Week 12: #IluminaElMundo

Hey everyone! So I don't have a lot of time today, but I just wanted to let you guys know that I had an awesome Thanksgiving. We had Thanksgiving with the members we live with and with a less active family we visit, so I was pretty stuffed after 2 dinners. Out district leaders went to 5 Thanksgivings though???? So if anyone has exploded after this holiday season, it is definitely them 

So this week we have really been trying to tell people about #IluminaElMundo, or #LightTheWorld!!!!!!! In the scriptures, Jesus says "I am the light of the world", but, he also says that "ye are the light of the word" (Juan 8:12 and Mateo 5:14-16). This year, we are inspiring people to be more Christlike and do service for others; and there is this neat calendar on Mormon.org that you can go print off to help you with that!  There is a scripture for every day, and there is also an act of service that you can do every day. There is also a video for it, and a video for every single day. I encourage you all to go check it out and spread the Light of Christ to someone this Christmas season. This Christmas is going to be LIT (literally)

-Hermana Peterson 

Week 11: True North

Hola everyone! I hope you guys all had a good week this week! This week we got to do some really neat stuff! So as you may have known, the Meridian Idaho temple was dedicated yesterday. Well we got the cool opportunity of watching the Cultural Celebration (there was a song all about dirt? Idaho is amazing) and going to the dedication! It's such a beautiful temple, and even though it is not in my area, I'm excited for when I am all done with my mission and I get to go back and visit it. President Uchtdorf was the one to dedicate it, and he said something that really stuck with me. He said,  that as a pilot, there is a difference between magnetic north, and true north, which is called the meridian. He said that in our lives, Jesus Christ should be our true north, or meridian, in our lives. He will always lead the way, and with Jesus leading the way, we will never be lost or go astray. 

 

Some other fun things that happened this week: 

• Speaking of President Uchtdorf, we went to dinner with someone this week who invited their friend who is trying to become reactivated, and she kept calling him "that little German man" 
• Last week during grocery shopping mine and Sister Miller's companions were talking to someone so we went around the grocery store trying to hide from them, in a slenderman type style game (I did not just try to compare my companion to slenderman, sorry about that).  It probably wasn't the best use of our time, but hey, missionaries need to have a little fun 
• The mission president asked all of us to watch the Face2Face that happened last night, well, it wasn't set up at any stake centers, so literally all the missionaries in our zone were just following each other around Blackfoot trying to find a place where we could watch it (we ended up not finding it, rip) 

Missionary work can be hard at times, but it is so so rewarding. The church is true and the book is blue; la iglesia es verdadera y el libro es azul (wait what?) i love being a missionary! Have a great week everyone! 

Hermana Peterson 

The Cultural Celebration!!

My white handkerchief and my ticket from the dedication! (IPM stands for "Idaho Pocatello Mission)

Week 10: Burning My Fingerprints Off

Hola everyone!

It's crazy to me that p-day is already here again, this week just flew by! This week was interesting because we had a breakfast and a lunch appointment?? So normally, since we are the Spanish missionaries, we eat with the Spanish branch where we serve during the weekend, and we eat with the other wards in our stakes during the week! Anyways, we usually only have dinner appointments, but this week we had two out of the ordinary missionary meals. I guess the ward we ate with this week decided to give their members a little more responsibility than intended lol. 

Some other fun things that happened this week: 

• We went to a birthday party! This member's niece was turning 3, so we decided to go help celebrate! I also ate the spiciest salsa of my life at that party.
• We did service with our elders Saturday morning, where we were outside preparing firewood (??) It was pretty chilly, and when we went inside I was sitting by the furnace to try and get warm, and I may have accidentally touched it and burned my fingers. Whoops. Really working my brain cells out here on the mission. One of the elders stepped on a nail though so I guess it could be worse.
• So none of our investigators came to church like they all said they would this week (estoy muy triste). But something really cool did happen yesterday! So, last week I talked a little bit about Maggie and Enrique. My comp has mostly been trying to focus on Maggie, since she has been having the most trouble understanding the gospel, and her husband used to not be able to come to lessons. But yesterday, just out of the blue (we were having a lesson about change), Enrique told us that he wants to get baptized?? We had been focusing so much on her, that we didn't realize all this prepping we had done was actually for him. He's gonna get baptized in January!!!!!

This post is a little shorter and not as interesting as the others, so I promise that I will write more next week! I love being a missionary! Also, if you have time, go read the talk "A Summer With Great-Aunt Rose" by President Uchtdorf; it's so good! 

-Hermana Peterson 

One of the members grew this pomegranate in their greenhouse and then gave it to me!! 

Dang, Idaho is muy linda

Week 9: Halloween Shenanigans

Hola Everyone! I hope everyone had a good week this week. Not too much happened this week. Me and my trainer have just been doing lots of missionary stuff and have been trying to teach lots of people about the restored gospel. 

Me and Sister Ziegler, my new fav

• So on Tuesday (Halloween!) we had Zone Conference, which is where everyone serving in the Blackfoot Zone got together and got to hear from our awesome mission president. We also got fed dinner, so that was pretty nice. He made a really big emphasis on goal setting, and how important it is to use our time wisely because this is the LORD'S time, not ours. Also we had a little bit of training for the church's #LightTheWorld campaign for this year, and honestly?? I'm so pumped, this Christmas is going to be amazing you guys. Also since everyone is from Arizona and Texas here, my mission president asked how many people have never driven in the snow and almost everyone raised their hand. 
• So here in Idaho I guess people like to dress up as missionaries and go vandalize stuff??? So during Halloween night, our zone all got together again to all hang out and stay out of harm's way, so pretty much Tuesday I spent the entire day with my zone. Let me just tell you guys right now, missionaries are weird. We had lots of jam sessions, including music from 2 guitars, a ukulele, and an ocarina??? We also had like 20 people playing Apples to Apples at the same time, and from experience I can tell you that not that many people should be playing at the same time. Also, one of the Elders spent his grocery money on a piñata. And my district leader taught one of the English Elders that a bad word in Spanish meant "we're bros" so he was going around saying it the whole night. My zone is so weird but I love them all a lot.
• It snowed on Saturday??? Wha-???? The ground was super warm though, so all of the snow immediately melted. In honor of the snow, me and my trainer decided to start listening to Christmas music this week haha 
• So we do soccer every Friday, right. So me and the Elders just skipped playing and all studied Spanish together. It was awesome. 
• I made my trainer take me to Mc Donalds to get a dipped cone at least 3 times this week.
• We had FOUR investigators come to church yesterday!!!!!!! Pretty much doubled the size of the branch lol. So there's Rebecca and Guillermo, who are kind of golden and also the family who my comp made me invite to be baptized my first day in the field. They love to read the Book of Mormon and actually read and pray and do everything we ask them too. They still aren't super sure about baptism because they feel like they need to know more, but hopefully this week that'll change! Our other people who came to church are Maggie and Enrique, and I honestly wonder to myself why these people aren't baptized yet. Their daughter is a member (and just got back from her mission this summer!), and they read the Book of Mormon, but just don't feel like they know it's true yet. these people have had missionaries coming over for AGES and still don't know if the gospel is true or not. they kind of have a hard time understanding the Book of Mormon, so this week we actually gave them one of those picture Book of Mormon (the one that are meant for children to read lol), so hopefully they will be able to read and understand that. PLEASE keep all these people in your prayers this week!! 

The piñata in all it's glory

The aftermath

Missionary work can be a little hard at times, and even though I am just a greenie right now, I've definitely seen a lot of those struggles and hardships so far. but let me just tell you, it's worth it. i feel so blessed every single day that i get to go teach people about the restored gospel and about the Book of Mormon. I love being a missionary. I love you all and I hope you all have a wonderful week this week. 

-Hermana Peterson 

My cute apartment

Dang Idaho is pretty