July 24, 2017 -- We're All Tools . . . In The Lord's Hands

Hey hey hey everyone. It's was a pretty good week last week. Elder Rice and I saw some cool things happen. 

Elder Rice and I went to return and report this past week. Return and report is a meeting the mission president holds one month after the new missionaries get to the mission to make sure they are doing good and to give us all additional instruction. The meeting was on Friday but we drove over to Utica Thursday night and stayed in the mission home with all the other trainees and trainers. It was sweet, President Rogers reserved the queen sized bed for me to sleep in. So, for the first time since I've been in New York, my feet weren't hanging off the bed!!!! The meeting was really rejuvenating. It was hard to say goodbye to Elder Turner. It was the last time I'll see him as a missionary.

Last night, Elder Rice and I had a really cool experience. We got a text from a former investigator named Sara. She was all set to get baptized about a year ago but she got scared and canceled her baptism 15 minutes before. Elders have tried to meet with her since then with little success. Anyway, we get a text from her last night in all caps that said, "I NEED A BLESSING NOW." We were in a lesson so we wrapped up the lesson and hurried on over to her house and gave her a blessing. She struggles from various health challenges so we gave her a blessing of healing and comfort. After the blessing, she was very thankful and said that everything in the blessing was exactly what she needed to hear and she felt a ton better. We then sat down and had a Spirit led conversation about her working towards baptism. She wants to take it step by step starting with coming back to church. We are going back to do the 15 steps to stop smoking program with her on Wednesday. As she brought up some of her concerns, scriptures came into my mind that answered her questions and calmed her fears. Before we left, Sara said she feels like she has been waiting for us to help her move along the path. I can't wait to continue to teaching her. The more experiences I have being a missionary, the more I come to know that I am just a tool in the Lord's hands. He is the grand master of his work.

The sky is blue, the Church is true and life is good.

Have a great week everyone,

Elder Carlile

 

Queen Bed Heaven

Goodbye to Elder Turner