In the Lord's Work!

January 9, 2017

So I'll start off with a miracle from this past week. :) All the packages that are sent to the missionaries are sent to the mission office which is in Rancho Cucamonga. Each Thursday the Zone Leaders will pick up all of their zone's mail and packages and deliver them to the missionaries throughout the week. This past week on Wednesday the mission office got broken into! They stole all the letters, the safe that holds the all the missionary passports, and most of the packages. Knowing that my birthday was coming up I was disappointed and sure that I wouldn't get a package. As a missionary you don't really need a package, but it sure is nice to get one. :) I had resigned myself to the fact that I wasn't getting anything. But I also felt so bad for everyone else who had had things stolen, so I began to pray for all of them. But when we talked to the Zone Leaders, they said they had gotten packages for me! I was floored and so grateful for that tender mercy of the Lord in helping me to know that I was loved. :) God is so good!

We also had amazing experiences of being directed by the Lord! For the past month I have had just a good feeling about this one street in our area. I just felt good about it. These past two weeks we decided to tract that street, a little bit each day. We just finished tracting that street on Saturday, and we have gained a couple new investigators, and several potential investigators from it. It was so amazing! Usually as a missionary when you knock on someone's door they open it up and say go away. For us there were so many people that said come back! It was so so cool! God really is preparing people for each of us to reach out to!

We had the opportunity to give A. a blessing this week! She was super sick. We were able to teach her about blessings of healing and the priesthood authority. She was so grateful we had come and was actually feeling better by the time we left.

We had another amazing miracle this week that just proves that the gospel and the Spirit changes lives! We picked up a new investigator named J. this past week (not one from the special street). A member referred him to us and we had a lesson with him in her home (perfect setting)! We taught him the Restoration and committed him to read the Book of Mormon and come to church tomorrow. Well he came to church and loved it all! He gave some great comments during class. Backing up a little bit: During our lesson with him he expressed how he really wants to give up smoking. We told him we could definitely help him with that and that the Lord would help him as well. That's all we said about smoking. After church the member he is friends with came up to us and said "J. just broke up and threw away all of his cigarettes!" We were like what!? We found J., and he asked if we could come over and do the stop smoking program with him, and we told him that we would see him Monday night. After he walked away Elder Dickson and I looked at each other and sprinted off to find the nearest trash can. :) We found the trash can and the cigarettes in the kitchen! We were so pumped so we took pictures with the can. :) The Lord truly helps people to change. We are so excited to continue to teach J.!

Sadly we have not been able to get in with a lot of our main investigators this past week like K. and J., but hopefully we will be able to see them this week. K. we are going to pass off to the YSA Elders, but I pray that we will be able to teach Jason and his family, I know the gospel can benefit them so much!

I love you all! Thank you for your prayers and support!

Elder Petrie

1-Birthday Presents!

2,3-Broken Cigarettes! So cool