I am Training?!

Hey y'all!

This week has been crazy! It has felt so long but we have done a lot of good things!

We had our last district meeting which was sad, in the past 12 weeks of working with these people I really have grown to love and appreciate the service they do as missionaries. I will sure miss all of them!

I feel like there is so much to write but not sure how to write it all. We got 5 new investigators this week, that is crazy!! And, we had THREE at church!! That really is such a huge miracle!! They all enjoyed it, participated, and felt the spirit! They were Taylor, Jessie, and Ebb. One of our other new investigators is Alison, she is a part member family who moved in about a month ago. She has been coming to church every week (but she just actually became an investigator this week) but wasn't able to because she was up all night with her newborn. I am excited to be able to work with her more! She is so ready but we just have to work some things out with her husband so hopefully everything continues to go smoothly with her. We got to meet the man that Taylor just moved in with, and are hoping to be able to invite him to take the lessons too!

The biggest news of the week was obviously transfers! Saturday night we found out that our area is being split (we assumed that was coming) and that Sister Acosta is moving to Monahans! I am sad for her to leave but I am glad that I will be staying! I will be training another sister straight from the MTC! That is so crazy!! I just finished my training yesterday and will start her training tomorrow! I am excited to meet Hermana Walker. Like I said, there is a lot more but those are the highlights of the week. I hope y'all are safe and happy!

Have a great week!!

Hermana Peterson

Tostadas for lunch and training.

Miles of Cacti

This week has been crazy but pretty good. We started off the week with exchanges with our sister training leaders in Midland. It was good, we even got to spend Valentines day together! They made us heart shaped pancakes and everything. 

On Friday our ward had a chili cook off, we got the honor of being the judges so some people liked us and some people didn't. They warned us Texan chili would be spicier but it wasn't too bad. 

On Saturday we helped the Elders in the Spanish branch with an open house at the church. Unfortunately only one nonmember came and he was from a part member family but they were able to film the tour so hopefully they get to share it with more people. It made me feel like I know a ton of Spanish and none all at the same time! All the members in the Spanish branch want us to come and don't understand why we can't come to their branch as well. They had a potluck as well and I got the pleasure of trying Menudo for the first time...let's just say I understand why all us white people don't like it! It didn't taste bad but the texture is something totally indescribable. Since I am a Spanish missionary I will unfortunately get the pleasure of having that a couple more times while I am out. They also had posole and that was good! 

While trying to find a referral this week we ran into a crazy Hispanic lady. It really was an adventure. We had a member with us because the appointment she was supposed to come with us to fell through. We were walking up to this scary looking trailer and a lady comes around the fence yelling some stuff, I am standing there catching about every fifth word and our member present doesn't understand anything. She is speaking directly to us looking us in the eyes thinking we are understanding what she is telling us I guess. She wasn't being mean she was just very passionate in telling us that her neighbor is a sinner and a thief and a drunk. She goes on for probably 30 minutes basically repeating the same things over and over. When sister Acosta finally got 2 words in she told her that the member doesn't speak Spanish and the lady then continues on in English for like 20 minutes haha! It was pretty funny! We are a little afraid to try the referral now though. He obviously didn't answer the door then because he could hear everything she was telling us but we tried back yesterday and he still didn't answer. 

We went to Crane on Saturday! It is about 45 minutes south of where we live. We stopped by the house of every member down there but only got to see 2 (1 of them was the only active member, we had dinner with her). We got to meet an 18 year old boy named Sonny, he is awesome! He was baptized about 2 years ago right as the missionaries and the church were leaving Crane. At first I guess he didn't realize who we were, we were just standing there talking and he glanced up and saw our tags and exclaimed "you're Mormons!!" and his eyes lit up. It was the coolest!! He hasn't been able to come to church in about a year because he doesn't have a good car and he doesn't have gas money. It was so sad to hear him tell us he hadn't been able to take the Sacrament in over a year. We now have him in contact with the only active member down there so hopefully she will be able to give him a ride down soon! He was the happiest person but his story is so hard, I can't imagine living down there with no support to living the Gospel. He was so excited to see us and we are going to try and call or text him and share some scriptures with him this week to hopefully help him continue faithful. 

That is about our week. In Crane we took a picture with a field of cacti so that explains my title for the week. 

Sister Acosta's birthday is today so we celebrated with waffles with the other sisters here in Odessa this morning! Literally everyone in Odessa is still sick unfortunately so we have been praying for health so we can actually get to teach everyone instead of just knocking on a door to find out they are sick. Hope y'all are doing great and have a good week!

Love y'all!!

Hermana Peterson

All The Seasons

Hi everyone!

 This week Texas has shown us yet again how we can literally have every season in a matter of days or even hours. This week it got up into the 90's and we were sweating like crazy but this morning I put on my coat again because it is cold and pouring rain. I am not sure I have ever seen as much rain as I did this morning when the heavens let loose. I feel like there is not a whole lot to update y'all on. Like half the ward has been gone this week because the company that the Bishop owns like half the ward works for and they were all on a business trip in Mexico. We were kind of worried no one would be at church but it actually ended up still being full.

Last Monday we went to the "#1 tourist attraction in Odessa" which is really sad because it is actually nothing exciting at all. It is a stonehenge replica at the college right by our house. We were the only ones there and there really is nothing to see or do but we got some really cool pictures thanks to Hermana Acostas creativeness.

I had my first Zone Conference this week which went really well. We got to watch the worldwide missionary broadcast which was super good. They also introduced a revised schedule for us which I am sure most of you have already heard about.

We got 3 new investigators this week!! One of them we found while looking for a former, we knocked on their door and she said he didn't live there anymore (it was his mom) but we were able to teach her twice this week. Laura is hesitant but I think she is ready! She kept her first reading assignment and even said the prayer during one of our lessons! We also got a new investigator from a part member that we got to see yesterday. Her name is Casey and her husband has been less active for 20+ years but he says he still believes everything the church teaches. They have 3 kids and we are really excited to be able to help them come closer to Christ and hopefully baptize them!

We had a lesson FINALLY with Falisia (the one we committed to baptism) It has been since just after Christmas since we have been able to see her because she has had some major health problems. We got to teach her the plan of salvation and she wants to be baptized still. She said she knows it is the right decision. She told us she wants to be baptized so she can "live in the sun" (celestial kingdom) so we got a good laugh out of that!

That's about it for us this week!

Hope y'all are doing well, I love hearing from you!

Love ya!

Hermana Peterson

Two New Investigators!

Hey everybody, hope your week was great! Ours was pretty good as well!

On Monday I got an amazing package from my mom, it was a Valentines day package and a 100 days on the mission package. It was great! I can't think of a ton to tell y'all this week. We got to do service for Habitat for Humanity which I love! They just started building a house here in Odessa this week so we were literally lifting up the walls and nailing them into the cement. It is so fun but we were soooo sore the next day! We get to use a super fun giant nail gun thing that attaches the walls into the cement. It is crazy to get to help build a house and see it progressing, hopefully we can go back again to help more! The boss was really appreciative of us because we came last minute when their other crew left and so he bought us some pizza, it was jalapeno and Canadian bacon and I was a little afraid that I would be too weak but it was actually way good!

On Thursday we had biked way out and our appointment fell through but it all worked out because we got a new investigator in their apartment complex! We also got a new investigator on Saturday. We didn't have any set appointments Saturday so we spent 5 hours trying less actives, potentials, and formers. Something to note about Odessa is that since there is nothing to do here no one stays in town for the weekend so in the 5 hours I think like 2 people actually answered. The miracle of our new investigator was that we were knocking on the door of a former (someone who had been taught before but had been dropped) and it just so happened that their neighbors were outside and told us no one lived in that apartment but showed us that they had moved to another apartment in the complex. We tried the other apartment but the former doesn't live there but the lady who does is SUPER interested! She told us she wants to come to church as soon as she has a Sunday off and that her aunt is actually LDS we asked her if we could leave her a pamphlet and then she was telling us how much she loves to read pamphlets, she turned to the back and saw the picture of a Book of Mormon and said "I have that book!" which was obviously a surprise, turns out her aunt had given her some copies a while back. Anyways, we can't wait to go see her again this week! The only problem is that she was a little confused, I guess one of her friends is Jehovah Witness and had been giving her pamphlets that she loved to read but she thought her friend was LDS. She was naming off the pamphlets and we obviously didn't recognize the names. After we left we realized why the pamphlet names sounded vaguely familiar, because they were the JW pamphlets we see in the laundry room at our apartments hahaha! 

While we were walking away from Patty's apartment we got stopped by one of the neighbors who was out smoking and he said "you can't really be that happy can you?" to which we exclaimed "yes! we can! and here's why!" he wasn't interested in learning more but it was still a cool experience! We got to meet with one of our potentials this week (potential means that we found them while knocking and they said we could come back) he seems interested in at least learning. For the first two times we stopped we didn't even know his name so we called him beard guy. Anyways, Jeff is really nice and is going through a divorce right now, he has been in prison for selling drugs when he was younger and then was an alcoholic when he got out but now he has been sober for 6 years and really sees how the Lord has helped him get to where he is. He promised us he would come to church with us next week! We also have a lesson with a member with him this week! As we were leaving he asked us why we kept coming back to him of all people, we were able to testify of why we are out here and our sincere love for him and desire to help him become closer to Christ.

As you can see our week has been fairly good! Thanks for all the love and prayers!!

Hermana Peterson

Valentine's Fun

Recipes from home