Oh, and -- HAPPY NEW YEAR! It's 2017! Can you believe that? I remember starting at my face on the T-Board in the mission home and seeing "15-17" written underneath my name. I never thought I'd see the year 2017. Hilarious.
How was your New Year's? Wonderful? Full of fireworks? Did you make any new resolutions? We sure did! We celebrated with some biscuits and chocolate gravy (thank you, Brother and Sister Bellew!) and goal-setting. I'm so excited for the goals we've set for this area. 2017 will truly be an amazing year for Brownlee.
We've had some super neat experiences as of late. Once again, my testimony of God's perfect timing has been fortified. Everything that happened this week was so perfectly timed, and a lot of it revolved around one annoying, unseemly factor -- my broken foot.
Now, I did not actually break my foot. It's perfectly fine. It's just a little sore, I suppose. See, since it was the end of the month, Sister May and I were trekking on foot. Whilst moving through ankle-high grass on the side of the road, my left foot began to complain incessantly. Sharp, sore pains jutted into the side of my foot and around my arch. I wasn't sure what was going on, especially since the pain kept going for a few days.
Because of that, we alternated between walking and driving. We were wandering around Benton listening to the Christmas tunes blaring from speakers atop a church building. Benton is a fairly quiet town. It's very small with many churches to pick from. Very few people (if any at all) were walking the streets of Benton, and they didn't seem to be in their homes either. Even so, we managed to find someone also out for a walk to teach. We had a wonderful street lesson with him. He had awesome insights and had a desire to know more! I'm so thankful we were walking so that we could see him!
After this experience, we hopped over to Haughton. Haughton, unlike Benton, is always busy. Cars whizzed by us as we stood on the shoulder of the road, contemplating whether or not my foot could handle a walk to a potential investigator's home.
Scowling, I admitted that my foot couldn't handle that. So, we hopped into the car and parked elsewhere. We began a shorter trek to that potential's home. We hadn't seen him in a good handful of weeks, and we were worried he was losing interest or even that the Lord didn't want us to visit him anymore.
As his house came into view, we aimed for his front door. Just then, a car flew past us and pulled into the driveway. Out of the car was the exact person we'd wanted to talk to! We were so excited! And so was he! We talked to him for a bit, all three of us a little awed at the perfect timing. We made an appointment to come and teach him.
I know that the Lord lets things happen for a reason -- even a little sore foot. He knows what will happen, and what will affect the choices we're going to make. The Lord knows us perfectly. He knows every single child on this earth perfectly -- even those who don't know He's there.
I'm so glad I'm able to know that. The restored gospel has offered me and my family more than we could ever imagine. I'm so thankful to know the truths that I do -- that God is truly my loving Heavenly Father, that He gave us His Son so that one day we could all live together as eternal families in God's presence.
Christ's atonement swallowed the sting of death. Because of Jesus Christ, we are not subject to the endless darkness of physical death. A free gift to all mankind -- righteous and unrighteous -- is that we are able to live again because Christ also lived again. We focus rather greatly on Jesus Christ's death, and we should. That was an incredibly important part of the atonement, but we must also remember that He lived.
As Isaiah says, "He will swallow up death in victory; and the Lord God will wipe away tears from off all faces; and the rebuke of his people shall he take away from off all the earth: for the Lord hath spoken it."
Through the ordinances and principles in the restored gospel, we are able to live forever with our families in perfected, immortal bodies. And all this because of the atonement of Jesus Christ. We must hold to our covenants, remember Him, and know that we have a loving and merciful God who is waiting for us to come home.
Have a happy new year, y'all.
Godspeed!
Sincerely,
Sister Rose
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| That moment when you're walking in the dark and sit on a rock with your companion. |
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| Here, have some Bossier! |
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| My favorite sign EVER |
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| Is the dotted line marking a pipeline or leading everyone to the Baptist church? The world may never know. |
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| Also that moment when you're trying to see an investigator and a train gets in your way. |
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