January 22, 2014

hello! sorry for the late email!! apparently we are allowed to email at the church, which me and my companion didn't know. so Monday we didn't email, and Tuesday we got snowed in!! so here I am, emailing on Wednesday. This week was super awesome!!! I feel like every week goes faster and faster and I learn more and more. Yet the more I learn the more I realize I need to work on and improve on!! Last Monday we had dinner with the a ward family. they are a really awesome young couple in the ward. they are both RM'S and are expecting their first baby next month! they are the one's who brought the Christmas tree to another ward family. we had a really good visit with them! after dinner we worked on a list of names our Relief Society President gave us. the first woman turned her light off when she saw us. the second wasn't home and it was a good thing she didn't answer the door cause sister Phelps and i had a random laugh attack when we got to the door haha! the third woman has apparently been moved out for about 5 years! it's always sad meeting people like that because it's like really no one has checked on them for so long. after that we went and had FHE with La'vonne and Teya! they are so much fun! we talked to them about seminary since Teya will be in 9th grade next year. La'vonne thought it sounded really great, but Teya was not as convinced. I can't really blame her since 6 am scripture study sounds a little bit insane to a teenager! I really wanted Teya to know how much it would help her though. at first I thought "well, I didnt' really take advantage of seminary like i should have. doesn't this make me a hypocrite?!" but then i thought of the testimony I gained because of seminary. i thought about the times in high school where i made dumb choices and didn't hang out with the best people. my seminary friends never judged me for that and they always showed their love for me, no matter the decisions i was making! Who are my high school friends that I still actually talk to? Friends I made in seminary. I shared this with Teya and testified of what a true blessing seminary was and still is in my life! Teya agreed to at least give seminary a try! it was a really great lesson and made me realize what a powerful influence seminary had on me! Tuesday was a good day! But that night i was up all night coughing, so that wasn't very fun. our zone meeting got cancelled so we only had district meeting! it was really good! we talked about recognizing if our lessons are being led by the spirit or not. we also talked about introducing and inviting to read the book of Mormon. sister Phelps and i did our practice teach in front of the whole district. i learned a lot that i need to improve on! i got to evaluate the other missionaries practices and it was interesting to see the difference between when a sister teaches and when an elder teaches. Elders are much for matter of fact and use logical examples. sisters seem to be more about feelings! but it was good to see some elders teach and see how i can improve. after out meeting we ate and then did language study. then we got on facebook! i was super nervous because the last time i got on i asked a fried if he wanted to learn more and I knew there would be a response from him that day. well...he said yes! we made plans to have a Skype lesson with him on Friday and give lesson 1. that day was definitely the most productive and fruitful day I've had on FB so far! after fb we checked on several less active members from the list our RElief Society President gave us. then we went and had dinner with her! it was good to have names to talk to her about becuase she knew we would do what she asked us to do. after dinner we checked on a few more people and my sickness got the best of me. i needed extra rest so we went in at about 7:30. Wednesday was super awesome!! i didn't wake up on time because I had taken NyQuil, so I woke up later and was feeling really crummy. not like sick crummy but "i didn't get up on time!" crummy. i did my personal study and i received the exact direction and council i needed at that time!! i read 2 Nephi 2-4. these are some amazing chapters! the part that really helped me was when Nephi talks about how this life is for us to repent and prepare to meet God. It was a great reminder to me that this life is NOT for us to be perfect and to always do everything right and to understand everything! we came here as imperfect beings and we were given the gift of repentance to use for our growth! If I'm not repenting, I'm not changing. so we shouldn't get down on ourselves if we need to repent! it just means we are trying to be better! after our studies we headed to the church and got on FB. i spent a lot of time on www.mormon.orgsince there wasn't much going on on FB. after fb we went and checked on a former investigator. he said to check back later because his wife and him are both out of work right now and don't have time for the lessons. we then decided to see a member who we just met on Sunday. turns out she'd just gotten her wisdom teeth pulled! her husband answered the door and told us that, so we went to leave and he's like " I'll see if she's up for visitors". she was! she was in a lot of pain but she said our visit was really helpful for her. it could have just been the drugs she was on, but i hope it really helped :) we came home and ate, then went to check on a 10 year old girl we are teaching. no one was home so we left a sticky note! the rest of the night was full of attempts to visit people! no luck though! the funny thing is, i was not discouraged! i was just grateful to be out working! i had to take NyQuil that night, so I just prayed that i would have the strength to wake up at 6:30 the next morning. you'd think after reading all those "ask and ye shall receive" scriptures, I'd expect my prayer to be answered! but i doubted! more in myself than in the Lord. but nevertheless, 6:30 came and I was ready to take on the world!!! it was such a simple thing, but i can't even tell you how much it really meant to me to know that the Lord would help me with a silly thing like that! that afternoon was another "no one is home!!!" marathon. so we knocked. and knocked. and knocked some more! we got some people with a lot of potential so that was exciting! we had been waiting all day for our dinner appt to confirm, but no one had called us! we called her husband who gave us her work number. she apologized and told her her phone had broken, so we should meet her at the Verizon store at 6:30 and then we'd go to dinner. we checked on a couple of investigators. the first person had the flu. the other didn't open her door! by that time it was time to head to Verizon. we got there and were waiting outside and one of the Verizon employees was out smoking so he asks why we were standing outside. we explain and have a good chat with him. we then see a woman in her military uniform trying to get her car to work. we didn't have jumper cables, so we didn't offer to help. she got out of the car and the Verizon guy talks to her and she walked away. he told us that no one would help her! we told him we would if we had cables! he told us she had cables. so he yelled after her and we jumped her car! i couldn't believe that no one would help her. she had asked several people and they all said no! and she was in her uniform! but it was a great service opportunity and showed me that i always need to offer my help, even if i don't think i can really help! the member finally got there and we went in to Verizon's with her to drop her phone off. we ended up having a really awesome gospel discussion with the Verizon guy.after dinner we had our lesson with teya! we taught her about the book of Mormon and it was a powerful lesson! Friday was awesome!!! we did weekly planning and we spent some time frantically trying to find a place to Skype. we finally found a place and so we went and updated the progress record and then did FB. A recently baptized member called and invited us for dinner! we had a great visit with her. our Skype lesson was supposed to start at 7 but he got caught up with work til about 7 50. i was sooo nervous!! he didn't really have questions or objections and he said he'd like to keep learning more! we challenged him to read the book of Mormon and i am super excited to continue teaching him! it's so cool to see how powerful of a tool facebook really is! Saturday was FUH REEZING!! it was in the mid 20s all day, but it felt much colder!! we had forgotten to attach the progress record to our email the day before, so we went and attached that. we then saw sister ketch! she is such fun! She has an incredible testimony! we shared an article with her about prayer. she still prays every single day! someone told us the other day that she took care of her husband for 5 years before he passed away. she is a tough lady! i really look up to her a lot! after that, Sister Jordan called and invited us to her friends house to try some Filipino food! it was pretty tasty! it was fun because there were about 7 or 8 people there and they asked us about our missions and the church. from there we went and had a lesson with a lady from Ghana. i love that lady more and more each time i talk with her! we talked to her about the book of Mormon and i felt the spirit very strong! she talked a lot about her family and she said her mom always said "if you're not happy in your home, you'll never be happy anywhere else." I thought that was awesome!! after our lesson with her we went and visited sister Thompson. she only started coming back to church in march. She feels like she forgot a lot. so we've started teaching her the missionary discussions. we started with lesson one. i never ever ever!!! get sick of teaching the restoration. especially when i share the first vision. it's amazing how much teaching that really strengthens my testimony and reminds me of why I'm on my mission!! Sunday was so wonderful! we had ward council which is always an adventure! it was brother Rosenberg's first ward council as our Ward Mission Leader. he's amazing! i am so excited to have him lead out the work in this ward. his plan for the ward mission is "pray. serve. share. invite." it's simple but powerful! one of our investigators showed up for church! she was taught by the last sisters in this area and once i showed up we could not get in touch with her, i thought she dropped of the face of the planet! it was so cool to see her there and see that we should never give up on people because they will eventually come around! sacrament was all about organizing ourselves. Sunday school was about temple work and family history! La'vonne got a calling that day as well! she'll be serving in the young women ! she is sooo excited! I'm excited for her! we got to see Teya's reaction to La'vonne being called to serve in young women...priceless! she acts like she's not excited but I know she will love having her mom in there with her! we got double booked for dinner that day :( dinner number 1 was a potluck type meal at sister May's. she invited several of the single women in the ward. it was a lot of fun! dinner number 2 was with sue! on our way there we received a text telling us that S. Gifford Neilson is coming to our mission for a special mission conference this Saturday! hes' the one who gave the exclamation point talk!!!!! soooo excited! so sue fed us some delicious authentic Chinese food! she made this egg/tomato dish with tofu. it was so good! we had a really incredible lesson with her as well! she talked about how afraid she is right now and how if God helps her survive, she'll believe in him. we talked to her about prayer and encouraged her to pray for protection. we talked to her about baptism as well. normally it's a pretty touchy subject with her, but she seemed honestly committed to think and pray about it! she may be finally coming around! from the lesson we rushed over to the Rosenberg's for ward correlation. brother Rosenberg is super on top of things!!! our goal is 20 lessons per week per companionship! Monday I deep cleaned the apartment to get all the sick bugs out! i think mom would be impressed :) then i wrote a bunch of letters. funnily enough the weather was gorgeous that day! we had our windows open all afternoon and it wasn't even cold! we tried to visit a few former investigator that night but neither were home. La'vonne was late to fhe, but I was still an awesome time! we did "stump the missionaries' where La'vonne and Teya asked us anything they wanted to. I'm not sure why we chose to play this with La'vonne since she pretty much always stumps us :) but she asked some cool questions like if there must be opposition in all things will there be opposition in heaven? mind boggling! I'll tell you about Tuesday next week since I'm running out of time! basically it snowed all day long:( today it's just super freezing but not snowing so that's good!! I love you all so much and hope your week is WONDERFUL!! Love, Sister Pehrson