Week 40: Thanksgiving and Gratitude

Another miraculous week in Newberry! Ahh I'm forever grateful for this town that's grown to be a part of me!

Odds and Ends

---Sister Carter tried to drive over a cone but it definitely got stuck under the car ha!

---Found a leaf bigger than my face

---Had red bean paste sesame seed pastry thing. Mm mm. Never again.

---Had my first actual door slam of the mission.

---We had a member meal with the Morris family. I just love them! We had homemade milkshakes. Right before the spiritual thought, Jaron and Brother Morris got into a little mini wrestling brawl. Brother Morris threw a pillow and it knocked a milkshake over and spilled everywhere. Thankfully it didn't knock over the lamp or glass nativity. Haha! Kinda a fun little moment.

---We were talking with Henning and Dana on Thanksgiving, when one of the dogs started having a seizure! Henning and I had never seen a dog have a seizure. Sister Carter proceeds to tell us about her dog. And this story just got progressively worse. Her chihuahua got electrocuted by a cow electrical fence. At 6 months old. And he has seizures to this day because of it. And his name is lucky. The same dog that also was picked up and dropped by an owl. Henning was DYING laughing.

---We had a pass off lesson with sweet June because we found out she's just outside of our area. We must not have been clear for our sweet friend because she said "Oh I hope you're not trying to convert me." Hehe! And then the entire time June lovey dovey with her husband and even blew a kiss to him mid lesson. It was so tender at first but it started becoming the only topic of conversation for her. True love right there!

---*little info to know before* Elder Stickland almost plowed June over and ran in to her at the beginning of the lesson. And at the end, we gave June a Book of Mormon and she said the it was suuuper heavy. I told her if Elder Stickland ever tries to run her over again she can just whack him with it. She then told me "ah that's not nice!" and then whacked Sister Carters leg with it. Bahahaha!

---We made a video for elders that were leaving our district because it's changing so much. They loved it!

---Our massive windows have stoppers so we cant open them all the way. All but 1. We found out one actually can open pretty far. And we definitely Elsa-called out the window to all of Newberry.

Miracles

☆☆☆ Member trust was activated when a yummy cookie recipe from Sister Hall was combined with 2 sister missionaries visiting families 😁

☆☆☆We had Thanksgiving with the Hawkins/Templin clan. The HUGE family tree in the ward. Holy MOLY they had sooooooo much food. They eat at 1 AND at 6. I don't know how they pack it all in. Wowzers. We left stuffed, and definitely did not stay for the 2nd time around. They had a total of 6 turkeys! They were so kind to include us with their family. We had so many offers for Thanksgiving dinner. It was such a blessing to be taken care of!

☆☆☆We met our friends Sabrina and Cindy at Thanksgiving! They were so sweet and have come to church before. God definitely needed us to be there to meet them.

☆☆☆We caught a little bug (if you know you know) and we had to stay home for most of the day on Friday and clean like maniacs. We were stuck at home and had a list of our friends we needed to go through and call because we hadn't had contact. Because of this, we called Martha. We called once, no answer. But we had faith and called one. More. Time. As I always say, telemarketers call once, friends call twice ❤️ so we called a second time. She answered! We set up a return appointment for later that day. We started talking with Martha and the Spirit just LED and we put her on date for baptism! Ahhhh! God knew we needed that bug so we would stay home and call her and then be able to meet with her.

☆☆☆On pday, I decided we didn't need a cart. Because if we got a cart, we had more room for spending money. So we pile our arms and follow our list. We are walking to the self checkout and Sister Carter drops a drink packet. We can NOT pick it up. This sweet man walks past and he says "I got it." And hands it back to us. So sweet. But then we get to the self checkout and there are like 10 people in front of us. We hold on strong. But then the chaos begins. Sister Carter drops the drink packet again. Then a potato. Another kind man walks by and helps pick those things up. But as he's coming up, I accidentally drop my Benadryl. And when he bends down to pick THAT up, I drop the wipes. At this point I'm dying laughing of embarrassment and about to pee my pants. This guy probably thought we were messing with him. Anyways we continue on. Sister Carter drops the drink packet AGAIN. But by this point we are next in line, so I just kick it all the way to the checkout. This may not sound like a miracle, but I feel like it is because is shows me that there are still great people in this world!

☆☆☆Martha got super sick later that week and we were able to arrange a priesthood blessing where she was able to meet 4 sweet and kind members, one being our most recently baptized friend Sister Black. She felt so loved and then said "Oh I'm DEFINITELY coming to church now."

☆☆☆I forgot to mention this in last week's email! We were visiting a family where there are literally 14 kids living in that house (now 24) and it was so chaotic! I just told them we are going to sing some songs about Jesus. We sang with the kids I Am A Child of God and then Families Can Be Together Forever. Just broke it up into small parts and did call and response. They loved it! And the Spirit was SO strong. Singing is powerful on the mission!

☆☆☆ I also had the opportunity to speak in church this past week. And I LOVED IT! I spoke about being grateful even in our trials. It was so good! And part of it I want to share in my spiritual thought :)

Spiritual Thought

One way to be grateful in our trials is to focus on other things. I want to draw a parallel to our lives with the story when Jesus and His disciples are in a boat in a terrible storm. Jesus was asleep during the storm and the apostles are fearing for their lives. (Read in Mark 4:37-40).

We may have big scary trials that in a sense rock our boat as we are headed through the storm of it. Yes, the disciples can see the water coming into the boat. The sails struggling, the flash of lightning, their fellow passengers failing to stand. But if the disciples had simply focused on the positive, this would have been a different story. They merely forgot they had the SON OF GOD aboard their boat. And as long as He was in their boat, they would not perish. Jesus nonetheless calmed the storm. He called out the disciples and asked why they lacked faith in him. We can be grateful as we focus on the positive, even if there is hardly any positive to find. This process is against our human nature, but with Christ it is possible. Then we can truly find ways to be grateful and have peace in our storms of life. Knowing that no matter what, WE have the SAVIOR on OUR boat.

Birthdays

My sweet friend Marissa turned 19❤️ love her with my whole heart!

Pictures