Man, I feel like a Woman.

CAN WE ALL JUST AGREE HOW AWESOME IT FEELS TO BE A SISTER IN THE CHURCH AND A WOMAN IN THE WORLD?!?!

~We deserve Donuts

Okie doke smokes. Tuesday morning we had interviews with President Smith and that's always fun. Then I had to train at District Meeting on contacting people/HTBT. It was funny because I'm not used to teaching solo haha so every time I said something I'd look at Sister Evensen to chime in. HAHA. She did, like a champ. 

We hunted down Tracy at her work because she has not been answering any texts or anything. When she saw us come in she just started crying. Tracy is probably one of the most solid people I have ever met on my mission and basically her boyfriend is an alcoholic and very abusive and he's anti-ing her hardcore. She's in a very sticky situation. But she assured us that it had nothing to do with us or her testimony of this gospel. She just needs to figure some stuff out because he won't even let her see us. It was heartbreaking. I've never left Pizza Hut sad until that day. 

~ Our cute Buddy Bella (: (:

Later that night, we had a few minutes before we left to go to the ward Relief Society activity. We decided to go find a recent convert of 4 years that we've never met before. As we were driving, we were both a little down because of all the events of the day, and then we couldn't find the address anywhere! Alex Boye did a cover of "Have I Done Any Good" and it came on in the car. We were kind of laughing trying to get pumped and this line pierced me, "Have the sick and the weary been helped on their way?" Just then, I looked up and saw two older gentlemen, one in a wheelchair, who both looked homeless. I told Sister Evensen to pull over! Bruce and Charles were NOT interested to hear about the gospel and they made that known as soon as they saw us. But, as we talked with them, they invited us inside into the Rehab Center they were in front of.

The next day we went back to the facilit,y to talk to the activity director to volunteer in the week, where we met Antonica, a young mom from Jamaica, who recognized us because she's seen missionaries a lot back home on their bike! And while we were talking to Antonica, a woman rolled her chair to Sister Evensen and in a very hard to understand pleading voice she said, "Are you Mormon?" Sister Evensen said, "Yes, I am!" And the woman replied, "Me too." We didn't discover until later, that Debbie was the recent convert we were originally searching for!!!! She had a stroke shortly after her baptism and she's been in this rehabilitation center ever since.

How marvelous are the workings of God? I know I did my best to explain this story in words but it's impossible to explain how miraculous it was to meet Debbie. And her tender spirit is just hungering to be close to the Savior. Everyone we told this story to didn't realize the magnitude of what had happened, but we know it, and we know that God knows it. "To God each good work will be known."

~ DEBBIE!

Ok, ok, ok, I know that was heavy stuff but I can't control the miracles that we saw this week. This is a quick one. A few weeks ago I wrote about my bee sting story.  🐝 So on an exchange with Sister Whatcott, we went back to go see John, the old man with the bee cream. Well, his wife was not warm and fuzzy to say the least, and she turned us away. So we went across the street to knock some doors and the neighbor we went to was also quite uninterested. But right as she was shutting the door, Sister Whatcott asked if any of her neighbors had recently moved in, and she directed us to their other neighbor. When we went and knocked on the newly moved in neighbors, we woke Ashley up from a nap. She was pretty groggy but really nice. She told us we were more than welcome to come back it was just a bad time.

This initial contact with Ashley happened about a month ago. Wednesday, during our daily planning, we looked at our whiteboard of names and we both zeroed in on Ashley. When we went to her house later that day her husband Blake answered. He was so, so nice. He explained how he grew up Jehovah's Witness and he left that organization because he felt like he didn't really know God. He believes in God but he wants to know the God of justice AND mercy. He wants to know the God of commandments AND love. We had a really great conversation with him and we hope to teach their family very shortly. Send prayers because they are searchers of the truth. There is too many things that have led to them being found, God does not design coincidences!

~Sister Viola at Sister's Conf (:

Also we had a mission wide Sister's Conference on Friday, and I'm pretty sure President Smith saw that me and Sister Evensen are getting along way too well, so with transfers coming up next week, extra prayers are welcome to the #SaveSistersEvetersen companionship! HAHAHA

~A little piece of home (Cafe Rio Salads) 

                                   My soul cannot wait to hear the words of our prophets this week at General Conference. Friends, the true and living church of Jesus Christ is on the Earth today. I know it. And I know that God is working miracles through His servants to bring to pass His children's happiness. It's like when a loving parent fills your car with gas without you asking, or folds your laundry, or has your dinner ready on a plate when you are running in and out of the house, or gives you their gloves when you're at a soccer game in a blizzard. Yes my parents did all these things because they love me, and you don't realize it until you look back how much the Lord loves us and he is cheering us on every step of the way. (: I love you all so much!                                                                            SISTER  p e t e r s e n