November 12, 2013

Man it throws me off when I don't get to write on Monday..but I am glad that I get to now! Hope all is going well.. I am so glad to hear everyone is safe and happy! :) I would say healthy but WHAT THE HECK CELIAC DISEASE?!!! ahhh poor Davey...you eat everything! haha but hey you can probably get some recipes from Chris and Jaci right? anyways good luck to you with that! This week has been great!!! It was very busy and there was just a lot of random goings on. On Monday we did a zone activity and we went and hiked on some civil war trails. It was so much fun! We ended up getting super lost though. So we took this trail that led into a neighborhood and then we had to walk on this really busy main road to get back to our cars. I can only imagine what people were thinking as they drove by. There were 14 of us missionaries in our P day clothes with name tags on, trekking down the street! I got a good laugh out of it. It was a gorgeous hike as well. After the hike we had dinner with a young couple in our ward. Apparently the husband served his mission in San Diego when the district was being filmed so he knows all the missionaries on there!! unfortunately, during our hike, Sister Stott had a fall and basically couldn't walk on Monday night, so we couldn't do any work! Tuesday was a great day for learning. My comp's ankle was acting up really bad. I prayed LIKE CRAZY. I tried to be a good help to her. We had zone and district meetings that morning which were both awesome! The zone meeting was about our morning exercise and studies and they shared a quote by Elder Holland that was really profound. He said that the way that our morning studies go is how our life will go. I have loved mornings on the mission. it's super hard to get up early, but I feel so great when I work out and when I study, I feel even better! I feel so ready for the day! In District Meeting we talked about asking inspired questions. I feel like I get stuck in teaching mode sometimes and don't ask enough questions. so that's something I want to work on! After our meetings we met up for exchanges! I was with Sister O for the night. It was so awesome to serve with her that day. I was able to express to her a lot of the concerns I've been having lately and she just told me that they were 100% understandable and that I just needed to keep a good attitude and control what I can, which is mainly my attitude. She told me that often on her mission she just thanks Heavenly Father that her eternal companion won't be a girl..hahah! So we headed out that afternoon and did some finding! We talked to a man who is an Ammonist, which is sort of a native american religion and he said he's been through the war in Vietnam and based on those experiences, he feels that he has evidence there is no God. He's read the book of mormon and done lots of studying of other religions. it was very sad talking to him. right after that we met his neighbor who is a Messianic Jew. He was AMAZING!!! seriously. he shared many of his beliefs with us and really wants to know more about our faith. he has read the book of mormon and believes it is the word of God. he has a son in law who is LDS and so he really wants to find out if the things he's heard are true or false. he has studied many religions and he says based on his studies he knows there must be a god. he also served in the Israeli military for a few years. really amazing guy and it's cool how he had very similar experiences as his neighbor and they both have such different views on life. It is pretty cool to see how your attitude and the way you view things really makes a big difference in your life! Thursday was such a roller coaster...I had such an awesome exchange and I felt so motivated. I got back together with my companion and we went and visited our investigator who is a double amputee who was so happy to see us! she told us that she really didn't want to go to her therapy that day, but that she did and she was able to walk with her prosthetic legs! she talked about how she owes it all to God. She has such an amazing attitude. after that we visited D, a less active member of our ward. She was one of the highlights of my day. she's been out of work since March and has been relying on her kids for financial support so she's just been really struggling because she hates asking for help. in her nightly prayer, she expressed concerns with Heavenly Father about not having the money for groceries this month and asked for his help. the next morning she opened her door to take the trash out and she found a card from her visiting teacher with a 50$ gift card to a grocery store. WOW...amazing right?!?!? So then she told us that at her daughters baby shower, her daughter told her that she needs to get back into church. her daughter isn't even a member of our church!! So D literally had her clothes out for Sunday...(spoiler alert, she didn't come to church :( Still a powerful experience though!!) her telling us that story really helped me realize how important it is that we fulfill our callings, especially home and visiting teaching because those people need our help and we need to follow the promptings that we receive. after visiting with her, we did some tracting. we talked to an atheist guy and he said "i'm happy how i am" i said "you don't think you could be any happier?!" and he said "not really." sad that people don't realize their potential!!! tracting went so well because on exchanges sister o gave me some advice and told me that when the spirit is present in our lessons, it doesn't matter what we say, as long as the person we talk to hears what they need to through the spirit! so that helped me and seriously ever since then I have been super confident in all my teaching and talking to random strangers! tracting is way more fun this way!!! We had a great lesson with N on Wednesday night. this girl from the young womens who isn't exactly cookie cutter mormon came and she and N just get along so great and it was awesome having her there and helping her realize the testimony that she does have. we were also able to get N to pick out a baptismal date which will be the 23rd of this month!!!! Thursday was another roller coaster for sure. satan sure works hard on me out here, that's for sure. the day started out great. we found out earlier in the week that we had apartment inspections, so we had to take a few hours out of our work to clean. it bugged me a little, because I felt like we were wasting time, but i just decided to drop it. we got a call while we were cleaning and found out that my companion will be a sister training leader, which means we will not be companions this next transfer. after we cleaned we had a visit with our investigator L. it went really well because we were actually focused and were able to share a scripture and stuff so it was awesome. then we met with a woman the elders taught who will be baptized this week to tell her what to wear under her baptismal clothes haha! it was funny. that night we went to young women in excellence with N. it was awesome. it was all about our relationship with Christ and how he truly knows us. Friday i went on another exchange while my companion attended a leadership meeting. it was so much fun! i went to centreville and worked with with a sister who came in the same transfer as i did. we bonded a lot because we have experienced so many of the same things so it was alot of fun. we visited this lady who was getting baptized the next day along with her 11 year old daughter. apparently the daughter had this dream awhile back that heavenly father was telling her she's on the right path and that she needed to be baptized. pretty cool!! when we got off exchanges we went and visited this lady that the elders told us to go visit. i've never been in a more smoke filled apartment!! we had planned a lesson with Joshua at the but that fell through, sadly. we had a great lesson with A that night about faith. i am even more amazed every time i see her at how much she learns and progresses. we invited her to a baptism the following day which she was very excited for. Saturday we did weekly planning and then went to visit a man we had met tracting earlier in the week. we got to teach him about the restoration and he said he really wants to know if it's true. we tried to track down J to get him to the baptism but we had no luck. We then went to the baptism. The lady has been an investigator for YEARS...so when we talked to her before she was like "i'm not that excited....i've been baptized before." but after she got out of the water she was like "this is the most pleasant baptism i've ever had..the water was warm!" hahah. and when she bore her testimony she talked about how happy she was and how she expected this to just be another baptims, but it had turned out way better than she expected. A was there and really enjoyed the baptism as well so that was awesome! Sunday was such a wonderful day! J didn't come to church, but N and A did! after sacrament, A told us she was coming to both sunday school and relief society! she never does that so we were super excited. it was ward conference today, and i had to attend a meeting during sunday school, but i got to be with her in relief society. it was the stake that taught and it was about the priesthood, so i just told her it was something we'll teach her more about after he baptism. she seemed to enjoy it though! it's interesting how many times in the past few weeks i've had lessons on the priesthood...makes me realized there's lots to learn. in sacrament the stake president spoke and he talked a lot about adversity and he said that "often times the Lord provides instruction, not explanation." i know for me i get the "why me" attitude a lot, so realizing that I have everything I NEED to learn and to get through my trials helped me recognize not to ask why. after church we had dinner at a members home that i really enjoy! it was really fun and good to be with them on a more casual level. we learned a lot about their family and it made me even more grateful that i've been able to teach A and bring that family even more closer together! after dinner, we attended a fireside where 2 rm's that play for the redskins spoke. it was really cool because they both made the decision as young kids to serve missions and never waivered in that decision. N and her sister attended the fireside but it was really centered on serving missions, so i don't know how much they got out of it. the players names are tevita stevens and brian keel. if you want to look them up! :) tevita is also single sooo.....i'm keeping that in mind for a few years down the road! yesterday was a great preparation day! we went and got pedicures and then had dinner at the patriarch's house. he is an awesome person and so is his wife. i love being in their home. we were finally able to track down J! he didn't drink at all during the parties he went to this weekend so we were happy to hear that and will be teaching him the word of wisdom later this week. This morning we learned all about facebook proselyting. i am getting on facebook today and starting to clean up my old account and make it a missionary account, so you guys don't need to go on my account anymore (til i go to brasil.) I don't have tons of details still.. but the main thing is to remind you guys that i'm doing this as a missionary, not to socialize with you. if you have people that you want me to teach online, you can have them add me and you can tell me missionary-related stuff over facebook, but besides that i can't communicate with you guys on there. we can still be friends though!! :) i am really excited to see what being a facebook missionary is like. also nervous! But yeah so we're starting that this week. i can also start updating my blog....i'll keep you posted when i have more details on all of this! transfers are thursday! we're almost positive my companion will be the one to go, but its not set in stone. we will definitely both be getting new companions though. besides that not much to update ya on. I love you all soooo very much and wish you the best this week!! love, Sister Pehrson