Smiling Faces, Beautiful Places: Week 4 - Inman, SC

This week hasn't been too eventful unfortunately... Sister Craig hasn't been feeling too well lately so we've spent a lot of time not doing anything too productive. I do have a good stories for y'all though (notice my southern slang). I've definitely noticed the hand of the Lord in my life this week for sure.

First of all, we saw on Monday that our tire pressure was pretty low but since we didn't have a tire gauge in our car, the senior missionary over cars told us to just go in somewhere to get it fixed. Since all of the car repair places we could go to are out of our area, we put it off until Saturday. When we went in on Saturday, I looked at our tire and it was pretty flat. They patched up our tire for us and told us that we've been driving with a nail in our tire and if we drove much further it, it could have done some damage to our car. Considering the fact that we were driving with it in our tire for 6 days, I consider that a huge blessing!

Then yesterday was fast Sunday. Our church is from 11 am - 2 pm so when we came home, my companion broke her fast. I decided that I could fast for two meals so I just took a nap instead. We went out to work around 3:30 and we found a lady that we've talked to but haven't taught any official lessons to her so she's not an actual "investigator." She said she was going to come to church yesterday but she didn't so we wanted to see what was up. Our conversation ended up being like an hour long on her porch (Keep in mind that I didn't have any food in me). Half way through the discussion, I started to feel like I was going to pass out, luckily I brought a water bottle with me so I started to drink that. Then when I was saying the closing prayer, I started to feel like I was going to pass out. We said bye and the moment I turned around I started to black out. I sat on some stairs and I was feeling horrible. The shortest distance to our car was like down this grassy hill so I looked at my companion and I was like "Sister Craig. I won't be able to make it down that hill to the car. I need you to get the car and bring it up here to get me." She was freaking out a little because I was telling her to leave me but I told her I'd be on a bench a few feet away and just to get me. She finally gave in and got the car. Just so you know, I would never tell my companion to leave me. I knew that was the best option especially when I thought I was feeling better and I got up walked a few feet. Then I stumbled over my feet and fell and my knee is all sorts of scratched up. Now imagine if I went down that grassy hill and stumbled over my feet. I would have been suffering more than just a scraped knee. The Lord really looks after his sister missionaries. I wish I could say that my pride hurts more than my knee... But I'm not that embarrassed about it and my knee hurts pretty bad. Hahah.

Sister Craig and I went tracting on Friday when we got to this house. I introduced us as missionaries to this older guy at the door. Then he started to ask me some questions like "Do you keep the fourth commandment (Keeping the Sabbath day holy)?" I told him yes. Then he said that we didn't because we observed the Sabbath on Sunday instead of on Saturday. We asked what religion he was and he was a Seventh Day Adventist. He kept like bugging me about it and he was like "You need to go study your bible more because the Sabbath falls on a Saturday!" So I said back to him, "You know what? That's great advice! I think we could all study the bible more! Don't you think?" His total countenance changed and he was so much nicer to me after! He said "Absolutely! We should do it daily!" Then we ended that conversation with a handshake. Why am I telling this story? Because the old Amy probably would have been so mad at that guy for bashing the church the way he did. I take no credit for the words I said though. That was all the Lord's doing. I mean, even my trainer was impressed with the way I handled that guy! That's saying something! I've seen how the Lord has changed me though especially with talking to people about the church. I have so much more patience with them.

Anyway, that's really all this week! I love y'all and I hope you have a great week :)

- Sister Christensen