Every day is bike day!

If Texas summer doesn't kill us....I don't know what will! It is getting pretty hot here lately!! And it isn't even summer yet! The average from what everyone has told us is around 110 and from what we know this week was only the 80's. Also, the bugs here are nasty. I have about 8 giant bug bites all over my legs. Don't worry y'all, I still love Texas! Also, this week we found out that we are getting about 500 less miles than we were planning, so basically we have to bike everywhere or get a ride. It sure makes for some great adventures!

Well, Jessie is in prison. It is unfortunate but we are glad that she wasn't able to be baptized before. We are going to try to go visit her sometime this week and someone in the ward is going to order her some scriptures so that is awesome! She will be in prison for 4 years but I know she will be baptized one day!

One of the people we are meeting with right now is an excommunicated member. He is hilarious! Sister Walker accidentally offended him by saying that she didn't want his food (meaning that she didn't want to take it so that he could have it) so then we told him we would come back another time to have dinner with him but we have dinner appointments all the way through like the second week of May. He didn't believe us, so he was comparing our planners and he wrote comments next to each person we had scheduled like "heathen" and "soon to be convert heathen" and "fed by heathens". His conversion story is way cool and that is one of the times I have felt the spirit the strongest. He definitely recognizes the spirit so now we just have to help him realize that he now has to act on it!

We got to go play volleyball with the ward this week and that was super fun! One of our investigators Alison was there and she LOVED it!

Yesterday we had 3 solid appointments, they never cancel! We were going to commit all of them to baptism and they were all going to accept so of course Satan had to intervene. 2 of them got the stomach flu and one started a new job. I think everyone in Odessa has some sort of stomach bug, not us though! Anyways, we rescheduled and will commit all of them to baptism this week! (Alison, Taylor, and David)

So as missionaries people tell us everything. Sometimes it is hard to have everyone's life stories in our brain. It is so crazy the things people tell us within the first couple of minutes of meeting us! Anyways, we call it life vomit. When someone was life vomiting on us this week her daughter came out and real vomited on sister Walker! Poor Sister Walker took it like a champ though! Luckily it was our last house for the day! We helped the daughter clean up and then got to go home to clean Sister Walker up!

All in all it was another crazy and weird and great week here in Odessa, Texas! Who would have thought a year ago I would be in the middle of nowhere Texas knocking on peoples doors trying to share the gospel! The Lord is watching out for each one of us! As we follow the Spirit we will be kept safe and always be where we are supposed to be!

Have a great week y'all!!!!

Love ya!!!

Hermana Peterson

We took Stacey, our neighbor, treats for Easter. So she gave us key chains as a thank you.

Everyone needs PEACE of Pizza!

Weather to avoid in Texas, land spouts. They were reported in our area recently.

Biking to our dinner appointment

Twinkies!

Well, I guess I better first explain my title! We are never really sure what to title our emails! It came from an interesting comment we got yesterday at church. Sister Walker and I were both wearing yellow and some guy from church told us we looked like twinkies. Who says that??!! haha!! Oh well, twinkies it is! 

​

We got several weird comments this week! One of the other ones happened at the food bank when a 14 year old boy asked us "do you guys kill people?" do we look like we kill people??!! haha! The only reason we can come up for him asking that is that we had our planners out talking about who we were seeing that day. Us and the elders explained that we teach people about Jesus to which he replied "so that is like the opposite!" Yes indeed that is the opposite of killing people!

No real update on any one of the investigators I have told y'all about :( We did have an amazing Plan of Salvation lesson with one of our new investigators, David. David is from Ghana and said his home is full of Latter-Day Saints! He didn't really know about what we believed so we shared the restoration with him and came back on Saturday with a member to teach the Plan of Salvation. It is the best feeling ever when people actually ask genuine questions!!!! We teach him on the benches in our courtyard (yes, the same ones that gave Hermana Walker the staph infection haha!) And it is starting to get pretty hot here! I had a shirt on with a cut out on my neck and my hair was up so after that lesson I had a pretty nasty sun burn! And a red circle on my neck from the cutout! First sunburn of the mission of many I am sure!

Another funny experience we has was with some less actives (they have come to church the last 2 weeks!!!) Sergio and Xiao. He is quite the character! He does not stop talking about the most random stuff! We had a lesson and I was saying a closing prayer. I started off something like "our dear kind Heavenly Father" and he proceeded to blurt out "well that was quite the intro!" so Hermana Walker and I were trying to control ourselves! I continue on with the prayer and mention their names and he whispers "that's us!". We were laughing so hard after that lesson!

Easter was great! Obviously we saw a lot of extra people come out to church which was awesome! We had dinner with a family, The Browns, they fed us really well and then on our way out the mom followed us out and she told us she needed our help. We got to help fulfill a tradition they have! She said they usually let the kids do it to us but instead we got to do it to them this year! I can't remember the name but it is a Mexican tradition where you break eggs full of confetti on their heads. It was super fun! Sister Walker and I also dyed Easter eggs last night.

​

This morning we went to the number one tourist site in Odessa again! The Stonehenge replica here on the UTPB campus and took some pictures!

​

That is about all I can remember from this week! Hope y'all had an amazing Easter! Don't stop sharing #princeofpeace!! Have a great week!

Love,

Hermana Peterson

We have reached ultimate comp unity!

Hey y'all! Hope your week has been good!

Yep, you heard that right! Sister Walker and I are officially the coolest companionship this side of Texas has ever seen! Ok, so maybe that is a stretch (: BUT we did wake up at midnight one night this week and we had both been sleep walking! haha! Crazy stuff here in Odessa. We woke up getting ready to exercise in our living room! The crazy thing is that it was both of us! We also found some other random stuff that we probably did that night! Needless to say we were tired the next day from our lack of actual sleep.

And we dress alike too!

​

I can't really say much about what is happened yet, but Jessie is going to have to wait to be baptized for a bit. She could really use everyone's prayers over the next 2 weeks. Also we could as we try to make decisions with her and help her and those involved to understand the decisions we have made.

We went to Orchard Park (the memory care facility) again this week and we got pictures in case we got transferred but we get to stay here for 6 more weeks! All 4 of us sisters in Odessa 1st ward will be together for 6 more weeks! That means I will have been in Odessa for at least 5 months, kind of crazy! While we were waiting for transfer calls our power went out, good thing we have good old fashioned cell phones that don't run on electricity! The power came back on after a few minutes though.

​

Last Monday we went to Sister Lincoln's boyfriends recording studio for a fun project! They are the sweetest people ever!! Also-good news!! SHE IS CONSIDERED ACTIVE NOW!!!!!! Never would I have thought that cold night when we knocked on this random members door that in a few weeks we could say she is active and one of our favorite people! We get to go do family history with her on Wednesday and are excited!

​

This week for service we also helped set up for a wedding for a nonmember that our ward was helping put on. That was a first! and definitely not the first thing I would think that missionaries do but we are happy to help!

​

That is about all I can think of for now!

Have a great week y'all!

and don't forget to look on mormon.org at the 8 principles of peace!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Love y'all!!!

Hermana Peterson

Don't worry mom it wasn't me!

So, we took a nice leisurely tour around the urgent care and er's of Odessa and Midland last Monday! So on Friday we were exercising in the courtyard at our apartments and Sister Walker was doing some exercises on a bench and she fell and smacked her shin on the bench. It was bleeding pretty good but we got it all cleaned up and bandaged. Fast forward to Monday and the pain was pretty bad and it had green puss coming out. She then proceeded to tell me that her foot was numb. Upon further inspection her leg was very swollen and red. We called sister Heap and she decided we should go to urgent care before they closed for the night. We headed home to get insurance info and then to urgent care where we were told it would be at least an hour wait. We had some other complications and ended up not being able to be seen there because of insurance issues. Several calls later the STL's directed us to what they thought was an urgent care in Midland (it was actually an ER) so they then directed us to an urgent care where they had the same problems as they did in Odessa. By this time it has been about 4 hours and her leg from her knee down is numb. The mission doctor told us not to worry and to just come back in the morning when they could resolve the insurance issues. In the mean time the STL's had found a doctor in one of the other Midland wards who told us to come over to his house. We figured since we were already in Midland it wouldn't hurt to have him look at it. He fed us dinner at 9:00 at night and then told us that she has a staph infection and some nerve damage. Both doctors told us it is extremely painful and her leg may be numb for awhile! He gave her instructions on how to take care of it and an antibiotic and today it finally seems to start to be getting better! After she got a priesthood blessing earlier in the week she started to get feeling back in her leg too! Of course that made it hurt worse but we are so glad she is doing well now! Anyways, that probably isn't interesting to any of you but that was the excitement of the week here in good old Odessa!

General conference was great!!! I hope y'all got a chance to watch it and feel of the great spirit! My favorite quote was "You can come as you are just don't plan on staying that way". Jesus Christ died for us and because of that we can be changed through Him! It is such a blessing!

To answer everyones curiosity, unfortunately Jessie will not be being baptized this weekend either. Satan knows how to get to us! He does not want us to succeed! We got to watch conference with her this weekend at a members house and it was her birthday so we made her a cake! She really enjoyed it!

Yesterday was Sister Overson's birthday so we had cake and breakfast together this morning and had our apartment all decorated when she came over!

Have a great week y'all!

And you better have done your homework from last week and watched the Prince of peace video!

Hermana Peterson

This week's hail storm. We were in the car on a phone appointment and it was so loud we had to hang up and reschedule.

​

Birthday cake for Jessie:

​

Celebrating Jessie's birthday with the Hildebrandts

Recording at Sister Lincoln's:

General Conference / Easter Package

Celebrating Sister Overson's Birthday: