I can't believe that this week is Christmas!!!!! Time here in North Carolina is just going by so quickly! I absolutely love this time of the year and the time that we have to remember Christ a little bit more!!
This
week has been quite wonderful! On Wednesday, we had our Zone temple
trip!! It was so wonderful to be able to go inside the temple again.
Going made me realize how truly important and wonderful it is to make
the temple a priority in our lives. When I go home, I definitely want to
become better at attending the temple more regularly!! Donna had her
baptismal interview on Thursday......and passed!!!!! I am so excited for
her to be baptized on Christmas Eve!!! She too is very excited! This
week have had so many appointments scheduled with people that we felt
quite overwhelmed! It's been amazing to see this area go from an area
that taught on average 8 to 10 lessons a week to 15 to 20 a week!! And
it's all because of our amazing Father in Heaven!!!
Right
before our temple trip, we had interviews with President and Sister
James. One of the things that President asked of us was to share the
scripture that would go on our missionary plaque now and why. The
scripture that I chose was Alma 26:11-12 which says, "But Ammon said
unto him: I do not boast in my own strength, nor in my own wisdom; but
behold, my joy is full, yea, my heart is brim with joy, and I will
rejoice in my God. Yea, I know that I am nothing; as to my strength I am
weak; therefore I will not boast of myself, but I will boast of my God,
for in his strength I can do all things; yea, behold, many mighty
miracles we have wrought in this land, for which we will praise his name
forever." I chose this scripture because without God we are nothing! On
my mission, I have gained a deeper understanding of this principle.
Humility is something I have really been striving to do better at the
past few weeks and as I have been doing that, I have been finding so
much greater joy on my mission. I truly am nothing without my Heavenly
Father. If I didn't have His help here in the mission field, my mission
would be a million times harder!!! I know that as we rely on our
Heavenly Father and thank him for all that He has done for us, we will
be able to weather any storm!!
I love you all so much!! Thank you for everything! I hope you all have a wonderful and merry Christmas!!!
Love,
Sister Paynter
Pictures 1-3: Pictures from our temple trip....we tried to do a jumping picture with self timer, but obviously we failed.
Picture 4: I received a 12 days of Christmas package from the 14th Ward Young Women's Picture
5: Sister Smith and I have been doing don't eat out December....except
for if someone else buys it and it also excludes ice cream and soda.
Anyways, President James has been encouraging us to do our phone calls
in public. So, we went to McDonald's to make calls....and resisted
temptation!!!
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