Monday, January 28, 2013

January 28, 2013


HELLO!!

I have an amazing story to tell you all! It is a miracle and seriously faith building! :) Once upon a time I left the GPS in the car overnight when it got really really cold outside. So the next day we had to use the GPS to get to Roswell, my GPS would not turn on. So we luckily used the other sister's GPS, and actually I have been to Roswell enough and there is nothing in between that we actually didn't really need one, but it turned out fine. So this was about 2 weeks ago, and my GPS has not turned on since then. Periodically I would charge it, and try and turn in on with no results. Until yesterday: we planned to go see a less active who lives about 10 minutes in the country from town. We got the GPS and I plugged it in an said a prayer out loud that this would work, because we would never find that house without it. As I pressed the power button: IT TURNED ON! I dropped it, it surprised me that much!! We had also just taught a lesson to a college kid who said he has never had an answer to his prayers! And then this happens! Mission Miracle, people! :) God hears our prayers and answers them even when they are about the simplest things!

Dawn: I got your letter from the girls. My favorite. Those girls are so sillly, but I can say I think their artistic skills are getting better.

Today we have an adventure before us: one of the members in the ward raises bunnies for shows, and has like over 100 bunnies! So we are going to go HOLD THEM!  Very excited. And yes, this is what we do for fun in this small town.

What we did this past week for service is painted one of our investigator's home. G was a referral from another investigator, and is awesome! She would be baptized tomorrow, but has still not yet come to church. She works every Sunday and is the sole provider for her 3 kids, since her husband is not helping out. So we keep praying for something to change, but as of yet this is still the way things are. But she moved into this new home and we helped find her some paint and we went to town. We had a few ward members come help, and it looks so SO much better than before with smoke stained walls and such. So I'll be sending pictures.

Oh our other adventure was that after we were done painting, Sister N and I decided to treat ourselves and go to Sonic for dinner. Well, while at Sonic, I turned off the car while waiting for our order, and the car DIED! It had only been less than 10 minutes, but that was it! So after calling around, W, our investigator who is being baptized Saturday and whose lesson we were headed to after Sonic, came to the rescue. Come to find out the battery was completely dead, like never to live again, and so he called the tow truck, which is owned by a member, and when he came he brought a battery that we switched out and borrowed until we took it to the shop during the day and got a new battery. Oh the adventures of being a missionary! It is always situations like these that make me really miss not being able to call up my own dad to help! But it all worked out and things are fine. I am grateful for Sister N who helps when I freak out in times like that!

I think that's about all! I can't wait to see all the pictures of the house so I can imagine what's going on! I love you all lots! Happy February! 
Love, Sister P.

Oh PS: A and E are officially engaged. But now they are thinking they are not getting married ASAP, and so now they are thinking A will move out so they can still be baptized! Oh the crazy life we lead here! Love you!











Monday, January 21, 2013

January 21, 2013


I have it written in my planner that today is DREW'S BIG DAY!  I was gonna send a card and then I knew he wouldn't even appreciate it, so I didn't! But give him LOTS AND LOTS of kisses from his Auntie, and I wish I was there for his 1st birthday! But I'll be home on or shortly after his 2nd! 

Also HAPPY BIRTHDAY Mama tomorrow! I love you lots and wish I was home to celebrate your life with you! 

So we have had QUITE the week and I have OH so much to tell you! It starts with Zone Conference in Roswell on Tuesday. Where we were told by president that skype will not be allowed again, because too many missionaries got trunky after skyping! SADDEST NEWS EVER! If anything skype helped me realize that I'm not that far away! So I was super upset about it and then I realized that next Christmas I will almost be home so it will be fine anyway. :/

But at Zone Conference is where I think I picked up my sore throat. I dunno why but after each conference I'm the lucky one who gets sick. So Thursday night my throat started to hurt and Friday was owie to swallow, and Saturday I sounded like a man, and yesterday was better except when I talked too much, and last night I had to sit kinda up so I could sleep, and today my throat feels constricted. But I don't have a runny nose, or a cough, just need a cough drop all day. But it hasn't kept me down at all this round, especially with how awesome Sister N is, we just go and do! 

We found out from President also that in the next two transfers we will be getting about 50 new missionaries!!! Crazy right! And he said that it is now a possibility to be training two new missionaries at the same time! Scary! But since so many new missionaries are coming we are opening up new areas, new towns where missionaries haven't been before. So they are talking about Muleshoe, TX which is in our ward but about 30 minutes away (plus the time change). So Sister N and I went on Friday to check out a few places with a realtor to find an apartment for the elders who will be living there. We then went to visit the Bishop's family (they live out there on a dairy farm) and we got to see the Bishop's animal museum. He is a trophy hunter and has his office FULL of his prizes! I told his family that when y'all come to visit that Dad will love to see this! It was pretty cool!

We had the coolest week with our investigators. We had again 7 at church yesterday. I don't know what to tell you about how this happens!  We had our goals set for the week to have FIVE baptismal dates set by the end of the week, and we only had 1 that we were expecting. That is W, he is married to a member and we have been teaching him for about a week and a half and he quit smoking and is just a great guy! He loves loves loves to tease us, and since Sister N and I are so gullible he does a good job. When I used the bathroom at their house this last time I came out and he told me I had TP on my shoe and I totally looked :( PLUS the FIRST time I ever get my skirt tucked into my slip after the bathroom was at THEIR house!! Classic Amanda, Classic!! Oh man) He also scared Sister N when she came out of the bathroom by hiding and jumping out at her. :) We have a good time! His two boys ages like six and four have crushes on the two of us, and it is hilarious!! They look away whenever we make eye contact! 

Then we started teaching a student here named K right before the Christmas break and she went home, but she got back this week and we had our second lesson with her ever this week, and set a baptism date with her too! Her story is cool because she is Native American. But it is just like what Larry EchoHawk talked about in conference about how the Book of Mormon is for these people! It is cool teaching her too, because she doesn't come from a Christian background so all of this is new to her. She is super sweet, and kept saying how many thoughts were rushing through her head, and how much it meant to her that we are here to help her grow her relationship with Heavenly Father. 

And then THEN! One of our new things that as a mission we are trying to do since conferences is going out and separate from tracking we are going to contact 10 people a day. So our second day of this, we go onto campus to pass out cards for free dvd's about Jesus. And there are lots of different ways to go on the sidewalks but we see these three guys coming one way and they are all talking and laughing so we figure it will be easy to talk to them so I point them out and say let's go contact them. So we walk up to them and one of them says "oh I'm a member of your church, what time does it start on Sundays?" Sister N and I look at each other and point to our tags, "you're a member of this church?" We were just surprised-- of all the people we run into!! Well,  E comes to church yesterday and brings his girlfriend C. She wants to learn more about the church and yesterday was the perfect day for investigators to come. Sacrament was on missionary work, gospel principles was on authority, and RS was on baptism and the Holy Ghost! So we set up a lesson with her after church and during that lesson she says she has never been baptized because she has been waiting for it to be done correctly, and for it to feel right in her mind and her HEART and she knows now this is the right church!!! So she is preparing for baptism too!!!! We couldn't have planned for these miracles! 

Then! This is the BEST story of all!!! A and E! We stopped by their house this past week when she was gone and E said he is just waiting for the ring to come back from being sized and he will propose ASAP! So this week ladies and gents! So last time we had a lesson with them they said that they wanted me to be their witness when they get married at the court house. Then it hit me later that the BISHOP can marry them for free!!! So yesterday I told A that and that they can be married and baptized in the same day!!! So during our lesson last night, we went over the specifics of who they want to baptize them etc. AND set the date for FEBRUARY 9TH!! A told me that she knows I have stayed here for a reason, for them!!! It brought tears to my eyes! They said that in a year when they get married in the temple they will have a big wedding ordeal, but when I had talked to the bishop about it earlier that day he said that we can still make this wedding a nice thing with help from the RS. So they are thinking like the ceremony at like 4 or 5 then a small dinner break and then the baptism right after that!!! I am just so in awe that Heavenly Father is letting me be a part of all of this!! E and A said that they will be sealed in a temple down here, but in April 2014 will want to come up to come to general conference and go through the SLC temple and they want to come with me to Taco Amigo and just to see me!! I told A not to get her hopes up, but I told her I will move heaven and earth to be at their sealing down here in a year! HOW EXCITING is all of this!!!?!!!! What miracles God brings about!!!  

I love this place so much, and some days I think about how one day I WILL be transferred and how it is going to rip my heart out because this is now home. These people I love, and know so well! How blessed I am to know them and be a part of their lives! Missions are awesome! This is so great! 

Also I am loving our New Mexico January. Maybe this is contributing to my sore throat but Thursday was bike day, and we prayed for a beautiful day, and that it was! It was picnic weather, and as we rode around on our bikes we didn't even wear jackets! Today is the first day it is chilly again. We didn't wear jackets until dark yesterday either! We had a lovely bike day, and I think I'm gonna buy a basket today to save my back from my backpack. We wore our boots so we could put our planners and my map down the boots, which Sister N actually mentioned was really fitting for the area after I said that we were like our own little bike gang. Buttercream Gang anyone?! :) But as we pulled out our planners she said that's where some people stow knives and the like, and since we found out that 2 of our investigators do "street activities" ie gangs (SAY WHAT?! Don't freak, Mom, we are COMPLETELY safe! Just surprising to me when I grew up in the bubble) but it was fun to ride bikes on such a beautiful day! 

This is awesome, but I miss you all! Can't wait to see the finished house. Whenever I think of home I catch myself and say "that's not what it looks like anymore!!" How weird is life going to be! Can't wait for that excitement in a year! Love you all!
xoxoxo
Sister Peterson



Simba's mama


and a bear!! 


"EVERYBODY'S GOT A WATER BUFFALO!!" veggie tales anyone!


Pumba

this is only a baby chunk of it all! cool right dad!!?

Monday, January 14, 2013

January 14, 2013

HELLO FROM CHILLY PORTALES!

Man how crazy is that snow for ya'll!! We had snow Thursday but it melts by noon. But the wind always blows, and even this past week when it doesn't the cold chills to the bone!

Sister N N is wonderful! She is from Bluffdale, Utah. So really close to home! She has been out for 16 months today! She goes home April 3rd! She is super fun and I love love love her! She works really hard also, and I am learning so much! She is a country girl, and loves the outdoors. And she is awesome at Volleyball, which reminds me of Kara, but in personality she actually reminds me of Cassi! She is so fun loving, and loves everyone, and I have loved having her here since she has mission experience and picks up on our investigators and all that I have been filling her in on! It is awesome!

Yes we still live in our same cute house. I had to rearrange it since I have been there so long, to try and liven things up! 


We had a awesome week this week working here in Portales. God is opening the hearts of man. We have about 6 people we are praying will enter the waters of baptism this transfer. The miracle of the week was that E and A who have been planning on getting married in about June, and when we talked to them about chastity and living separately they said they wouldn't even pray about it because it is just "not an option!" Well after feeling the Spirit so strong at S's baptism THEY DECIDED TO GET MARRIED ASAP! Like he just has to propose and they are going to do a small civil ceremony so they can get baptized ASAP! This is like the happiest news ever to me, because I have grown so close to these two people. I love them and am so excited for this for them! Plus in one year from now I'll be able to go through the temple with them, either at the tale end of my mission, or I'll just come right back for them! How amazing the Spirit is!

I was reading today a talk and know that it is the time for new years resolutions and read "Remember Lot's Wife" by Elder Holland from a 2009 byu devotional. I highly suggest it for everyone!

And for everyone this new year of 2013: I won't be able to see y'all or hug and kiss you, but I love you all and remember "You're future is as bright as your faith!" Hold to the gospel and we will all have a beautiful year! 


Lots of love,
Your favorite missionary.

Monday, January 7, 2013

January 7, 2013


HELLO!!! I guess I read my mission call wrong, because what it should have said is PORTALES, NEW MEXICO!! Yessirreeee! I'm staying here for ANOTHER transfer! But thankfully, to mix things up for me I am getting a new companion tomorrow, Sister N who is currently in San Angelo. That's all I know about her. I did hear from another missionary that she is fun, but that's it! Oh the anticipation! I am very VERY excited and just pray that we can be friends. So we'll drive into Lubbock tomorrow and I'll pick her up. I will be the Junior companion, and am very excited to not train. Sister S is going to Monahans and her companion will be Sister C, who trained my MTC comp when we first came in. Crazy connection! So life is crazy here, packing and getting pictures with investigators but life is good!

And happy day! Friday S was baptized! She told us she would not be living with her brother and his friend anymore, and I hope she sticks by that, so she was baptized.  dad. And President Torres baptized her. S heard him bear his testimony and wanted him to baptize her. So she was baptized Friday night and it was very very very nice! Our issue that day was that the water heater wasn't working on the font so we boiled water. :/ it was a mess. But in the end it didn't matter. And yes it is now fixed! 

Also if Cami wants to tell all her friends who just got their calls they can write me, I have quite a few tips for them if they want. I would have loved that help and counsel before I went out. :)

And I know this is all crazy and random. But that's my brain this week! I love you and miss you all!

i LOVE PORTALES :) XOXOXO
love me




Wednesday, January 2, 2013

December 31, 2012

Holy Canoli! My six month mark is THIS WEEK!!! Crazy day right?

Also we find out what is going on with transfers on Saturday night!! I thought before I might be stayinghere but really anything could happen! Just make sure to tell people on the blog to send any letters the end of this week to my mission home address, because I'll be moving Tuesday next week if I transfer.

Man has a lot happened since we talked on Christmas. And oh how nice that was to SEE everyone! It was kinda crazy and loud but that is our family and that's how I like it! It also was just so good because though I feel like I am so out of the loop, and like everything is passing me by, when we all where there it felt like no time had passed, and it showed me that I still do fit in. That everyone and everything is just the same. Yes, the babies are bigger, and hair colors change, and we have an addition to the family, but I am still a part of it, and we all still laugh about the same things, and everyone is basically the same! I love you all!


The next event to update you on is that after talking to you I felt a headache coming on. We ran a few more errands and then went home and I was feeling nauseous. So after trying to lay low I stood up and THREW UP! Merry Christmas to me!!! NOT! I wondered if it was a homesick sickness, but since it was so physical, everytime I moved I felt gross, I knew it wasn't mental. I think I was probably sick all day but so excited to talk to y'all that it didn't set in until after the call was over! Luckily when I woke up the next morning I felt tons better, still pretty weak, but not like I was. I had been as white as a ghost Christmas night because I was so sick! Really I feel like I have caught every sickness that is going around this year! No fun! One of the Elders who gave me a blessing asked if I would have rather not been sick and not talked to you, or been sick and talked to you. I said I would have rather been sick and a hundred times sicker to have been able to skype, that was so awesome!!!

But the most exciting news of all is that S IS GETTING BAPTIZED ON FRIDAY!!!!!! Remember how I contacted her after Walmart, well yesterday when she was at church sitting by me in Sacrament, President Torres bore his testimony since there was extra time. So she turned to me and said, "I think I want him to baptize me." She had met him once before and loved his testimony. And the last time we were preparing her for baptism I told her she would need to think about who she wants to baptize her. So I said he would be a great choice, and she asked me if I would go up with her to ask him. So after he said he would be honored he asked her when and she said the 4th or the 12th!!! Had we talked about this at all?! NO! Completely out of the blue!!! Last we talked she said she was going to wait and do all the lessons with her mom so they could be baptized together!!! So before I know it this has all gotten away from me and they decide Friday at 6 and I am saying "wait you are living with a guy- cohabitation- you can't be baptized yet!" And she said she'll move home then!! So yep, baptism this Friday! I am so so excited for her! And how exciting the last week of the transfer! God works in mysterious ways, but He is so so mindful of each one of us! He laid every single puzzle piece out, and at the time I had no idea how it would all come together and here we stand with the full picture in view! It is amazing, this work is amazing, and God will bring to pass His ways in His time! This gospel is True!!!! :)

Funny story for this week:
The Christensens who let us use their computer to skype with, have a son on a mission. They have a daughter here, who is a senior. Well, she decided that she wants me as a sister-in-law, and has now told all of her seminary class here that I am going to marry her brother. At the beginning of December she told me to move to Virginia when I get home since that is where he is going to school. This was before I knew she had told people. So then these past few weeks the girls in her seminary class brought up how I am marrying him, and the Seminary teacher: Sister U (she is in a part member family, we are teaching her husband: we love their family!) Well she has now started calling me Sister Peterson-Christensen!!!! Then yesterday at church all the YSA's are asking me about it too!!! So now that's the new joke. Sister Peterson-Christensen. Wowzer right?!!! I guess it is a compliment if they like me enough to want me to marry into their family right? I'm just trying to make light of it, because really kids? REALLY?!

Never a dull day here.


Love- Your missionary!














December 24, 2012

BEST NEWS FROM THIS WEEK: we got back in contact (finally) with S! Last Monday I saw her at Walmart, but wasn't able to talk to her (OHHH crazy updates from this week. Our car died in the Walmart parking lot because we were up there shopping with the sisters so we could get our comp's present. It was horrid because all the drama with trying to get someone to jump it. One elder made me cry, but he apologized later so we're good. Then on Wed the wind was blowing so bad here, actually across our whole mission that we all were told to stay inside!! It was like the dust bowl, we could hardly see our neighbor's houses! The dust that came through our windows was crazy, no fun! This place sure is different than back home!) OK so back to Sara. I saw her at Walmart, but with all the crazy car crap I didn't do anything about it. So then I was praying that night and felt prompted to text her even though I felt like a creep being like "oh I saw you but didn't say anything to you... yes I am a stalker!!" No I didn't say that, but anyhow we ended up texting and she came to a baptism on Friday with us!! (by the way it was Jack, one of my old investigators who got baptized. He had been waiting 6 months for approval from the first presidency and it's a Christmas Miracle!!! He was baptized!!) So she then told us on Sunday that she still wants to be baptized and that her MOM NOW WANTS TO BE BAPTIZED TOO! That S went home after the baptism and told her mom about it and how she can't be baptized because she moved in with some of her brother's friends, and her mom was shocked that co-habitation was a reason she had to wait, and said that she was hoping it would be soon because she wanted to be baptized with S! Mind you she has never been to church, but she has been reading the Book of Mormon on her own after we gave it to her. That was the one lesson we had with her, and we shared the first vision, and the spirit was the strongest I've ever felt it when I shared that, and she just said, "oh that's a nice story" but she did say she would take a book of Mormon and now she has been reading it!!! YAY!!!

So one funny story from this week:
We went and met with a less active member and her husband who is not a member. We just knocked on their door Saturday. Well he has very strong scientific beliefs, so his wife always tries to change the subject every time we were trying to ask him about what he believes. He makes her upset, because he gets on his soap-box, and finally at one point she said, I call him an alien, like from Men in Black because his views are so out there. So then I turn to him and do the "live long and prosper" hand sign from Star Trek, and said "Oh, an alien."  He did the hand sign back and laughed (mind you he is like 60) and then he turned back to me and said "You've got a good personality!" Hahahaha! I don't know why, but apparently most missionaries are dull. This is the second investigator to tell me that I am like weird. Ashley said that a few weeks ago. "I bet your family is weird, Sister Peterson, and you probably all make chipmunk noises!" (why chipmunk I have no idea!) But I love it! That made me feel so happy, because we are awesome! Remember Mitch being the car in the kitchen when I needed to learn how to fill up the car with gas? I am unique and I love it, and I love that people can connect and relate with me!! So happy! I like that I am goofy, and that my family and friends are too! Love you all!

Merry Christmas!! See you tomorrow!! xoxoxox
Sister P.