Deux Missions Françaises : 'don't live your life without miracles' (Katie-Belgium)

- Elder Neil L. Andersen

This has been my motto this entire week. It really works.

Let me share with you a couple of them. I've really been in a pondering mode lately, and I think it's because this marks the start of my 13th transfer. My final one. With 6 weeks left, I've been really thinking about what I can do to give everything I have to Brussels. I was blessed to have this transfer start with fast sunday! So we fasted. And prayed. A lot. And as I was thinking and praying and pondering, I had the feeling to fast for member missionary work. In our poor ward with no bishop, no DMP, no RS president, it's been kind of hard to work well with the members. It's been all on us. But I felt that as long as I do my best to rely on the Lord and let HIM help us, we will be able to work with the members, and WELL.

This brings us to Sacrament Meeting. I walk in, and I'm a little startled to see our ENTIRE stake presidency on the stand...plus all of our spanish members joining in the meeting (strange because we just had spanish sacrament meeting a couple of hours ago). So i sit down, a little puzzled, and just wait. I had an inkling of a thought of why this would be, but I pushed it away, not wanting to be disappointed. Then Président Kahne stands up to do some announcements...

AND CALLS A BISHOP.

And a first counselor. And a relief society president. I was in tears, but mostly at the reaction of the members. The spirit in the room was so warm and happy and there were tears in so many eyes...almost 8 months without a bishop will do that to a person. What a miracle, and what a direct answer to my prayers to be able to work better with the members. I have no doubt that up there will be the call of a DMP. Amazing. God is so good.

Also, our muslim amie came to church. She actually was christian, then she converted muslim, and now she's confused. So she found the church website and referred herself to us! And then she came to church! The neat thing was that during relief society, the lesson was on President Uchtdorf's talk, "Living the gospel joyful" which was absolutely perfect for her. She just needed to know how much she is loved. Then during our gospel principles class for the amis, we talked about free agency and how we have the ability to choose. Also perfect for her as she is really struggling with whether she should just please her muslim husband or change back to christianity. THEN we had the super special spiritual sacrament meeting, and one member got up and testified of how he knows that Christ is leading this church, not the bishop. But that the bishop is inspired through Christ...it was so good. Church was perfect for her. Her name is Barbara. She is amazing. :)

And one last thing...this week we had the amazing opportunity to go to a special soeurs' conference in Paris! All 70 of us united together for one conference. It was incredible. And we had the lovely opportunity, along with the 3 other STL équipes, to give a training! In front of everybody! Actually it was pretty cool because soeur Babin had us ask all of the soeurs what subjects they wanted talked about, and the four that got picked were competition between companions, communication, physical health, and the importance of prayer. We were so blessed to be able to talk about PRAYER, and the Lord really helped us a lot. He is so good. We prepared and prepared and prepared, and then just trusted. And He followed through. We all ended up having a beautiful, spiritual moment filled with tears (of course. It was a soeurs' conference afterall). And the food was REALLY good and completely dairy-free!

Miracles, miracles, and more miracles. I just can't get enough. :)

Love,
Soeur Katie Pettingill

From Katie's mom: Katie has developed a sensitivity to dairy (among other things) on her mission and has been having terrible stomach aches. So she has cut out all dairy, sugar and red meat for her last six weeks. Yikes!