Always a reason...even for Brussells

So, we had a great week. I hope you all did too. 

Our baptism is Saturday. We're very excited for it!! Like always, he is one of the biggest highlights of our miracles. This week we had to go down to Brussells again for legality. At first, I was not super excited for that because it made us change our lesson with him to Saturday, which is usually not a good day for him. But because of that we were able to have the zone leaders come with us to the lesson (they were in Assen helping us find anyway), and it turned out being a really good lesson. We were also able to have a lesson with an investigator that we haven't seen in a few months. He had some operations coming up or something and so he didn't want to meet, but we stopped by again and had a lesson and we're teaching him again. It was really cool for too because one of his problems is understanding how pain and difficulty can be the will of God. But we had a really good lesson with him and Sister Andersen testified to him of God's love and the reason for trials. The Spirit was super strong and he after he said that he would like to receive a priesthood blessing (also something he’s been struggling with).

I realized again this week that faith is a process. We start by having just a little bit of faith, sometimes just a desire to believe, and then we act. As we act, we see the blessings, after the trial of our faith. And then our faith grows. An increase in faith motivates us to do still better. I know that when I have more faith that the Lord hears and answers prayers, I work harder and smarter to do all I can to live worthy of those blessings. I work more by the Spirit and with more hope in myself and in the future. I work with more obedience. I work with more love and patience. I am more focused. I trust all things to the Lord. There are times where I wonder. I wonder why the Lord allowed something to happen. I wonder if there's a mistake. But there are no mistakes in the Lord's plan. Thinking about the will of the Lord is always very interesting to me. He sometimes allows (maybe not causes, but allows) certain things to happen because of agency, and sometimes those things are hard to understand. But the Atonement can and does change all bad things into good things, if we let it.

Hope all is well there. I love you all very much! The gospel is true!

Love,
Zuster Stevens