Survival of the Missionary

This just in: Sister Peterson has survived 6 months in the mission
field. I repeat 6 MONTHS! Not sure how I did that, but it's been the
most amazing unforgettable experience, and I'm going to work the
hardest I've ever worked in my entire life to make my Heavenly Father
proud!

Transfer calls came at 3 pm. on Saturday. We were the last
missionaries to find out what was happening to us because everyone
else found out Friday night. We got the call, and they told us we were
staying in Medford together!! It was fantastic news because we have so
much still to do here. So transfers happened today and it was exciting
and on Friday we will have 5 new missionaries in our zone! New
missionary training is going to be hectic.

All weekend it was 104 outside and we walked a lot. We met this guy
who told us that we might've been sent over to talk to him so that he
could change our minds when we told him that we felt promoted to talk
to him. I just laugh because I know this gospel is true, ain't nothing
gonna change that!

We saw E. a couple times last week!  He's basically like a
grandpa to us. We can just walk by his house and he'll be sitting
outside and we just talk to him about anything! He told us a lot about
his life and we were able to share with him that this gospel will
bless his life and his family. We got to teach him the restoration on
Tuesday. After the lesson he told us that everything we taught was
"interesting" and we were like what does that mean? And he said for
now it's "interesting" but the more I learn the more it'll become real
and truth. It was so cool! So we had another lesson with him on Sunday
where we read the testimonies of the witnesses and Joseph smith, but
halfway through he got sick from sitting in the sun, and had to go
inside :(

We had a lesson with En. (he's 12) and Ruben (he's 11) on
Saturday. We talked to their dad and asked him if he wanted to join us
for the lesson, and he told us he didn't want to talk about God right
then because he was drinking, but he said we could come back to teach
him too. So We sat outside of their house and taught them the
restoration. It was so good! They paid attention and when we talked
about Joseph smith we asked them "how can you know that we was a
prophet if God?" And they both said "well isn't he a prophet?" And we
said "yes do you believe that he was a prophet?" And they said "yes"
it was so cool because they felt good about everything that we were
teaching them. At the end of the lesson we invited them both to be
baptized, and they said they have been baptized before, so we went
over the priesthood again with them and how being baptized by someone
holding the priesthood makes it so that what we do here on earth is
linked with heaven. So it'll carry over in to the next life and they
accepted! They want to be baptized! . All I could picture was their
entire family dressed in white making these amazing covenants with God
for all eternity.

Sister Alldredge and I went walking one night to find someone who used
to meet with missionaries, and we realized we were walking the wrong
way... So we turned around and started walking in the right direction!
When we got to the area where they lived this woman and her children
were sitting outside. So we started talking to them. She told us her
name is annereili and  she told us to sit down so we could talk. We
sat down on the sidewalk and started talking to her about missionary
work. She told us that elders have knocked on her door before so to
get rid of them she started speaking in Spanish, but the Spanish
elders were the ones who knocked so they started speaking in Spanish
to her and she was like oh shoot! She was so funny, and she told us
that she hasn't been to church in a while and she wants to strengthen
her relationship with God. We introduced the Book of Mormon and told
her that we could help her to strengthen that relationship. She said
to us " I don't think it was a coincidence that we were outside eating
our ice cream." It was so cool to see everything work out the way it
did. Her and her family are amazing. Her children are adorable and she
told us that her two youngest girls are never that loving to anyone as
they were to us. I love the way God plans things! We have a lesson
with her tonight :D

Well I pray that everyone has a wonderful week and an amazing summer!
I love you all!

Love,
Sister Peterson