Miracle Cactus!
Hello everyone!!!
I just completed my second week in Arizona! And I finally have some color on me, I don't look sickly pale and out of place now, thank goodness. Every day here makes me love the people so much more! I got really lucky with my wards, they are so involved in our mission work and everyone is so nice! They set the bar really high for the rest of my mission!
We are still doing a lot and a lot of knocking. It is really hard to get friends in this area so we just find and find. It is getting me real good at talking to people who are annoyed with me being there. We are good at getting phonenumbers from finding, but then the people do not respond when we reach out. It is unfortunate but we keep going because we know there is someone out there waiting for us!!
I was apart of my very first Bible Bash! Whoo it was exhilerating, my heart was pounding so fast. Luckily me and Sister Mansius were doing such a good job, the spirit helped us bring up some superb scriptures. It wasn't the best use of our time, but it was good to talk to someone, even if they weren't the most pleasant.
We were able to make some new friends! Eric and Melanie! We were knocking and when we got to their house they had us come inside to talk about the Bible! They were so sweet and Eric asked so many questions, it was such a good time! We gave them our contact information and then left thinking that would be it. However a couple days later, I was trying to take a picture with a cute cactus, and they saw us! They called us over and we were able to meet the rest of their family and talk with them again! They are interested in our Bible study class, and the Young Women Activities for their daughter! Please keep them in your prayers! Thank you miracle cactus!
This week I have been listening to a lot of amazing General Conference talks but the one that stuck out the most was "Forget Me Not" By Elder Uchtdorf (The link is down below!). Please go and read it, it is amazing, but what he talked about was blessings! Sometimes when we are too focused on the big beautiful roses we miss the little but equally pretty forget me nots sprinkled in throughout our day! God blesses us so much, but when we are too focused on getting these huge blessings, we tend to forget to stop and admire the little things He does for us. This has been huge for me while on my mission, and my goal is to start looking for the "forget me nots" because I know they are everywhere!I love you all so much! Please send me emails!
Sister Peterson
Miracle Cactus!!!
Comp Sudy Park!
After a relief society service activity, they gave me the leftover fruit! YUM
Remeber last email when I joked about thinking our service would be serving food? Well I guess the joke was on me because we did another service where we literally were serving food. Honestly, how much service does one girl need to do, they should just hire me at this point. It was actually quite a lot of fun, and after serving all the missionaries we got to clean the cafeteria (seriously, don't they hire people for this?!) I got to wear a fun backpack vacuum that got me a lot of Ghostbusters comments. After a while it got a bit heavy but it was still fun to use. Despite the jokes, I was grateful for the opportunity to serve and help others, and I feel like I got closer with my district! So all in all, service is good! Even if it is just unpaid labor...
Unfortunately this week was pretty uneventful. We had a lot of classes, and we were able to go to the temple one last time. It was a great experience and I am so glad I will be able to attend the temple while in Arizona. My district was able to go to the gym quite a few times to play volleyball and even though only two of us were good, we all had fun (No, I was not one of the two that was good). 
On Monday me and Sister O'Loughlin were asked to help with a tour group that would come in. We of course agreed and got to sit in a room with a bunch of parents, teenagers, children, and older folk while we answered questions and bore our testimonies. It was a really cool opportunity and experience because I remeber being those teenagers a year ago, trying to decide if a mission was right for me. Luckily for these people I did a pretty awesome job and helped some of them decide to serve a mission probably...
I know Heavenly Father and Jesus love all of you so much, and so do I! Please send me updates or any kind of mail, it makes my day! 
We've been to the temple twice since we got here and both times it was so fun and good. I LOVE THE TEMPLE, and the Mount Timpanogos Temple is so pretty. It was also HUUUGE haha. I swear I got lost just in the dressing rooms, it was a maze.
General Conference was so good! We were all sitting in this big room on these hard chairs (my rear is still recovering) but I think it was the first time I actually paid attention to the entire 8 hours woohoooo. I got such good notes and man there was so much good stuff! I hope most of you listened to it but I will highlight some of my favorite things:
Easter night we had a music devotional and man it was so good. The first three people got up and I was thinking it was going to be another long hour in the hard chairs, but then this one man got on the piano and my jaw dropped. IT WAS INSANE! They got three random songs for him to play about Jesus - I will walk with Jesus (suuuuch a good song) Jesus Wants me for a sunbeam, and Amazing Grace - and this guy whipped out a beautiful medley of all three songs on the spot. I swear I could hear angels singing, I am not joking. It was the most beautiful thing ever, I was crying my eyes out. Then this one Elder got up and His voice was a m a z i n g. So so good.
Today I was put to work. We got a service assignment and I was like oh, maybe some gardening or helping with meals (IDK I'm used to young women activity service) and it turns out I would be elbow deep scrubbing toilets. I was like are you kidding me. It was only an hour and it went by fast due to the fun girls in my district but still. But then I was thinking about it and I was like if I owned a training center, yeah I would make the people attending clean for "service". It's actually pretty smart. I would also make it a lot harder than what we had to do... that's all I can say. So no hate to the MTC, I get it.
To end on a spiritual note, I want to say I know I am doing what Heavenly Father needs me to be doing right now. During the Easter Music Devotional I said a prayer saying "here am I. send me" (Susan Porter' talk ;)) and I felt confirmation that I am where He already sent me. He needs me here right now and that I am doing the right thing by serving a mission. I love my Heavenly Father and I love Jesus. I love that I get to spend the next year and a half teaching about Him and bringing others home. I love you all and hope you have a great week!
