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!