11.17.10

Hey Hey Hey its Fat Albert!!!!!!!

haha actually its not him, its me, Sister Gneiting, and Im not fat!! Which is a good thing!!! Im basically the same weight as ever. So that answers your question mom, Im the same size in clothes :) Well enough talking about how I havent gained any weight, lets talk about more important stuff!!!!
Well the mission and its work is continuing and I am just so thankful for this opportunity to serve. Its amazing how much someone can learn and grow on a mission. This was truly just been the most rewarding time of my life. A couple times in the last couple days we have been taught about sacrificing for the Lord. We talked about how when we sacrifice something we ultimately in the return receive much more blessing worth more then what we sacrificed. There is a story about a little girl whos parents gave a a pretty but fake pearl necklace. This little girl just loved this necklace and never took it off. Every night when her dad went to tuck her in to bed he would ask her if she loved him. She of course would respond and and say yes of course I love you dad. He then would say to her, well if you love me give me your necklace. She would always acted sad and didnt want to give it away but would offer one of her other toys. After many days one night when her dad went to tuck her in she was just sitting on her bed and before he could say anything she said,I love you dad so much so her i my necklace. The dad took it from her and then gave her a little box. She opened it and inside was a new and REAL pearl necklace. Every night we took the box with him and was just waiting for her to give him her old necklace. I just love this story and we can learn so much from it. The same thing happens with our Heavenly Father. As we sacrifice things for him, he in return will give us soooo many wonderful blessings. We each can think about how we can show our love to Heavenly Father and what we can sacrifice to him. I think about when I was trying to decided to come on a mission. There were many things that I thought I couldnt sacrifice to take the time to serve a mission, but now I see that I have received so many blessings from coming on the mission. Now I see that it really wasnt a sacrifice considering all that I have been given because of serving a mission.

I have also learned that in missionary work we must sacrifice much for the lord to bless us in our work. This last week was a hard week. I felt like EVERYTHING had crashed. Everything that we had been working for before that just seemed to come to a halt. People that we had been working with in the past seemed to just disappear and we were trying to find new people, but we werent successful. Many things happened last week in my life here in Russia that just weighed me down and I felt stressed. There was a part of me that was losing faith. I felt like I was doing so much to be diligent, obedient, and hard working but yet nothing last week seemed to go well. So at the end of the week I started thinking about it and what I could learn from this experience. Even though a part of me was losing faith and even felt like giving up, the other bigger part of me was saying that the Lord had given me this experience for a reason and i needed to find that reason. Well I actually now have come to realize that last week was a blessing for me. I was humbled and have realized the things the Lord want me to learn. I need to as that little girl, sacrifice my time, my talents,my everything to this time that i have left on the mission. Although I was working hard last week, I can be working harder. There is more I can be doing. I have already seen the blessing from this sacrifice already in this new week. The work here is already getting better.
Well what else has happened. Yesterday a cool thing happened. We were at a meeting with a member from the branch who is less active. She was telling us about her mom and that her mom is really sick. Ofcourse we always start our meetings with a prayer and she asked me to say it and pleaded for me to pray for her mom. she said, "i know god will listen to you." Well I offered the prayer and asked god to bless her mom with health. Then about 5 mins after that her phone rang and it was her mom on the other end. After this lady hung up the phone she was so amazed. She said, " I was just with my mom about 30 mins ago and she was too sick and weak to even get out of bed and could barely talk. She just called me and the phone is in a completely different room then were she was laying. I have no idea how she got to the phone. She also just sounded so alive, when before she sounded so sick. Your prayer worked, God answered it" I was actually so surprised. I have never seen a prayer work like that before. It was a huge testimony builder for me. Prayer is real and it does work.
So funny story. Yesterday we were contacting and talking to people about the gospel on the streets. I saw this lady selling milk on a little table. We decided to go and talk to her. Well to make the story short, we decided to buy some milk and cheese from her so that we could start a conversation about the gospel with her and that maybe she would like us more if we bought stuff from her, you know like build a friendship. Well my plane was to buy it and then start the conversation. So we payed for it and then this other lady came up and started asking her how much her milk and stuff was and then things got real awkward. WE were basically just standing there and they were looking at us funny cuz we already bought stuff and should have already walked away. So I just awkwardly said we were missionaries and then gave here a little p[pamphlet about out church. She looked at me and then the other lady and then me again and took the pamphlet and then started talking to the other lady about prices and stuff. SO then we turned and walked away and bursted into laughter. HAHA it was sooo funny!!!! The moral of the story it.... YOu shouldnt try to buy investigators!!!!! But in the long run, the milk was very good :) haha
Well my time is up :( i love you all so much!!! Have a another great week. Thanks for you love, prayers, and emails!

Sister Gneiting