Giving Thanks

November 23, 2015

I am SO grateful for so many things. It seems like a constant stream of little tender mercies is just flooding our way!

Sisters P-day!

For example! Last Monday we were at the post office mailing packages, we had 3 packages to send and 40 dollars in cash. It covered the first 2, but we didn't quite have enough to pay for the third. On our way out, a lady who worked there stopped us and asked us why we didn't send the last package. We told her we didn't have enough money, and she grabs the package, weighs it on her machine, and starts punching buttons. She looks over at us and says, "You got 8 dollars?" We had 9. She re-boxes the stuff, and as she sends us back in to send it, she recognizes our name tags! she says, "Ladies, remember that when you are on the Lord's errand, He always sends help. There will always be a ram in the bush." She is so cool. We shared our card with her and invited her to watch a video about Jesus Christ, and she was SO grateful! The spirit was really strong, and she ended up giving us both hugs before we left. I was so grateful for that experience. The spirit taught me that what she said was true, the Lord really is looking out for our well-being, and he NEVER fails us. He will always send someone or something to help us feel his love. How profound, there is always a ram in the bush. I've seen it happen over and over again.

I was so grateful to help a young struggling mother this week. With a working husband and three VERY busy little children, her house had gotten messy to the point of her being completely discouraged about it ever being clean! So we grabbed a couple members, a couple of trash bags, and cleaned her entire kitchen! it was amazing to see that kitchen totally transform. And even cooler to hear her comments while we worked. "I always feel happier around Mormons", "What time does your church start?" "I can't wait to quit smoking". it was awesome! now we are teaching her and her husband, and she wants to be baptized right after the new year! SO cool.

We had our last exchange this week! It was such a great one. I got to go with Sister Broadhead again to the YSA. She is seriously one of my favorite humans! she has red hair too...i think I just love people with red hair. :) She taught me so much about being bold, about loving being a missionary, and about really and truly impacting others for good. It was amazing.

I am so grateful for family history as well. I feel like that's one thing about the gospel I didn't fully understand or appreciate before my mission...and I still don't. but i love it so much more! A couple weeks ago, the neighboring city put on a family history event, run by members of the church! So we got to be there, and basically sat with non-members all day and helped them find their family on familysearch.org! that was amazing. We invited one of our former investigators, M., who showed up and had a blast! turns out she has a long lost 2nd cousin who is LDS! they connected with each other, and then this week that cousin actually came up to O'Fallon from Texas and brought M. to church!! She felt so welcomed and loved church. Family history is a great way to be a missionary, who knew!

Well family, have a happy happy Thanksgiving this week. I am so grateful for eternal things, like family, like the gospel, like Jesus Christ. We are so blessed. Have a great week!

The keystone at the Science center

Ice cream! Love these sisters

The Spirit is Real

November 16, 2015

I love you all so much. It's been another great week, with plenty of miracles and plenty of struggles! Whenever I look back on the week though, the good always trumps the bad, and I realize just how blessed I am to be serving in St Louis :) I love this place!!

Sister Van Orman

Where to start? We had such a crazy busy and amazing week. We had two more exchanges with Frontenac and Lake St. Louis sisters. I was with sister Van Ormen and sister Gordon--two amazing sisters. And they both have beautiful red hair. :) With Sister Gordon we were able to find 2 new investigators together! Sister Van Ormen and I had fun teaching an amazing Plan of Salvation lesson and giving impromptu service to a member referral who (turns out) has met with missionaries before in Texas, and is ready to learn again! How cool. Our area really is exploding with miracles, that's what I learned this week :) 

Lake St. Louis Sisters

I learned a lot about the spirit this week. We had a great relief society lesson about missionary work, and there were so many converts that got to tell their stories. What stood out to me is that every one of them were let to investigate the church by FIRST feeling the spirit! It wasn't the doctrine, or the church structure, or even the Book of Mormon that first led them to be curious about the church, but it was the amazing FEELING that they got when they interacted with members and missionaries. There is a light we carry, and others can see it! It was neat, because as our investigator T. describes how she met us and started investigating, she says she "felt something different." That's it! No magic sparks or fireworks, just a gentle and compelling nudge from the spirit to take the next step. We as missionaries see our investigators from the beginning to the end, but they usually only see the next step. I admire the faith of our investigators!! They trust the spirit, and the spirit is real! This work is amazing.

More experiences with the spirit this week--on Wednesday we saw the C. family. The grandparents got baptized this year and we are teaching the grand-kids. Due to various circumstances, the C.'s haven't been to church in probably over 6 months. Last week we had a powerful lesson with them, where we were bold and both R. and M. committed to church. When Sunday rolled around however, of course the opposition came! They were all dressed and ready to go, literally on their way to church, when their car broke down. Holy cow. Sometimes the efforts of the adversary are so obvious, he clearly didn't want them at church. They were discouraged and had to take the car to the dealership, so they didn't come to church. This week we taught them again, and brought a brother from the ward to give them a blessing. We talked, and the spirit was SO strong. The blessing was incredible, and afterwards R. says, "I know one thing. We are going to come to church!!" That's commitment! I think they finally understood how much they needed church and needed the sacrament. On Sunday, M. came to church with two of her grandchildren!! It was amazing to see them partake of that sacrament and renew their covenants. AH! It was amazing.

We have also been having REALLY powerful lessons with our investigator G., and we have been teaching them in B. and J.'s home. Which is amazing. B.'s testimony is one of the strongest I have ever seen. It's so great to have them to help G.

We had 4 investigators at church! That was a highlight and a blessing. T. and L. told us they would like to get baptized before Christmas, and they LOVE coming to our church! The spirit is really working on them.

I love this work!! I'm so grateful to be here. Please keep K., G., and R. in your prayers, they are all going through a lot right now.

Frontenac Sisters!

Exchange season!

November 9, 2015

What a great week. Lots has happened, and it's all so great. We are seeing a LOT of miracles in this area lately, and I am just LOVING it. This area has my heart, just like my other areas. There are wonderful people prepared for the gospel everywhere

Good things about this week! We had two exchanges this week. Those are always fun! I call these few weeks exchange season, cuz it seems like on exchanges we always see the best miracles. On my exchange with Sister Drake (she's been out for 2 weeks!! :)) we were able to start teaching S., a member's friend that we have been trying to teach FOREVER. She finally was ready to start learning, and BOY is she ready. She was the most excited I've ever seen someone about the Book of Mormon. She wants to start family home evening with her family. She's committed to come to church, and bring her cute little family of 4! She promised to read two chapters in the Book of Mormon WITH her husband. She is a seeker of truth. She loves the gospel! We are so excited to continue teaching her.

Exchange Selfie!

Sister Drake and I also were able to find a sweet lady together, Alexa. I think the coolest part was watching Sister Drake, over the course of the 30 minutes we taught her, become completely invested and excited about the work! She's been going through the new missionary struggles that everyone goes through, but she got SOOOO excited about A., she was reading the Book of Mormon to her, promising her blessings, bearing testimony, laughing and joking and just enjoying being confident while sharing the gospel. It was a sweet moment.

Wednesday we had a scare. Our investigator G. (the miracle find) has been really struggling with health issues. On Wednesday his friend told us he was REALLY sick, they didn't think he was going to make it. They rushed him to the hospital, and meanwhile we were praying hard and calling ward members to come give a priesthood blessing. We got to the hospital, and had to wait about 20 minutes while they were getting him stable. We were finally able to go back with a member of the bishopric and another brother. It was a little scary, he had a seizure while we were there, but we were able to talk to him, and he was able to get a priesthood blessing. G. is so humble, he just wants to to what's right, and he has such a desire to be baptized into the church. Everyone there was crying, I think. Pray for him! In his blessing, he was promised that if it was his desire, he would be healed :). What a neat moment. I just hope he can have the peace of mind from being baptized before he passes away.

Thursday I was able to go to Parkway, in the city with Sister Anderson. She is such a sweet sister. I've been working on being more bold in my invitations, and that's what Sister Anderson taught me!! She is an amazing sister. I love her.

Friday was crazy, our phone got left out in the pouring rain overnight on exchanges, so I came back to a dead phone... so we did the best we could. We went to Sister R.'s house to use her phone to make some calls, and it turns out she had felt prompted to make cupcakes that morning. So we ate cupcakes and chatted about the sisters in the ward, and it was a little blessing that made us feel better :).

K. is SO. CLOSE. to getting baptized. She just has a couple fears to overcome. SHE CAN DO IT. I love her so much! We read Enos with her, talked about faith, and it was perfect.

Our investigator T. came to church on Sunday! It was so fun to sit with her and explain everything that was going on, and she LOVED it. She said it was more personal than her other church, and she really enjoyed feeling noticed and loved. I do love that about the church, it is so focused on the individual and on families progressing together. I think she felt that spirit when she was there.

I love this work! And it's work :) phew! I'm exhausted sometimes. All the time. :) We love it though!

Love you all!

Sister Petrie

Happy November!

November 2, 2015

Dancin' in the Rain

I'm not sure where October went. It's hard to believe how fast time flies!

This week has been so great! We spent a lot of time giving trainings to our 2 zones, most of Wednesday and half of Thursday! Meetings are good, but I am excited to go and WORK this next week! We have a lot of exchanges coming up with the sisters, which I am so excited about! I love the sisters, it's so fun to work with them and to learn from them.

Our trainings went well this week! We actually trained on how to have better dinner manners when we eat with members hahaha. It was a fun subject, even though it was a little less spiritual than our other trainings have been! We had a few fun role plays, where we acted out "telestial", "terrestrial", and "celestial" dinner appointments! haha. It was super fun, we had Sister Morgan play the member and we were the missionaries. Our telestial dinner appointment was hilarious, we were pretty rude and I think we even surprised Sister Morgan a little bit! It got the point across though, our conduct around members really does affect the trust and confidence they have in us. We have a new baptism goal of 375 for the year as a mission, and President Morgan promised us we can reach that goal if we work effectively with the ward council. We will do it!!

The work is going well! Especially in our sisters areas. It's been neat, we've had a couple new sisters call us recently, struggling with different things. Then, in the next few days those same sisters were each able to commit an investigator to baptism! They were so excited to tell us. I love that our sisters success is our success. Basically their areas are our areas, and it's so fun.

Our investigator D. surprised us by showing up to the ward trunk-or-treat this Thursday and bringing 4 friends! No big deal! Then she told us that she loved our church and how friendly everyone was, and told us she wanted to start coming here! And we've only taught her one lesson! I love it. 

BYU Trunk at the Trunk or Treat

Also our investigator K. is doing FANTASTIC. For the first time, she prayed sincerely to know if the Book of Mormon is true! She is great, I really really love her.

And our investigators T. and L.! They want to be baptized.

Oh, and P. and T. are two girls we started teaching this week, granddaughters of a recent convert. They are so sweet, have been through a lot, and are so ready for the gospel! The member we brought to teach them was perfect, and he brought the spirit almost instantly!

Well I love you all! Have a great week.

Sister Petrie

Loving the Rain!

Sis. Schow too!