May 19, 2014

Family!! Wow I can't believe it was just a week ago we were skyping! I hope you're all still doing great! This week was so awesome!! I got to meet an apostle and see lots of incredible miracles happen!! So last p day was a little different because we had a lesson! We taught Pedro in Russia over Skype! It was super great! We went to Sister Koford's and we taught him the word of wisdom. Sister Koford was raised in another faith so she grew up drinking coffee and so she was able to show Pedro that he can obey the word of wisdom! It was a really amazing lesson! After that she fed us lunch and then she told us about this grocery store we should try out. We ended up going to the wrong one. It was the same store just a sketchier version. It's an Asian market so the produce is really cheap and it was fun to see all the crazy foods they had! We really only had time to do our shopping and then we had dinner with a cute member family. We then did some tracting and met a really cool guy named Joe! His son goes to school in Utah so he knows lots about Mormons and was really excited to talk with us. We had parked our car and walked around this neighborhood talking to people and it all of a sudden began dumping rain! We couldn't find out car for like 30 minutes so we were drenched and it was so much fun!! After that we went and visited a member who doesn't come to church very much. She's pregnant and is a really cute lady. We had a nice visit and then went to bishops to have correlation. On Tuesday we had our regular meetings and they were all about working with members. When it was on that topic it made me and sister Egbert realize we need to do a better job at that so that's what we focused on more this week! After the meetings and some studies we went and saw Valerie. She read a book out loud to us so she could practice her English and she then suggested we bring a book to read in Portuguese next time! So we brought the Liahona with us the next time and read conference talks! It was really awesome because she isn't fond of us teaching her the gospel, she just wants to hear English and teach us Portuguese. But she made it so we can now share the gospel with her!! :) after that we headed to one of our ward members homes. She had called us earlier in the week telling us about a friend she wanted us to tract into. We went and talked to the member and suggested instead of us tracting into her she invites her friend to a family home evening. She really liked the idea because then it seems way more casual than just asking her friend to come over for a lesson. Family home evening is something that happens weekly so it's way more normal and less scary for people to come to! So she agreed to invite her friend and tell us how it goes! After that we did FB and then had dinner and a lesson with the Kofords. We drew the plan of salvation in chalk on their driveway with their kids. It was so much fun! We then had them teach us the lesson. Two of their daughters put our name tags on and taught us it was so cute! After that we had another member lesson with this really cute young couple in the ward! We hadn't talked to them much before that lesson but we realized how amazing and fun they are which is always great because now we have 2 more people we can bring out with us! At the end of the lesson the husband got kind of emotional and was like "I'm so glad you sisters came over and invited us to study out of preach my gospel. Thank you for preparing and teaching us. We needed this!" It was cool because I've never had a member react like that to a lesson and it made me realize that working with members is so important! So these members live in a lock out apartment complex so you can't get in without a code. Well one of our less active members also lives there so we decided to try and see her while we were there. We found her building and couldn't get in at first so we prayed and then this kid just walks up and is like "hey do you need let in?" We were like YES!!!!! it was sooo cool! Unfortunately the lady wasn't home so we went to go find out car in the parking garage and somehow got locked out of the garage. We didn't know how we would get back in to get our car so we prayed again and then sister Egbert walked up to this door that totally looked locked. It's the kind that locks from the inside but she just pulled on it and it opened!!!! It was really pretty miraculous! Wednesday was a really hard day but also amazing! No one was home and we were a little discouraged by that. Then we were driving and we were on a road that is under construction. I wasn't paying enough attention and didn't see a sign that said bump so we hit this bump pretty hard. After that our car started making weird noises like something was dying and we couldn't figure out what was wrong. So what did we do? WE PRAYED!! :) and as soon as we started driving again the car didn't make a peep! Heavenly Father is the best mechanic! The rest of our day was filled with little success until at the end of the night we prayed to meet someone prepared. We started taking to this guy and he wasn't interested at all no matter what we said. We kept looking and went around the corner and met a sweet lady named Sadia who told us she wants us to come back and see her! I think Heavenly Father wants me to learn that he does answer prayers! Thursday was soo great!! We saw Valerie and read the liahona with her. It's hilarious when Valerie reads to us because when she reads a lot of words in English correctly she gets so excited and she's like "I AM SO GOOD AT ENGLISH! LISTEN TO ME I AM SPEAKING LIKE BILL CLINTON! I AM SPEAKING LIKE BILL CLINTON! DO YOU HEAR ME??" Hahahha she is a hoot and a half! After that lesson we went and correlated with the member who invited her friend over for FHE. The friend said yes so we made plans for what we want to teach and how long and everything. The lesson is tonight so we are super excited!! After that we went and saw a ward member who just had a baby. We are going to start visiting her more regularly! From there we had dinner with some ward members, the Adams. They are so much fun! We had a really awesome time and at the end of our lesson sister Adams just burst into tears and told us how glad she is that we came and how grateful she is that we're good missionaries and all this stuff. It made sister Egbert and I cry because we look up to sister Adams a ton! It was really really special. After that we stopped by our investigator Jean Pierre's house. He's been taught by missionaries for awhile now. The missionaries in another ward were teaching him til they realized he's in our ward. so we took over. We had the coolest lesson that night though! He's a mad genius and so we had probably the weirdest, deepest lesson I've ever taught on my mission haha. But it was awesome because at the end he was like "I'm finally convinced to read the book! Everyone else just told me to read it and get baptized but now I really want to read it because of what you told me!" Haha it was sooo awesome! After that we taught our other investigator Alicia. Her husband is a member but doesn't come much due to work. Alicia is a tough egg to crack. She always changes the subject when we try to teach and talks about all the pictures she has on her wall and stuff. So we are trying to teach her in a members home! Friday was awesome! We did weekly planning and then visited with a recent convert in our ward. Her name is Chitra and she's an older Indian woman. She wears he same hat, windbreaker, and sunglasses every day! She is really sweet and we had a great visit with her. After that we ate and then went and talked to a really nice lady we meet last week NAMED PAM!!! Of course I love her because anyone named Pam is just destined to be amazing! She's such a nice lady though she Is pretty strong in her own faith she accepted the Book of Mormon and lives by Mormons so she's in a pretty good spot right now! After that we stopped and told her neighbors we had seen her so they could work their magic and then we went and met the smiths. They are ward members we haven't gotten to know well yet. They are geniuses and the dad is a filmmaker for cnn or something and has met the pope. He's got lots of stories...but he's sweet! Their son will be coming home from BYU soon and then going on a mission so when he gets home we're going to practice the preach my gospel lessons with him! Saturday was soooooo cool! I got to meet elder Ballard! We didn't get handshakes but we still had such an awesome time hearing from him! He is so powerful and shared soo many things that I felt I needed to hear. He talked a lot about simplicity and keeping our lessons simple. He also talked about being ourselves because people want to be around REAL people, not robots! It's funny because everything he said was like "oh ya no duh I should be doing that!" But I haven't been doing it so I need to! One thing is literally talking to everyone! I try to but there are still times when I pass by people because it would be awkward to talk to them or what ever. But he said that even on our p days we need to talk to the cashiers and different people we meet! So I am going to do better at that because that's how we find people! Hearing him speak just reminded me of why I'm out here and made me want to keep being better! I am so grateful to be on a mission and have opportunities like I did to meet elder Ballard. Because I wouldn't have had that if I wasn't out here! Thank goodness God had better plans for me than I had for myself :) so after the conference we had an appointment with Krista and Chelsea, the mom and the Down syndrome daughter. We were scared because we were super late due to traffic and we didn't even stop and eat or anything we just rushed to their house and at first Krista was kinda mad but she softened up and we had an incredible lesson! Then we had a member lesson with the relief society president and her family and also the kids of a member who just had a new baby. So we had 7 little boys we were teaching! They were soooo rambunctious and it was a blast! We taught them the Ten Commandments using this really cool way to remember with your hands. They loved it! Afterwards we talked with our relief society president for a bit. She's so amazing! She's a young mom of 3 kids and yet she serves every one around her and is so full of love! She's amazing! Sunday was awesome! The McLeod's came to church AGAIN!!! This is he third week in a row! I am so excited for them! Church was amazing and then we ate with some members and them had a lesson in Portuguese! It was in Centreville with sister Martindales investigator! It was so fun! His name is Rodrigo and he is so prepared. It's really cool that president gave us permission to teach anyone anywhere in Portuguese! Definitely a blessing! After that we came home and then visited a ward member. She's sweet. Then we met some really cool people who we will hopefully start teaching! So visa updates: sister Egbert was informed Saturday that she has to redo all her fingerprints because they are required to do new ones every six weeks! I am hoping that will not be the case for mine! Love you guys tons and tons! I am sooo grateful for you all and hope you have a fabulous week! Love, Sista Pehrson