

Here's a picture from this week, another car selfie :) I love Sister Hayden, she's like my other half now! We rely on each other a lot, and it's fun :)

Car Selfie with Sister Hayden

Love you all. Have a fantastic week, and enjoy those New England fall leaves for me!

Sister Petrie

General Conference Week!

September 28, 2015

It's been another terrific week. We got to do two exchanges this week, and I am starting to really love and appreciate exchanges! I love the sisters I get to serve, and they work so hard and do so much for the mission. Tuesday I got to be in O'Fallon with sister Broadhead, and then on Thursday I got to go to Frontenac with Sister Shontelle, one of the sisters I came out with! It was neat because Thursday marked a year in the mission for both of us, so we got to celebrate it together! I can hardly believe it's been a year. Time flies sooooo fast! I am so grateful I still have 6 months to learn and grow and just get better at being a missionary! I love this opportunity to serve.

We got to see a lot of neat miracles this week. The one I am most excited about is G.! He was able to come to church for the first time this Sunday, and he loved it. He has so much faith, and when we teach him the spirit is so strong. We love teaching him! He's seriously a miracle of my mission. Every time he sees us he comes up to us and grabs our hands and says "Thank you for all you do." He says he prays for us every day. He is sooooo sweet! He is so excited for his baptism, he talks about it all the time. There are so many people that need the gospel!

I am so excited for General Conference this weekend!! What a wonderful opportunity we have to listen to living prophets and apostles. As I sit here, I'm watching the funeral services for Elder Richard G. Scott, and I'm overwhelmed by the feeling that he truly was an apostle of the Lord! And whoever the 3 new apostles are, they are also called of the Lord! I know it. We are blessed to live in a time where we can be directed by a prophet. I hope all of you take the time to listen and apply their counsel....it's inspired. Seriously. This is Christ's church.

I feel like there was so much that happened this week. So many little miracles. There were at least 3 times that we were talking to someone and they told us they had been praying and God sent us as an answer to that prayer. What an honor it is to be a messenger for the Lord! Like Elder Nelson says, we are "epistles of the Lord", saying and doing whatever he would have us do and say. I think that there is nothing sweeter than to be able to be an answer to someone else's prayer! I feel very blessed.

Sorry, no pictures this week. I need to be better at that! Thank you for your prayers and support. I am so happy and doing so well, and as always am so grateful to be serving the Lord. I know he lives!

Sister Petrie