HELLO MY PEEPS!

July 5, 2016

hey fellow peeps!

i hope y'all had a great fourth of july & were able to spend some time grillin' and chillin' with all your favorite people! we had so much fun here in thomaston yesterday. :) the maddox family prepared a special lunch just for us! we sure did eat our hearts out. my favorite was the strawberry shortcake. to die for! then for dinner we went over to the keddingtons and had some kabobs  & corn. SO GOOD. it was a lot of fun & it definitely made things feel like home. 

this past week has been crazy!! CASYIA & QUAY GOT BAPTIZED!!! yay!! it was so special, the both of them shared their testimonies at the end and i just wanted to cry. i loved it! it has been so fun teaching them and seeing their love for Christ grow! it is exciting to also see their whole family come back to church, what a blessing for all of them. i sure do love them. 

speaking of baptisms.. jake and megan are planning on being baptized on the 16th! they are SO incredible. the change in them has been night and day! jake keeps talking about how he wants to get a study group together every wednesday night & that he will keep it going even after we leave. he is practically already a member! we have had some powerful lessons with them this week & i just can't deny that the Spirit has made a huge impact on them. it makes me so HAPPY!! 

one miracle from the week:

so, there is this less active member, Bonnie Atwater. we saw her when we first came to thomaston and she wasn't very nice. Bonnie has tons of medical problems and suffers from major depression,

she tried hard to run us off and show us that she wasn't interested. after time and time of going over there we decided it would be better to give her some time and just keep praying for her. she is a cute southern black women and grumpy as ever. well time went on and randomly her visiting

teacher called us up and told us that Bonnie asked her to let us know she was interested in having us come over again. so we went over on that note. turns out prayers really work, Bonnie felt a change in her heart and decided it was time to come back to church. so we read scriptures with her and talked about what it would be like to come back to church after years and years of inactivity. she mentioned that she didn't have any clothes & she wasn't going to come without having something nice to wear. (these people are so poor around here, so it is a huge sacrifice.) we talked about how we would love to go shopping with her and help her find something if she would like us to and if she could come up with a little cash. she said that most of the time her "grandyoungins" steal her cash but she has about 50 bucks hiding she could come up with and so we decided that we would come back over on Saturday and take her to a little thrift shop and we could find something. so Saturday roles around and we come to pick Bonnie up. she gets in the car and directs us to the thrift shop that she wants to shop at. when we go in we look and find about 6 outfits that she would be able to get. nothing special or fancy just simple clothes and things she could afford with her sacrifice. we go up ready to check out and the cashier looks and Bonnie and asks, "are you starting over?" Bonnie replies, "yes, getting ready to head back to church." then the women looks at her bags up her items and says "here you go, take it." she simply gave Bonnie all the clothes for free. then she looks Bonnie in the eyes and says, "God loves you!" wow! what a blessing that was to Bonnie. the Lord knew the sacrifice that Bonnie was making. He knew this was hard for her. & to this depressed women he sent this miracle. i will never forget that moment. she looked great walking in church this Sunday in her new clothes for the first time in a LONG time.

the Lord just continues to keep on blessing us! it is so special to me that i am able to serve Him and help all of Heavenly Father's children here in thomaston. i often think to myself how much i have changed since i have been here, not in a way that i am no longer myself, but that i am more of who i really am. the atonement really can do that for each of us, we just have to trust that God knows us better than we do. 

i love you all so much! keep having a great summer! 

love, 

sister bell.