Believe in Good Things to Come

Good Monday everyone, from South Carolina!

I'm not gonna lie, this week really had its ups and downs. Let's start with some of the highlights:

This week at Book of Mormon class we had more people than usual, which is great! Also the elders used Oreos to bribe their recent convert's two-year-old son to behave. Solid parenting skills gained. 

The elders gave us a referral that became a new investigator! Her name is T and she is very eager to learn. We are excited to keep working with her. 

Saturday was a very exciting day as the elders had a baptism! It was for a young man named J who has only been investigating for a couple months, but he knew the truth when he found it. He is super sincere and an amazing young man. The baptism was a wonderfully spiritual experience. J has cerebral palsy and has had many surgeries on his knees, so they had an extra person in the font to help him up out of the water. When he came up after being baptized, the first thing he said was, "That was awesome!" He is just so great. 

Saturday was also St. Patrick's Day, as you may have noticed. We didn't think too much of it until we came home and found out the street below our apartment was blocked off for the city's St. Patrick's Day party. We went down to check it out, but once we figured out that 90% of the people there had a beer in their hand we decided to go back up. We did get to listen to some rockin' Irish fiddle music though. Lots of it. LOTS of it. Luckily it ended before bedtime. 

We also found a beautiful park this week and were able to talk to some people there and also see a few turtles. 

But I want to say something on the serious side. On Thursday morning, I got an email from my mom (and later a call from my mission president) saying that my beautiful, talented cousin Ashley had passed away. It was a huge shock and I was just devastated. I'll be honest, I cried a lot. The whole day I just felt a heaviness and an ache in my chest. As awful as I felt, my heart hurt imagining what her parents and sister were going through. But after all that is said and done there are a few things I've come away with:

First, access to the priesthood is an amazing gift from God. That afternoon the thought of getting a priesthood blessing crossed my mind, and as soon as I thought it I felt tremendous peace knowing that it was available. We asked the elders to do it, and as I recieved my blessing, I felt that peace again knowing that God was aware of me and could help me. 

Second- and this is something my Mom has been telling me- tell people you love them. Tell them why, and tell them often. You never know when you might be seeing someone for the last time. One thing that has hurt me this week is that I can't remember, specifically, the last time I saw Ashley. It's hard. Never let a chance go by to tell someone you love them. 

Third, sometimes life isn't fair as we see it. Bad things happen to good people. Great and beaufiful things are taken from the world. We don't always see the miracles we were hoping for. But I was reading the Book of Mormon on Thursday after I found out. Our mission is reading it together, and that day I just happened to be reading Mosiah chapter 3, which talks about the Savior and his atonement. I've read this chaapter before, of course, but what really impressed me this time was that Jesus Christ can heal EVERYTHING. He suffered all that a person can suffer and more, and He can heal us- the sickness that took Ashley's life, the heartache of her parents, everything. Everything bad or wrong or unfair will be made right in the end. 

I hope everyone has a good week (and remembers to tell their family how much they are loved. "Trust God and believe in good things to come." 

Love,

Sister Reay