Editor’s note: Many are familiar with my daughter, Sara Arkell, also known as The Piano Gal. Sara has been called to serve in the New York Syracuse Mission. This is a series on her weekly letters that we will be posting on the site for those who wish to follow along with her mission. You can read her previous emails here.
Sunday was such a special day!!! SUSAN GOT BAPTIZED! It was so amazing. She is seriously incredible! It’s been such a cool experience teaching her because she is so quick to understand and apply what we teach. And she’s 19!! So it’s just like talking to your best friend, it’s the best.
Susan is awesome!
I felt the Spirit so strong during the baptism. And a miracle we saw was that her family and friends CAME TO HER BAPTISM!!! None of them are members and last week she said none of them were going to come but we’ve been praying so hard that they would soften their hearts and want to support her. And they came!!! Definitely God’s hand! But it is so cool to see her make the decision to follow Christ’s example and change her life around!
When she came out of the font, she told us she felt so clean and so much lighter! It’s amazing how you feel once you are baptized and have a clean slate. Then she told us that she doesn’t consider us just the Sister Missionaries but that we are her best friends!!!! That melted my heart. She is the sweetest and we love her so so much! She is such a light and she radiates now that she has the gospel in her life! You can just tell how happy she is in the pictures!
I hope you all had a great Thanksgiving! We were able to go to a member’s house for food and it was my first meal cooked by someone else on my mission! It was delicious!
Guess what I got on Tuesday?! A CHICK-FIL-A PEPPERMINT SHAKE!!! If you know me well, you know I’m obsessed with these shakes. They’re only available during the Christmas season and they are divine!! There are only 2 Chick-fil-A locations in my mission and neither of them are in my area at the moment. But we got to go to the mission office for a mini zone conference on Tuesday and there is a Chick-fil-A nearby so we went and it brought me so much joy!! They say money can’t buy happiness, but I beg to differ.
These shakes are yummy!
The work is really slow in our area right now. We have zero friends [they call investigators “friends” now] who we’re teaching or are progressing. Practicing lots of patience and being diligent even if we’re not seeing instant results. But if you could pray for the Auburn West area to find people who are ready to accept the gospel, that would be wonderful. We need a miracle!!
Someone sent us pizza!
Love you all!! Sister Dean’s mom sent a small live Christmas tree so we set up our own little Christmas! This is my favorite time of year! Make sure to participate in the Light The World calendar! So many amazing ideas of how to spread the light of the gospel with everyone around you!