Sister Syd: Canada Week 76: God meets us where we are!

Hello my friends and family! Hopefully everyone found reasons to smile this week! I have discovered that joy is often found in the simplest and smallest of things. :)

Fun facts of the week: It warmed up and thawed out our frozen zone - our freezer and refrigerator are LOADED with lasagna (9 to be exact) - we delivered some more heart attacks - we tried DQs red velvet blizzards with brownies that we actually got to eat there and not take home!

Sister Crowe and I had a great week. We had a few lessons and meetings get cancelled, but we were still part of so many good things! We had some really awesome member lessons. We have started sharing M. Russell Ballard's talk called, "Write Down a Date." In this talk he challenges us to set a date to a find someone for the missionaries to teach. We have been challenging our members with this and it has been really neat! The spirit has been so powerful and I love it! We also had some amazing lessons with the people we are teaching and even put a couple of them on date! The first is a girl named Clerissa. She has previously been taught and we recently contacted her and began teacher her again. This has now led to us to setting a baptismal date for her the end of March! The other is our friend Trish. She is the cute lady in our building that we serve by walking her dogs each day. We had a wonderful phone call with her this week and ended up setting a baptismal date for her too for the beginning of May! It is so incredible and God is so good! We are so happy our friends have chosen to become closer to their Heavenly Father and Savior, Jesus Christ!

This past Thursday I had another interview to discuss My Plan and a few other things before I return home in a couple weeks. I also attended my last Zone Conference. The conference was amazing and I felt such a special spirit. All of the missionaries going home had opportunity to bear their testimony. It was a very tender moment for me. I am so grateful for everything God has allowed me to go through and learn the past 18 months as a full-time missionary.

As for my thoughts this week, I have found myself pondering about people and experiences placed on our paths. Every minute of every day provides us with opportunities for emotions, attitude, and choices, and we can choose how each moment affects us. We can choose to learn and grow or not. It has always baffled me that God knows exactly what we need, how we need it, and when we need it - even if it takes us forever to come around to the same understanding. How does He do it? How does He keep track? I don't have the answers, and this week we taught a lesson to an investigator who had similar questions. During the lesson I felt prompted to share Mosiah 4:9 which says: "Believe in God; believe that he is, and that he created all things, both in heaven and in earth; believe that he has all wisdom, and all power, both in heaven and in earth; believe that man doth not comprehend all the things which the Lord can comprehend." This scripture is such a good reminder for me. that ALL we have to do is believe. There are so many things we don't understand, but we can trust in God's love, choose to have faith, and to take things one day at a time. I am learning to truly live by the line, "Come what may and love it!" I tend to be a planner and a worrier, but I am learning how to take things one day at a time when I need to. I am grateful for a merciful God who has more patience than I seem to acknowledge. He is more than willing to wait for us as long as we are still moving forward, still trusting in Him, and still desirous for righteous things. There is also no timetable in which we have to achieve it. He let's us go at our own pace, and He will meet us where we are and build us up.

I am so grateful for God and His goodness. I am grateful for the Book of Mormon that helps me recognize and understand God's love and mercy. I testify that He truly is there. He loves us so much that He sent His son, Jesus Christ, here to fulfill all that was necessary. They have more love for us than we know, and they will always be there for us no matter what.

I love and miss you all - but I'll see you soon! Find a reason to smile this week because God loves YOU!

Love, Sister Merrill