The 8 Second Ride

It was a week or miracles! I love that the miracles and blessings come even on the hard days. No matter what god is ALWAYS watching over us and the rest of his children. 

Tuesday morning we had a lesson with K. We found him on campus while he was studying on a bench in the sun. We've been meeting with him for a couple of weeks and he chose to be baptized on June 11. He's very committed and keeps his commitments. We taught him tithing and fasting. We brought jack with us and he's a member of the ysa. As we taught we focused on our love for God. We keep these commandments because we love god and because we will be blessed as we do so. We talked about fasting and how it weakens our physical bodies to receive more spiral truth. And we always start and end our fast with prayer. K was committed to live these commandments and then he asked us how long you fast for and that got on to the topic that K skips a lot of meals because he's so busy and then jack was also telling us how he did the same thing! So we committed both of them to eat every meal. It was the best lesson! 

Wednesday we went to cottage grove to visit the sisters there and plan with them! Jump forward to after dinner. We went to contact a less active member, and when we knocked on the door this woman opened and we awkwardly said... " is A there?"  And she kinda laughed and then invited us in. Apparently A is her son! She gave us his address and she told us she was on the way to her daughter, S, house and we should come because S hasn't been to church in a while! So we went. Mother knows best right? S is super nice and she has 8 bunnies. So we held them as we talked with her. We got to know her better and she told us we can come by to talk with her and her boyfriend who's not a member! It was great! We also saw N that night and he's getting baptized June 11 now!! (3rd ward) is teaching him now. 

Thursday we had another lesson with K and this time we talked about baptism and the importance of it as well as confirmation, and the importance of being obedient and prayer! K always says the most amazing prayers in our lessons! He always says the closing prayer and he asks god to help him remember and apply these principles in to his life. We also met with S finally!!! It's been all transfer. We were so excited to see her and she's doing great. We showed her the mormon message "good things to come" and talked about how good things come in time but we cannot give up! She told us that's what she needed to hear and the amazing thing is that we planned to share that before we met with her. 

Friday we had zone conference! It was so amazing as always. We learned a lot about  teaching the commandments and we were taught three principles  1. we have commandments because god lives us 2 we live the commandments because we love god and 3. We learn and grow closer to god by living these commandments. and we also talked about the 8 second ride and how we need to make sure we go hard with our work ethic to the end! It was a spiritual meeting and I know I felt the love of President and Sister Russell. As always. And also the love of god as we remember that we are authorized representatives of Jesus Christ. Sister Wilson and I taught a segment on planning. It was 10 minutes and we talked about the why of planning and how to plan. We came to the conclusion that they why of planning is charity and love. We have to love those we teach! And also include te lord because he knows these people better than we do. We OYMed on campus before dinner and started talking with this guy, and he was hating on us, and so we told him we had to leave and then he called us a wart. Definitely a new one. That night we had a lesson with Q. She told us that she loves the plan of salvation. We met her a couple weeks ago on campus and she's from china. She is the sweetest thing. We gave her another Book of Mormon this time in Chinese. She told us she would read and we also taught her the restoration! At the end we invited her to be baptized and she said yes! She also picked a date of July 16. She told us that when we asked her before she was hesitant because she wasn't sure, but now she was confident because she always feels happy when she comes to church and meets with us. She's amazing!  

We went to fill out lesson reports and remembered someone called us twice and let us messages asking to call them back cause they wanted to talk about the church and we thought it was a member moving in to the ward, so we called and this guy named A. J. answers. He's from Washington and he told us he was coming to school here in the fall and wanted to learn more about our church! Woahhhh. He grew up baptist but isn't sure he wants to stay there. He feels like he doesn't have a good relationship with God and he wants to know how to get that and also learn more. He said he talked to a girl in high school who was a member of our church and he liked how she was so committed to her religion and he wanted to have what she has. We told him about the Book of Mormon and invited him to read it on Mormon.org. Then he had questions about what makes our church different and we taught him the entire restoration over the phone! He LOVED it! He's coming at the end of July and he's excited to learn, but we told him to find missionaries in Washington so he can go to church and learn more before he gets here! It was such a miracle and sister Wilson and I were both in shock. 

Saturday was Sister Wilsons birthday! She turned 20 and was talking about how old she was and how her bones were breaking. I told her it only gets worse haha we chased some ducks on the track for exercise and then I made some pancakes with m&ms and we ate those while we did new missionary training with sister McDonald. She role played how to invite a member to do missionary work! Which is very Important because every member a missionary! After that we had a great lesson with K. Natalie and k new best friend Jack came to watch the restoration movie with us. As always that movie strengthens my testimony of Joseph smith and the truth in this church! We asked Kyle what he thought and he told us that it really put in to perspective who Joseph smith is and how much he and everyone had to go through to bring this gospel to us all. We watched the Mormon message about elder Holland's testimony of the Book of Mormon. We committed him to take the time to read the Book of Mormon. That's how he can continue to strengthen his testimony of Christ and this church being Jesus Christ's church on the earth today. Also jack brought K a granola bar because we told them to eat at our lesson Tuesday haha. 

We did some weekly planning and made a bunch of phone calls and then we ate dinner with a ysa girl named B and her mom came. Her mom is not a member of the church and she told us she doesn't like organized religion, but growing up she was catholic and her parents read the Book of Mormon to her and her family!! They loved the Book and as we talked with her she slowly opened up and finally exclaimed that she would be baptized by the end of the year. There were 6 missionaries there and we all testified about taking a leap of faith and how gods will and timing is perfect and as we align our will with his we can't go wrong. She agreed and elder Anderson invited her to be baptized on June 25 and she said yes! She was so committed to that date and she told us she felt really warm. BEST DINNER!! The elders sent our a miracle text to our mission later that said " who says six ysa missionaries can't put a members mom on date at dinner?" 

Then we went outside to OYM people and we met this guy named S! We showed him the prince of peace video and half way through he asked us about Joseph smith and how he fit into our religion so we started explaining the restoration, but he had to leave and he was right down the street from our church so we told him to come to church the next day and then maybe after we could explain more and he said maybe he would! 

Sunday was so amazing! In the morning I read ether 12 because I really felt like I needed to read that for my studies. Ether 12:6-7 talked about faith and how we need to have faith before we see the miracles. Just like the people in the ancient americas and how they believed in Christ before He came to visit them. We left for church after student and when We got to church and we saw S walk in! And then we saw President and Sister Russell and then P and Her husband showed up!! We finally got to meet Jr. and they are the cutest couple! And then we saw L and Aand Joel (member) was there too  and we went to sit down for church to start and we were a little bummed that K and Q didn't show up. But then right as church started Q walked in to the chapel! She sat with our ward mission leader (Tom Ball) and THEN K and J came too :D they all sat in front of us. (J is K's girlfriend) it was the best start to Sunday! The stake presidency was at church which was a surprise, but we found out that Bishop Wight was getting released and they called Bishop Robinson to be our new bishop of the ysa Ward. It was an amazing sacrament meeting as each bishop and their wives shared their testimonies and how much those ward has, and will impact them. After church we had correlation with Tom Ball and then we went to contact a less active member and her boyfriend that we met Wednesday. This time we met J (the boyfriend) we talked a lot about prayer and how we can get a better relationship with god through prayer because he expressed to us that he never really felt that connection. They want us to come back this week! We had dinner with the stake president and his family and we shared the message on faith. 

I LOVE YOU ALL. keep working hard every day and the good things will come :) 

Love, 

Sister Peterson 

Dove Wearing Overalls!