Snow, Warrior Mount Dogs, and Lighting the World

I haven't written myself much because I get so many emails and have a difficult time reading all of them let alone write back. I assure you there's been plenty of miracles from the Lord.

I'm so grateful for the car me and my companion have. It's smarter than the both of us and even warns us about weather conditions like ice on the road. My companion, Sister Jardine is fairly good and has driven in the snow before. But for such a new, smart car there's one thing that's stupid about it: It doesn't have a DVD player! But luckily Sister Peterson who is amazing and my companions previous companion and in our district, had an extra SD card with mission appropriate music on it that we could use in the card. (Yeah, that's right. We have a USB port and card reader but not a DVD player. What?) We bought a USB drive today to put all the music Sister Jardine has on discs onto it and so soon we'll have even more Christmas music! I'm not saying that sarcastically. Some of the most beautiful hymns are Christmas hymnals and I love it.

Here's my newsletter from last week. Yes, I forgot to press send again. Don't judge me. 

We finally had our first snow here in Schuamburg! Me and Sister Jardine were in the church and as we passed the door we saw the first snow fall and had to stop and admire it for a few minutes. Sister Jardine is a bit of a Christmas nut. While I still love it, she's slowly turning me crazy about it too. But one thing to keep in mind and why I think I am growing more and more fond of it despite some of the craziness around it is a beautiful quote I heard from The First Presidency Broadcast last night. It went along the lines of "The spirit of Christmas is the Spirit of Christ". Also, if you didn't watch the broadcast yourself yet, go watch it! It is enchanting and the Spirit was so strong and present for me and I know it will be for you too.

One of the huge blessings and miracles that happened this week is that of Ninamaria. Me and sister Jardine were driving one night after having a lovely dinner at a restaurant with some members and an uneasy feeling came upon us. We had a line up of people we wanted to drop by but neither of was felt it was the right thing to do. After pulling over and praying, and  doing that one more time, we were both pulled to the same name on the areabook- Ninamaria. We didn't know anything about her, other that is was an active member but for the three weeks we'd been in the area we didn't see her once. When we knocked on the door we had the expectation that this Sister would seriously need our help. Yeah. We needed her. Ninamaria. Is. wonderful. She welcomed us in with joy and was completely elated. Apparently she'd just been going to a closer church to her home since she had been busy just graduating with a degree. She's been a  convert for a few years and shared her story with us, and she's nothing short of amazing. Sister Jardine yelled her catchphrase perfectly saying what we were both thinking. "Who are you?!?!" We'd been praying for and needing someone like her in our small YSA branch and here she was. Not only was that pray answered, but a another more important one. We had found a new investigator, Alex, and the member who was going to accompany us in visiting him fell through the cracks. Our first appointment with him was just the next day. Ninamaria than asked if she could come with us the next day to help us with tracting. She came, and Alex and her just clicked. Ninamaria was the real teacher in that lesson too, and the Holy Spirit was strong. We know that the Lord knew how badly we needed someone for Alex, but not just anyone, her.
It's turns out that if we tried to come over any other day or time we would have missed her.

Even with this really great week I was having a hard time. I was lucky enough to promptly to receive a Priesthood blessing and it was said how the Lord is taking care of my family. It has brought great comfort to me.

I have had many, many, tender mercies and blessings this week. I got my tablet! I'm so thrilled and excited to have it now that will open so many tools to use for the work and more easily reading your emails.  

Another blessing today was that I finally met with a doctor out here to help me refill my prescriptions, Dr. Kolbaba. He was amazing. He's a member and asked the both of us if we knew names of some of his family in Utah. He was very kind and showed us pictures from his phone of his bear like dog. It's called a Newfoundland dog, and it's worthy to ride into battle with. At the end of his appointment he gave us chocolate cake from a place that's famous in the midwest called Portillo's leftover from some sort of staff lunch. As Sister Jardine says, or "Who are you?!?"

In closing, (back to today) I have a testimony of the Lord answering our prayers. Try it sometime. Also check out #LIGHTtheWORLD on lds.org! There's a beautiful and inspired video there about how we can "Light the World" with our own light and Christ's Light. It has simple but important message of the love and service of Christ. The way you can do that is following the given advent calendar on the website. Over the course of December's days there are 25 ways you can serve others simply and become more like our Savior. I challenge each one of you to share it with someone- NOT with just a general post somewhere! Make it personal and share it to someone you feel that needs it. It can be a quick, brief note or however long or want just share it. You can show it from your phone to your friend at school at work, just share it. If that's a stretch, just watch it! I love all of you!

-Sister Kate Petty

P.S (Photos in store next time!)