Sarah in Denmark 2016-2017: March 20, 2017

Hej Everyone!

I hope you have all had a good week, because we sure did! There was a lot that happened, but I will tell you about the highlight of the week. It was a burrito that I got from a mexican food truck earlier today. Just kidding. Mostly. (It was a reaaaally good burrito). In all seriousness, the higlight of the week... Her name is Patricia, and she is our miracle.

Last Tuesday, we had 2 appointments right in a row, which we were very excited about, naturally. But, true to the nature of missionary work, both of them had to cancel. So all of a sudden we had a good chunk of time open to start finding new people to teach. (also a very normal part of missionary work). So we started walking (normal), and nothing quite felt right. It was a bad time of day to knock, but it was not the best weather, so people didn't really want to talk on the streets either.

We finally ended up in a random neighborhood, and looked it up in our little book to see if it had been knocked recently. There was only one house marked down, and all it said was "Patricia". No info, no positive or negative comments, nothing. So we figured that we would go and check it out. We knock on her door and she was nice enough, but it was just really awkward. Eventually she starts telling us about this time that her mom's friend prayed for her toe (which had been operated on and worked on for years with no success), and then her toe was healed within 2 weeks, and ever since then she has always wondered if there really is a God. Long story short, we come inside, where we meet her bunny and her 6 year old autistic son (another miracle, because he HATES new people, but he really liked us). We talked for a little while, and when we invited her to try praying for herself, she asked "yeah, I can. Should I pray right now?"... well, yeah, sure! We leave, thinking about how incredible prepared she was, and incredible grateful that we'd met her.

Fast forward 2 days. We come again, and teach about the Restoration. She LOVES it. At the end of the lesson, we invite her to be baptized. Her response? "Oh, yeah, can we do that tonight?" WHAAAAT. So we tell her that no, she'll probably have to wait a while, so she pulls out her calendar and we make a date and set a time. Then, 2 days later, we go on a walk with her, and she treats us like her best friends. We get back to her house, and she pulls our her Book of Mormon and explains that she thought it was too predictable to start reading from the beginning, so she chose from the table of contents where she wanted to read. Which happened to be the Words of Mormon haha, so she was a little confused. But she still loved it! Then she came to church yesterday, and commented in every single class. No fear, just curiosity and a desire to learn.

Where did this woman come from?! She is just the most perfect, sincere woman I have ever met. Raising her son alone has forced her to grow up very quickly, and she is just searching for a place of refuge and support. And then we found her. She hadn't had a big life changing event, or said some big prayer, but her entire life has been preparing her to hear the gospel at this time. That is just a huge testimony to me of how God is aware of every tiny little thing that is happening. We might not always know that He is there, or that He is guiding us, but He is. He knew Patricia would be ready at this time, and He knew that it was time to answer her silent prayers. I can only hope and pray that He will continue to use me and my companion to find even more people - even if it takes cancelled appointment after cancelled appointment to do so.

Missionary work is full of miracles. I can't explain them, but I am experiencing them. I hope that you all keep your eyes open for the little miracles that happen every day. They're there, I promise. I love you all, and I love being a missionary. Be happy and keep your head up - I'm rooting for you :)

Love, Søster Ludlow