I LOVE GLEN CARBON

January 19, 2016

This week. Has been amazing!!

I love my new area. I LOVE being back in Illinois! There are so many wonderful prepared people in this area, and I have loved working with them all so far. We get to cover a YSA as well as the Glen Carbon ward. I love serving in a YSA! It takes me back to good old Heritage Park days. Anyway, if there's anything I've learned this week, it's that young single adults NEED the gospel. And so often they are way open to it! This week we started teaching our investigator M., who is the girlfriend of a member of the YSA. She knows the Bible like a boss, she is intelligent, successful, and put together, but she was still so open to the gospel! It was so neat to teach the simple truths of the Restoration and feel the spirit testify so powerfully of its truth. When we invited her to be baptized, she gave a definite yes! I am so grateful for the spirit. I've recently found myself in lessons praying, almost pleading for the spirit to be there. The spirit turns our imperfect teaching into a powerful message. Without it, we can't do anything.

I love my companion!!! Sister Sommer is perfectly exactly what I needed at this time. She is going home at the end of this transfer, but she still is obsessed with doing missionary work and loves to work HARD! She is also hilarious. Seriously, all we do is laugh and do missionary work. All day, every day. It seems like we've been companions our whole lives. I'm so grateful for her!

Sister Sommer and Me!

We had mission leadership conference on Friday, and it was amazing! It was all focused on the basics, on declaring repentance and baptizing converts. Then for the second half of MLC, we got to go to the temple into a room in the distribution center! It was perfect, talking about missionary work and bearing testimony on the temple grounds :) Our mission is trying to increase our focus on the temple as well. There's no point in baptizing someone unless their next goal is the temple!

It was cool, because just a couple of days before that, we'd had an amazing lesson about the temple with our investigator K., who is planning on being baptized in February. The spirit was so powerful, and she had such a strong desire to be sealed to her family! It was cool, because that's the kind of vision we want our investigators to have!

I LOVE MY MISSION. I love the gospel! It brings sooooo much joy. I've felt that so powerfully this week. AHHHHH. I love it!

Sister Petrie

 MTC group in front of the temple!