Week 76

December, eh? Where did you come from ;)

Dec 2 at 10:09 AM

Good morning, dear family and friends.

To begin, I received the most exciting piece of mail today.  My license renewal.  :) Hurrah for Israel!  Last Monday, after emailing, I did also receive the letter that had the wedding pics in it.  Thanks for those.  :) 

I'm glad that the work is going well in your ward.  That's always good.  How could it not go well though with such a fantastic Bishop!?! ;)  We only had 1 Thanksgiving dinner; it was delicious despite being anticlimactic.  It really didn't feel any different than any other dinner.  Holidays...weird stuff on a mission...we did go and play in a turkey bowl that morning with the ward members.  That was fun.  :)  We also taught a lesson on Thanksgiving to some investigators of ours.  Other than that, pretty normal of a day. 

8pm black Friday shopping.  That's the biggest lie I've ever heard...what is wrong with all these people out there...since when was 8 o'clock Thursday, Friday?  Maybe I just don't know what I'm talking about anymore :) 

Yes, I will be here in this area for Christmas...Transfers is New Years Eve. 

We had a really powerful lesson with the Berry's last night, our recent convert/returning less active family about putting God first in our lives and trusting in Him, particularly in reference to doing family scripture study and going to church as a family.  It was really good.  Nothing really that we had planned, but that's okay.  Here's what I've found and know to be true.  If you go into a lesson or a talk without plan, planning on just "winging it by the spirit," you will fail.  If you had the time to prepare and you didn't, you won't be guided by the spirit.  The Lord doesn't reward stupidity.  If, however, you prayerfully plan a lesson or a talk, and then in the moment, feel that you need to go a different direction or discuss a different subject, you can have complete confidence that the spirit is guiding you and the lesson.  Why?  Again, the Lord doesn't reward stupidity or laziness.  If we do everything we can, the Lord will always fill in the rest as well as supercharge that which we have done on our own.

We had a leadership council meeting on Friday.  Good stuff.  Lots of good direction.  Something I'm really working on is the application part of the activity.  Oftentimes, we all hear great council or we have great ideas; however, usually, the fire dies off either within a couple of days or weeks or it dies before we even leave the meeting.  Take general conference for instance and the quote from Elder Hales, " we gather to hear the words of the Lord, and we return to our homes to live them"

So crucial...without that, we don't grow.  We don't become.  We waste what we had just been given.

I don't really have much else to say.  I'm trying to be the best Zone Leader I can be.  Sometimes, I wish things were more spelled out...like by an angel or something . . . that would probably make things easier.  :)

Not much else to say, oh, we're trying to teach a Mongolian speaking girl in the Netherlands via facebook utilizing a translator out of Utah :)  Good stuff.

Love,

Elder Patty