Craziness in the Lone Star State

Email sent Monday 8 November 2010

Hey there,

Thanks for the long email and for answering more of my questions. I'm glad y'all are having a little more time now that Cross Country is over. Yes daylight savings time messes things up only because it gets dark super early and so we need to plan better and have appointments scheduled for everything after 6 pm and not be in sketchy places. --- No the border and drug wars and gangs and stuff don't really affect us. We hear about it from people just saying that Mexico is really bad right now and it's dangerous down there but on this side of the border it's pretty fine. Our area is pretty safe. --- Thanksgiving, I don't know what we will do yet. The bishop's wife says we might be invited to her house, but I'm sure we'll end up with like four invitations. --- If you send a package send it to the mission home. --- I have my bike, no I have not yet fixed it...so no I have not yet riden it. :( Maybe soon we will. On Saturdays now we have these "walking/bike days" from 11-4 so we have been doing a lot of walking. But it's nice cuz the weather is really nice right now. It feels so good! Not humid at all. Just cool Utah-Septemberish weather. --- We have three weeks left in this transfer, and then yes there could be changes. I have been in this area for over 3 months now. Crazy. We'll see what happens.

Ok enough with questions. This week:

-This week I learned what alcohol smells like. I guess I lived in a buble in Utah, well not I guess...I know I did. This week in the course of 2 days I got quite a few strong wiffs of alcohol and now I can recognize it wherever I am sure. It's sad that I had to smell it the way I did, from investigators and less active members that we caught drinking their problems away. I guess what this week has made me realize is that we are really freed when we follow the commandments. The word of wisdom especially is not just some random rule that God gave us to see if we would obey. He gave it to us because those things that we are not supposed to take into our bodies take away one of the greatest gifts that God gave to us: our agency. We become slaves to a substance and our ability to choose and really act for ourselves is surrendered..to who...well Satan I guess. He is who has control over you if you are not following the laws of God. Why people ever justify it away and even drink casually or even smoke a vez en cuando will never make sense to me. Well I guess it makes sense when we think of all the power the Satan reall does have. But the thing is, he is only as powerful as we let him be. Because one person with God is always the majority and Satan will have nothing on that. The moral of the story: Live the Word of Wisdom. Don't do drugs. Stay in school.

-This week was the begining of the month. Here in the valley EVERYONE's cell phones get cut off at the beginning of the month because no one pays their phone bills. It's super annoying. We loose contact with half of our investigators.

-We called 911 this week. Don't worry we are fine. Our apartment complex just reaked of gasoline one night when we got home. But it is all ok. It was from something far away and the wind blew the smell. And we didn't blow up.

-This week the bishop's four year old daugther said, "Adios suckaz" to us as we left their house. It was super funny. Her mom says she learned it from her dad.

-This week I.... was being awesome and went to institute twice and was awesome and told us he quit smoking pot cold turkey and cigarrettes too and drinking....and then, as we had been suspecting, we found out he was lying to us all week. He came to church, but asked where the bathroom was and then disappeared. He had taken off and walked home. I love investigators. Especially high ones. NOT. This is a huge lifestyle change that needs to take place and we are going to work so hard to make it happen.

I love you all. That's this week in a nutshell.

Love,

Hermana Petersen