Feliz Navidad!

Hola Amigos!

Hope you all had a merry Christmas and felt the spirit as you remembered the true meaning of Christmas! It was fun to get to go to church on Christmas! Definitely a different experience being a missionary but it was great. Obviously the highlight of my week was getting to skype home yesterday. It was so good to hear my families voices!

So Christmas. We started off opening presents. Thanks fam! I got a super cute purple floral dress and a cute bracelet. My mom even has a matching bracelet! I also got lotion, socks, gloves, and other great stuff like giftcards from members and other family. I then made pancakes and we went to church. After church we headed to a members home and hung out with them and then got to skype! It was fun to get to know the members better and hang out with them in a more casual way. We then headed to a less active families house and stayed there for a couple of hours just talking to them. We then headed about 30 minutes west to another members house. She had both her sons in town (one of them is actually going to UVU right now) and we had a nice Christmas dinner. We helped her get most of it ready and that was fun, I really enjoyed it! Their family was so fun to hang with. I was afraid a little because when she took us out to dinner a couple weeks ago pretty much all she liked to talk about was how much she hated Utah Mormons so that was fun haha but it was better yesterday. Inbetween the less actives and our last house we were actually going to be there a bit early so we decided to pull over on the street before and take a 20 minute nap because we both had headaches from crying with our families. We then headed home after staying for a couple hours. When we got home we planned and then wrote in our journals and talked to our STL's then I got the best Christmas present of all!! I got to go to sleep early! That was seriously all I could have asked for. I know it sounds stupid but I am so exhausted and there is no way to describe it. We are SO busy all day long and I sleep so well every night. Missionary work is great but definitely put an emphasis on the work part! One of the STL's shared a quote with us last night 

"You will  come to know what appears today to be a sacrifice will prove to be the best investment you will ever make" -President Gordon B Hinkley

She told us to just think of Christmas away as a huge investment in our future.

This week we had a party with all the missionaries in the south side of our mission called Jingle Jam. It was so much fun! It was basically just a huge talent show and Christmas  celebration. If you look at the mission blog there are pictures from it on there. One of my favorites was they did a skit like Jimmy Fallon's "thank you notes" and they came up with some good ones, Thank you pump jacks for adding variety to our landscape, thank you tiwi (the device attached to our car that doesn't let us speed or go over bumps and stuff or leave our area) for always helping us check our speed (because that is what it says in a really annoying voice if you go over the speed limit). Anyways, it was pretty funny. We also got to watch the Saratov Approach which litterally everyone cried through but it was so good and we learned so many lessons from it. Trust in God. He has a plan for every person on this planet regardless of the choices you make.

It has been a rough teaching week because no one is home or they don't want to hear us because they are too busy. We are hoping it will pick up again after the holidays. "God cares a lot more about who we are and who we are becoming than about who we once were. He cares that we keep on trying." Elder Dale G Renlund. Basically this is my life motto right now. If anyone wants an explanation of what missionary work is like go listen to the album The Work by Nashville Tribute band. I haven't listened to all of it yet but Sis Acosta got it for Christmas and it explains a lot of the unexplainable thoughts we have out here.

I love you all sooooo much!

Hermana Peterson

Semana 2 in Texas

Hey everybody! Hope you are all doing great! It's official, I have been in Texas for 2 weeks now. It is such a weird feeling. The people here are great though!

Update on the Texas winter: 2 days this week it was in the 80's and super warm and then this morning when we went to the store it was 21 degrees and it felt like my hands were going to fall off. Good thing we were only out for a second!

Thankfully my family sent us a GPS so the directions were a little easier this week but still a struggle haha! We started off the week by going down to Midland to do exchanges with the Sister Training Leaders. We went down Tuesday after district meeting and came back Wednesday night. They are awesome! I had good experiences while down there. We got to do 2 different types of service while down there which was exciting. On Tuesday Sis Schultz and I went and walked dogs that are waiting to be adopted at PetsMart and on Wednesday we went and volunteered with Habitat for Humanity. We helped build a house! Things I never thought I would be doing! Our job was caulking around all the shelves and molding in the closet.

Had a first experience this week! I got pulled over!! Don't worry, everything is fine haha. I was terrified because we had left dinner late and so we were late to our next appointment and we didn't know how to get there so Sis Acosta had the map out trying to figure it out and as I am turning I see lights out the back window so of course I start to freak out. It turns out she just needed to see proof of insurance because it wasn't on the car or something but that really gave me a heart attack! We were off on our way, calling our appointment to let him know we'd be late and he ended up canceling anyways so it was alright. We got a new car this week as well so that is exciting!

We got a call from a woman in the ward this week asking for help cleaning up her house and we let her know we'd be happy to come over. When we got there we were met with the unexpected. It was a daunting task and we only had an hour but we were able to make a small dent in her living room. She wanted help because her boyfriend is coming in to town for Christmas and she was embarrassed of her house. I wasn't sure how much we could do, but we got started and she was so appreciative! She is sweet and I am glad we got to help her a little.

Thanks to everyone who has sent me letters and packages! I will try my best to get out individual thanks as well!

We found out some not great news yesterday. The Elders left us a super promising investigator. They told us he was so ready and his baptism is supposed to be on Jan 7th! Yesterday we found out that that may not be the case. We found out that he and his fiancé broke up (they were getting married Jan 4th) and that he is hanging out with his old friends again. We are super sad, he has canceled appointments with us like 3 times this week. We don't want to have to tell the Elders about him!

This week I also got to receive a "new missionary blessing" I guess that is a thing. It was awesome, most of our districe got together (6 of us) and we talked about some of the things we have been going through and then the 2 of us that were new got priesthood blessings. It is amazing how aware the Lord is of us. Things were mentioned that I haven't told anyone and it brought me so much comfort.

Feliz Navidad everyone!!!!!

The Lord loves you and so do I!

Hermana Peterson

Lost in Lubbock

Hey Y'all!!

I made it back to the great states!! It really does feel great but at the same time I do wish I got to experience living in Mexico a little more! I want to tell you guys everything but there is just not time so I will write everything that I can remember and if anyone has specific questions send them and I will answer them next week!

So I "woke up" ( I only really slept for like 20 minutes) at 1 am on Monday morning and headed to the Mexico City Airport and our driver was super nice and he walked us in and made sure we knew where to go before he left us. We headed to the gate and just sat there for awhile because we were pretty early for our flight. A couple hours later one of the elders on a different flight comes over looking for help because he can't find his flight on the board and we realize that our flight changed gates so we helped him as best we could then walked over to our new gate across the airport. 5 minutes before boarding our flight changed back to the original gate so we had to trek across the airport one more time, hoping that was really where our flight was but we made it! The flight was pretty good, it was stormy so the last 30 minutes to Dallas was pretty turbulent but overall it went well! We got to Dallas and went through customs and whatnot then found a payphone so that I could call home!! It was great to hear my families voices for the first time in 6 weeks! I talked for a while and then let Elder Humphrey use the rest of my minutes to call his family. While he was on the phone I ran to go get some food because who knew when I would eat next and I had been up all night too. On my way back there was time to board but I wasn't worried because we were right next to our gate but as I was walking back I noticed that our gate had changed, I went to tell the other Elder and he kept talking for  a minute then we left, 10 minutes before our plane was supposed to leave, not knowing that the Dallas airport is huge and that you have to take a train thing to get to the other side of the gates or terminals or whatever so of course I am in full panic mode because it is time for our flight to be leaving and we are stuck on a train. We get off after our flight is supposed to be gone and run to the gate asking if there is any way we could still get on and she looked at us confused and said the plane was gone. E. Humphrey starts trying to figure stuff out and she then asks where we are trying to go and we told her and she said that is not the flight that was at this gate so I guess the board was wrong. One of the other gate attendants looks up flights to Lubbock and tells us that it was at another gate nearby and it had actually been delayed. That was a miracle because there was no other way that we would have made it!!! We got to the correct gate just as they began boarding! We got to Lubbock and the Heaps and the AP's were there to greet us. We then waited about 15 minutes and about 14 missionaries showed up from the Provo MTC. In case anyone is wondering Texas (at least west texas) actually does get cold. It is cold here and the wind never stops blowing. We even woke up to snow this week! It melted quickly but it is still cold!

We stayed the night at the mission home after a long day of orientation which I could not stay awake in. Sis Heap made us delicious enchiladas though! I kind of felt left out though because everyone else had gone to Provo so that was a little hard, some of them were even still with their companions so I was excited for the next day to get a new companion and not have to be alone! On Tuesday I took the transfer van, which is a 12 passenger van that tows a trailer full of our stuff, to a church in Midland I believe which is about 2 hours away. I got to meet my companion there and as we were loading my luggage she informed me that I would be driving  because she does not have a license. I was pretty worried about that! I hadn't driven in 6 weeks and I am terrible with directions! It is going pretty good though.

Surprise!! I am not even teaching in Spanish. What the heck...I know. So I guess there is not very many Spanish Sister areas so we are in an English ward right now and if we have any Spanish investigators we have to pass them on to the Spanish Branch Elders. I am pretty worried that I will not learn Spanish now. My comp is Hispanic though so we are trying to practice well and she is helping me during language study everyday.

We are supposed to try and do 10 hours of service a week. The two main things we do is work at Catholic Charities which is a food pantry where we help people get the right amount of stuff and just talk to them. A lot of them are Spanish speakers so I get to practice with them if they want to talk to me while I help them. The second thing we do is work at the food bank, we sort food, clean cans, and check expiration dates. I really enjoy being able to serve!

Everyone I have met here is so nice! The first people I met were some members that we went to dinner with. I guess that every time they have the missionaries over they make us sing to earn our food so that was interesting haha!

On Saturday we got to go back to Lubbock because Elder Rasband of the quorum of the twelve came here! We were really hoping that we got to go down Friday night but we didn't. It is about 2.5 hours to Lubbock so we had to get up at 4 am. I will never catch up on my sleep! We are having an extremely hard time with directions because all the streets have weird names and are all curvy haha. Anyways, we only have a map of Odessa which is our area so we had to ask for directions to get to Andrews where we had to go because we were carpooling with them. We made it there after a few wrong turns and then they had a gps to get the rest of the way! Hearing E. Rasband was amazing! We also got to shake his hand! I really want to write more about what I learned but I forgot my notebook and I don't have a ton of time to write now. Afterwards we went to Chick Fil A which was great, there were so many other missionaries there too! We then headed to the Mission Office to pick up some things before we headed home and I had a package and mail! I had been having a hard day and those made it so much better so THANK YOU! On our way home after that we made it to Andrews and then back to our house we got sooo lost. The biggest problem is that once you are headed the wrong way it is super hard to find somewhere to stop and ask or even just somewhere to turn around because it is just a highway amidst many many fields (:

My first Sunday went pretty much how I expected, it was good! I met a ton of people!! Hopefully I can remember at least some of them. We got to visit a recently baptized less active after church and it was an awesome experience! We just took over an area that elders were in previously so my comp doesn't even know 1/2 of the people we are over which is hard too but that just means we get to meet people together. Our area is pretty big and we spent most of our week just planning and figuring out who people were.

My comp is Sis Acosta. She is from Temple, TX which is just a few hours away. She is super nice. She just got out of training and is now my trainer! Her family is not active in the church but she has a strong testimony! She was baptized when she was 16 and she is now 20.

Look for the Lord in every aspect of your life, He is the reason you are even able to take a breath today!

I want to write more but don't have time!

I love you all so much and thank you for your support!

Hermana Peterson

Christmas lights at the Mexico City CCM

Sister Peterson, Sister Gomez (our teacher), Sister Ramsey

District 12C in the Mexico City CCM

Odessa Apartment

Snowing in Odessa with Sister Regina Acosta

Love from Home!

Arriving in Texas

Texas Lubbock arriving missionaries

with Pres. and Sister Heap

Texas Lubbock Mission December 2016

After mission conference with Elder Rasband

Último Semana en México!

Hola!

It is so crazy to think that next time I talk to you all I will back in the great United States! I can not wait but I am also so sad to leave my new family here at the CCM. This week Hna Ramsey and I started to feel sick at the beginning of the week but we have been praying to stay healthy and it has not gotten very bad at all so we are very grateful for that! We ran out of soap in our casa for a couple days before they refilled it so we will blame our sickness on that haha!

We got to teach TRC again on Saturday and it went pretty good. We got to teach 2 different lessons, both of them are 18 year old members who are preparing to go on a mission right now so we were able to share some experiences with them that we have had here. The first girl we taught spoke at the speed of lightning but I was able to catch enough to kind of know how to answer and if I did not catch it usually Hna Ramsey did or vice versa. We taught relief society again this week, it was about obedience and diligence and it went really well. We were a little nervous because there is only 4 people to teach so if they do not comment we would be in big trouble but they all participated and it turned out great!

On Sunday we were able to watch a really cool video on Sunday night called "How Rare a Possession" If you can figure out how to watch it I would. It gives you a new perspective on the Book of Mormon and how grateful we should be for the knowledge we have from it.

On Monday I got like 6 letters and that totally made my day! Hna Ramsey walked in and saw a letter on her desk and got so excited and then saw that it was just from my mom and she got less excited (she was still excited but she just wished it was from her family). When Elder Seui walked in he said, "still no letter Hna?" and she said it was just from my mom and he pulled out another letter and gave it to her. She did get one finally from her sister! I was so happy for her!

Hermana Ramsey got convinced to do a duet with one of our Elders of Savior, Redeemer of My Soul. It is super pretty, they have been practicing during personal study in the mornings. They auditioned yesterday and they said they sounded great but it has to be in Spanish so they are going to try and find the words for them and they are probably going to perform on Sunday at one of the devotionals.

We got to teach Suceth a couple more times this week and it went pretty well. We have been teaching her about family home evening (noche de hogar) and encouraging her to be an example to her husband and to share what she is learning and feeling with her family. We invited her husband to come to 2 lessons this week and he did not come to either of them which was hard because we had planned as if he was there but I think he will be there when we teach her again on Saturday so hopefully he will have an open heart to hear what we have to say.

Like I said it is crazy that it has already been 6 weeks, after we finish emailing today we have to go pack and weigh our bags. I leave bright and early Monday morning (I think I will be leaving the CCM about 2 am!).

The last couple of days I have been reading in Joseph Smith History, I did not realize how much information was actually in there! I also started reading in the My Heritage book which is super good too. I encourage all of you to study JSH this week, I will attach some of my favorite verses from that here. Start your study with a prayer and I know you will be able to feel of the truthfulness of it!

JSH 1:

20-it seems as though the adversary was aware, at a very early period of my life, that I was destined to prove a disturber and an annoyer of his kingdom (satan will work against you as long as he knows you are fighting against his cause)

12-if any person needed wisdom from God, I did (how cool that he could recognize that and be that humble)

13-ask of God (if you ask any worthy question with an open heart and a desire to change he will answer)

16-(he used all his energy to call on God, he was fully committed)

17-Personages, whose brightness and glory defy all description (they are definitely not earthly beings)

23-(he recognizes that God does not usually appear to 14 year old boys, he knows that he sounds a little crazy but he is just telling the truth)

24-all the world could not make him think or believe otherwise

25-yes it was true

33-God had a work for me to do

I love you all! Have a great week!

Hermana Peterson

Week 5

Hey everybody!! It is so crazy to think that I am almost out of here! Just to let you know, my next pday will be on Wednesday so make sure you send me all your emails before then! After that my pdays should be on Mondays once I am in Texas!

Thursday nights I always have a hard time falling asleep because I am thinking about what I want to tell you all! I feel like my thoughts are always scattered so sorry if stuff doesn't make sense sometimes! So on Saturdays we get to do TRC (sorry I don't know what that stands for). TRC is when you get to teach real people. So far we have gotten all members but it could be less actives or non members. We had a good experience in TRC this past week. The man we got to teach was super nice, he pretty much taught the lesson, he bore his testimony to us after us asking how the gospel has played a role in his life. It was really awesome, he told us about his mission too. The weirdest part is that we pretty much understood nothing he said, we could tell what he was talking about but that is about it so we just shared a scripture and encouraged him to pray about how he could come closer to Jesucristo. Even though we didn't understand him, we were feeling the spirit so strongly, all three of us were in tears by the end of the lesson. Hna Ramseys glasses kept fogging up so that was kind of funny haha!

On Sunday we had a class taught by President Tenorio, he is so funny. When he teaches it is a lot harder to fall asleep. He mixed in several stories and the only reason I will tell you them is because I am not staying in Mexico and the CCM is heavily guarded. He said "now I will tell you about the first time I got robbed, I say the first time because it has happened many times" and he also told us about "the first time I got kidnapped" pretty scary stuff but it is a testament that God was watching out for him. Both our teachers have 2 wallets and 2 phones so that if they get robbed they will have something to give to them without actually losing anything. It is also so funny to hear him speak because he doesn't know English very well so he always has to ask his counselors for words.

Of course you all want to know about Thanksgiving. It was pretty much a normal day here. In the morning one of our classes got canceled and they streamed the devotional from Provo which was great, Elder Anderson spoke along with his grandchildren. We got a "traditional" Thanksgiving meal for lunch. When we walked into the Comidor they had white tablecloths on and they had some flowers and then we had turkey, corn, mashed potatoes, rolls, etc. Costco came in clutch with the apple pie and ice cream! They also served "American Star" rootbeer which was pretty funny because that is totally not a Thanksgiving thing. Some people made root beer floats and one of the Latinos made it and then as he was eating it he asked us what it was haha I guess he was just copying what he saw us Americans do! Also one of our Elders had to explain what whip cream was and how to use it! I will attach a pic of our meal. It was one of the best things we have had even though it really still isn't that good. After the maestros left at 9 we had a "feast" during our daily planning session with our zone. We all had gone to the Tienda and gotten food and brought stuff we got in our packages to share. We only had a half hour but we all said one word of something we were grateful for and then ate! It was nice because we all are feeling homesick obviously but we really are like a family to each other and it is pretty much the second best place I'd want to have Thanksgiving. One kid even got Martinellis and so after we all said what we were grateful for he popped the bottle and it sprayed everywhere haha! We are not really supposed to eat in the classrooms so he shoved it in his mouth to try to not spill but it just went up his nose.

Something cool I have been thinking about this week is that some of the teachers here came to school here then the CCM before their missions and are now teachers!

My spiritual thought of the week is Mosiah 7:33. Elder Seui pointed out last night that the Lord is blessing us for doing things we should be doing anyways, He really doesn't have to but He does it anyways because He promised He would. We should be diligent and serve the Lord with everything we have because literally we are nothing without Him. He is the reason we even breathe or continue to live. Yo se que Jesucristo nos ama. Yo se que Dios es nuestro Padre Celestial. Yo se que el Evangelio es verdad y usted puede saber por su mismo si usted ora saber.

I will also attach some pics of our roomies we took at the devotional on Thursday and our district at our feast

Te ama mucho!!

Hermana Peterson

​

The Plague

So I was thinking about what I should tell you guys and maybe I should be a little more spiritual but I really love funny missionary emails so I'll start off funny and then give you some spiritual uplifting!

So this week the most "exciting" thing this week was that the entire CCM (Centro de Capacitacion Missional México for those of you who asked) had what we fondly are calling the plague. Also there is a cold going around so they told us to stop shaking hands haha! Anyways, the plague all started from the best meal we have had the whole time we have been here so that is kind of disappointing! Unfortunately it was also Friday night and also happened to be the week that the doctors are switching over so that was a tad problematic. The meal was bbq chicken sandwiches and it was the least sketchy chicken we have eaten in our whole time here. Saturday morning we heard that a bunch of people had been having issues with "the two headed dragon" as the elders fondly refer to it. My stomach had been hurting pretty badly but luckily nothing has come from it. As of Saturday morning 150 plus missionaries were trying to go to the enfermeria. Literally the entire CCM has been sick since, it's pretty bad. We now don't think everything was food poisoning though because there is also a stomach infection/virus thing going around. The doctor pretty much does the same thing for everyone, feels their stomach and then asks "shots or pills" which I don't think is very doctorly to do but it is pretty funny. One of our Sister Training Leaders got it right before she left and she said shot because she thought it meant just one but then the doctor turned to her companion and asked if she had ever given shots before and she said "she will be taking the pills" haha! The plague is our elders favorite thing to talk about, I don't know why they all feel the need to discuss it, one elder even mentioned it over the pulpit on Sunday because he said he didn't have time to prepare a talk because he spent all night on the bathroom floor! Luckily my companion and I have not gotten it completely, we just don't feel great after eating. Once you choose your shots or pills you get sentenced to a diet of saltines and gatorade type drink so the elders always make fun of people carrying them around.

Pretty much everyday here is the same so it is a little hard to figured our what I want to tell you all. I think I forgot to tell you all this but the first Sunday I was here I ate a grasshopper. It wasn't terrible but I would definitely not choose to eat it again. Hna Packard caught them and cooked them for us to try. Still no TLM people in the CCM. This week about 138 new missionaries came which is like double what came with us! I haven't seen any of the missionaries you all told me to look for, sorry! Our district leader is now our zone leader so we got a new district leader, zone leaders, and stl's this week. All the Latina's in our house are new so we went and welcomed them and gave away the heart balloons my mom sent me. Yay for regifting!! The food is kind of getting harder to eat because the first time around we were trying everything so it was exciting but now we know that it is not great so it's harder to eat especially when our stomachs are all rebelling. It's not that the food is terrible (ok, so some of it I really can't handle like there is these weird breakfast tamale type things wrapped in banana leaves and I want to puke every time I smell them- that's the worst thing here in my opinion) but it is cafeteria style so I'm trying not to judge too much and we eat last so even on Tuesdays when we get Costco pizza it is cold and there is only cheese left and it's not as good as it is in the states. This analogy pretty much sums up how we can describe each meal: when we went to the temple they gave us snacks on the way home and there was this chocolate thing and someone tasted it before the rest of us and said "imagine a crunch bar, now lower your standards....now do that one more time and that's what this tastes like" haha!!

This week I got called on to speak so that was terrifying. For anyone who doesn't know, in the CCM everyone has to have a talk prepared (in Spanish of course) and you don't know who is speaking until they call you up to the pulpit. It ended up alright but my hands were shaking so bad! We also had to teach relief society this week but thankfully that is in English. It went really well, we taught about Faith and Hope. Faith is a principle of action and power so you have to make goals and take action for your faith to be strengthened!

My compañera is going to the Mexico City North Mission which is where one of our maestras served so we had the coolest realization this week. When we teach "investigators" here it is usually just our teacher but they are so good at acting. They choose someone from their mission that they taught so they can react similar ways. Our investigator for the next couple of weeks (one of them) is named Suceth, she has twin daughters and a husband. I love teaching her so much because she is open and we can feel the spirit SO strongly when we teach her. I have never had more testimony strengthening experiences than when we are teaching her. This week she shared with us that her husband is abusing her and I just wanted to cry, it made me so sad. We know these stories are real and that is so hard to understand. When she first told us we were kind of stunned, we didn't know what to say to her in English let alone in Spanish. We continued on with our lesson as planned and let her know that we are here for her. We talked about it a lot afterwards and I have not stopped thinking about it since. I have studied so much for our next lesson with her. As missionaries we are not supposed to counsel her on what actions she should take and that is hard. We don't teach her again until Monday so we have been planning her lesson. We have already shared with her the message of the atonement but we are going to re emphasize the comfort it brings, we found some super powerful scriptures to share and if I have time I will add them at the end of this email. We are also sharing the message of prayer again but the main message we want to share with her is that of the Priesthood. In our last lesson we taught of the restauración so it flows perfectly into talking more in depth about the priesthood. We plan on asking her if she would like a priesthood blessing at then end of the lesson and I think that we will all be feeling the spirit so strongly and I think the blessing is just what she needs to bless her and give her guidance in making decisions about her life. We also plan on inviting her husband to attend the lessons with her so hopefully she will be open to that. I have never felt the spirit so strongly as when we are in her lessons or studying to teach her. My favorite resource for planning her lesson (other than the scriptures) has been True to the Faith. It is the coolest book! We also used it for planning our RS lesson and it was great. Anyways, the realization we had is that Hna Ramsey will probably meet the real Suceth while she is out in the field. I can not even describe how cool of an experience that would be to really meet her!! Hna Gomez was telling us where she is at now after we asked her and she showed us a picture on her phone and she wrote down what ward and stake she is in for Hna Ramsey. Hna Gomez said that she went to visit her a 4 months ago and unfortunately her husband is back in the picture. Suceth's husband never joined the church so Hna Ramsey is supposed to try and work on him! (this part is for my mom and gma mostly) Hna Gomez said she loved the Titensers so much, she was so sad to hear that she has cancer! It is kind of crazy what a small world it is, we also figured out this week that Hna Gomez (she is our morning teacher by the way) served with Elder Huxford's brother for almost their entire mission because he just got home 5 months ago and she got home 8 months ago, how crazy?!! I can't believe she hadn't made that connection before because she has a super hard time saying his name.

Alma 7:11-12

2 Nefi 33:3

2 Nefi 32:3

One of our devotionals this week was streamed from Provo and it was Elder Stevenson from the quorum of the twelve and he kept taking about his missions in Japan and I kept thinking of you dad! My favorite thing is that he talked about the Thanksgiving of the Restoration which is something I have been growing my testimony on so much in my time here. I am so grateful for it!!

Te ama mucho!!!

Happy Thanksgiving!!

Hermana Peterson

I'm in Mexico??!!

Hey everybody!!

Sorry about my email last week, my brain was so scattered and I was typing on a Spanish keyboard at the speed of light so if anything didn't make sense or was wrong that is why. Thank you all so much again for the letters, they are seriously the best part of my days!

I don't even know what to tell you all! I just wish you could be here and experience what it's like because I don't know how to fit it all and describe it in an email. Last P day and today we got to go to the Mexico City temple so I will attach some pictures from that. Getting outside the wall makes everything real, we really are living in the middle of Mexico!! Okay so all the partying, fireworks, and gunshots do too but seeing it is even stranger. I never could have imagined what it looks like here. Go look it up on google maps, it is crazy. The CCM is so safe though and it is beautiful and clean here so don't you worry! The temple is seriously the best it is right in the middle of the city and you would not know you were there until you hit the guarded gates which is kind of the same way with the CCM. We got to listen to the session in English, but everything we speak is in Spanish so that was a little tricky but it was fine. I felt the spirit especially strong today. When we were walking out I just wanted to yell EL EVANGELIO ES VERDAD!!!!! Because it's true and el templo is amazing!! We got to go to the Tienda on the temple grounds and I got some scripture cases for my Spanish scriptures for 50 pesos which answers your question mom, yes, everything is dirt cheap here. I think 50 pesos converts to just under $3. We get 120 pesos a week to spend here at the CCM and that is plenty to get whatever you need.

The language is coming very slowly still but it is coming. I felt pretty good now that I can answer our investigators questions that we didn't script answers for. I know it's not just me though, the Lord knows these people need answers and He provides a way. For anyone wanting to know one of the stupider things I said this week, we were practice teaching with our district and I was teaching one of our Elders to pray and told him to serar sus osos instead of ojos. I know the difference now in case anyone is wondering!! We got 2 new investigators this week and I love them both but I especially love teaching Suceth. I don't know why because I have a much harder time understanding her but I love teaching her so much!!

The concept of time here is so strange. It feels like we have been here forever and it also feels like we just got here yesterday all at the same time. We have been here for 3 weeks! That is seriously so crazy! Everyday we pretty much do the same things so that makes time feel weird too. Like I said last week, my district is the BEST!!! I seriously love them! The week started off pretty bad because one of the Elders was mad at me, I won't go into why because it doesn't matter but I still had a love for him, so weird! They can act pretty stupid most of the time but I really enjoy the 15 hours a day we spend together. It is so crazy but when we have to go home at night I am actually sad to leave them even if they have been a little annoying that day. Gym time is the best part of our days usually. We get an hour break from thinking! We usually end up playing volleyball outside. The inside court is always packed and it is usually the experienced players so we like to use the beach and outdoor courts.

This Sunday was emotionally insane, I can't even explain it. Me and Hna. Ramsey were both saying that we think we have felt every emotion possible here.

This week has been pretty rainy. It is like in the 60's I think so kind of cold. I did break out my jacket but that was mostly after I got soaked in the rain storm. It is really hard for stuff to dry here too, I think it's because our casa doesn't really have any air flow. It took my shoes like 3 days to dry.

I have a picture of what we ate for breakfast this morning. It is one of the not so great meals. We have it for breakfast at least once a week. It is another example of us having only a guess of what we are eating. It is tortilla chips with like enchilada sauce and cheese on them...not what I would consider a meal, especially breakfast. Cereal and nutella toast are always there so we never go hungry!

You should all go and study 2 Nefi 31, it talks about all the principles of the doctrine of Christ. It is great!

I love you all so much!! Have a great week!

Hermana Peterson