A Miracle in the Dark Zero Degree Weather

Before I go off about my wonderful week, there is something you all should know. It is FINALLY COLD! And I am positive only a couple people I am sending this email to even knows what cold feels like. Cold is when it is below zero, when your hair freezes right after walking outside, when lakes freeze over and you can walk on them, and when you have to convince yourself you are walking on a sandy beach and that the burning sensation you are feeling is just a sunburn, not the beginning effects of frost bite. I felt that this week. It was wonderful!

The last miracle we experienced, not technically the coolest miracle but the last, was just last night. We ran out of miles AGAIN! So we have been walking and it has been very very cold lately. Well last night when we were walking home, it was really cold.  Our hair was frozen and there was frost on our scarves but the amazing thing was that we did not feel cold at all- not once as we were walking home. It is an hour walk, one way, back to our rural home and on top of that we had been walking in town all day. Despite the obvious evidence that we were technically frozen, we felt warm the whole way home.  It was also late and dark and we were both concerned because the batteries in our flashlights were getting low and had already started to flicker on and off before we began walking home.  One of them even went out for a few minutes.  But we said a prayer as we started walking home and both of our flashlights stayed brightly lit the whole way; then as soon as we got home and inside the house, both flashlights went out and the batteries were completely dead. That was a MIRACLE! We probably should have gotten hypothermia because the temperature was around 0 degrees but we didn't even feel a little bit cold. I am so humbled and grateful for the miracles that we are blessed with every single day. 

We went on another exchange this week with the Ekalaka, Montana sisters this time. I was able to go back to my own area again and work with Sister Brough, who has only been out on her mission for about a month. We had a lot of fun and applied the training that Sister House and I gave at zone conference by using the Book of Mormon as our main source in finding and teaching. We had time to do a little tracting before exchanging back. The first door we knocked on was a man who was clearly not interested, so I decided to at least get the Book of Mormon in his hand. If you give someone a Book of Mormon, they will usually let you come back. At first he told us he didn't have any interest in our religion, but I offered him a Book of Mormon, and briefly taught the background of it. He accepted the book so I asked if we could come back in a couple weeks to see what he thought of it and he said yes. At the very next door, I chose the simplest approach in the world which is "Have you read the Book of Mormon?" She said no, and I said, "Well, would you like this one?" She said yes right away and I was actually quite surprised.

Something that has really inspired me this week is the Book of Mormon as a spiritual preparedness tool. The reason we have the Book of Mormon is to learn from long ago what we should be doing in our present day. It is specifically for us at this time. The history we read about in the Book of Mormon is repeating itself- Wars, contentions, pride, wickedness, good being called evil and evil being called good, power and greed.  But in the Book of Mormon, following all the storms and tempests, Christ appeared in the Americas and the wicked were destroyed. I love to draw the comparisons of our modern times to the ancient times of the Book of Mormon. 

Thanksgiving was amazing! We had dinner with some wonderful families in the ward.  We had invited a less active family but they came down with Bronchitis so we ate quickly and then packed up some dinner and took it to them.  Thanksgiving day was very cold- in the negatives actually. But after dinner was over and we didn't have appointments set up for teaching we decided to go tracting.  We passed out information on the new Christmas video, "A Savior is Born," found on christmas.mormon.org. Someone let us in so we shared last years video with them since this new one wasn't out yet. They loved the video and asked us to come back so we will return next week. These people were so kind and felt the spirit so strong when we shared the video. This season is an excellent time to share the gospel. Christians tend to come together with the Christmas spirit, so make sure you do your part this season! 

T is still doing great! We hope to put her on date for baptism for some time in January. I probably won't be here still unfortunately. She was a slow progressor, but has been coming to church every Sunday with her husband, and the progression has been speeding up rapidly ever since they started reading the Book of Mormon together.

Well, that is all the highlights from this week! I would love to get letters from all of you! This week I find out if I get transferred, and I am pretty sure I will. I will send my new address out as soon as I get it.  

Sister Park