Spring!

Hey!

One more week, and a wonderful one it was! The flowers are blooming, the cemetery across from the Trail Center is looking beautifully green, and life is great in Florence. I love the spring time!

First things first:

A big congratulations to all who graduated this past weekend! I am so grateful for my experience at BYU with all of you... what a blessing to have been surrounded by such wonderful family and friends for my first few years at school. I am so proud of you all! Love you!

Fun Facts:

1. On Tuesday we served at the Trail Center all day, and it was extremely slow... you can only read the scriptures for so long, ha so all of our minds were kind of going crazy. We were making jokes about floating in the air as if the Trail Center lost gravity... anyway, ha let's just say we took it too far and because of the slowness of the day, we were giggling about anything and everything! ha.. Well, Sister Brough and i made BBQ chicken for dinner, and when we were getting our dinner ready, we realized our meal would be made 10 x better if we had some sort of "bun" to make a sandwich with. We laughed and said that maybe if we had enough faith, we would be able to open one of the cupboards and some buns would be there. We went through each cupboard laughing about "manna" buns. Well, we couldn't believe our eyes when we got to the last cupboard, and there sitting on the shelf was a a bag of BUNS! haha we almost fell over as "our prayer" was answered. We had a delicious dinner, and were grateful for the manna from heaven. I know Heavenly Father probably got a good laugh placing those buns there for us... it really was a miracle!

2. One more funny story - every tuesday night we call in on a conference call with all the zone leaders/sister training leaders in the mission, along with the mission presidency and AP's. When you call into the call, the automated voice says "please announce yourself". We arent supposed to announce ourselves, so we usually just automatically put the phone on mute. Well, that was the plan, but right as we were calling in, a big bug crossed right over our counter and i found myself gasping "is that a ROACH?!" right as the "please announce yourself" came on. So, the whole mission leadership heard. ha. I've been hearing about it ever since! haha. 

On to the more spiritual side of the week :)

We had a wonderful lesson this week with our investigator Chris. He came into the Trail Center a few weeks ago to "refer" himself to learn about the gospel! Such a miracle. He is incredible. He is really well known in the community, and is running for several offices right now in the community. He has a super cute fiance from the Philippines, named Girly, and their son's name is Josh. Darling family, and we feel so blessed to be teaching them. Chris learned a little bit about the church last year, but because of his busy schedule was unable to continue to learn from the sisters. Well, he realized that his life was falling apart and that he needed to see miracles in his life right now, and remembered that when he was studying the Book of Mormon a year ago he was at total peace. Our lesson this week we talked a lot about faith, along with the Restoration. The spirit was so strong, and he kept telling us how whenever he is around members of the church he feels such a "warm, positive" energy that he cant explain. We quickly helped him realize that was the spirit! So cool. He is in Kiwanis club with Elder and Sister Cleverly, so he has had many great associations with the church. pray for him! He is so awesome.

We had another miracle this week with our investigator Cynthia (Cindy) and her husband Tudie. I talked a little bit about them last week. Ah, their story literally makes me sob. They are so destitute and literally have nothing to eat, they have no where to go, and we can't do anything about it. Cindy came to church again this week, and she told us that going to church was the only peace she has felt in years. She said that she finally feels like she belongs somewhere, that she isnt lost, and that she has family. It broke my heart as she cried telling us about all the trials and things she is going through, and then literally not being able to help. We bore testimony again of how the Lord can heal her and provide miracles, but it was still so hard to realize that we cant do anything for her accept pray. So please pray for Cindy and Tudie. They are the kindest couple, and the Lord is helping them stay humble. We may never see them after this week because they are moving, but i know that they will always remember the spirit that they felt as they received blessings, came to church, and prayed with us.

We had an awesome lesson last night at the Trail center with a family in our ward, the Bendorfs. They brought in their daughter's boyfriend and his mom. We watched the The Testaments, and it was such a cool experience to be involved in this family's missionary work. that is the way it is supposed to be... and i loved having brother Bendorf really "be the missionary". It was a great learning opportunity for me!

I am so grateful for my Heavenly Father. I know that my life has been so blessed, and i seriously cant get over how fortunate i am. I know that those blessings have come because of the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Thanks for all of your love and support! I can't thank you enough for the prayers in my behalf, and the kind words of encouragement. I am so blessed!

Love you all!

Sister Peterson