Monday, May 20, 2013

April 23, 2013

Note:  Sorry, this is a little out of order.  I had a bunch of emails to shift through and I'm afraid I got a little mixed up.  Sorry again!



Hello All!
    My flight was very good. It was only two hours, but it took about 3-4 hours to get through customs. Apparently, we were supposed to have our medical and immunization records in case they asked for it. Luckily for me, they didn't ask for it.
   The cookies were very good. I ate most of them while I was packing in the MTC. That was a crazy day. We spent most of it packing, had a little bit of study time and one last class. The progressing investigator that I was teaching as part of my class is actually Sister B! No wonder it seemed so real, it was her actual conversion story. In our last class session, we taught Brother M as Brother M. It was really cool. We went in with a lesson plan about one thing and ended teaching him about something completely different, because that is what he needed.
   The best part of that day was the devotional that night. They never tell you who is coming before, so you just show up and are surprised. Sister W's twin is part of the group in charge of setting up the chairs and we were sitting with them that night so she could spend a little more time with her sister, so we got seats really close to the front. And Elder Richard G Scott was speaking that night! It was absolutely amazing. He talked a lot about prayer. I don't have my study journal with me right now, so I don't remember everything that he said, but it was so good. I'll probably send you the at least some of my notes from it later.
   I met my new companion on Thursday. Her name is Sister C and she is incredibly short. She has two transfers left and I am her first trainee. We are in the Surrey North area, in the Surrey 1st ward. Remember how I said that I knew one of the elders already serving there? Well, Elder L is both in the same ward and he is my zone leader. It is so nice to have a familiar face. Speaking of familiar faces, apparently I know three other elders serving in Vancouver. I know Elder W from Lone Peak, Elder M from JJ and and Elder G from my first semester at BYU. And they were all at the transfer meeting, so that was awesome.
   Missionary work is both what I expected and not what I expected. Sometimes, I feel like we could definitely be using our time a lot better, and sometimes I feel like we just don't have enough time to breathe because we are doing so much. We spend most of our time finding, because we don't have very many investigators right now. Yesterday, we spent almost the whole day on the streets. We found a grand total of three potential investigators and received one referral. I also gave away my first Book of Mormon to a man named B. He seemed very interested and when we drove by him a little later, he was reading the Restoration pamphlet that we also gave him. We have his number and he has ours, so here's hoping!
   We do have one investigator who seems really solid right now. Y is looking for a job and was meeting with the Mandarin speaking sisters in Burnaby, but she wants to take the lessons in English and she lives in the Surrey 1st ward, so we are teaching her now. She believes everything and she really feels the Spirit when she reads and prays. When we talk about Christ, she calls Him "my Jesus." It was a little different at first, but, you know, He is her Jesus, just as He is mine and yours. Her only problem is that her husband doesn't know how involved she is in looking into the church, and she is afraid to ask his permission to come to church. So we are praying that she will get the courage to ask him. She is also considering sharing what she is learning with her 8 year old son and her 6 year old daughter.
    P-day was today because we went to the temple this morning. It was really beautiful, but different. The Vancouver temple is tiny! And it isn't in Vancouver. It's in a little city called Langley. It definitely helped me. and we saw a coyote. That was a little unexpected.
   I love you all!
                 Sister Peterson

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