Wednesday, April 9, 2014

4-7-14

Hello my wonderful family :)

Oh my goodness Conference Weekend was fabulous! It was so nice being able to take a couple of days and just sit and be renewed by the Spirit. To answer Dad's questions what I've been studying in Preach my Gospel was the little section on listening (Whoever it was that spoke on the story about the car and the husband and wife who jumped out of it was really awesome!) I've also just been reading the Book of Mormon from cover to cover and familiarizing myself with it so I can know more verses to share with investigators. And this time to spice things up I decided to go from back to front. So I started on the last chapter of Moroni and I'm going from chapter to chapter. A lot more stuff is sticking out to me as I'm going along :)
Those talks would be awesome to share! Karl wasn't able to watch Conference this weekend because he was driving up to Augusta to watch his boys. (Legally he can't attend a church down there because he's the only one that can watch his kids and if he gets a babysitter it has to be approved by his wife. And they're only allowed to go to a certain church, so he's honestly stuck in that when he goes there) Was he thinking about setting another baptism date?? He hasn't made any comments to us about that. But he has told us that most of his concerns about it are pretty much resolved. He's still listening to the Book of Mormon and he still hasn't gotten all of his questions answered, but he's still okay with getting baptized this weekend. 

The mission president told us not to share our personal addresses with our families just due to issues in getting mail sent and other things. So.... I'm sorry :( But I'm in Alpharetta :D It sounds like things have been a little crazy with all of the grandkids! Poor Melanie getting her hair stuck D: I hope that everyone is doing good! And yes please send one of those pictures from Audrey :) 

I'm sorry to hear that Dean Whiting passed away. I hope that everyone is doing okay over there. That's really incredible that he walked all that way in order to go to the funeral. That's really awesome. He must've been a really incredible and humble man. I hope that you and Dad are able to have a safe trip up to Oregon! Have fun listening to those CDs :) 

As for me, things are going good :) I'm still learning a whole bunch and realizing a lot of important things. General Conference was really just what I needed to hear. Having the spirit there and getting my questions that I had answered was really just what I needed. Hahaha, I've been learning a lot! Just the whole reason why I came out here in the first place. Why God wants me out here. Building my own relationship with the Lord. It's really been eye opening. Challenging? Absolutely, but really good. 

My focus on life is definitely changing for the better. It's been really humbling, but exactly what I've needed to go through. Haha, I've been trying for a long time to find the easy way out of things. The easy way to find happiness and the easy way to find blessings and strength in this life. But I'm figuring out (FINALLY) that there truly is no easy way with life. Haha, none of us technically are getting out of this alive. If we choose to follow the Lord, then He will bless us. We don't earn anything out of our own efforts. Honestly, everything comes from God and all of the small things we think we did on our own were truly because He was helping. If only more people realized that in this Country, who knows what would happen :) Of course that doesn't mean that we don't work for things. We definitely have to work for things. But it's by our reliance upon God and the hope that we have in Him that things work out for the better.

The only way that we are going to be strong, is by going through difficult things. That's the best way that we learn is by going through challenges. I loved that talk by Elder Bednar about the new truck :) But it's so true, the burdens that God has given us are what are going to carry us through to the end. We don't have to go through it alone. We don't have to add more than we can carry. We can rely upon the Lord when we go through our struggles and He will help us make it through. We are given challenges that often seem unbearable, but it's because they allow us to fall upon our knees and ask the Lord for help. When we do that, He'll give us the strength to keep moving forward. No matter what obstacles we may face, we can always put our trust in Him, because He has endured it ALL. We never need to be alone. We never need to believe that we're a burden because God knows our worth. He knows our potential and He wants us to reach it. Soooo.... yeah, I've been learning a lot the past couple of weeks :) 

 Oh and I hope that everyone had a fabulous April Fool's Day :D My companion loves to have an awesome April Fool's Day with her siblings, so she really wanted to pull a prank on the other sister missionaries in our Ward. Well, I got the idea to change our contact information on their phone so that the name said Tanner Tag. (He's a boy that one of the other sisters has a crush on that's back home :P ) So if we called them his name would pop up on the screen. Hehehe, well we managed to accomplish our mission before District Meeting. We both decided it would be best to wait until after the meeting was over and we were headed to lunch before we called. So we wait, and wait until we're in the car. Then we grab our phone and call them up. It rings and rings and then they answer. They're both laughing so hard and the sister who had the crush on Him said, "NO!!" It was sooooo great! Their initial reaction was like WHAT? NO WAY!!! And then they realized it was us, but it was sooooo fantastic haha!! Anyways, it was a silly form of entertainment, but it was great :D

I hope that everyone is doing great back home! I love you all sooo much and I'm so grateful for all that you do! Thank you for the letters and your love! Oh! And Mom would you mind sending me my colored pencils? I believe they're in one of the left drawers in my desk in my room. They're either in a plastic box with a black lid on them or they're in their original container. Just send all of the colored pencils that you find :) I'd really appreciate it! 

Well I hope you all have a fantastic week! Thanks for everything, I love you!

Just Believe,
Sister Petersen