We Went to Jail!

Hey y'all!

Hope life's treating you grand!

We got to do family history with sister Lincoln this week and she loved it! She met with the bishop yesterday and is working towards being able to go back to the temple! It is kind of cool to see someone start their family tree from the very beginning! Also, she has female and male names so of course we told her we would keep working on Carlos so that he could do them! We have an appointment with him on Tuesday for him to "help us with our Spanish pronunciation" by reading the Book of Mormon with us! Sister Lincoln told us that he is on to our plans but hey, he's not stopping us!!

On Thursday we went to the jail to visit Jessie. We only got to talk to her for about 10 minutes but it was good. She looked better than we thought she would. She said she found a Bible but she was frustrated because everyone who she asked for a Book of Mormon was confused and didn't know what it was (: we told her that someone in the ward was sending her one as soon as she gets transferred to the prison.

Possibly the most exciting news of the week was that we got to speak SPANISH!!!!! The most Spanish I have used since I got here! No one was answering so we were walking around our complex and some guy at the pool yelled at us and asked us why we didn't come visit him. We told him we would love to but then realized he was VERY drunk. His friend wasn't though so we went into the pool and sat and talked to his friend for about an hour!! It was so awesome! Of course we then had to refer him to the Spanish elders but it was so awesome to be able to finally use our Spanish!

We got to go play volleyball again this week and we brought Sergio and Xiao and Alison was there too! It was so much fun! We got a picture with the whole crew too.

We had a crazy miracle this week! So about 2 months ago we knocked into a man named Ahmend. He has been out of town looking for work but had asked us for the missionaries and the church address in Frisco, TX. On Saturday he called us and told us he was back in town and wanted to meet with us that day! We had a pretty good Restoration lesson and he came to church yesterday! He loved it!! We had a short lesson with him after church and he was asking us what he needed to do to be baptized and how it all worked. Unfortunately for us he is moving to Frisco next weekend but he is already in contact with the missionaries down there and he knows where the church is! How cool?! The Lord really is sending us those who are prepared!

There is a member here that got us the cutest matching TX shirts!! We love them!

Also, we might have gotten a little bit sunburned this week! The day we finally remembered to put on sunscreen of  course was Saturday which it ended up being freezing and cloudy all day!

Well, I think that's about all! Have an amazing week y'all!! Read the scriptures and pray every day!

Love,

Hermana Peterson

Things to avoid in Texas: Tornadoes!

This week's milestone:

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! 

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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.

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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!

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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