3 flat tires in one week!

Well, this week has been pretty good. 3 flat bike tires make transportation just a little more difficult though! Hopefully we will get all the flat tire problems resolved today though so we can have a smooth sailing week! We were stuck at the food bank once and so we called the other sisters to come pick us up on their way back from Midland. We finally got a bike rack for our car this week thankfully but we hadn't put it together yet so we were trying to do so in the insane Texas wind. Then unfortunately our instructions blew away so we ended up having to call the zone leaders to come help us. It was a pain and took forever but we finally got it fixed and patched her bike tire. We had a nice relief society birthday dinner to celebrate the 175th anniversary of relief society. It was a really fun night and we were able to come with Sister Lincoln!

Unfortunately no baptism for Jessie this week :( She passed her interview and everything was all set up and then she started a job this week and she had to work Sunday so she couldn't be confirmed on Sunday and since next week is general conference she would have had to wait like 3 weeks to be confirmed which isn't good. Hopefully she can get the next weekend off, we are temporarily scheduled for April 8th.

So as sisters we get called lots of different things. I have been called "elder-ettes" "the girl elders" "church ladies" but this week we got a new one! "the holy sisters". "Mom! The holy sisters are here!" you would think something like that came from a cute 5 year old but it was from a 20 year old guy.

Another insanely windy week. One of the worst I have seen yet! Another week where we had to pedal as hard as we could just to go down the only "hill" in Odessa (the freeway overpass). There was so much dust in the air and we were caked in it by the end of the day you could just touch us and be muddy! Our hair was quite the site as well! It is the funniest thing ever to try to watch the birds fly, they were having the hardest time ever and just give in to walking!!! They can barely walk either because it is so strong!

We had zone conference this week and got a sneak preview of the Easter video that comes out on Friday!! It is so good and y'all need to look it up Friday morning first thing. Everyone needs to share it!!! I would love to hear what y'all think of it as well! It is called Prince of Peace and they are coming out with 8 principles of peace along with it. It is going to be another amazing initiative! After zone conference one of the senior couples, the Caytons, took us out to this really Texan bbq restaurant, it was so sweet of them!

That is about everything I can remember from this week!

Hope y'all have a good one!
Love ya!!
Hermana Peterson
#princeofpeace

The challenges of biking in the wind:

It's so hot!!

I know, I know, it is only going to get hotter because it is only March but this week we thought we were going to die! Not quite sure how we will survive the summer season, hopefully we get moved to the panhandle!!

Odessa is doing great! We had Jessie at church again! I love that girl! She is still on date for baptism on Saturday and we are so excited! This week we got to show her the baptisimal font. We also taught her about family history and she is loving it!

Sister Lincoln was at church!!!! We were so excited to see her! She is the cutest lady ever! She was pretty nervous to come back to church but I think it went really well! Now we just have to work on getting her boyfriend to come with her.

This week we helped 1 person move out, 1 person move in, and 2 people paint! We are mighty busy here in Odessa! I love it though! Service is one of my favorite parts! One of the houses we painted was our investigator Heather (who we ended up dropping). She just found out she has cancer so she is trying to redo her whole house. We painted her library dark blue and now it is all over us!

Our investigator Taylor-we hadn't had contact with her for like 3 weeks and I was getting super worried about her. On Saturday morning we got a text saying she had just had her baby though and she was sorry for not getting back to us. We are excited for her and hope that things will start to progress more now that she has had her baby!

Well, the car situation is still not the funnest, especially when bikes get flat tires! We really rely on the members but they are all so awesome and willing to help us out! This week was kind of rough because everyone here had spring break or was working so no one was here in Odessa!

Also, I don't know if y'all have already seen it but go watch the church's new First Vision video. I love it! You can find it here history.lds.org

Have a great week!

Hermana Peterson

Jessie is getting baptized

Hey y'all! It has been another crazy and great week! 

I don't know what to tell you about so I will just tell you about Jessie! I think I said last week that we might have to move her baptism date but everything has been going so smoothly and she is starting to really understand so the 25th it is! She has some pretty terrible things going on in her life right now but is choosing to come closer to Christ and use the church to strengthen her! We can't wait!! This week we saw her 5 times I think! We also went over and helped her put together bunk beds for her kids so that was fun!

We helped some members pack up their house and are going to help them clean this afternoon. They have helped the missionaries out so much and we are so sad to be losing them!

We had exchanges this week where we went up to Midland and got to be with other missionaries for 2 days. It is always so interesting and fun to see someone else's area. One of our sister training leaders goes home this transfer and the other leaves next transfer so they both have quite the experiences to share with us!

One of the less actives we have been working with came to church for the first time since I have been here (not Sis Lincoln unfortunately). We were so happy to see him!

My legs are definitely getting sore from biking but we are getting the hang of the whole car situation slowly but surely!

This weekend we had a crazy storm of course the day we didn't have the car. But, I had been frustrated because of something I did earlier that I wish I had done early but because I didn't we ended up being in the right place in the right time for the rest of the night so that we stayed safe from all the hail and lightning!

We are going to Wing Stop for lunch. A member in the 2nd Ward owns it and has found that when he feeds the missionaries for free his business increases dramatically. We are grateful!

That is all I can think of for the week! Hope y'all have a great week and see the Lord's hand in everything!

Hermana Peterson

Sister Elder one of the Sister Training Leaders

Sister Schultz one of the Sister Training Leaders

Odessa 1st Ward Sisters

Overson, Tolbert, Walker, and Peterson

Those crazy Odessa Bunnies!

Crazy But Good!

That is my answer every time someone asks me how I am doing I think, "crazy but good!". Missionary life in one phrase! 

This week has been insane! Transfers were Tuesday so I had to say goodbye to Hermana Acosta but I got to say hello to Hermana Walker. I love her!! So far we are getting along really well! She is from Holladay, Utah. She graduated in May and went to a semester at BYU before coming out. She has 6 siblings, 2 have already served and one more will serve while she is out here. She is so sweet! She also went to the Mexico MTC and was also shocked to hear we don't get to teach in Spanish. She is so persistent in her desire to learn Spanish and it has been really good for me, we are practicing still! 

Our area got split so we lost half of our investigators so that was sad. I love love love the new sisters in our area though! They are so funny and they make my day! They are Sister Tolbert and Sister Overson (I will have to get a picture with them this week!). When they got here they went to their apartment they found out that it wasn't ready (they are white washing) so they came and stayed the night with us which was good because then I could tell them about all the people they were now in charge of. They have had quite the week, from not having an apartment to no desks to eating cereal out of a ladle. Doesn't white washing sound fun....haha! We also got the unfortunate news on Wednesday night that we will be sharing our car. The logistics of trying to come up with a schedule and figuring out how to waste the least time possible and how to still get everywhere we need to is very difficult to say the least but we are slowly but surely figuring it out! The even harder part is that they don't even live in their area, they live in the other ward! So ya, this week has been a lot of craziness and running around but it has been great!

We got to see Alison again this week (from the part member family) and she testified to us that she knows she needs to be baptized which was awesome but she still doesn't want to move on until she and her husband are in unity. We did commit Jessie to baptism though! We committed her to March 25th, we aren't sure if she will be ready by then but she will be ready soon! She also came to church again this week and loved it! We also got an amazing text this week from Sister Lincoln (a less active that we just decided to stop by one night and she happened to be there and happened to be praying to know what the right path was the night that we stopped!) telling us that next week she will be meeting with the bishop and will be at church!!! We couldn't be more excited for her! We actually found out last night when we were having dinner at the RS presidents house that she was a do not contact. The Lord works in mysterious ways!

Have a great week everyone!

Love you!

Hermana Peterson

Gwilliams had to cancel our dinner appointment at the last minute, so she made sack dinners and had the kids decorate the bags!

Every companionship needs matching watches, right!

Training Hermana Allison Walker from Holladay, Utah