Week 34: Llamados a servicio

This week me and Sister Gutierrez have been trying to do a lot of service for people. Here are just a few of the ways we have done service for people this week: 

- help a guy take the engine of his car apart 

- help a lady pull all of the weeds out of her garden 

- help clean up the DUP museum in Laketown  (that place is actually the coolest place ever) 

- help a lady move out of her apartment 

- help some young women with their personal progress!! 

- helped a family clean out their garage 

 For mutual they used to have these sashes and you would earn patches and pins from all the spiritual stuff you did? Kind of wish we still did this tbh 

Some other really cool things that happened this week: 

- Some really nice atheists we met taught us how to play horseshoes.

- I found a dear antler and then painted it? It's gonna be a new decoration for my room.

- Me and Sister Gutierrez discovered that subway has pizza and we now have a new favorite place to go for lunch. 

- We somehow acquired bikes and now exercise time is 1000x more fun and I also feel like all my fellow missionary pals who get to ride bikes all the time.

- Some guy showed us his whole taxidermy business that he does out of a shed in his yard?? It was actually really impressive. Taxidermy is a form of art, I am convinced. 

-It was such a nice week this week and I thought spring had finally sprung but I wake up this morning to see that it is SNOWING. I guess mother nature just doesn't want me to be happy. 

- Ate a really yummy burger and after eating it found out that the secret sauce on it was nutella.

- Helped a lot of our amigos that are menos activos read the Book of Mormon and all those times we read were so so spiritual. Go read the Book of Mormon y'all. It will change your life I promise. 

Me and some chocolate

A spiritual thing I learned this week: 

So, we all know that charity is the "pure love of Christ" (thank you Moroni 7), but something really cool I learned this week is to look at charity from three different dimensions:

love from Christ 

love for Christ 

love like Christ.  

Christ loves us all so so much, but do we love him as well? And do we love others the way that he would love them? I invite all of you to look and pray for more opportunities to be charitable this week. This week, we were able to do a ton of service (like I said above) and that is just one way to become more charitable. But I invite you to look for more ways! Even the tiniest ways of being charitable towards others will make a HUGE impact on their lives!! I love you all a whole bunch and I love being a missionary! Have a wonderful week! 

- Hermana Peterson 

 Those Utah sunsets

We specifically asked if the pizza place was open and they said yes but it wasn't?

 I Iiterally had to pull over because I was laughing too hard at this cow eating it's tail

My cool antler

Some really cool pics from the DUP museum!

The original wood fireplace

Some bookends of Joseph Smith and Brigham Young

A flag with 45 stars

An ironic question that got an ironic answer but happened anyways

Week 33: The faith to MOOSE mountains (Matthew 17:20)

....Okay, that was a really bad pun, I'm sorry. But, it has been my personal goal of this area (because it is very mountainous) to see a moose, and this week we saw not one, but TWO moose!! I can officially get transferred now (jk I love this place). Being in Bear Lake and seeing all the wonderful nature around me has really helped me appreciate all of God's creations more. Not just the scenery around me, but the people as well. This is a tiny place and there aren't a lot of people, but everyone I have met has lived such an interesting life and I am able to learn something from everyone who lives here. As a missionary, I have really been able to understand the importance of love for my fellow men. Before my mission, I was actually a li'l scared, and thought to myself "is my heart even full enough to love all these people I will meet someday?" But I can tell you that I DO! Moses 6:63 says,  "And behold, all things have their likeness, and all things are created and made to bear record of me, both things which are temporal, and things which are spiritual; things which are in the heavens above, and things which are on the earth, and things which are in the earth, and things which are under the earth, both above and beneath: all things bear record of me." We live in a beautiful world full of beautiful people and life is so good y'all. 

Speaking of mountainous creatures, I almost hit a deer this week!! We usually see like, 15 deer a day (that is not an exaggeration, there are more deer than people here), so usually it's not a huge deal when I see one in the road, just slow down and let it run off to the side. However, it was time for us to return home for the evening, so it was super dark, and this deer just comes out of NOWHERE and just decided to chill in the road. I slammed on the breaks. and I screamed. But, the deer, us, and our truck are all unharmed, so do not worry!! 

Also: quote of the week: "Why are you here? We are busy!" - some kid who answered the door, went out and got his Nintendo switch from the car, and then slammed the door in our face  (he was obviously very busy.)

Other quote of the week: me*gets done praying with these two guys who we had a lesson with *Chuck (one of the guys): You pray to God like you are talking to a friend. That is beautiful. (This made my heart happy and I wanted to share it with you all.)

I love being a missionary and I love all of you so so much. Have a wonderful week!


-Hermana Peterson 

 The moose

The lake

A mountain that looks like it's on fire

Zone conference @ the Paris Tabernacle with the mistake of straightened hair ​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

Week 32: There is hope smiling brightly before us!

Hey there y'all. This week in Bear Lake? It's been a li'l tricky. But it's also been an amazing week for spiritual growth. So many things happened! And so many miracles as well! 

 Breakfast with our friend Ashlee

Barbara: So, we did not end up having another lesson with Barbara this week. But, she invited us out to lunch with some of her friends and then invited us to the Daughters of the Utah Pioneers (DUP) meeting. It was the neatest thing! It was cool to me to see how many ladies in my area care so much about their heritage. We also sang a really neat song called Echo Canyon that was about building the railroad in Utah. It was out of this old pioneer songbook just overflowing with neat pioneer songs. I may have purchased one right there in the meeting. We also had a lesson all about Chesterfield, Idaho (fun fact: I think 2 people live there). Also all the ladies there got so excited when I told them that my grandma was once part of the DUP (shout out to Grandma Peterson )

The pioneer songbook

Clint: Clint is this really neat guy who lives near Laketown. He literally has like, an entire zoo that lives on his ranch. I'm not joking. He has lots of big fluffy dogs, lots of cows and horses, all that good stuff. But he also has turkeys, llamas, alpacas, llama-alpaca mixes (did anyone know that was a thing? I did not), ducks that hiss instead of quack, an African cow, African geese, fallow deer, raccoons, you name it. He also has over 100 peacocks. I think a white peacock (not albino, white) might be my new favorite animal. Also, you know that movie, Napoleon Dynamite? You know his pet llama, Tina? Well clint owns Tina's SON and now I feel like I've officaly come as close to fame as I ever will in my entire life.

Here is me with Tina's son (his name is Elvis!)

Lacey: So, Lacey is this lady that I hear about back when Sister Smith and Sister Medina were here. She just moved to Garden City and her son is super interested in learning about the gospel, so we got her phone number and would try to text her and call her, but she would never answer. We even found out where she worked? and where she lived?? and we would always try to visit her but she would be busy and could never talk to us. We assumed that the people who told us about her were just excited to find someone who wasn't Mormon and tell us about her but that she wasn't really interested. Well, this week we had lunch with some people who work with her, and they were like "yes she is actually interested! She's just bad at answering her phone, please don't give up!!" So I was like, "hey, we can use Facebook now, why don't we just friend her?" So we did that and then Lacey MESSAGED US and was super excited for us to come over. Still haven't officially met her, and still haven't officially set up an appointment, but now we have officially made contact with her and I think that is a huge achievement. 

Playing soccer while it was SNOWING

Mel: So, our ward mission leader asked us to go visit his good friend Mel. Mel is actually our neighbor, and I had actually been to his house once, but I had never met him because he is on hospice and has to stay in his bed 24/7. Well I guess he had a bad fall this week and wasn't doing too well so we thought we should pay him a visit. A few zone conferences ago, my mission president talked a lot about charity and how when you truly adopt the principle of charity into your life, you will never be the same as you were before. During this visit I just felt so much charity and love that his wife had for him and that his Father in Heaven had for him as well. It was very spiritual and sacred the things I learned and felt but I don't think an email is the best place to talk about it so maybe after I get home I will have to take you out to lunch and tell you all about it.

Some fun guys

So, one of my new favorite scriptures is D&C 123:17, which says "Therefore, dearly beloved brethren, let us cheerfully do all things that lie in our power; and then may we stand still, with the utmost assurance, to see the salvation of God, and for his arm to be revealed."  When Jospeh Smith wrote this, he was in Liberty Jail, which was literally just this tiny little room with no food, no bathroom, just 5 other people. I can't imagine him being cheerful or hopeful in this situation, but somehow he was. That is the message the gospel brings: a message of hope, a message of peace, a message of cheer. Life isn't easy! But it is good when you have the gospel of Jesus Christ by your side.

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Me .2 seconds away from roping myself in the face

Also, weekly talk recommendation: "The challenge to become" by President Oaks! 

-Hermana Peterson 

 Me with a bunch of puppie because who doesn't love that

Had to downgrade to oranges