Grateful

I am grateful that God shows His hand even on the worst days. It seems that we try until our wits end, and then God plunks an unsuspecting investigator into our laps (metaphysically, of course--this would be rather inappropriate otherwise).

I am grateful for Sister Goodfellow. I thought that companions would be tedious, but it is a boon to have a friend and companion to share trials and sunshine.

I am grateful for adventure. Adventure, of course, is chaos viewed through a rose-colored lens. So I'm grateful for bike rides in the rain and flat tires and very long walks home. I'm grateful for cranky old men who refuse to believe, and who thus demand my boldest and most heartfelt testimony. I'm grateful for Baptist preachers who throw anti-Mormon literature left and right. They pull me into the Book of Mormon as evidence of our faith.

I am grateful for Steven Walsh.* He will be my first beginning-to-finish baptism, and I am sure he is the finest man I've ever met. He has a "willingness and easiness to believe," as the Book of Mormon says. He keeps all of his commitments, and then some. He reads CES firesides and conference talks, the Book of Mormon, the For Strength of youth pamphlet, and the Sunday school manual. After each encounter, we receive a sincere text about what he has learned and how grateful he is for this journey. We taught him about the Word of Wisdom, and he told us that he'd give up coffee in two weeks. The next morning he told us that his conscience convicted him, and that he couldn't wait-- he would start that very day.

I'm grateful for letters from home. There aren't words for this.

Ravsten, Goodfellow, Stewart, Thompson