Miracles - Everyone was home!

HELLO FRIENDS!

2 Nephi 27:23

For behold, I am God; and I am a God of miracles; and I will show unto the world that I am the same yesterday, today, and forever; and I work not among the children of men save it be according to their faith.

GOD IS A GOD OF MIRACLES.

The beginning of the week was rough... I have been in this area pretty much my whole mission!! If I stay one more transfer I will make it to a full year here. That's a long time!! I love it because I have so many friends here, but it's also really hard sometimes. I feel like I have been working so hard, but my efforts are for nothing when I don't see immediate results. I let myself have a little pity party on Tuesday and that night I realized I was being pretty selfish. Sister Bravo and I got a call from another sister who was freaking out so we had to talk her down. (This is usually a weekly occurance, but this week it happened five times 😮)

This sister was very frustrated with herself, her area, and the lack of progression she was seeing. As she was talking (or more like yelling haha) everything she said and every question she asked were exact thoughts that I had been having, but not found answers to. I had no idea what I would say to help her so I said a prayer to myself to be given the words. After her rant we talked a lot about control versus influence and I learned a thing or two from the Spirit. Cool how that works?! Well, there are a lot of things about the mission (and life) that we don't have complete control over. As missionaries, whether or not someone we're teaching actually follows through with their commitment to read the Book of Mormon (or any other invitation we extend) is not in our sphere of control. We can't force people! Neither can God. We can only influence. However, there are things we can control that will make our influence greater. For example, we can teach simply so people understand what the Book of Mormon is, we can extend a direct, "will you" committment, we can promise blessings specific to that person that will motivate them to follow through, and we can bear powerful testimony to give the Spirit the opportunity to confirm truth. Satan wants us to confuse the two and judge our success on things we only have influence over. His goal is to distract and discourage us and that's all that will come from doing that. Instead, we need to judge our effectiveness based on what WE CAN CONTROL! And do everything in our power to have the greatest influence we can have. When we do all that we can do, no matter the choices of others, we can feel successful.

I figured I should probably listen to that advice too, so I made an increased effort to do everything I have control over to the best of my abilities-- I made an increased and more conscious effort to be exactly obedient, I talked to everyone I saw and referred quickly to the Restoration, I had solid personal studies that brought the Spirit into my life, and I prayed ferevently... lots of little things!! But God saw my faith and dilligence and oh boy did He pour out miracles!!

I usually DREAD weekends because NO YSA ARE HOME EVER. But this weekend was different. It snowed a ton so EVERYONE WAS HOME! Basically every door we knocked on opened and we got to teach lots of friends about Jesus Christ's goodness ❤ and we found 8 new people who want to hear about the Gospel!!!! Miraculous!!

One of those new friends is Chaehyun!! She's a cute foreign exchange student from South Korea. I've only known her for 48 hours but we've already decided that I am going to come visit her someday haha. She came with us to church (both hours!!!), watched the Young Adult devotional with us and even came to ward prayer! She's even planning to come to FHE tonight. She's super open and I am excited for her to learn more. 

Another new friend is from the Phillipenes!! Sister Bravo used her Tagalog skills and got to know him and taught the Plan of Salvation. He's had questions and was totally down to have us come back and share more with him. I have a very strong testimony that Heavenly Father is completely aware of each of us and our individual circumstances. He placed so many people in our path that we were able to connect with personally and invite to learn more about the Gospel! He was very aware of me this week and taught/blessed me a lot. I know He is a God of miracles and tender mercies!! ❤ 

With love,

A very, very, very grateful Sister Keeler

Pics:

- So snowy! ❄

- we did service for someone we're teaching! Her vacuum broke so we just brought ours over and helped her clean the apartment! She made us some yummy Mexican food in return 😋

- great view of beautiful centerville haha

- CHAEHYUN! she said, "this filter is sooo cute" HAHA idk 

- BOM GROUP!

- I love the temple!! 😍