Week 77

Amigos...

Dec 9 at 10:01 AM

Hello family and friends,

 Well another week has gone poof into thin area (or was it thick air?? It depends on the humidity I guess...what does thin air even mean???)  Anyways,  to begin, we had a lot of really good things happen last week...obviously with our fair share of opposition, but what's life without opposition, let alone missionary work :)

I received a letter from Rachel, and I also think I received one from mom and grandma last Monday after I wrote...that was a long time ago, sorry I can't remember for sure :)  oh, and I also did get a party invitation from Angela and Trevor for Grandma's party with some pictures :)  That was nice :) 

Regarding Christmas, I have no idea yet...you see, things seem really far away until before I know it, bam!  They're here.  Kind of like Chris's mission call...among other things.  I'll  try to figure that out soon...we hopefully will be skyping.  We just have to find somewhere to do it. 

I can't believe how much snow y'all are getting!  That's not fair.  Finally down here, at least it's getting cold.  On Friday, it was like 80 degrees!!! Are you kidding me?!?!  That's not December weather at all.  Now we're down in around the high 30s which is better than a sharp poke in the eye even though it rains instead of snows.  :(  

Christmas devotional was definitely Good.  I played the name drop card with Elder Rasband to Elder Bagley.  Yeah, I ate lunch/dinner with him :)  Not a big deal ;)

Oh, have I mentioned that this Saturday, I will be going to the Raleigh Temple to be a part of Stephen's sealing and marriage!!!! Stephen, if you don't remember, was the individual we baptized a year ago October in Morehead City!!!! I am so ridiculously excited :) 

We had some great lessons last week.  A lot of opposition in some areas, but some miracles in others...and it's truly incredible to see the Lord uses opposition to create miracles and growth.  Let me explain.  We have an amazing investigator family that was doing fantastic until she came down with bacterial pneumonia and had to go up to Chapel Hill for treatment. -- opposition-- Well, we found out that some missionaries in  Chapel Hill "happened" to be right  there visiting someone else near this family we're teaching, and the father saw them and asked them to give his wife a blessing, which they did.  I feel the spirit so strongly just typing that story up.  It's truly amazing to see the Lord's hand in everything.  I know that that experience had to have strengthened that family spiritually to know that people over a hundred miles away have the same authority and same power and same spirit as the people she was meeting with in her house.  We had given her a blessing for something else when we first met her that greatly blessed her.  Opposition leads to miracles when influenced by the Lord.

2 more quick stories,

1) We had 1 investigator that had been doing really well, and then he stopped progressing because his friend had invited him to another church. He was still willing to meet with us though, but we really weren't sure where to keep going after a couple of lessons. Last week, when we taught him, before the lesson, I had been slightly frustrated with him; we really didn't know where to go, and my hope and faith were waning with him.  However, Heavenly Father taught me a valuable lesson surrounding Faith, Hope, and Trust in our Father and our Savior. I realize now that I had allowed my Christlike hope and faith to dwindle. In that lesson, we followed up on his fasting to know if the Book of Mormon was true. He said it went well, and when we asked him if he felt like God was answering his prayers, he told us that the Book of Mormon is true, that it's the word of God. We were stunned! We really didn't know what to say right away. He also voluntarily voiced his true concern regarding the 3 kingdoms of Glory, which we were able to address with the scripture in 1st Corinthians.  Following that explanation, he said that that was the only thing doctrinally that we had shared that had been causing him to be hesitant.  Why I didn't act out of Christlike hope, knowing that He can accomplish and do anything, escapes me, but just when we thought we were teaching Josh, Heavenly Father was teaching all of us. 

2) Another couple of investigators that we have teaching for while have started to make some slow progression.  Last week, they came to the 2nd and 3rd hours of church.  We followed up with them on church this past week and their experience there.  We ended up not teaching any of the lesson that we had planned because the spirit led the lesson another way.  Aleisha expressed to us how she felt this urge to share her testimony in Relief Society at the end, and then she described how she had this unexplainable good feeling after church that lasted for 2 days.  She's been to a lot of churches and said that she doesn't feel that way when she goes to other churches.  It was powerful.  She also is in Jacob in reading the Book of Mormon and is loving it.  She shared her belief with us that she believes it to be true.  Not only that, we were witnesses to the fact that through the Book of Mormon, the spirit is teaching her truths.  She is showing so much growth and is becoming spiritually self-sufficient.  She said that before she started reading the Book of Mormon, she didn't understand baptism and never really had the desire to be baptized, but now after reading 1 and 2 Nephi, she understands it so much better and wants to be baptized.  That came from nothing we did.  That was purely because the spirit of the Lord is amazing and powerful.  It leaves impressions and imprints on our soul that man cannot replicate.  I love this work so much.  I know it is the work of the Lord, and despite trials and opposition and difficulties in other areas, there is never a reason to not be happy. 

Thanks for everything, y'all.  I love you so much.

Love,

Elder Patty