Week 42: Exchanges, Sticky Note Miracle, and International Night!!!

Another week...I know I say this alot but...THIS WEEK FLEW BY...the weeks are going by so fast!!! I was warned of this at the beginning of my mission...Better make the best of every day!!

This week was good! It started out with EXCHANGES!!! I stayed in Surrey 3rd with Sister Grant from Utah and Sister Macaso went to Surrey 1st with Sister Tripp and Sister Herd! We had a lot of fun! Sister Grant is in the same boat as me...she's been out almost 11 months and so we are experiencing similar things!!! 

{ Side Note: when you go on exchanges you have a lot of heart-to-heart talks and see lots of miracles :) Haha }

So Sister Grant and I had a good talk about our missions and how we want to make everyday count and all that fun stuff. I learned a lot from her! We had an awesome day together! We saw more Peacocks...Sister Grant flipped out!!!! hahahahah SO funny!!! We also went tracting and we were talking to a Sikh (said like seek) man and he put his hand up like he was going to slap Sister Grant...we were both like OH SNAP!!! What's going on!!! hahahah but then he grabbed her hand and kissed it!!!!!!!!!! HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH  After we went home for lunch and

realized we actually wanted some breakfast for lunch , we went to Denny's!!! We had these yummy berry pancakes with cream cheese frosting!! Oh my goodness...it was heaven on earth!!!! It was an excellent choice :) While we were there we chatted it up with some of the servers and ended up leaving our number with one of them who was asking a lot of questions about the church! SWEET!!! Sister Grant and I also taught our investigator Bhupinder and we had such a good lesson about The Book of Mormon and how the Book of Mormon is the key to it all... how everything is weighing on whether that book is true or not! We recommitted her to read the Book of Mormon and to give it a chance! She said she would and she even came to the church activity this Saturday!! It was awesome!!! We brought a Hindi speaking member with us to the lesson and it really helped because she was able to explain things that we couldn't!!! So good!!!

Ooh!!! Monday was also a good day because we stopped by our friend Lee a less active in our ward. We usually meet with her two times a week, but she hadn't been replying to us and we knew she was going through a hard time. So we stopped by and she didn't answer the door but we knew she was in there!!!! So after 10 min we decided to go buy some sticky notes and DECORATE HER DOOR!!!!! Lee loves simple things like that!! So we wrote quotes, scriptures, encouraging things. Then we snuck up to her door and PLASTERED IT!!!! It was so good!!!! Here door was like a rainbow!!! Then we knocked and ran away!! Well later she came outside and saw the sticky notes!!! She called us crying and said she was so thankful for them!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! She said it snapped her right out of it and she went to every church activity this week and came to church!!! SO GOOD!!!!!!!!! It was really cool because I shared with her my fav scripture Mosiah 24:13-15. It reads: 

 13 And it came to pass that the voice of the Lord came to them in their afflictions, saying: Lift up your heads and be of good comfort, for I know of the covenant which ye have made unto me; and I will covenant with my people and deliver them out of bondage. 14 And I will also ease the burdens which are put upon your shoulders, that even you cannot feel them upon your backs, even while you are in bondage; and this will I do that ye may stand as witnesses for me hereafter, and that ye may know of a surety that I, the Lord God, do visit my people in their afflictions. 15 And now it came to pass that the burdens which were laid upon Alma and his brethren were made light; yea, the Lord did strengthen them that they could bear up their burdens with ease, and they did submit cheerfully and with patience to all the will of the Lord.

So I just love this scripture...I found it at a really hard time in my life and it gave me the strength and the comfort I

needed at that time! I have shared it with everyone ever since. She texted us and said she opened the Book of Mormon {BIG STEP} and read this scripture and now it's her favorite scripture as well. THIS SCRIPTURE WORKS MIRACLES LET ME TELL YA!!!! I know that it's so true!! That the Lord knows of our struggles and he knows the promises/covenants we have made with him and he will help us through anything and all that weight will be lifted!! I love the end... the Lord did strengthen them so they could bear up their burdens with ease... and they did submit cheerfully and with patience to all the will of the Lord. The Lord will not take all of our burdens away, but he will make them light and give us the strength we need to deal with them we just have to submit to his will..cheerfully :)  SO that was a miracle!!! Wednesday we met with Jean our investigator who speaks Mandarin :) She is the cutest thing ever!!! We taught her the Word of Wisdom and she accepted it no problem! Whoohoo!!! 

We brought the Benincosa's {senior missionary couple} with us and they have a 6 yr old grandson who speaks Mandarin so they are going to Skype him next time and have him bear his testimony in Mandarin!!! HOW CUTE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! We have a new investigator named Susan!! We did some service for her this week to help her get ready for a garage sale {it ended up raining so no garage sale :( } but it was good! We were able to do service and teach her about the gospel WIN WIN!!! Saturday IT RAINED AND RAINED AND RAINED!!!!!!!!!!!!! All day!!! It was like winter again!!!! I had my jacket on, my cute rain boots, and my leggings {Thanks LulaRoe} !!! Brrrr!!! We had a really good day though! We found some new people to teach and had fun jumping in puddles and trying to keep dry!! I BROKE MY 5TH UMBRELLA ON THE MISSION THAT DAY TOO!!! Goodness...I don't even know how it broke!! It wasn't even windy this time!!! :( sad day!!! I'm going to buy a new one today maybe they will have some

bright fun colors because it's summer now :) {it's summer but still feels like winter up here hahahahahahahahah} Saturday we also had our INTERNATIONAL NIGHT!!!! We had food from Fiji, India, Philippines, Japan, China, USA {literally the only things on the table were potato salad and funeral potatoes... hahahahahhahaha}, Canada, El Salvador, Mexico, Peru, Australia, New Zealand, England....the list goes on!!! It's so cool that we have all those people in our ward!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Who knew Canada was so diverse!!!!!!! We had a great night and we had 2 investigators come and they had fun getting to know the members :) Sunday!!! HAPPY FATHER'S DAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! This is so bad...but we totally forgot...hahahahah we don't keep track of holidays as missionaries...so we interrupted so many people's dinners while tracting hahahahahaha Oh Well!! The Gospel is Important!!! It was also Elder Benincosa's Birthday so we went over to the Benincosa's House for Cake and Ice Cream!! It was so good!!!!!!! I LOVE the Benincosa's!!!! They are from Utah and they are so fun!!! They just love the gospel and want to help us all the time!!!  It was a good night!!! We had dinner with a Filipino family in our ward! The missionaries knocked into their door 8 yrs ago and they were baptized 2 months later!!!! THEY ARE THE REASON WHY WE DO THE WORK WE DO!!!! They were sealed as a family two years later and are some of the greatest members in our ward!!!! We taught them the plan of salvation and they said that that's one of the reasons why they joined the church. Before

they just believed that we were BORN, we LIVE, and then we DIE but the Plan of Salvation cleared everything up for them.

 We had some good food at their house and while we were eating their dog Ben (Labradoodle) STARTED EATING OUR SKIRTS!!!!!!!!!!! Apparently he does that to all sister missionaries lol He did it all night it was really funny!!!! This week was good! Just doing what missionaries do and trying to work hard and seeing miracles along the way!!!  Today we are driving to White Rock, BC because it's right on the water and I found out THAT'S WHERE THEY FILMED PSYCH!!!!!!!!!!! I am stoked!!! Only Sister Grant and I are Psych fans so the other Sisters don't realize what a big deal this is hahaha We are buying a pineapple and taking it with us to take pictures...only true psych fans will understand :)

That's it for this week!!!!

Love you,

Sister Peterson