Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas, everyone!

We said goodbye to Sister Cox this week, it was very sad. She got her new companion. And yet another reason my mission is the best ever is the way that our transfers happen. It's so great. So transfers calls come in the Friday night and they tell you if you're staying or going. Then on Tuesday the companionships that are changing all meet at the mission office building. Those staying are on one side of the gym and those leaving are on the other. It's like a game show, they do it by locations and use a PowerPoint to announce the new companionships. they meet in the middle and hug and get their picture taken and it's just wonderful. Hahahahah, I love the PPM!

Sister Ririe and I are working on a pretty great transfer goal. By the end of this transfer we're going to teach 40 lessons in a single week! I'm super pumped about it. We're building up to it and decided this week would would do 20, 8 of them being member present lessons. It's so amazing how Heavenly Father rewards us as we make and work toward our goals. We taught 23 lessons, 7 were member presents, and we got 2 new investigators! It was incredible because the two new investigators came on the days that we were struggling to meet our goals. Heavenly Father knew we were working hard and He provided us with new people to teach! He is so good. :)

Today I got to use my PDay to do some really great service. A woman who is the Primary President in Provo has been in contact with our Primary President and she put together boxes of toys, art supplies, coats, clothes, books, basically everything you could imagine and sent it to us to give to the families in our ward who are in need. Today we were able to sort through the boxes and look through what we think each family would need. Tomorrow they're coming to the church and they'll be able to look through the HUNDREDS of items that were sent to us and pick out presents for their children. It's so amazing how giving people are, especially this time of year. It was so humbling to see how a lot of these toys were hand picked by the children and sent with notes about how much they love the toys. We were also given around $2000 in gift cards to either give people or buy what they specifically need. Christmas is a time for giving and this primary so incredibly showed us what it means to selflessly give.

I did want to tell you all a story about a particularly crazy lesson that we had this week. We had been fasting with a woman in the ward and went over to end the fast with her and also teach her kids about fasting. We got there and there were neighbor kids and everyone was yelling and the mom wasn't home. Once the mom got there we started teaching and we finally started to calm the kids down by singing I Am a Child of God with them. As soon as we started praying the fire alarm went off which made all of the kids start jumping around and screaming and the girl saying the prayer started doing some weird chant thing and was telling the demons to leave their house. We shared with them the story of Esther, but it didn't seem to make too much impact. We ended our fast and went our way. After the mom came down to see us as we were getting in the car and she hugged us. She said she really needed our support to make it through the fasting and she was so grateful we did it with her. It's so hard when lessons don't go our way, but this really taught me that it's not really about what I take out of the lesson, it's about what they do. And it was exactly what she had needed, even if it wasn't the best for her kids.

I hope that everyone thinks of Christ often this week. Remember that it's because of Him that we have this Christmas season. Think of Him in all you do and the season will be more meaningful that you could possibly imagine. :)

Much love,

Sister Petrick
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Sister Rachel Petrick
700 Darby Road #201

Havertown, PA 19083