Hide yo wife, hide yo kids, IRMA is here

My lovelies. How are you beautiful souls doing around the world?

IRMA- I'll cut to the chase and tell you what you really want to know, Hurricane Irma is not going to hit Fairhope, sadly.....but the East half of the mission is on total lock down! It's been so exciting here! Wow. Last Monday Elder Southway went on and on about how the hurricane was coming this way and we needed to be prepared, me and Sister Evensen were like "yeah yeah". Well the next day President Smith orders a mission wide conference call and he very strictly instructs us to get water cases, top our gas, and have a go bag ready if we needed to leave within a half hour. WHAT.

Now, I'm not your average Joe who goes into panic mode, but I'll tell you how foolish we felt not having any water and having to run to Walmart and all the water was completely SOLD OUT! WE HAD TO BUY RICH PEOPLE WATER (dasani). Lesson of the 10 Virgins I'm tellin ya. #calledtorepentance

-Sis E preppin for IRMA

Basically this week has been like the funnest week of my whole mission. Nobody is keeping their return apts because of hurricane prep but literally ANYBODY will talk to us if you use the word Irma in your approach. Blessings in disguise! We debated whether or not to make cardboard signs that say "REPENT NOW- IRMA IS HERE" and stand on the street corners preachin. 😉

Alright alright. Thursday we went back to my homeland of Fort Walton, what a celestial area, and we had Mission Leadership Council with President and Sister Smith. Whoa talk about some spiritual giants. I couldn't even soak in all their inspiration. Basically it's just this meeting where we talk about moving the work forward across the mission. It was AWESOME. But this is SO EMBARRASSING, I'm in this room with crazy good missionaries and we had to take a vote on what we thought needed improvement, and for the first option I WAS THE ONLY PERSON THAT RAISED MY HAND. HAHAHAHAHA Me and Sister Evensen could not stop laughing!!!

.

Straight from there I went and stayed the night in Mobile with Sister Polanco on an exchange. Dang straight Mobile was intense. HAHA. We went and proselyted all day in a town called Pritchard. (If you've ever seen that meme "hide yo kids, hide yo wife" that was made there) Met some AMAZING people! It was so awesome! Then we went back to Fairhope for Zone conference the next day.

-My Zone Sistas

At 8:30 at night me and Sister Evensen find out that because of the storm situation our neighboring zone would be combined with us.... what. So we had to train a whole bunch of missionaries, like 60 something. You can feel the power of other missionaries. I made a fool of myself multiple times but all is well. Moral of the story is, me and Sister Evensen are basically best buds with President because we laugh at all his jokes! HAHAHA, We're like his personal audience.

-President and his lackeys

Sunday rolls around and we go to this appointment, they don't answer. But while we're standing on his porch 3 police cars slowly round the corner to a house. 🚓 We both kind of agree that it's a little sketch, but we wear tags, we're fine. Next we walk over to their neighbor and this really creepy car with completely tinted windows rolls right next to us and stops.. Then this really drunk guy standing outside tells us that someone down the street just got shot! THE SPIRIT BASICALLY YELLED AT US TO GET OUTTA DODGE. We thank him and quickly make our way back to our car. I will neither confirm nor deny that Sister Evensen held my hand because she was so scared. Isn't that so cool that Heavenly Father kept us safe. (:

Tracy is in a tough situation so please please pray for her! And this coming week we're focusing on 5's. 5 BCDs, 5 Friends at Sacrament Mtg, 5 New Friends. (: Pray for 5's.

Well friends, I want you to know that God loves His children. Straight up. No if's, and's, or but's. Reach out and spread the love. Don't wait until a hurricane is on it's way to be your best self. We experienced a lot of miracles this week and if I wrote them all you'd have to get a life long subscription. Just know that God is working miracles here. We are messengers of truth. And like I've been saying since one year ago September, the Florida Tallahassee Mission has a big storm coming. 

I have just begun to fight.

SISTER  p e t e r s e n 

Y'all Need Jesus

alright alright alright.

Well nothing toooooooo exciting this week. Me and Sister Ramadhar tracted a lot. We are searching out the elect that will respond to the message of Christ. You meet some crazy people tracting let me tell ya. hahah. It's crazy how much people will talk to complete strangers about their life story. But I love hearing about what makes people who they are.

Wednesday we had Zone training alllllllll dayyyyyyyy. It was really good though. Our challenge from the ZL's was 'No Faith Killing Comments'!!! I challenge all of you to that. Don't kill your faith with negative comments or thoughts!

basically everything down south is awesome. The members are awesome. The food is awesome. The work is awesome. 

Mannnnnnnnnnnn people need Jesus. Like the real Jesus. haha at the beach there's this dude that does sermons that's shirtless and probs has so much skin cancer, but people call him "Beach Jesus" hahaha. 

It's challenging finding teachable people down here that are humble to our message. They know so much about Jesus Christ and they have such strong faith in Him as their savior, but all of their views are a little skewed and they don't have the FULLNESS of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. I've thought a lot about why I was blessed to be born into the church and have that knowledge and I came to the conclusion that Heavenly Father truly blessed me so I could be a tool in blessing the lives of others. When we're out tracting or meeting people, a lot of them will open the door and be like "Oh I'm baptist(or whatever religion they are)" and go to close the door, and I always give the same reaction of telling them how cool it is to talk to someone else that believes in Jesus Christ. Most of the time we don't get much further in the conversation but their hearts are softened when they acknowledge that we believe in the same things as them. 

So yes, being in the South are the celestial missions, but they also have challenges. And I think one of those challenges is overcoming the fear of offending people. As missionaries our purpose is to bring others unto Christ and His restored Gospel and when we reach out with love and charity, the spirit will not offend the elect. I was set apart as a representative of Jesus Christ by priesthood authority, that means I have been given the authority and power to teach people repentance and the things necessary for them to be baptized. I've had confirmation over and over that this is the restored gospel of Jesus Christ and that priesthood authority is legit.

So real talk, this is the true church of Jesus Christ and if you don't believe me, ASK THE MISSIONARIES.

"Foreign missionaries become humbled, State-Side missionaries become refined, and Southern missionaries become scholars."

I have been humbled in this foreign land of the southern culture, I am being refined every single day, and hopefully I can become a scholar of the doctrine so I can truly help change the lives of so many in need.

ok last thing to lighten up this email. hahaha. We were doing yard work service for a family in our ward and while we were bagging leaves me, my comp, and Elder Waddell look over and their kid was just standing with no pants on peeing into the pool!! hahahahaha I haven't laughed that hard in a long time. Let's see weekly email winner goes to Spencer. 

DCK. Remember who you are. Look both ways. Don't forget about me. Don't start Grease fires, unless the floor is smoking from your John Travolta dance moves. Love y'all  
- sister  P E T E R S E N☀