Monday, August 12, 2013

Week 9 in Michigan!

Once again - Amazing week!

Yifan passed the sacrament and Bruce blessed it! I love them so much!

This week we had another baptism! Brooke is AWESOME. She's kind of been a group project with the missionaries since her schedule is crazy. We've all been able to get to know and love her and on Saturday she was baptized! She has an AMAZING story. 

She's had ideas about the nature of God and stuff since she was 5 and her preachers used to just shut her up and tell her not to talk about it. However, when she was 15, her dad told her she could join any church she wanted so she left her church and started exploring. She investigated so many religions including Baptist, Muslim, Buddhist, Catholic, and more. 

One day, she was walking by our church building and just decided to walk in. She immediately felt the Spirit. She found the first person she could and asked them how she could learn more about the Church because it was the first place she had felt that Spirit of God. She started meeting with the missionaries and told them her ideas about God. 

She felt like she had lived with God before coming to earth, and that's what her preachers had always told her not to talk about. When the elders taught her the Plan of Salvation, she burst into tears. We know that we lived with God before we came down to this earth. She had known it too, her whole life, and finally could express her feelings about her divine nature. She continued to pray and ask if this was the true church, and developed an unshakable testimony. At her baptism, she talked about how this church has no gaps. She knows it is truly God's church and that while she felt some truth with other churches, this is the only church that has the fullness of the truth restored.

I love Brooke! I'm attaching a picture of me, her, and Sister Probert into this email. My companions and I sang at her baptism and Bruce played the piano for us! Brooke started crying as we sang, which started a domino effect and by the end of Brooke's baptism everyone was crying tears of joy! It was incredible.

This week we also had dinner appointments! Those don't happen super often in a Single's Ward, but when they do we are SO GRATEFUL! This week we had authentic southern food from a guy who served his mission in Georgia. It. Was. AMAZING. Dry rub chicken, collard greens with bacon, strawberry cornbread, and fried okra... YUM! We also had Burmese food! It was delicious. I love food!

Sorry this email was kind of long but this week was just an amazing week! Michigan is beautiful and every single day we have our breath taken away by the gorgeous scenery. The sky and clouds are always especially lovely! 

My invitation for you all this week is to look up Vocal point's version of "Nearer My God To Thee" on YouTube! Do it!!! You will NOT regret it!!!

I hope you all have a great week! 

<3 Sister Christiansen


P.S. Brooke is the one in the middle. I LOVE HER!

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