Cardial Workout

Your heart goes through a lot on the mission.

One minute, you're crying with someone whose brother drowned yesterday, the next you're comforting a 13-year-old boy who's single mother is never there for him, and the next you're exploding with joy because a family decided to be baptized.

Alma 28:14 gets more and more true to me each day.

On Saturday, we went to the home of a woman who has been receiving the missionaries for a very, very long time. After a couple minutes of getting to know her, I asked, "So, what's stopped you from being baptized by now?" (The longer you're on the mission, the more blunt you get.) We discovered that she didn't have a testimony of the Book of Mormon. So, in a final effort to help this pesquisadora eterna turn into a pesquisadora progredindo, we put her to a special challenge.

First, we wanted her to be at church the next day. "Sorry," she said, "That's impossible. I work all day tomorrow."
I looked into her eyes. "I will pray for a miracle."

Second, we challenged her to read the Book of Mormon EVERY. DAY. of the week, and to say a special pray EACH time, asking Heavenly Father if the book is true. She said she would. We promised her she would receive an answer if she did this and prayed with faith. We then challenged her to be baptized the next Sunday if she received this answer from God. She and her young daughter said they would.

This was the good part of the story. The best part was the next day at church -- she was there.

Miracles are real.

I'm loving the mission so much, my dear friends and family. The more I serve the more I want to serve. I am learning and growing so much. I'm starting to freak out a bit that the end is looming closer each day. I'm praying, like my dear friend and example Angela Bosselman once prayed, that before I get back the rule with change and I can stay for two full years. :-)

Little things about me are changing. I'm turning into a bit of a clean freak -- often the first thing I do when I get up is leftover dishes or sweep, and often the last thing I do at night is tidy up a bit. I've also become a complete fruit monster. The other day I bought two luscious, fantastically fresh mangos for 82 centavos...or about 45 cents. Yep. I'm in heaven.

Thank you all so much for your love, support, and letters. The mission is saving my soul, and affecting my future family more than I can possibly know. I am slowly but steadily becoming more the woman I know God wants me to be, and more deserving of the husband I will one day have.

Fiquem firmes e fortes. É isso aí, meus amigos.

Sister Petty

P.S. If you all want to learn Portuguese before I get back, that'd be cool. Because I think I've forgotten how to speak English.