Olo everyone! If you can't tell from the subject line of my e-mail, we had two baptisms last Saturday on Valentine's Day!!! Jeff and Sarah entered the waters of baptism and it was amazing!!! I'm so so happy for them. It was one of the most amazing experiences I've ever had! God is good!
So, we met with them almost every day last week, finished teaching Lesson 5, and they had their interviews Wednesday night. Our district leader said he was impressed by how much they knew and their testimonies. God works so many miracles! It's wonderful. :) At their baptism, we had about 15 members from the ward show up and 3 families from my last area in Parker come. And Jeff's mom, who's not a member, came and gave the closing prayer! We also had two sets of missionaries from my zone come, and President and Sister Mendenhall came! My companion Sister Hoemann gave a talk on the Holy Ghost and I sang "I Know That My Redeemer Lives" with another sister missionary in our zone. The spirit was so strong and Jeff and Sarah both teared up. Afterwards us, Jeff and Sarah, Pres. and Sis. Mendenhall, and the families from Parker all went out to eat at a BBQ place. It was so much fun and President told us that Sister Hoemann and I are staying in Strasburg together for another transfer!!!!! Woo hoo!!!! Blessings, blessings. We are SO excited and we're already trying to come up with a vision for this transfer. And more than that, we're SO grateful we get to teach Jeff and Sarah the new member lessons. Hopefully the ward will embrace them and do all they can to help them. I'm a little worried, though, so as we meet with members (because we're teaching member missionary lessons) we're going to emphasize supporting and helping new converts.
Some other cool miracles we had last week is two Less-active women that haven't been to church in years came on Sunday!! They only stayed for Sacrament, but one of them texted us and told us our talks were wonderful (me and my comp both spoke in church on Sunday). And one of these Less-active women prayed for the first time in a very long time last week. She cried as she told us about it. Her husband's not a member and we found out that the fact that they're even letting us into their home is a complete miracle. He's been pretty anti in the past and she hasn't been interested in church in a while. It truly is a miracle!
One more miracle and this one is actually funny! And a testament that God cares about everything we do and He does answer prayers!!! So, we eat with one couple in the ward every week and we just love these guys. Last Thursday we were eating with them and they told us they were planning on going to see the movie "50 Shades Of Gray" for Valentine's Day. The husband really didn't want to go and we could tell he was uncomfortable with the idea, but his wife was insistent. She kept saying "Oh, it's not THAT bad. I've definitely read books worse than that one." I wanted so badly to be like "Really? Do you hear what you're saying? From what I've heard, that story is pure porn! Does it bring you closer to Christ? Does it point to Christ? Just because it's less evil than some other evils doesn't make it right or okay." But, I kept my mouth shut. We were super worried about both of them and so sad. So, we decided to pray in almost every prayer that we said, that something would happen so they wouldn't go to the movie. Mind you, we prayed that nothing bad would happen! Just something like their car wouldn't start, or she would get called into work. We prayed so hard! And guess what?! God answered our prayers!! We talked to the husband at church and asked how the movie went. He proceeded to tell us, with a big smile on his face, that when they got to the movie theater they found out she had purchased tickets for the wrong day and they couldn't get into the show!!!!! MIRACLE!!!!!!!! I know that may seem dumb, but for us it was huge and we were so happy for them!!! I'm debating whether or not to tell them we prayed for that to happen....guess we'll see what the spirit tells us to say on Thursday when we eat with them! Hopefully I'm still alive next week as she may be livid and want to kill us! :) :) J/k j/k.
Anyways, it was a wonderful week and I'm so so excited for this transfer. I feel like I am finally starting to feel comfortable as a missionary! It's taken longer than I expected, but I'm glad it's happened. Truly, this is still one of the hardest things I've ever done and I don't want to include all the hard stuff cuz it can be a downer. BUT, the good always outweighs the bad. I feel that if we can look at life the way God intended, we'd be much happier with everything. Life is hard, that's a given, and it always will be. But if we strive to always put God first in our lives, no matter what, we will be blessed. I think one of the biggest miracles on this mission is I have been truly humbled and I've had to rely on the Lord for everything! I want to include a quote in here from a talk by President Kimball and I want to commit you all to read this talk because it's amazing. It's called "Worship the True and Living God" and it's in the June 2013 Ensign. "If we insist on spending all our time and resources building up for ourselves a worldly kingdom, that is exactly what we will inherit....Our assignment is affirmative: to forsake the things of the world as ends in themselves; to leave off idolatry and press forward in faith; to carry the gospel to our enemies, that they might no longer be our enemies." This time on earth is a testing period. The hardest thing we could ever do is to give our will to God, but that is exactly what we must do!! It's hard! Every day I struggle with it, but I have such a testimony of giving it all to the Lord. It was SO hard getting on this mission, but I realize now that it was the best decision I've ever made. I knew that if I put God first and obeyed what He told me to do, even though it didn't make one bit of sense, I would see the blessings and look back and never regret. There is always a reason for things; even if we don't see those reasons for years to come, we will one day realize the meaning of all things. I want you all to know that I love this gospel and this work!!! Sadly, Satan is so good at amplifying all of my weaknesses and there is definitely so much I have to work on. But, luckily, the Atonement is the greatest gift we've been given and God always picks up where I lack, as long as I'm obedient. And obedience is hard! Man, sometimes I'm just not obedient like I should be! But, I am gaining such a testimony of the blessings that come from obedience. I love my Savior and I love this church! I hope you all have a wonderful week and that you give it all to the Lord! God bless you all for everything you do! You're amazing!
Love, Sister Platt
Love, Sister Platt
#Godisgood
#1,001
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