Tuesday, June 4, 2013

June 3, 2013

This week has had a lot of roller coaster moments. I loved getting to see everyone who came in for transfers. I have missed some of the sisters so much! And transfers was so good. President Tilleman had so much good counsel. I think this is the first time that I have seen him that I haven't had an interview with him. We did have to talk to him about Y for a moment, but that was it. We also started the 40-day fast on Friday, and it has been working wonderfully. We are working with the elders to visit all the people and when we sent around the calendar again yesterday, it filled up completely! There were some definite suprises on some of the people who signed up, including a part-member family. This was a big deal, because it is the dad who is the non-member who signed his family up! The elders have been trying to work with him for a while, so they are really excited about being able to use this as an opportunity to teach him. We also managed to set up an appointment with a former investigator. Her kids are members, but she was never baptized. She comes to church with them and everything, so we don't exactly know what is holding her back. We have been trying to meet with her ever since I got here and we finally just dropped by, and she was home, but leaving soon. So she told us when we could come back to visit her!
 
The best part of the week was on Sunday though. We have been teaching a 5 year old for about three weeks now. His mom is a member, but doesn't want anything to do with the church. The dad has had some contact with the church, but isn't really interested in learning. They do want us to teach M (their son) though, so he can make his own decision when he is older. Yesterday, M and his dad came to church. I'm not exactly sure what Brother T thought of it, but M loved it! He was a little antsy during sacrament, but his primary teacher said he was so well behaved and engaged in the lesson! After church, we got stood up on two appointments we had, so we decided to drop by the Tb's and see how they were doing. The Tb's were former investigators that we put in a reflective pool, because they kept dropping appointments with us. But they were home and we had a good lesson with them. We spent most of the time getting to know them, because Sister C had only met them once and I had never met them before. Brother Tb has an amazing story. He used to be addicted to crystal meth and he fully credits God with saving his life and helping him get clean. He has been clean for 6-7 years now. We also taught them about the Godhead and how they are three seperate beings, which they totally believe. They seem to be one of those families that is not a question of will they be baptized, but when will they be baptized. Brother Tb's parents and brother are all recent converts within the last two years, and that is why they started looking into it.
 
The rest of the week has been absolutely a mess. We had a lesson with Y on Wednesday, and she doesn't want to meet with us for a while. She says that if she were single, she would already be baptized, but it hurts to much to know all this and continue learning and not be able to share it with her family. She also doesn't want to make commitments that she would have to break to keep her family happy. It is so sad! It's her husband who is causing all these problems for her and it makes me so upset! We did give her a family history card and encourage her to check it out with her husband. Hopefully that will help.
 
We have just had such a hard time finding people to teach! We only had four lessons this week, and only one of those was a member present. It is so discouraging! We have two actual investigators right now, and neither one of them are ever really available, so I'm not even sure they count. One of them is T. She is in and out of the hospital all the time, so it is absolutely impossible to ever schedule an appointment with her, and she doesn't want us to teach her girls without her, which makes perfect sense. But at the same time, it is so frustrating. The other one is R. We can only ever meet her when she is at work, because home is not a good place for her to meet. So it just depends on what her work schedule is and how busy things are, and right now, it is always busy. So we just pop in every once in a while and see how she is doing and share a quick scripture. But we never have time to teach.
 
We are getting our bus passes tonight, so away on the bus we will go for the next two or three weeks. We actually are really really lucky. The damage to the car is going to cost of 3000 to repair, and if it weren't for President Tilleman, we would lose all driving priveleges for the rest of Sister C's mission, and mine would be severely limited, meaning basically not allowed. But President Tilleman is incredibly merciful, and we get the car back after it has been fixed, so in two or three weeks. Such a relief. And hopefully spending time on the bus will allow us to find people we wouldn't have found otherwise. Who knows, maybe that will be where we find our next baptism. I really hope so.
 
Love you all,
Sister Peterson

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