Week 13: Freezing Cold -BUT- Lots of Fun!!!

This week FLEW BY we were busy talking to people and we had a ton of fun! It's been so cold so we have been walking fast and getting things done!! I'm going to have to break out my big winter jacket soon! There's no snow here in the "tropical" {yeah right!} part of Canada as the people say but it's still FREEZING!!!

On Tuesday all our plans fell through so we ended up tracting and finding all day which was super awesome! The standard for the mission is 140 Quality Gospel Conversations {QGCs} a week and this week we got 176 all thanks to our finding on Tuesday! That night we had two funny things happen. First, we were tracting and we knocked this door and this little kid peeked through the window..next we hear him yell "DAD...there's someone here and their wearing something...strange!" Hahaha we were dying laughing! We tried so hard not to giggle when the dad finally answered the door! As missionaries we are kind of oblivious to the fact that we look awkward and weird walking around in skirts at night. Also, when we got back to the apartment we were so tired and we were getting ready for bed and all the sudden we hear the member we live

with yell "Sisters!!! Sisters!!!! THERE'S A BEAR!!!!" {said w/ a British accent} She comes running up the stairs runs in our apartment and ran to the window!!!! THIS HUGE BLACK BEAR WAS JUST GOING THROUGH OUR TRASH RIGHT IN THE FRONT YARD!!!!! HOLY SMOKES!!!! I was shocked! I thought they were in hibernation and all I had to worry about now was the cougars and the wolves but guess the bears are still up! There was trash everywhere! :( We met with Diane this week who is preparing for baptism on January 2nd! She is great!!! She always gets so excited about the gospel and she understands everything we teach and has such a strong desire to live it!! She came to church on Sunday for the first time in 30+ years! It was the primary program (always hilarious and so cute!) So we think she loved it! She downloaded the "mormon apps" and was showing us everything she had looked at! She's the best! We also met with Dorothy!! Cool Experience Alert! We had planned to teach the Plan of Salvation lesson again, but we started talking about prophets and ended up having a great spirit-filled discussion about that. It was so cool to realize afterward that the spirit really does teach these people and that we are just the instruments in God's hands. Dorothy needed that discussion at that time to help her progress and because we were willing to leave behind our lesson plan and focus on her and her needs we ended up helping her more and having a great lesson! 

During the middle of the week the three of us were basically tired of tracting but we had nothing else to do. It's especially bad at night when it's like -6*C {21*F} and we're freezing! One night we lost it and started doing the Macarena (sp?) dance at the door...hahahaha we were laughing so hard!!! Luckily the people weren't home so we didn't get caught but gosh...we were driven crazy by the cold! Thursday was American Thanksgiving but it just felt like another day to us! One member family had us over for Thanksgiving dinner and we were so happy!!!! She even got us little chocolate advent calendars!!! Then on Sunday another family invited us over to celebrate again!!! I LOVE Turkey and Cranberry sauce and stuffing so I was just fine with that!!! The members are so good to us and really try to help us feel at home during the Holidays which is so sweet! 

Saturday was Sister Holbrook's 18 month mark!!! We got a big chocolate cake and just had fun! It finally dawned on us that she is leaving in a week!!! We are so sad to break up our trio!!! I LOVE BEING IN A TRIO!!!! Going back to a regular companionship is going to be hard :( Transfers are coming up and we're pretty sure Sister Ricks is going to be transferred :( and I'm going to stay and either train a new missionary or just have a regular companion! AHHH!!! Stay tuned for next week :)

This week was so good!!! We had a blast and had some super cool spiritual experiences as well! Tonight we are going to put up our Missionary Christmas tree!!! A member gave the missionaries a full size tree a few years ago with prophet ornaments and everything hahaha Guys...it's going to be grand!!!!

Side story: We were walking down the street and we talk to everyone {shocker!} so we said 'Hello' to this man. We noticed that he was carrying a box and Sister Holbrook asked, "Whatcha got there?" He talked to us a little bit then opened the box and gave us TWO BAGS OF COLD SMOKED SALMON!!!! Not joking everyone gives us salmon here! #canadamissionlife Our freezer is filled with hot smoked salmon, cold smoked, regular coho salmon....oh my goodness! We cooked some salmon up the other night with a little lemon and lemon pepper and man was it divine! Can't wait to try the cold smoked salmon! 

Overall it was a great week!!! 

Hope everyone had a fun Thanksgiving :) Stay tuned for transfers next week!

Love you all,

Sister Peterson

Week 12: Faith leads to Miracles!

Frozen Leaves People!

This week was full of surprises and cool experiences! It started off pretty crumby...we still had to walk everywhere because we didn't have any K's {kilometers}. So our days consisted of walking to appointments, to the apartment, to the church...just back an forth all day! Good news! I broke in my new boots in like 2 days! We weren't teaching very many lessons...just walking! We were tired and our feet hurt so bad!! One night we were determined to have a lesson. I'm really not sure what we were thinking when we planned this but we ended up walking like 5 miles and we only gave ourselves an hour to do it...CRAZY US! We walked so fast and we were walking close to the bush {woods} so we sang primary songs {SO LOUD} so the cougars would be scared away! We may have scared some humans too...the whole neighborhood probably knows Follow the Prophet now... :) We ended up making it but had to teach fast that way we could walk back in time for curfew! We walked a total of 16+ K's that day!!! Walking and tracting was the start of our week...then on Friday we had a meeting so we had to use the car.  We went outside and it was {WELL} below 0*C and our car was dead!

Canada = Foggy Camera Lens

:( We tend to leave the light on at night because we are filling out reports and what not and we left it ON ALL NIGHT!!!! The one day we need our car and its dead. Luckily the members we live with took pity on us and came out into the cold and jumped our car for us! They were laughing at us so hard!!! I was praying all week that we would find someone to teach. It seemed like we were just walking around and not finding ANYONE! So frustrating! I also prayed to ask Heavenly Father if he was pleased with my missionary work up here...it took some time but we finally started to see some glimmers of success and then by the end of the week it was AWESOME!!! We found a young lady who said she would like for us to come back and teach her more about Jesus! SWEET!!! 1st one in a few weeks! Then on Saturday we met with this lady Diane who was baptized before but there aren't any records and we asked her to be re-baptized and she said YES!!! We're planning for January 2nd!!! She is awesome and we are so excited for her! I 

realized I haven't talked much about our investigators! The main people we teach are Wayne and Dorothy. Wayne is a recent convert was baptized in September and now passes the sacrament and is AMAZING and such a great example! Dorothy is his mum and she is 83 and the cutest old lady EVER! She looks alot like my Great Grandma Ruth :) Last week she got back from the hospital and she agreed to be baptized!!!! This week we thought it would be good for her to work towards a date so we set a date for January 30th and she was hesitant because she needs to recover but she said the sweetest thing, "I guess there are still miracles and I don't see why I can't have one" AWE!!!! Touched my heart! She is a "cry-er" just like me and you know when the spirit is strong and when she feels it! So we set a date with her too!

2 Baptism dates set all in one day!!!!! WE WERE SUPER BLESSED!!!! It's been amazing to see how the gospel changes people's lives and how it gives people hope. I can't wait for Dorothy's baptism!!!!! Hopefully I'll still be in Campbell River! On Sunday, the Montreal Temple was rededicated so there was no church and we got to attend a broadcast of one of the sessions. It was my first Re-dedication and it was very neat! We got to hear President Eyring and other members of Seventy speak and because it was in Montreal most of it was in

Roadtrip to Victoria

French! Cool! It was a great way to end the week. For missionaries Sunday is the end. Mondays are the beginning because it's our personal day :) haha Something else cool that I thought I'd share! Our mission has been challenged by President Burt to memorize the Restoration pamphlet and after that the rest of them! AHHH!!!!! That's some hardcore studying! However...it has been going so good!!! I'm amazed at how the spirit helps us learn so much faster! I've been able to memorize the whole first page and it helps so much in lessons! Before I was always worried about what to say or that I'd say something blasphemous, but this week I haven't been as worried! The words just come out of my mouth and I know it's true doctrine! SUPER SWEET!!! Hopefully by the end of my mission I'll have all 6 pamphlets memorized!!! 

Another random sidenote/story:

Do you remember the talk What Lack I yet? from General Conference? We've been challenged as missionaries to ask that in our prayers...What Lack I yet or How can I improve? This week I was told I needed to study better!! So I've been trying to read the Book of Mormon in all my spare time! and I've really come to LOVE it!!! Before the Book of Mormon didn't make much sense but one of my wonderful companions Sister Holbrook explained each story to me and IT'S AWESOME!!! Now I have the desire to read the scriptures all the time...while we were walking to an appointment I wanted my companions to tell me Book of Mormon stories and what not...BIG CHANGE FOR ME!!!! I LOVE the scriptures!!! They are such a great tool that we have in our lives and they can help us with everything!!! My testimony of the Book of Mormon has been strengthened and I made a goal to finish reading it by the end of Year. I'm in the middle of Alma (pg. 269) and there are 531 pages in the Book of Mormon so I have a lot to read but I want to start at the beginning in the new year!!! I'm so stoked!!! 

One thing I learned this week is to have faith through the hard times!!! While things may seem discouraging and you don't think it will get better just WAIT and KEEP YOUR HEAD HIGH! Heavenly Father loves us more than we can comprehend and he wants to bless us and he will never let us go through anything we can't handle! One thing I've learned from the Book of Mormon is that he always delivers his people out of bondage..we just have to have faith, keep praying, and do what's right. I know Heavenly Father is looking out for all of us and that we have crumby weeks so we can recognize the miracles when they come! I'm so excited that the work is picking up and that our investigators are progressing!!! God is great!!!

Till next week,

Sister Peterson

Week 11: Busy week = Short Scrambled Letter!

Hi all!

I don't have much time this week! So I'll just give you the highlights:
-On Monday we were teaching one of our investigators Mrs. D (remember from last week!) that just got out of the hospital and we were having a great lesson!!! THEN...She agreed to be baptized once she recovers!!!!! It was so awesome!!!!!!! Her son got baptized in September and we have been teaching both of them and it's amazing to see how the gospel really does bless our families.

-On Tuesday, we met one of our investigators, Mr. B at the family history center. He had {literally} no information on his family and we were able to find his dad's line! How sad! Could you imagine not knowing anything about where you came from! And guess what....TEMPLE WORK HAD BEEN DONE! Oh yeah! Turns out, Mr. B's sister is a convert and has been doing some family history work! WE were so happy for him!

-Wednesday was Remembrance Day! Here in Canada they wear a red poppy in remembrance I thought that was nice! They have a little ceremony downtown and you could really feel the spirit of remembrance throughout the town. It helped me to reflect on how I am sacrificing so little and how grateful I am for those that sacrificed their lives.

-It's starting to get cold here and the other day it was night time and we were walking home from tracting and I realized I couldn't feel my feet. For real guys, like I could have stepped on a Lego and it wouldn't have hurt! Holy Cow!!!!

-On Friday we drove down to Nanaimo for a meeting! Road-trips are so fun on the mission and being the northernmost area on the island we have a lot of road-trips.

-We also drove to Victoria yesterday {Monday Nov. 16th} for our Zone Conference! with Elder Teh of the Seventy and President and Sister Burt! We got to drive with other sister missionaries and have a sleepover with the Sister Training Leaders which is always FUN!!!!

-One thing I have learned this week is to live for the little moments of joy. On missions you go through so many ups and downs!! However, it's important to recognize those moments of joy we have in our crazy lives. Whether it's a super cool roadtrip, laughing and looking like a hooligan because you can't feel your legs, or singing hymns at the top of your lungs. Always look for those moments! If you come to a crossroad where you can choose to be miserable or be happy...BE HAPPY!!!!!!! 

Next week, I'll write about some things I learned at Zone Conference which were AMAZING!!!! And hopefully I'll have more to write about! I don't have much time today but something I'm working on is being happy and trying my best to have a good attitude :) Hope you will too :)

Till next week...hopefully I won't freeze! 

Love ya!

Sister Peterson

Week 10: Knocking...Walking...Talking

Don't know what happened this week but we had no solid plans!! People couldn't meet, things fell through, and all we had left was FINDING!!! We tracted and walked around what seems like all of Campbell River this week. THE THREE OF US WERE EXHAUSTED!!!!  We tried so hard to find people to teach, but sometimes you just have weeks like this! It rained EVERYDAY!!! It's to the point where I don't even feel the rain/wetness anymore! Haha It's only when we come home after a long day and I realize how wet my jacket is and I wring the water out of my skirt that I realize how bad it gets! It's starting to get more "wintry". It's usually about 4-6*C {40*F} but being close to ocean makes it even chillier!! Today is sunny though so hopefully it will stay this way!!!

Here are some cool things that happened this week:

One of our investigators D. has been in the hospital and Wednesday was her birthday!!! We called down to Victoria General Hospital and got to sing her happy birthday!!! It was so fun!!! We love her! She's like our grandma :) She is now home from the hospital so we can start meeting with her again! She is just like me and cries about everything and laughs away the hard things so I can't wait for us to visit again and see how she's doing! She's very special to me and I love helping her come closer to Jesus Christ!

WE HAD A RANDOM ROADTRIP!!!! Seriously the funnest part of being the north most area on the Island is the Roadtrips!!! We got a call that our car had to be in Richmond THE NEXT DAY!!! We live like 5 hours away from the mainland! Well luckily our Sister Training Leaders were going there for a meeting so we got to drive to Qualicum/Nanaimo area to drop it off! While we were driving back at night I realized I left my International Drivers Permit in the CAR!!!! OOPS!!!! Sister Ricks left hers too THANKFULLY we are in a trio and Sister Holbrook had hers and was able to drive us home!!! Whew!!! Two days later we got a NEW CAR!!!! It's a Subaru and IT HAS A USB OUTLET!!!! Heaven sent let me tell you :) I can finally play all my new church music and listen to something other than the same 12 EFY songs...mind numbing sometimes Hahaha

Later in the week we got a referral from a member but she said it was like the 2nd or 3rd house on this street. So we hit both sides and talked to all hoping to find the one referral! We couldn't find her!! Then Sister Ricks said "didn't she say something about a purple door?" Sister Holbrook and I didn't remember that part but said eh whatever! So we went around...it was dark now...using our flashlight to look at the color of doors...CREEPY WE KNOW!! Haha anything to find a child of God though :)

Finally we found a purple door!! We knocked and this elderly man opened the door NOT THE REFERRAL! However, he was lonely and talked about how his wife had passed and his family didn't visit much. We didn't find the lady we were looking for, but we're pretty sure that man behind the purple door needed to hear our message. God works in mysterious ways! 

Another cool story: I was praying...I think it was the morning...and I was kind of tired not super sincere in my prayer and THEN the name CYNTHIA  popped in my head! That woke me up! I don't know a lot of people named Cynthia and I hadn't heard of anyone in the area named that. I left it for a day but it still kept coming back. One night during planning I decided to search for this name! I looked through all of our Formers {lots of people who used to investigate, but stopped for one reason or another} and found NOTHING! Then I looked through all of our Potentials {people we've met on the street that are interested in learning more} NOTHING AGAIN!!! I was beginning to think I was crazy!!!! I finally decided to look back at the Elder's Potential Records from 2012!! Then as I was almost done BAM! I found a CYNTHIA!!! I was so happy!! BUT! She lived on Quadra Island and we aren't allowed to ferry across to go to that part of our area :( Next I looked for a number! THE ELDERS DIDN'T GET HER NUMBER!!!! {are you kidding me} AHHH!!! I was so mad :( There was no way to contact her! While I may not find another Cynthia...one thing I learned from this is that I am willing to take a prompting crazy or not and run with it until I find something. I want Heavenly Father to know that he can trust me with promptings to go here or there or talk to that person or knock on that door. Promptings from the Holy Ghost are so important and I've been trying really hard to follow each one I get. Promptings have helped me to have courage and trust in God. 

Cool Experience: One of our Investigators C. has been going through some rough times!!! We had a lesson planned but thought we should just help her realize she can find comfort through prayer and communicating with her Heavenly Father. At the end we had a kneeling prayer and we asked her to say it! IT WAS SO SWEET AND SO AWESOME!!! You could feel the Spirit! You could feel her desire to communicate with Heavenly Father and how she needed to feel comforted and needed some answers from on high! She's so amazing!!!

This week as we walked door to door there were many people who slammed the door or called us names.....#missionarylife, but we started doing something cool! Depending on what the person said "Joe Smith is a liar" or "I'm an atheist leave me alone!" We would leave and start singing a hymn that strengthened our testimony and lifted our spirits! 

We sang Praise to the Man when this guy bashed Joseph Smith.

We hummed I believe in Christ as we treked up a hill after someone told us God wasn't there. 

We sang Come Come Ye Saints when we felt like giving up.

HOLY MOSES WHAT A GREAT EXPERIENCE!!!! 

This was one of the BEST days because we didn't let Satan bring us down! We had faith in Christ and knew of our purpose! We didn't find anyone who was interested in taking the lessons this week but we had 161 Quality Gospel Conversations!!! 21 more than standards!!!! Whoop whoop!!! 

What I hope you get from my crazy disorganized and semi-bipolar letter this week is that anything for the Lord is worth doing! No matter how hard things get or how downtrodden we feel CHRIST can always lift us up and bear our burdens! When you know who you are and know your purpose you CAN AND WILL do anything for God. I hope that I will always be WORTHY AND WILLING to do what God would have me do. Are you WORTHY AND WILLING? I'ts hard to put off the natural man and not think of Home, sleep, or Disney songs...the struggle is real!! Haha but anything that helps us become closer to Jesus Christ is totally WORTH it in the end! We receive so many blessings when we align our will with God's will. He knows what's best for us, he knows us better than we know ourselves, he knows what we need and will pour out blessings upon us as we are WORTHY AND WILLING to do whatever he asks. 

While the mission is hard, I have learned SO much!!! My faith in Jesus Christ has gone through the roof! My excitement for missionary work has grown and it's becoming such an amazing experience!!! I hope that I'm inspiring and sound excited and not sad because I had some hard times this week Haha because I really am DOING SO GOOD!!!!! The Gospel blesses us and I've seen that first hand as I've learned more about it and applied it to my life.

Do what God would have you do...ALWAYS

Love,

Sister Peterson

Week 9: Two Months!

Working hard ;)

TWO MONTHS TODAY!!!!! Can you believe it?
So about this week. I'm officially TERRIBLE at writing in my journal and keeping track of what is going on in my life! I think I wrote down 1 day this week! Ugh! My poor future posterity! But I'm going to do better and hopefully we are keeping copies of these emails at home mother!?

Sister Ovard

Events of this week:

The TRIO IS FANTASTIC!!!! It's so cool how much we can get done in a day! I think I'm going to have a problem going back to a traditional companionship! Haha We had exchanges this week which are always fun!!! I got to hang out with Sis. Ovard all day :) She's from St. George, Utah and she's going home soon! I love how she's enthusiastic about the gospel and she just wants to tell everyone about it! We had some cool experiences. We had super solid plans and then all of them fell through {#welcometomissionarylife}. The only one that didn't was a lesson. Now, Sis. Ovard and I have never taught a lesson together before and we had about 5 min to run through the Restoration lesson and practice! Well, it ended up being a GREAT lesson!!!! They were really touched by the message! The spirit is amazing!!!! We were on the same wavelength and everything!!! At the end they gave us smoked salmon and let me tell you...IT WAS DELICIOUS!!!! Soooo good!!!!

Carving Pumpkins!

Sis. Ovard and I also visited a lady in a nursing home. She can't remember anything anymore and she doesn't recognize anyone. It broke my heart! For some reason we thought we should sing her a song. So we sang I am a Child of God.  And she started singing with us!!!! She knew the words too!! It was the sweetest moment ever! The spirit works wonders in our lives :)

Here's the coolest story of the week:

Scarface

So we were street contacting downtown and we came across this young homeless guy. We started talking and he said he didn't plan anything he just wandered through life. We wanted to leave him with another pamphlet but all we had was the Plan of Salvation. We also gave him some change. About 2 hours later we got a phone call from him saying he had read the pamphlet and wanted to talk! The Plan of Salvation pamphlet was exactly what he needed because it talks about the purpose of our life and where we are going! The greatest part! The change we gave him he used to call us and set up an appointment!!!!!! Super cool! Most people just toss the pamphlets or cards we give out but he actually read it and had the faith to call us and talk! We'll see how this goes!!! This week was HALLOWEEN!!!! We can't really dress up so we dressed up as each other! I was Sister Holbrook! I said I was from San Fran and even wore her name tag!!! Haha We had a fun day!

Halloween Costumes!

 Sister Ricks was me and Sister Holbrook was Sister Ricks. We carved pumpkins in like 30 minutes because lets be honest...missionaries ain't got time for that, but we did a good job :) I named mine Scarface {see picture} haha We had to stay in Halloween night and plan so we made an elaborate meal of Chili, Cornbread, Pumpkin Chocolate chip cookies, and roasted pumpkin seeds! {#missionaryfeast} It was fun to keep up the Peterson Family Chili Tradition and actually eat real food!! Haha This week I've been focusing on the Book of Mormon and really taking Moroni's promise to heart. Moroni was about to die and his last words to us were pray and read about the Book of Mormon and you'll know its true by the power of the Holy Ghost. All of Moroni Ch. 10 is AMAZING!!! He promises great things! I would encourage everyone reading this to read the Book of Mormon or even a little passage about something you may need help with (faith,

weakness, joy, charity...) and pray about it. Always take Moroni up on his promise! The Book of Mormon is a great book that can BLESS EVERYONE'S LIVES!!! I know that Heavenly Father loves us and provided this book to help us in these latter days. He knew that this time would be the hardest and we have a great resource THE BOOK OF MORMON  to help us through it! I have seen how it blesses others' lives. If it was a false book I wouldn't  be seeing miracles come because of it. IT IS TRUE! I can't deny the miracles and blessings I've seen from this book! So, my challenge this week for all my readers is to:

 

Chili & Cornbread

PICK UP THE BOOK AND GIVE IT A READ! 

AND

PUT MORONI'S PROMISE TO THE TEST 
(Moroni 10:3-5). 

If you have a sincere desire to know if it's true and real intent to act on the answer you receive through prayer you will come to know {just like me} that IT IS TRUE AND CAN BLESS YOU :)

I LOVE YOU ALL!

Sister Peterson