Run Like the Wind Bullseye

A lot of great things happened this past week and L and P are doing so great and are continuing to prepare for baptism! I'm getting the hang of serving in the ysa and it's been a great growing experience. At the beginning of the week we did service at a food kitchen and taught some really great lessons! On Valentine's Day everyone was extra happy because there was some extra love in the air! We had a great lesson with L and We also got some heart shaped cookies so that made it even better! 

Friday we had district meeting and went on exchanges with Sister Peck and sister Orr! All four of us went to the ysa area and we did a bunch of walking on campus and talking to people. I was with Sister Orr and she is way good at connecting with people! Right when we got on campus she was a fireball just talking to everyone! We talked to this girl with blue hair and gave her a Book of Mormon promising that if she would read it the hard times she is going through now will get better. Later we were speed walking with this girl to a meeting and on the way we passed by this guy with a puppy and I felt like we should talk to him, but we were already in the middle of a conversation and by the time we were done we turned around and he was gone! We even tried looking for him, but couldn't find him. I said a silent prayer asking god to help us find him again if we were supposed to talk to him. Still nothing. We talked to a lot of other people on campus and most of it was us running next to people while they were rushing to get to class. We made our way to the edge of Campus, and got ready to head back through when I heard sister Orr say "guy with the puppy!" I looked where she was pointing and there was the guy that we saw earlier! We both knew we HAD to take this opportunity. As we went to talk to him about 5 other girls did too. I mean he did have a really cute puppy! But it was hard to get a conversation going when people kept coming to talk to him. We figured we didn't want to waste time, so we told him we would leave him our card and right when we were about to give up we noticed that all the girls had gone away and he was left alone to talk! We ceased that opportunity and got to know his background. He lives in Portland and his parents are from Russia! He told us he doesn't go to a church around here, but went a lot in Portland with his sister and would love to come to ours! He told us he believes in Christ and wanted to learn more about our faith. He took our card and then had to go catch a taxi, so what did we do? Ran along side him as he walked super fast to catch his ride. We talked to him about the restoration and he really wanted our pamphlet to read! Now we will be meeting with him this week and I hope he brings the puppy! I am so very grateful that God heard my prayer and helped us to find S! 

Saturday morning we had only about 15 minutes to OYM on campus before the sisters had to go back to their own area. Sister Orr and I walked on campus and tried talking to a couple people, but no one was really interested. We saw a guy about 15 feet in front of us and knew we should talk to him. He was listening to some Finnish music to get pumped for a run, and that led in to a conversation about how he conducts choirs and he just moved here from conducting in PHILLY to go to school! He told us he was at the temple open house this last summer and loved how beautiful the temple is and how it is built to look like the city buildings. He also told us he loved the family aspect of the temple and how much we stress the importance of the family. He ended up not being interested but how cool is that!? God definitely knows us and places us to meet people we can relate to. It was just the coolest!  

We had a lesson with L. on the Sabbath day and the member that we came shared a really powerful testimony about the sacrament. Lauren committed to preparing herself every Sunday to make the sacrament more meaningful to her and she also told us she's been listening to talks while she gets ready! She's sooo great!

We had a lesson with P right after and taught her about the law of chastity. P is unlike anyone I've ever met before. She's very in tune with the spirit and I also found out that she's never felt very comfortable in any church before, but she feels really welcomed here and feels like she can be herself. 

Church was so good! L, J, C, P, and S all came to church! 

Sunday night President and sister Russell came to talk to the ysa Ward and we got to go because we had some investigators there. It was a meeting about resisting the temptation that Satan puts in front of us, and also recognizing the Holy Ghost. President talked about how we need to know ourselves and know for ourselves what is right and what it wrong and we can know by the Holy Ghost. When we have questions we need to pray to god and turn to the scriptures! Then he talked about dating and how we need to marry someone that we are equally yoked with and who will make us a better person. Some good advice! 

I hope you all have a great week and I wanted to share what I read today in my personal studies this morning. I read  Moroni 7 and I love that it says that all good things come from god. I love that because it's so true. God will only show us things that make us happy. He wouldn't lead up down a path of misery like Satan would.  We need to know which way we face and follow god because he will lead us to happiness. 

I love you all! 

Love,

Sister Peterson