Holy Moly... What a week!

Sorry about not sending an email last week... My p-day ended up being kind of crazy (as they sometimes do!) and I just ran out of computer time before I was able to get one written :).

This past week Sister Creager and I were kept extremely busy! Recently, we have been doing a lot of work up in Fort Wayne, which is about a half an hour away from where we live. Lately, our daily routine has consisted of driving up there early in the morning and spending the entire day there before returning back to Decatur in the evening.

Wednesday there was a worldwide missionary devotional that was AWESOME! All of the missionaries in the Fort Wayne Stake met up at the Stake Center and watched it together. It was so inspiring!! Elder Anderson, Elder Bednar, and a handful of others spoke about "teaching repentance and baptizing converts." It was INCREDIBLE! I have made a list of things I want to start working on immediately, which includes (but is not limited to) listening and observing more, and working on having complete spiritual focus whenever I am in a lesson. All we can do as missionaries is carry the message to people, but the Spirit is the one who brings it into their hearts! Consequently, I know that it is SO NECESSARY for me to do absolutely everything I can to invite the Spirit into every single lesson that is taught!

Thursday, one of the coolest things ever happened. Sister Creager and I had approximately 30 minutes before a dinner appointment, and so we went to contact one of our media referrals. This man and his girlfriend had just barely gotten home when we arrived, and so of course we introduced ourselves and talked with them about temples and eternal families and it was awesome. Then we said a prayer with them before we left, and afterwards — I followed a prompting and extended baptism. They both chuckled, and so I thought to myself, "Oh no... I just blew it! They probably think we are crazy now! Like... OH NO! What did I just DO?" But then the girlfriend went and grabbed a tissue, and as it turned — out she was CRYING! She said, "Funny you should ask that..." and then proceeded to tell us that she was going through a horrible time and has been struggling a lot lately, but she promised God on Dec 27th of last year that SHE WOULD BE BAPTIZED in 2016. Like AHHHHHAHAHHAAAAAA!!! Her story almost brought me to tears, and the Spirit was so strong as we listened to her. They are both excited for us to come back and visit them and we actually have an appointment to meet with them again on Tuesday and I am so PUMPED for it!!

We were blessed to be able to meet quite a few people this past week who are interested in our message and seem very willing to listen to what we have to say. In fact, we have a ton of appointments scheduled for this upcoming week... so it should be AMAZING! It is also the last week of the transfer... Which means I am a quarter of the way through my mission... Which is weird.... And I am not quite sure if I know how I feel about that!

Anyways! I hope you all have a great week!

Love, Sister Feil

Baking cookies...

Me and Sister Creager being silly!

Errands and a miracle!

Hey all!

So I don't have much time to write — but I do want to share an awesome miracle that happened this week while running errands for the Lord...

On Tuesday, I was on exchanges with Sister Lovell, and although it was nearing the end of the
day — we had one more visit we wanted to make before driving back to Huntington that night.
It was with a less-active member, whom we had tried to contact many times before but were never successful. Anyways, by some miracle, he just happened to be home that particular night and so we were FINALLY able to meet him and learn a little bit about him...

He'd joined the church like 20 years ago in Texas, and it completely changed his life. He had come from a really rough background and his decision to turn to God helped him to let go of those things that were hindering his progress!

Then he moved to Fort Wayne — got married and had a family; but didn't know where the church was or how to look for it. He said it was amazing that we found him, and that he had no idea how we had his address... but was so grateful to meet us! He accepted our invitation to come to church and we are meeting with him again this week and are hopeful that we will get to meet his family as well!

The lesson we had with him was wonderful and the Spirit was so strong!!! It made me very thankful for the great privilege and opportunity I have of being a missionary for the Lord... and further strengthened my desire to serve Him to the best of my ability by diligently finding and teaching those who are searching for the truth, peace, and happiness His gospel offers/brings :).

I hope you all have a blessed week!

Love, Sister Feil

IT'S A BRAND NEW YEAR!!!

New Year's in the mission field was wonderful! We had a zone meeting on New Year's Eve, and the ZL's gave each companionship a bundle of envelopes from the mission president and his wife. Those envelopes contained various challenges in/on them for us to complete and they kept us busy from 6PM in the evening on New Year's Eve to 12PM in the afternoon on January 2nd.

The first night, we went through and completed the first five envelopes, and then on New Year's Day we came to envelope #6! The challenge for that was to READ THE ENTIRE BOOK OF MORMON... So that is how we brought in and celebrated the first day of 2016 :).

Sister Creager and I read it together so we could stay focused. As we read, we were asked to mark/highlight all evidences that Heavenly Father loves His children, as well as ways we can increase our faith. We did that till about 2PM in the afternoon... at which time we received a text from the ZL's saying to now focus solely on just reading, so we stopped marking so we could have some hope of finishing! We weren't quite able to complete this challenge, but we have till next Tuesday, January, 11th (our specialized training) to finish it. We still have 100 pages left...

Woohoo! I have to tell you, it was an AMAZING experience. Even though we were kind of reading fast, the Spirit was with me the whole time, manifesting that the book is indeed true. I don't see how anyone could read the book and NOT feel of its truthfulness. I felt God's love more abundantly than I have ever felt before, because I know that the BOM was written for the people of our day — to guide and direct us, and to help us become successful because that is what God wants for all of us! My testimony strengthened of His love for ME personally, and I know that whenever I fall short, whenever I feel like I need to make changes (which is like all the time!) in my life so that I can follow God's will for me, I know that He still loves me, and will guide and strengthen me to make those needed changes. I encourage ALL OF YOU to take up that challenge sometime this year. Maybe modify it just a bit and set a goal to read the BOM in a week or something... but please do it! 

The remaining envelopes encouraged us to not only set goals for this year, but also for our lives. I was able to ponder how I want to change because of serving a mission, and how I will apply what I am learning to help me throughout my WHOLE life. Goal setting is so essential. We set goals all the time for investigators, but for once... we set goals for ourselves, and I have developed a clearer view on what I want my life to be like, both now and in the future, and how I want to accomplish it. And it starts with making the most of my mission.

My goals for 2016 are ones that I hope will help me to make the most of the time I have here. They include living the power triangle (faith, diligence, obedience) so that I qualify for God's grace, recognizing opportunities to change patterns to really contribute to the hastening of God's work, and developing true Christ-like love. I even came up with how I am going to measure/accomplish these: I am going to have a personal accountability session with myself every night to see how I am doing and to make specific goals for improvement for the following day. I am going to pray for the Spirit to be with me, and do those things which will help me qualify to have His companionship with me always (which includes acting on ALL promptings I receive), and really focusing on thinking of Christ at all times and making HIM the center of my life.

I have also started a 40 day fast of those things that I want to be free of, that I want to turn over to God so that I can be 100% focused in this work.

Flooded river by our apartment!

I AM GOING TO LEAVE YOU WITH A JOKE: What kind of man was Boaz before he married Ruth?







Answer: Ruthless. HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

Anyways, I love you all... and I hope you have a wonderful week!

Love, Sister Feil

P.S. Sister Creager has been having these headaches that have affected her vision... so we went to see an ophthalmologist today and I felt right at home — haha!!! Reminded me of going to my dad's office all the time!