January 27, 2014

Hello family!! I still have tons to tell you about!! This week was AMAZING! We got to hear from a general authority, found a new investigator, and had so many miracles happen! This work is the best!! Tuesday morning I studied and waited for the snow to come! At 9:30, we got a text that said district meetings were back on but we couldn't drive after that! Zone training was all about being elect. We studied D&C 25 and then watched this amazing video! It's off the new seminary/institute video. it's all about Emma Smith and her life and the amazing woman she was despite all of the hardship she experienced in her life! It was reallyy inspiring. Then in district meeting we did an "investigator inventory" and we helped each other out with finding solutions to some of the struggles our investigators have. we then practice taught door approaches! after that we came home, ate, and studied. I was trying to think of members we could call and how we could still be productive. but then my companion didn't feel good. I was disappointed because I wanted to be out working. I knelt and prayed one of the most heart felt prayers i've ever prayed before! then i kept doing studies and a member who fed us that night came and picked us up. They are a young couple who are both RM's (returned missionaries). they are super awesome! they dropped us off at a teaching appointment with elizabeth. we taught her the 2nd half of the plan of slavation. i think it's the best lesson we've had with her so far! she was a lot more talkative than usual and when we brought up baptism, she seemed mcuh more open to the idea than ever before! we couldn't find a ride home so we walked home. it was about a 30 minute walk in the snow and wind...it felt good to be productive though!! that night we had a really awesome planning session and we had decided to text bethany and try to have a lesson with her. She set up an appointment with us for the next day! it was a miracle!! Wednesday was also awesome! i learned so much! we studied and we weren't allowed to drive until 1 because of the snow, so we had a member pick us up. last week I got an email from tasha that was a complete answer to my prayers!! she talked to me about how a lot of my mission is learning to love others and to take care of my relationship with my comp. I love my companion and i want her to leave this transfer knowing without any doubt that i love her! i'm grateful that heavenly father allowed me to have this change in perspective!! it reminded me of the quote "never let a problem to be solved become more important than a person to be loved." so i'm really working on my charity these days!! :) we had the member come pick us up from the the family history center. she is a seahawks fan and one of the elders int he ward is a patriots fan. so the member went to rub it in his face that the seahwaks are going to the super bowl and the patriots aren't. iTheir exchange was really funny. On the way to the car, i slipped and my foot fell into a storm drain that was hidden by the snow! I was not hurt and that too was pretty funny! after we got home we shoveled off our car and headed to the lesson with Bethany! oh my gosh she is amazing! she said she really doesn't like transfers and thats why it took her so long to come back to church and meet with us. She is currently working and going to school so she's really busy. She really wants her daughter to grow up in the church. She brought up baptism and said it is something she wants to work towards. it was so cool because i just immediately felt this great love for her and i'm so excited to get to know her better. She's helping her inactive dad return to church as well! We ate dinner and then had a lesson with The Abbas family. it went really well and they were glad to see us since its been a few weeks! Thursday was a really good day! someone sent me a general conference liahona in portuguese so i studied that! although i had to read very slow, it was awesome to be able to understand what i read. it's funny too because i had been praying about how to improve my language studies and then BOOM ! it shows up in the mail....heavenly father is awesome! :) after studies we went on FB and erik asked me our churches view on alcohol. i explained that we believe our bodies are gifts from God so we don't put anything in them that can harm them. after that we tried to visit TONS of people! we ended up being able to see 2. one was a former investigator who let us in for a few minutes and then the other was a less active member. After dinner, we had the exact same thing happen! we knocked and knocked and knocked and NO ONE WAS HOME! we had an awesome lesson with Teya that night though! it was the most frustrating, intense, yet great lesson ever! We taught the plan of salvation. it's funny how during the really intense, important parts of the lesson, there's always some sort of distraction! We had a talk about Alma 34:32 and how Teya can perpare to meet God. we told her that baptism is one of the BEST ways to prepare to meet Him. we talked to her about setting a goal for a day to be baptized and that we felt March 8 is the day for her. She sat and thought about it for what felt like eternity but then she accepted it! Friday was super awesome! we studied and then had weekly planning! Sister phelps and I are ready to set this area on fire! I just love being her companion! She is so full of love and positivity!!! We went and updated the progress record after that and got on FB. i tried to contact erik but didn't have much luck. i left him with the message with the time we would Skype and hoped to see him then! One of the senior missionaries messaged me on fb and told me how much she loved my page and told me that i'm changing more lives than i think! it was so sweet! A member brought dinner to us. We then went and saw a family in the Ward. The wife had just found out she has cancer.( she has such a positive attitude about it) she is an incredible woman! i had a really cool experience with that visit. It is interesting how the Spirit works in our lives. We were driving to go visit someone else and I had this feeling of "no. go visit this family!" i tried to ignore it at first, but it wouldn't go away! oddly enough, it is very rare that i receive such strong promptings! i'm still not sure why we were meant to go see that family, but i sure hope it helped! from there we headed to sister graney's for our skype lesson. sadly, erik never got on, but we had an amazing visit with sister graney! honestly, when i think of the type of person i want to be after my mission, i think of sister graney! she is so selfless and loving! she talked to us about setting up a new and returning member class for people. we thought that was such an incredible idea! it was cool to see that although the lesson fell through, we were still very needed in that home! we attempted to visit the other Elizabeth after that with no luck! Saturday was incredible!!! i am so so blessed to be serving in this mission! saturday morning we were blessed to attend a whole mission conference! Sister Riggs spoke first and talked about Nephi and some of his life patterns we should follow. then President Riggs spoke all about our faith and what we need to do to accomplish our goals. what an inspired man! the biggest treat was hearing from Elder S. Gifford Nielson! What an amazing man!!! His talk was so inpsiring! he is such a great speaker!! he helped us understand the true importance of our call and how we cannot waste our time. he said over and over again "this is your time. don't waste a second of it!" he talked about how this mission is what will carry us through the rest of our lives and that we must use this time to gain a strong relationship with Christ. when speaking about the importance of our call, he talked about how we've all been called to the Washington D.C. South Mission. he then said, "I know we've got some visa blessings in this room" and he told us that we are where we need to be right now! honestly and thankfully, i haven't felt too brasil trunky this transfer. but it was still so powerful to hear those words from him and to realize that i am doing what i was called to do. i am still doing the Lord's work and I am where I need to be! after the meeting, elder nielson came up to me and a few other sisters. he told us to keep working hard and being rays of sunshine in people's lives. President Riggs then came up and said "this is one of our visa blessings! the one i told you about who taught a woman in portuguese who was then baptized!" Elder Nielson talked about how he's sure those consolates are just wondering why our church is sending so many of us over there! it was a really cool experience for me because i felt my mission presidents love for me! he doesn't see me as just a visa waiter. i am another one of his missionaries and i'm special to him! it meant so much! it was so amazing to see my old companions-especially sister stott! it was great to give her a huge hug and say i love you! sister butts told me she met Andresa and Andresa started crying when she talked about me. i think time has really dimmed the true brilliance of that experience for me, but i was so thankful for the remoinders i received from both president riggs and sister butts. i left that conference so inspired!! our first attempted visits of the day were unsuccessful. we then saw sister ketch! she has some incredible stories! i love learning from her. she told us taht she really appreciates our visits. on our way to the ward potluck we called and got permission for elizabeth to come to church and then at the potluck we set up a ride for her. the activity was so amazing!! it was the best activity for me so far on my mission! i felt so inspired by elder nielsons talk and i knew that i could find someone for us to teach at this activity! that opportunity was provided (sort of). one of the members told sister phelps and i to come by her table and meet the friends she had brought. there is a blind couple in our ward and they invited their blind neighbors to the party! i got to talk to samantha, the wife. she is amazing! she's from the bahamas and has only lived in the US for 2 years. she and her husband are raising her niece. i honestly had one of the most powerful short lessons with samantha. she gave us her information and we got her okay to try and visit her! sue also came to the activity which was great! The member family then came and thanked us for talking to samantha and said she wants us to help her when she visits them because she reads to the niece and helps her learn since her aunt and uncle are blind. after the potluck we went and had a lesson with sister thompson. she's making amazing progress and we cahllenged her to read one chapter of the book of mormon a day! sunday was super awesome! church was pretty intense that day!! we had teya, bethany, and elizabeth come, and then sue showed up at the end! i've never had 4 people at church before! we sat by teya and elizabeth and so i explained the significance of sacrament to them. after sacrament was sunday school. we talked about the spirit world. it was such an awesome lesson! la'vonne had a few questions and so we all helped her use the sciprtures to find answers! she was really really excited! bethany helped her cousin in primary for the second hour, but she came back for relief society. After church was crazy hectic as always! yesterday was probably one of the most productive days of church i've had though so it was a really cool experience. we then came home, ate, studied, and then went to dinner at the smith's. sister smith is a single mom of 2 teenage daughters! i admire her a lot! after that we went to check on 2 people our ward mission leader told us about with no luck. then we visited kaira. shes only been to church once since being home from school so we're a little worried about her. she is super amazing and i want to do all i can to help her come back to church! after that we had ward correlation! it was a really great day! i have learned a ton this week and i wish i could have just had you all in my pocket for the conference with Elder Nielson! it was one of my favorite talks i've ever heard! i hope your weeks are amazing...i love you all so so much and am grateful for all you do to support me out here! love you!! Sister Pehrson