January 13, 2014

Family!!!! I am soooo excited to hear the news that I have another niece on the way!! We need more Pehrson girls in this world! ;) Super excited for David and Tasha!! This week was a little bit cray cray...but it was fun! I definitely learned a lot as I always do... Yesterday after emailing we went coat shopping! since Tuesday was the coldest day it's been in 20 years (allegedly..) I needed a coat super bad! Found one at Burlington for 35 dolla!! Pretty good deal and I can use it at BYU I later on! On the way back to the area we got lost but we found T.C. Williams High School that's where Remember the Titans was based off of! We both freaked out and got out and took pictures! we then did our grocery shopping and baked like crazy. I decided to make splenda banana bread since I'm off sugar. IT turned out a little sketchy looking but tasted decent..you'll have to tell me what i did wrong, I'll send you a picture! We had FHE with La'vonne and Teya! it was good to have Teya back. she was at her grandmas all winter break. her mom was really proud of her because she found 5$ that day and turned it in instead of just keeping it! we watched a Mormon message about the restoration with them and talked about how we can all receive answers to our prayers no matter our age. we talked to Teya about having lessons with her and La'vonne told us she wants it to be just us and Teya so that Teya can make the decision to be baptized on her own! we set up a lesson for Thursday with her. Honestly I don't know how anyone related to La'vonne could not get baptized! she is so powerful!!! but we'll see what happens. Keep her in your prayers! Tuesday was super awesome! I had a really amazing personal study! the assistants sent out a text telling us to study D&C 121,122,123 and Hebrews 11. They are all pretty much my favorite now! 121-22 are when Joseph Smith was in jail and had been in terrible conditions for a pretty long time and he is basically asking the Lord why he is letting him suffer and he's at a very discouraging point in his life. The Lord reminds Joseph of the story of Job and tells Joseph that he doesn't have it as bad as Job did and showed Joseph the many blessings he had and comforted him with promises for the future. it was really comforting for me to read this because I have had many discouraging moments in my life--mostly on my mission where I've thought "why me?" or "why isn't the Lord doing something about this!" this verse really reminded me to look around and see what others are going through or have gone through and then to count my blessings because my trials have not been that severe at all! it's always nice to study things like that and start the day with a new perspective. we had zone training that morning and it was super amazing! they showed this video of a bunch of quotes and a few of them really stuck out to me. one was "being realistic is the most commonly travelled road to mediocrity." i loved this, especially when applying it to missionary work. i feel like I often go about this work just hoping to meet people to teach, but I have these thoughts in my mind like "well, not many people will listen" or "no one will accept this in this area!" i am putting a limit on what the Lord can do! after hearing that quote and reading Hebrews 11, I realized I am lacking a lot of faith!! of course I have faith, but not enough to work miracles, and that's something I really want to develop here in the mission field. the other thing he said that struck me was "if you're not making someone's life better, you're wasting your time!" this is applicable for everyone, but I think it is especially true for me as a missionary. i have 18 full months to give my ALL to the Lord! Am I really doing so? as you can see, that day was a day of much self reflection and evaluation! i am obviously not perfect, but I have a good foundation to build on, and that matters a lot! I think that's one of the hardest parts of the mission to get used to...never being fully satisfied with what you're doing, yet still loving yourself and being positive! after the meeting we ate and i did my language study. I'm going through my Portuguese hymn book and figuring out what the songs are in English. it's fun! after that we did facebook. we came home and I cooked a pretty impressive meal of shrimp, rice, and veggies! it was pretty delicious! after dinner we saw a less active member. She was busy so she couldn't let us in, but at least she knows we love her! we then tried to see another less active member. Her husband answered the door and told us she was in bed so he told us he'd tell her we stopped by. he looked at our name tags and told sister Phelps he'd remember her name because he has cousins who are Phelps. she said "yeah, it's a cool last name." He was like "man you guys are cool missionaries" it was pretty entertaining. after that we went and saw some members and shared a message with them about social media. we ended the night attempting to visit Elizabeth from Ghana, but she didn't answer the door! Wednesday was a good day! we went to see our investigator Doni, but she wasn't at home. So we decided to try and see her at work. she was really happy to see us but she didn't let us set up a return appointment! after seeing Doni we decided to do some visits to some people on a list our RS president gave us. we visited the first family who hasn't been to church for awhile. they were really sweet! they have 3 cute little boys.we talked to the husband about his mission in Minnesota and we will definitely go see them again soon! after that we knocked doors with no luck! we then had dinner with the Bakers. brother baker served his mission in Japan and met his wife who is from Japan after his mission at BYU. they are a really cute couple. they are both ward missionaries! after dinner we went and taught Elizabeth (the ten year old). we had planned on teaching the restoration but sister Phelps felt inclined to teach the plan of salvation. I realized we're both on the same team and she should follow the spirit when she feels it! We also taught Elizabeth to pray and it went really well! she's such a sweet little girl! after that we went and taught our other Elizabeth! Ghana Elizabeth! she is a member of the new apostolic church. as we taught her the restoration, i realized that i am now at the point on my mission where I know the doctrine. i know what to teach, i know how to teach it! but the thing I need is love! if we just go through the motions, this work is meaningless!! I'm grateful for this realization I had. I've been praying to have more charity for those I teach and not to fall into the trap of being a robot missionary! Thursday was so wonderful! we had interviews! they are my favorite!! President Riggs asked us to set goals before our interviews so i worked on that during my personal study. after studies we headed to our interviews! My interview with President Riggs was SO amazing though!! I told him my concerns and he talked to me about how everyone struggles at times with being motivated and that during the atonement even Christ had to pray "more earnestly". he needed more motivation! he told me to pray more earnestly and he talked about Corianton- whose sins were much greater than my sin of lack of motivation and how after his father Alma counseled him he told him to return to the ministry he was called to! the same thing happened to Joseph Smith when he lost the 116 pages. he then laughed a little bit and said he enjoyed seeing the difference between interviews with Elders and Sisters. Sisters feel like they're not motivated enough! he told me that I am still in his "trust box" and I'm still in the Lord's trust box! that made me feel better! he then told me about this district who taught 137 lessons last week! there are four missionaries in that district! FOUR!! Blew my mind! but it also really motivated me and reminded me that I am serving during "the hastening" and I need to expect the miracles that will come because of this! President then told me "Sister, you're amazing and you're doing great things! your companion adores you! keep working hard and pray more earnestly. you'll continue to do great things!" I left feeling SO inspired and ready to conquer the world! I LOVE my mission president! :) we went home and finished our studies, did facebook and then it was time for dinner. we had dinner with the elders and our ward mission leader. we went to this Thai place that was pretty tasty! it was slightly awkward because the Elders aren't really good at making conversation so it was up to us and Brother Lindsay to make the conversation! luckily we were eventually able to get the Elders to talk and it was really funny because Elder Egly, who is from Germany, and he ordered something and asked for it to be REALLY spicy. he definitely regretted it! he was crying and sweating! it was entertaining! after dinner we had our first one-on-one lesson with Teya! it was sooo awesome!! she had a bad day at school so we helped her out with that and then we taught the restoration. sister Phelps has this awesome visual aid she uses called the apostasy cups. it really helps people see WHY there needed to be a restoration. the spirit was so strong during the lesson and Teya was able to ask all the questions she needed to! we talked a lot about baptism and why we invite her to be baptized. i think she'll feel less pressure now! Friday was probably the craziest day of my mission thus far! it started out pretty normal! we studied and then did weekly planning! I'm so thankful i don't have to dread comp inventory anymore! i used to think it was just my companion criticizing me but now I realize that it allows me to recognize weaknesses I don't see in myself and then to work on them! one of the biggest things I've learned is that people can and do change!! i was a little too judgmental before my mission and I just assumed if someone was a certain way they'd never change! that was very wrong of me. I've seen changes in myself that I never thought would happen...that i never thought needed to be changed! and I've seen my companions change in ways i never thought they would! so I'm grateful I'm learning this now and that I'm learning how to communicate with others. we set some really good goals and talked about ideas to improve our teaching and working with members. after planning we did FB. after FB we had dinner with a member. on our way home we called sister Riggs because sister Phelps has been having health issues. we then called them Mission Dr. he told sister Phelps to take 3 Advil and then to call him in the A.M. since we couldn't go back out, i was trying to find way to be productive still. we called sue, who will be at church on Sunday! then we called Elizabeth's mom who gave us permission to bring her to church on Sunday! i made a few more calls when sister Phelps face started turning bright red and her throat was closing up! we called sister Riggs and i got permission to drive sister Phelps to the ER. she had an awful sinus infection and had a bad reaction to the Advil she took. we got home at about 2 in the morning. I'm glad she wasn't dying or anything! definitely an adventure though. Saturday was basically a day to recover from Friday. i got up and cleaned and studied, and then studied and cleaned some more while my comp slept. When she woke up, she felt better so we got ready and headed to the Rosenberg's they are such an incredible family! they invited some recent converts over for dinner with us! after dinner we decided to go check on sister ketch. she had brother Calhoun over, who is a less active member due to his health! we had a really great visit with them and it was nice to see that brother Calhoun still has a very strong testimony. after that we went to see sister bryk but she wasn't able to visit with us! we did have a good visit with her husband though so that was good! it was good for me to realize Saturday that i can still be, and need to be productive when my comp isn't feeling well! Sunday was a really great day, as always! let me just tell you...the first Sunday in the mission field i was sooo excited to go to church and just relax...but Sundays as a missionary are NOT relaxing! you have to make sure every investigator at church is having a good time and then yo have to try to get something out of it yourself...so help the missionaries out and try and take their investigators under your wing at church! but Sunday was awesome! Elizabeth (the 10 yr old) came to church for the first time!!! SUPER EXCITING!! she is so shy, but hopefully church will help her open up a little! sacrament was amazing! it was all about obedience since D&C 130 : 20 and 21 is our new ward theme. my favorite talk was by brother pinkney. he can really captivate an audience! he talked about 3 scriptural shirt rippings! my favorite was captain Moroni's shirt ripping where he creates the title of liberty. he talked about how bishop is our captain moroni and we should obey his counsel. he also talked about picking and choosing which commandments to obey and how wrong that is. bishop spoke after that and told us all to think of one thing that we need to be more obedient in. it's a cool challenge he issued and he told us to pray about it for 30 days. then pray 30 more days. and at the end of 60 days spend the next 30 days thanking heavenly father for helping you be more obedient. it's something i really want to try! Sue showed up to church and told us she wants to come on a regular basis now, so that was exciting! Sunday school as about the law of chastity. lets just say the teacher was VERY bold! 3rd hour was combined and was more about obedience. we found out Saturday night that our WML brother Lindsay is moving to the mid singles ward so our new WML is brother Rosenberg. I'm sad to see brother Lindsay go! but he deserves to be happy and married! after church we had correlation and then came home and finished studies. someone had signed up to feed us but then taken their name off the list, but then decided to drop dinner off to us, but since they took their name off the list someone else signed up so we had 2 meals last night! we had to stick the one in the fridge. we went to sister May's house for dinner. she's a real sweetie! we had planned to tract after dinner but it was too dark to knock. we ended up seeing Kaira, who wasn't at church today. after that we saw sister Olsen. we told her we'd visited her son and she was pretty shocked! she was very happy, but surprised! it made me feel glad that we could help such a sweet lady's family! tonight i read a talk by Quentin L. cook where he quotes "what ere thou art, act well thy part." it really stuck out to me as I pondered some of the things I haven't done as well as i should on my mission. i think the lord gave me this companion to test me. he wanted to see who i would be with a sick companion. so far, I'm positive I've let him down! but as I read that quote I realized that I need to decide now who I am. I need to choose the type of missionary I am and be that person no matter who I'm serving with or where I'm serving! I'm grateful for this realization and I feel like it was one of those "turning points' of the mission where I'm really becoming someone. I don't want to be "Sister Phelps companion" or "Sister Stott's companion". I want to be remembered as Sister Pehrson and be the same person no matter who my comp is or where I'm at! this morning I studied a really awesome talk. it was about personal prayer and improving personal prayer. it was in the ensign awhile ago, but it's a really great one you guys should look up! it talked a lot about how prayer is not just asking god for what we want and telling him what he needs to do, but it's figuring out who he wants us to be and asking him how to become that way....it's by elder Pearson. I'll try to get the title to you but yeah it was amazing! I'm super excited for this upcoming week! I love you guys SO much and pray for you daily! let me know what I can do to help you guys out. Keep the ward missionaries in your prayers and do all you can to find people for them to teach, or to fellowship those they are already teaching. Remember that being a missionary is simply being a friend. that's one of the greatest things I've learned on my mission! Love you all! xoxoxoxoox