Another splendid week in Nashville!

Dearest family and friends,

 

This past week has been incredible! The weather was pretty bad for a few days, but on the 3rd and the 4th we were blessed with 80 degree weather with scattered clouds. Best. Days. Ever.

 

So, Monday... The YSA sisters were needing help moving from one appartment to another and once it was time for us to get back to work, we realized that we left our house keys at the sisters old place that was atleast an hour drive. The sisters were going to be late to a meeting, so we didn't ask them to come back. We thought to ask Donna to drive us to the old appartment, but the Sisters sadly had no spare key. So basically we were trapped outside our appartment in sweats and old t-shirts... For those that aren't missionaries, this isn't a huge deal, but for us it was really quite the pickle. We prayed for guidance, and God let us know that he wanted us to go and visit Donna. We ended up having a really good scripture read/lesson, so everything worked out okay.

 

Tuesday- We had originally planned to go visit some recent converts, but ended up running into Boboucaur and teaching him instead. Heavenly Father basically puts him in our path every time. We taught him all about the Word of Wisdom, and it's so interesting to see how his Muslim culture is fairly similar to ours. I mean, there's one God, right? So it only makes sense. :) Later that afternoon we taught a sweet lady named Connie Watkins. She had set her baptism date for July 19th, but sadly she hasn't been coming to church so we don't think that date will still work. The good news: She's reading her scriptures. Woo Hoo! We had dinner with the Richardsons and found out that they lived in the same subdivision as Miranda Lambert, Blake Shelton, and Carrie Underwood. So of course we had to drive by so that I could take creepy pictures of their houses. On our way home from dinner I decided to look at the pictures that I took, and well what do ya know, I ended up gettting not only Carrie Underwood's hockey player hubby in the photo, but CARRIE HERSELF. And we had no idea that they were even out! We saw a glimpse of the dog, but we definitely didn't expect to get a picture of the whole fam. On our way back from Connie's we got a phone call from the mission headquarters telling us about a referral named Andrew Brown and that we were to call him that night, so we called him after getting home and ended up having a wonderful, spirit filled conversation about how I came to know that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints was God's true church restored back to the Earth. Both Andrew and I cried during the conversation, and he told us that he had grown up baptist, but after having a baby girl he kept getting the feeling that there was something more. We're planning on meeting with him some day this week. :)

 

Wednesday- On the bus ride back home we got stopped by a woman and she had asked us to pray for her husband. We had a good talk with her about our beliefs on eternal families and new beginnings. That night we had dinner with Lesley and Andy Gibson (aka. Zooey Deschanel and Fabio). He's been a member all of his life, met Lesley, got married after only 2 weeks of meeting her, she's now preggy, and they're the cutest couple ever (other than Mackenzie and Will of course). He's a singer/songwriter and she's a manager for a band called "Parmalee". It's crazy how that's the norm here...

 

 

Thursday- We helpe Roxa (a recent convert) pack up and get ready for a big move. Because she didn't have carpet, she had taped down rugs all over... great idea, but getting the tape residue, however, was not my cup of tea. However, I do now have some rocking calves from squatting for so many hours. Later we taught the sweetest guy named Eddie. He was a referal from the YSA sisters, and our first lesson with him went so well! We ended up setting a baptism date for him for July 19th! Huge miracle!

 

Friday- The 4th was CRAZY in Nashville. Everyone was here and the streets were packed. I guess it has to do with the fact that Nashville's been rated #2 for best fireworks in the Nation... Nbd. That night we watched some fireworks with the YSA sisters and having our own little version of a southern BBQ. :)

Saturday- We went to a Messianic Jewish church with Donna (which was very interesting). They keep all the Jewish traditions, yet they read from the Bible. It was cool to see a mix of both religions in one chapel. We taught Baboucaur a bit of the Plan of Salvation! We just really need to get him to church.

 

Sunday- The one main highlight was our lesson with Mark on Sunday night! Because he wasn't reading the pamphlets on his own, we just had to read it with him. It ended up being a good lesson besides the fact that he was smoking and drinking while we taught it... He came up to us this morning and told us that he read the scriptures that we told him to read! Woot!

 

Well, love you all to pieces...

 

--Sister Peterson.

 

Pictures. If you look really closely to the one with the dog in the front, you'll see Carrie. :)

 

The other beautiful house is Miranda and Blake's.

Fourth of July pics!

Sunflower walls and humidity.

Howdy y'all!

So not a lot of excitement happened here in Nashville, but we did
happen to find a magical wall covered in sunflowers.

Here were some of the miracles we came across this week. :)

- we were praying one morning that we would find people on the bus
that were ready to receive the gospel, and surprise, we did! We hopped
on the bus to head back home and Steve just so happened to be on our
bus! Steve had a baptism date a while ago, but got into some trouble,
ran away, and he had cut off all communication with us. He seemed
quite relieved to see us, and we were able to teach him a little
lesson about repentance. Heavenly Father is the best.

- We set a baptism date for Donna Robertson! Donna was baptized, but
then got her name removed 35 years ago after coming in contact with
some anti mormon material. She was walking through the dog park one
day, and she came in contact with 2 sister missionaries. She's been
retaking the lessons for 3 months now. We have been seeing her every
other day, and last night after having a super spiritual lesson about
the restoration, she agreed to set a date! She was always a little
dodgy about her baptism, but after telling her the exact date she
looked at us, thought for a second, then answered with a, "That sounds
good to me!" It was a complete change. And even though we haven't
known her for long, but she is a completely different person! It's
amazing to see how the Book of Mormon can change people! Keep her in
your prayers. :)

Sorry this email is super short! I love you all, and I promise that
next weeks will be much better. Everyone have a fun, safe Fourth of
July! Know that you're all in my prayers. :)

Sister Peterson

Pictures part II

After!

Pictures!

Radnor lake! This is our favorite hiking spot.

Pictures.

Took this beautiful selfie and thought y'all would approve. Gotta love
those stress zits... NOT

The church is true, and you best believe that book is blue!

Happy Monday!

 

This week has been so great! I don't have a lot of emailing time, so please excuse the short email!

 

I am absolutely loving it here! Everyone is so nice... they may not accept our message, but they won't hesitate with giving us water or lemonade!

 

This past week we have done a lot of door knocking and we have been trying to find wherever we go. Compared to last week, it has been less eventful, but we were, however,  able to meet up with Babucaur 3 times. Each time we were able to teach him more and more. He has so many great questions, and has an open mind. He's Muslim, so it's definitely different, yet he's able to point out the similarities. He's asked us to fast the 40 days with him for Ramadan, and we're really looking forward to it!

 

Speaking of fasting, yesterday both me and Sister Reaman have decided to fast once a week! As I was praying Sunday morning, I felt that would be the right thing to do to get us started in this area. We can't help but feel a little overwhelmed here, because of all the investigators in our area book that haven't been contacted a second time. We're planning on going through all the names, and praying for them individually to see if they still need to be taught.

 

Something cool that happened was that we ran into someone who is good friends with the Witherspoon family (yes, like Reese Witherspoon). He was in the movie, "Walk the Line" and has been acting most of his life. He was quite the talker, but sadly wasn't too interested.

 

So, Mark (our neighbor we magically ran into) has been meeting with us 4 times a week now, and we're planning on asking him to be baptized soon! It's so cool to see the changes within him these past 2 weeks that we've been teaching him. Remember to keep him in your prayers!

 

A little shoutout to Will and Mackenzie: CONGRATULATIONS!!!! Sure do love you both. :)

 

   Well, I sure love you guys a whole lot!

--Sister Peterson

 

 

Luke 18:27 "And he said, The things which are impossible with men are possible with God."

I absolutely LOVE being a missionary!

Happy Monday mi familia!

 

Can I just say that I love being a missionary for the LDS church? It's honestly the best. Sorry that I couldn't email last week. We had far too many things on our plate, and we sadly didn't have enough time to do much emailing.

 

I am loving it here in the Green Hills area! We are located on the outskirts of Nashville, and I have decided that this city is the largest small town ever. That sounds weird, but people here act as though they were living in a small town and it's fantastic! Mostly everyone is very friendly, and very open to talking about their religious beliefs. The ward is great, and we get a lot of help from the members. We have 12 members in our ward that are involved in the music business... it's crazy.

 

Because I didn't have much time to email last week, this one might be a little big, so prepare yourselves.

 

Last Wednesday we went downtown and tracted into 3 very sweet ladies who were all interested! Their names were Yolanda, Clarinda, and Mary. They all lived in an assisted living building, and they were so open to listening to what we had to say! That night we had dinner with the Denny family, and they live in a guest house that's in the backyard of a pretty good sized mansion. We found out while we were there that one of the members of the Black Keys and his wife will be moving into the bigger house in August. Challenge accepted.

 

Last Friday we got a surprise call from Freddie and Mark from my last area! They called us and asked if we would want to go out to lunch with them because they were in the area, and we just couldn't resist. We ended up going to this small restaurant that served the best southern style food. That night we were invited by Yolanda to attend one of her church services with her, and when we got there we discovered that it was a Pentecostal church. Boy was that interesting.

 

Last Sunday we had dinner with our mission president and his wife in the mission home, and it was so streange being back there. The last time I had been there was when I was a brand spankin new missionary out in the field. After that we went less active finding and sadly weveryone that we had tried to contact had moved. Feeling a bit frustrated, we said a prayer in hope to be guided to where we were needed, and Heavenly Father sent us to the parthenon downtown. As we were walking around trying to find someone to teach we happened to come across the YSA sisters as they were teaching these 2 guys named Josh and Logan, and we were asked to join in on their conversation. The YSA sisters couldn't stay much longer, so Sister Reaman and I ended up finishing up the lesson about the Book of Mormon. After we asked if they would take one, Josh told us that he already had one. He had met with some missionaries a few years ago, but lost contact with them when he moved to Nashville, but he told us that he would dust it off and read it when he had time. Logan, on the other hand, really wanted one so of course we obliged. Logan has been looking for the right church to go to. His parents raised him in a nondenominational church, but he felt like he was at a concert, and not a church.

 

Monday of this past week we had an awesome P-Day with the YSA sisters. We went shopping at the local goodwill, which was awesome, and I was finally able to unpack all of my clothes out of my suitcases. For dinner we went out with the Johnson's who work in the mission office and they took us to this groovy Mexican restaurant called Chuys. Right before we left, Greg Demaso came up to our table! Greg is someone that I had met in White House and he is a less active who so happened to be the manager of Chuys. We ended up talking for a bit, and he invited us to come back some day to teach him, he also  ended up giving us an awesome discount. After dinner Sister Reaman and I went less active finding, but with only enough time to teach one we decided to pray and ask God who we should see, and Chelsea McCord's name stuck out to both of us, so to Chelsea's we went! When we showed up to the address we saw a girl our age talking on her phone on the front porch. We felt a little awkward interrupting what seemed to be a very exciting conversation, but as we came up she turned around and asked who we were, so we asked her if Chelsea lived there. She informed us that Chelsea had moved a few weeks earlier (here's the crazy part). This girl looked exactly like someon that I was friends with in high school so I asked what her name was. When she said, "Cassidy" I practically had a heart attack... I exclaimed, "Cassidy Ford, is that you?!" It took her a minute and then her face cracked into a huge smile, "Tate Peterson?!" I had found my good friend Cassidy who had moved to Nashville for her music gig, and she just so happened to live in the house of the one less active that we were trying to find. As we were both freaking out about this crazy anomaly, her boyfriend, Noah,  came out to see what all the ruckus was about and he saw our name tags and said, "Oh hey, my older bro ran into some of you people last night at the parthenon!" I wish you could have seen our faces. We asked, "hold up, is your last name Rawlings?" That's when both him and Cassidy freaked out. What were the chances that we ould not only find Cassidy, but we found Josh's brother as well. Noah had heard of the Mormon church and he was a big fan of the "because of him" video (which he shared on facebook because he was so impressed). We had a very spiritual conversation about all that Jesus Christ has done for us, and Cassidy asked if we could come back. :) Solid miracle, right?!

 

At around 8:00PM on Wednesday night (aka. the hardest time for a missonary) we were trying to decide what to do, and we decided to go less active searching again. As we were driving to one of the addresses on the list, I saw a girl around my age walking by herself. After seeing her, I had the weirdest urge to go talk to her, so I asked Sister Reaman to stop so that we could go talk to this stranger. After introducing ourselves her eyes lit up and she told us, "I've been looking for you guys!" She currently studies religion at Vanderbelt, and for her class she has to attend different religious services, and the LDS church was next on her list. After giving her a quick synopsis of our beliefs, she asked if we had a Book of Mormon on us so that she could study through it. Right as we were walking away, she stopped us and said, "Wait, I forgot to ask! Would you guys be willing to talk about your beliefs in front of my religion class?" MIRACLE!

 

Saturday we had another one of those huge miracles! We had been tracting around Radnor Lake, and after being there for an hour we got in the car and asked God where we should go and we both got the answer that we needed to head home. We were both a little taken back by this, but we did as we were told and headed home. Once we got there we said another small prayer asking which appartment we needed to go to, and I got the answer that we needed to go up the stars and it was going to be the door on the right. That was probably the most discriptive answer I had ever gotten... When we knocked on the door no one answered, but we felt like we should just stay. It was a little awkward standing in front of some strangers door for 5 minutes, but we then saw this man walking up the stairs, saw us, and then asked who we were. After introducing ourselves, we got into a very deep religious conversation. Mark (the guy who we were talking to) didn't like what the world was doing to religion so he had decided to just not pursue it anymore. After talking to him for a bit about the basics of our church, and how we came to know that it was true, we handed him a Restoration pamphlet (because we were out of Book of Mormons) and asked if he would read it and he answered with a smile and an, "of course!" It was pretty great. :)

 

Needless to say, this is a mission that is filled with miracles!

I've come to know that there are tons of people out there just waiting to hear what we have to share! So, go out and spread it! The miracles will pour out.

 

I love you all and thank you for all the prayers!  

 

--Sister Peterson

 

Pictures:

Me and Sister R out getting sushi

Me at Radnor Lake!