What a Week...
Wow, this week has been one of the best and most difficult of my mission thus far. I would say that is due to all the things I have been dealing with personally, and all the blessings we have received in the work.
Monday: "Beautiful Day" I am going to be honest, I don't remember too much of what we did last Monday. It was a good day and really pretty outside though. That is when we took the pretty beach pictures.
Tuesday: "Another from the Talk a Lot Tribe". Sister Wood and I have this running joke about how there must be a 13th tribe of Israel, called the "talk a lot" tribe. While volunteering at the family history center, we met a couple of ladies we believe may hail from said tribe. They are pretty cool and we are hoping to start teaching them. That will be quite the interesting experience. It was a good day though.
Wednesday: "Never a Dull Moment". We stayed relatively busy this day! That is always a challenge on days that we do not have the car, but we managed it this week! We volunteered as normal, had a few lessons, the goods. The best part of the day was when we went caroling with the young men and young women (I may have gotten that idea from 2 years ago when we went in the Arlington 3rd ward). What a success that was! And it was so fun. We took ukuleles and sung and played to several less active and elderly members of the ward.
Thursday: "You Get Me". We did a phone call exchange with our STL's this morning. That really means that each of us go into a room by ourselves and talk with one of the two sisters that lead us in this area. When I talked to Sister Brown, I really opened up to her about all that is going on. We have had a lot of incredibly similar experiences and she was able to really relate to me and help me. We met with some of my favorite less actives that day (they are my favorite because I love them like family and they are fun to teach... they accept and keep commitments too..). That night, we had the elders and the ukulele family come and interrupt our lesson so we could carol to our less active. Then we went out with them and caroled to more less active members we teach. What a great thing!
Friday: "I love to Work". Well, we all know that is true. We hardly even had a moment to ourselves this day due to how much we were doing. We had lessons come out of thin air, as well as a last minute dinner appointment at Steak and Shake. Man I love that place. I got to put up Christmas lights at Ermilisa's house!! How fun!
Saturday: "The Battle". What I mean by this title, is the battle I have been having with the adversary. I won't go into details, just know that I am dealing with a lot on top of all the missionary stresses we normally have. We helped another person do Christmas decorations though! I love seeing how they start to feel the Christmas spirit. It is so cool to bring that into people's homes.
Sunday: "A Powerful Day". Man... the spirit yesterday was insane. It was fast Sunday, of course, as well. Church was good. I bore my testimony, which is hard to get to do in this ward. I haven't done so since September actually. As many of you know, that is weird for me. The best part of this day though, was our lesson with Jonathan, the man from Ghana. He knows that the "latter-ay-saints" as he would say, are the one thing he is missing. He won't make decisions to get baptized until he is feeling better, which we totally understand. The spirit in that lesson was amazing though. We didn't even have to point it out to him. He just knew as we were reading the intro to the Book of Mormon. We had the elders come to give him a blessing of healing. I just hope all works out for him. He can do so many wonderful things and touch so many lives as a member of this church.
That's about it for this week. I am pushing along through a lot of hardships, but I have the faith that God will take care of me. I have truly experienced the mercy of Christ this week. He has carried me a lot in the past few weeks. I hope you all get a chance to watch the new Christmas video! It is non-denominational and can be found at Christmas.mormon.org.
Love you all!
-Sister Peterson
