Things Are Just Peachy!

HEY HEY HEY!

What an awesome Eye opening weeks I had!!! It is so crazy to me that every week is full of just so many spiritual events! EVERY WEEK!  I hope after I get home it will continue to be that way.  subconciously, a missionary gets into a state of complacency.  I think we get so used to or comfortable with the amount of spirit that we are always feeling.  This past week I have challenged myself to work for more! And let me tell you... IT WAS SUCCESSFUL!!!!

Fist I have to say that we here in the Riverside Ward had an awesome Pioneer Day celebration!  Most people dressed up bonnet an all! We also had a Pie competition! So I decided to enter!  haha. All the woman in the church were really intrigued that a missionary would sign up to make a pie.... wellllllll they don't know me.... HA!  so I entered the pie contest and made a Peach pie! shout out to Jen Smith!!! thanks for the recipe!! My pie took second! I was okay with the outcome, due to the fact that most people were sick so their taste buds were probably a little off? just kidding. The winning(Apple) pie was great!!! I sent a picture of the pie too.

Alrighty! Back to the spirit!  So this week I was praying in my heart all the time that I would be able to first better sense the spirit and then immediately follow the prompting.  It was crazy how FAST the promptings would come.  k the key thing to this whole experience is that I was looking for opportunities to follow the spirit. They were all around.  I would see someone leaving somewhere and feel they need to go talk to them and just tell them we love them!  Or I saw someone get offended by something another person said and would go talk to them! It was really little weird things like that, but I would always be watching at the right moment!  I know if we prepare for the day prayerfully and then go out and put ourselves in a position to feel the spirit, our answers and promptings will come.   A lot of people say, 'I don't know if I have ever felt the spirit.' Well I can relate! Growing up I really struggled with my faith in all of this.  This past week I have come to the conclusion that if you get a feeling or thought that promotes you to do or say a good thing; then it is Heavenly Father's spirit. Anything that invites you to do good or be good is from God.  So follow the good feeling you get! And trust that Good will come from God!

Our investigator Renee is amazing.  She has literally been through it all!!! It amazes me as one who lives a pretty pampered life that I have faltered in my faith in God from time to time.  But Renee who has gone through Hell has never once questioned why God let her go through these things?  I really didn't understand it.  I was quite disappointed in myself!  I am striving to be more like Renee!  She has so many obstacles but is relentless in her faith in God!  This is the kind of person we all need to be.  Faithful.

I am SO thankful for the refining process of a mission! I feel like everyday I am loosing more and more of myself, but subsequently I am also finding myself. I wont say its always a smooth beautiful process, but it is worth it.

I know the Savior loves us just how we are, but enough to not leave us that way.  Let the Refining BEGIN!!!!

Love you alll!!!

elder patch

address:

246 Clinton Heights Ave.

Columbus, OH 43202