Hermana Jessica Peterson's Mission Adventure: 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