Was It Worth The Calories?

Get your popcorn ready and sit back. It's been a busy and great week! 

Updates on the homies! L. is doing so great! She is still planning on going on a mission and she comes to all the activities and the ward encircles her with love. 

P. is great and while she was visiting her husband in Connecticut she read her Book of Mormon every day and she also shared some things with him about what she read! 

J is AMAZING!! She was with her boyfriend (who's a member) over spring break and she's been praying and reading and doing everything that she could figure out the truth, and she LOVED conference. She got a lot of answers and after so much searching she told us she wanted to be baptized, but is taking things slow until she figures out when. So amazing! 

We haven't been able to see KC yet :/ she's been busy with work.  

We met with this girl named Si that we met a couple months ago and haven't been able to meet with until now. She's really great and excited to learn!  

We met with J two more times before he moved :( our lessons with him were very spirit filled and he knows what's right. He just needs to act on his promptings. Hopefully missionaries will contact him soon! 

Last Tuesday we had missionary leadership council again somehow, it came up so fast, and it was super good! It was about talking to everyone and studying the scriptures. I got a lot of study tips that'll be good for understanding doctrine in depth. President lowery (one of president Russell's counselors) role played and pretended to be a ratchet ball player and had these elders OYM him looking for clues to talk to him. It was so funny!!  

Then on Friday we taught zone training meeting with the zone leaders and the district leaders. President and Sister Russell came and so we had to teach in front of them but it went really well!!  We went on exchanges with the Chinese sisters after and I was with sister Huang. We taught L the gospel of Jesus Christ and she is just so amazing! She wrote a really good poem type thing about the gospel that I'll share with you.  

Yesterday we had zone conference with two other zones in the valley. It was such a good meeting! We did a lot of role plays on extending "will you" commitments and teaching people what our purpose is in a clear and simple way. Sister Russell talked about our purpose as missionaries and how to share that with others. President Russell  talked to us about serving others and he shared a story of elder hunter and elder maxwell, and they were on a trip and when they came in at night while elder maxwell was in the shower elder hunter shined his shoes, and while he was doing that elder maxwell comes out and sees him crippled and shinning his shoes and he starts to cry, and elder hunter immediately starts to apologize, and then says that he didn't mean to make him cry, and he just knows how hard he worked, so he wanted to do something he knew elder maxwell wouldn't have time  to do later. It was a really tender story of charity and service. President cropper taught about teaching the law of chastity and has sister Udall and I come up and in front of three zones ask him if he's viewing pornography and commit him to stop. It was wonderful. 

President lowery taught about obedience and talked about the things in our mission that we need to work on. I really enjoyed it because it showed that we can all be striving to be more obedient and by doing so we are blessings others lives and our lives. President Russell talked about elder Bednars talk " bear up their burdens with ease" from conference April 2012. And it talks about being yoked with Christ. Which means we need to understand his atonement  and then know that he will strengthen us, and help us through our trials but he can't take them away. It's an amazing talk and message. 

Sister Udall and I were able to share a spiritual thought at FHE last night about the Book of Mormon. We shared our testimonies and also 1 Nephi 15:23-24 about how the iron rod is the word of god. Meaning that if we read the scriptures and hold to the words they teach then we will reach eternal life. It's something that everyone teaches, and something our prophet testified about in conference. I have seen this truth. It is promised to help you resist satans temptation. I love this scriptures!! 

Last night we went walking on campus to talk to people, and we met a lot of cool students and walked everywhere with them. There were a lot of people dressed up so it looked like there were missionaries everywhere! Sister Udall and I stopped to get some froyo on the way back to our car, and we ate it while we walked and right as we put a spoonful in our mouths this guy walked by that we knew we needed to talk to, so with all my might I swallowed that coconut froyo and said "Hi!!" He stopped and we asked him if he'd ever talked to missionaries and he said no, but he has some friends on missions right now. His name is Z and He told us he's from Cali and he plays volleyball for the U.of. O! He told us he doesn't go to church, but he wanted to watch the prince of peace video, and after he watched it he told us he loved the message of peace and how we can be calmed through Troubled seas, and then he apologized for not knowing how to explain how he felt because he's not religious, but what he said was amazing!! We told him it doesn't matter the background he has on religion, but what matters is that he recognizes how he felt in the moment. He's leaving for a tournament this week, but he said when he gets back he would love to meet and talk more. So to answer the question "was it worth the calories?"  The answer is YES IT WAS!! 

It was an amazing week and transfers are next week! We are gonna go hard! Love you all and thank you for everything! 

Love, 

Sister Peterson