Elevated Dance Recital and Class Pictures

 Friday night was dress rehearsal for our end of year recital and Stephanie and I showed up basically dressed as twins. Everyone thought we did it on purpose which is funny because as an adult I would probably not purposefully dress the same as someone else. 

Dress Rehearsal went pretty well. We had a hard time figuring out where to put the tape for the littles and where I wanted them and where Eliza, the ballet madam, wanted them were not the same. I let them be where she wanted them for the ballet and it ended up with my kids being really far back on the stage. It was not a good placement for them because they were distracted by the big kid dancers and they could not hear me over the music so I was shouting to get them to hear me and it was a mess. Both classes did well on their tap dances and I was happy about that. When it was time for my twos to do their dance I was a little concerned with how it would go. On Monday during class I had two kids crying which started other kids crying and it was a mess. As I was gathering the two's I had Camille in tears and so I took her form her Mom and told her if she would stop crying I would give her a lollipop. My one goal was to not let the other kids see her crying. I was able to get her to calm down with the promise of a sucker and I decided to keep all of them happy and just handed everyone a lollipop as we were waiting for our turn to go on stage.  It worked and they were all content and happy and when they got on stage everyone stayed on their sticker and they all danced! It was amazing and I was so happy!

The day of the recital I got there a little early and talked to Kim and Eliza about the tape placements and expressed my concern. Eliza did not tuna the kids in front of the curtain before started and I wanted the kids as close to the front as possible so they could be seen. We finally agreed to have them behind the curtain and then when the curtains opened that Natalia who was a big kid dancer dancing on the stage with them would put them forward on their stickers before the music started. We were the opening number for the ballet and while it was not what Eliza wanted exactly I felt it was a good compromise. Kim and I arranged the stickers and then I showed them to Eliza to see if she was ok with it. She seemed fine and I told her thank you and that I loved her. I meant it in the I really appreciate you working with me kind of sense but right after I said it she told me it didn't feel that way. I was taken aback and said that if I did anything that weekend to upset her that I was really sorry and that I was just advocating for my kids and their parents. She told me that she felt that I have been a problem for her since day one and that any thing she tried to do I pushed back on and she didn't say it but it seemed she was saying I was hard to work with. I really could not understand where this was coming from and kept apologizing for anything I might have done to makeover feel this way but she was stone cold during my apologies and would not say a word or give me anything in return. I finally had to just say "Ok" abbd walk away. I racked my brain the rest of the night trying to figure out why she would feel that way and I honestly could not come up with anything. I have always been kind to her and so appreciative of her help with the ballet and the dances she would give me. After talking to Stephanie and Kefford and Heather about it I finally had to accept it was a her problem and there was nothing I could do about it accept just make sure to be kind moving forward.  It really did put a damper on the day for me and even though my kids performed amazing I let the cloud of our conversation hang over me. 

My kids did amazing in their dances, I was so proud of them and just really happy with how they performed. The adult tap class always does a theme dance and this year they danced in blow up dinosaur costumes. They came off the stage as we were walking through the dressing room headed to the stage and Laine was not paying attention when suddenly she looked up and saw a dinosaur standing in front of her. She screamed bloody murder and it was all I could do to get her calmed down and on the stage. I felt bad for her she really was hysterical and I was able to get her to stop freaking out and go on stage but I don't think she danced very much.

I did the lollipop trick with my two's class again and they did a great job on stage. I got a lot of compliments on how well I handled my class of 12 two years, it was pretty great to hear.

Every year since I have started teaching I always got a picture with my classes before they got on stage. This year I think because of my conversation with Eliza I did not and it really upset me when I realized I did not get my picture with every class. I had parents send me pictures they took and I was able to get ahold of our class pictures but I really am so sad I did not get my traditional picture with my kids.

l-r: Italia, Harper and Hattie

Nora and Hazel

Amy Priddy, dance mom, brought pizza for some of us dance teachers and we ate it during our break but after the recital Stephanie and I grabbed some more to eat. We were so tired and so spent, I love the picture that one of the other teachers took of us. We were exhausted and you can see it in our faces.

I got some really sweet gifts from some of my dancers and my 11:15 class pitched in and got me a target gift card. All of it was greatly appreciated and helped me feel special and loved.

KinderStars 9:30 class

top picture: standing; Italia, Wilma, Phoebe, Kirra, Nora, Hattie

kneeling; Presley, Ashley, Caroline, Angel and Hazel

(missing Jovie and Keeva)

TinyStars

standing: Bren, Bonnie, Juliet, Sloan, Camille and Georgia

sitting: Ellery, Kalli, Mattea, Declan, Claire and Harper

KinderStars 11:15 class

Standing: Nora, Ada, Blakely, Teddy, Poppy and Kate

Kneeling: London, Laine, Madeline, Maddie, Khenedee and Arina

standing: London, Madeline, Laine, Maddie, Arina and Khenedee

kneeling: Kate, Poppy, Blakely, Teddy, Ada and Nora

Sunday night Kyle and Nikki had us over to play games and we talked about the recital a little bit. Their little one Claire is in my twos class and they told me how impressed they were with the recital. Kyle said as I was getting the two's on stage that throughout the audience he could hear people commenting on my patience and how good I was with those kids. I loved hearing it!

Mothers Day

Mothers Day was a pretty chill day. Kefford and Rylee made me a yummy French Toast breakfast which I definitely enjoyed eating. Ryker sent me an eye mask to wear while sleeping since I haven't been sleeping very well due to the early morning sun appearance. Kenedy called and said she had a gift for me but would give it to me when she comes to visit in a couple of weeks. Rylee got me a blanket ladder that I have been wanting to display my quilts that I have been making. It did not come put together so I built it myself and got my seasonal quilts put up on it. It is really cute and I love being able to see my hard work on display. My Halloween quilt and more Christmas quilts will replace the ones on there now when those seasons come.

Church had good speakers and all of the Women met together for Relief Society where we were given mini cheesecakes. After church I was able to relax while dinner was cooked for me and I didn't even have to clean up, it was a good day!

Rylee and I were walking to Michelle Callister's house for a YW progressive dinner, we cut across the grass area by the pool and happened to see a mama duck, a daddy duck and their babies swimming in the pool. It was pretty cute.

Avynlea sent me a gift through Bodi and I love it. It is a Japan Nagoya mission shirt that I think she designed and got for me. I love it and will be wearing it a lot in remembrance of my favorite Missionary.

Sister Peterson Week 10

I AM IN JAPAN

*Meant to send this last week but did not get the chance*

I made it!! After the longest day of traveling, I have made it to Japan. BUT this week was all mainly MTC so some updates on that...

I had to say bye to my most favorite teachers and half of the most amazing sistrict out there. (4 others are in Nagoya with me... well we are waiting for 1 to get her visa then she will be here) It was a rough because the goodbyes stretched over a span of like 3 days, but we made it through!

On monday our girls took on the challenge of clearing 1 collum of the cereal dispenser. 1 was so easy so then we ended up clearing 2 before the angsty cafeteria workers refilled them. I think I ate the most and I am hesitate to share how much I ate because I am not sure if I should be super proud of it or a little embarrassed. Oh well, I ate a total of about 4.5 bowls. (Picture below) The top of my mouth was literally scratched up and took about 3 days for it to fully recover. And I was on the verge of vomiting for the next hour, but I had to carry my team!!!! No regrets.

Another highlight of the week: We combined with the Thai and Vietnamese district and sang the EFY medley to the new missionaries. It was very fun and spiritual especially singing "Armies of Helaman" (picture below) as a missionary, very cool. 

Tuesday night we had a devotional by Clark G Gilbert and it felt like the perfect last devotional and that it was just for me. He served his mission in Japan AND he mentioned Captain Crunch cereal (I think our whole disctrict gagged when he did)! His wife also talked and she focused on Christ-like attributes. Something she said was that "what matters most is who you are and who you are becoming." Your mistakes from the past don't matter, what matters is how you choose to learn from them. The Lord blesses those who want to improve. I think a theme of life is that the Lod loves effort. The outcome doesn't matter so much but how and what you are working towards. 

Moroni 10:32 says

"Yea, come unto Christ, and be perfected in him"

As you work to become like Christ and adopt his attributes, you will come to know Him and be perfected in Him and I know that to be true.

I love you all and guess what GOD DOES TOO! Have a good week 

<3 Sister Peterson

05/13/24

Defense MVP

Kefford and I went with Ryle to her end of season Lacrosse Banquet. I signed up to make cupcakes and the frosting did not turn out like I hoped, they looked pretty bad and I was really disappointed in them. I saw a couple of people eating them which was good but they were not the hit I was hoping them to be. 

After a yummy dinner the Coaches started handing out awards. Rylee got her Varsity bars to add to her letter which was pretty fun. She got awarded with all of the Juniors on the team which was a lot of them. The coaches are going to need to find a lot more players to replace these girls when they graduate next year, they are a big majority on the team. 

Rylee is back row far right

After all of the Varsity letter awards were handed out the Coaches handed out some individual awards. Rylee told us going into the night that she was not going to get any awards so don't expect her name to be called. When they announced Defense MVP and started describing the player that won that award for the year it was pretty evident that it was Rylee they were talking about. They talked about what a great season this player has had and how she very quickly established herself as a leader on the defense. They talked about how much energy the player has/had and how they made up a position to harness that energy and use it for the team. As the coaches were talking I could see and hear the girls all whispering Rylee's name and I saw Rylee starting to blush. I was super proud of her when her name was indeed announced as Defense MVP and was so happy for her to receive the award.

The entire team plus coaches

Coach Abby, Rylee and Coach Meg

Kefford, Rylee and Elizabeth

That weekend was Dance Connection Dance recital and it was held at Meridian Middle School. The School just had some new construction done and I was in the new Lobby looking at the mural they had put up when I spotted one of my favorite cheerleaders. They had a picture of Avynlea up on their mural and I loved seeing it!

 

Sister Peterson Week 9

Hello everyone!

Can you believe it? Because I cannot. About this time next week I will either be on a plane headed to Japan or will be in Japan. WHATTT. Even though I do feel like I have lived here my whole life, it has also flown by. I am still not processing or letting myself think about saying goodbye yet, because that is going to very hard. 

This week was very Japanese heavy. We spoke a lot in class and out. We did a soft launch of SYL (speak your language) which means you commit to speaking Japanese outside of class too. Our soft launch was that we would do half days, and I'll just say I tried my best. The hard thing for me was not necessarily forming sentences (grammer),  but not knowing words I wanted to say (vocab). I feel like there is just so much to learn that I don't know where to start which means in some cases I don't start. It's frustrating but I have found the times I throw myself in a random spot I learn lots. So I gotta keep doing that.

Me and Sister Merrill also did our last Helping Others (Fake Teaching) in 100% Japanese and it went well. I understood our "investigator" about 70% which is pretty cool. There was one question she asked that I had no idea what she said, but Sister Merrill knew and answered her!! I was so so proud.

OH BOY! Sister Merrill and I had quit the adventure this week. Including 3 trips to the doctors and 2 to the pharmacy. I won't go into too much detail but one of us (not me) had a minor toe procedure, the other had a sinus infection and stress induced rash on her arm. HA! The 3 day span this took over was a total fever dream but we did get a total of 5 prescribed medications (only 1 was hers) and a party size bag of cheeto puffs! SCORE! Overall, a pretty memorable experience.

Here is my thought for the week. Jesus Christ is everywhere. He is always there to reach out His hand to you, you just have to grab it. I wrote this down in my notebook from a talk President Holland gave to the missionaries. It was from a long time ago and I just saw a little clip of it from a video so I do not know what it is from. "We are never alone, we are always going to be standing next to the most perfect missionary, Jesus Christ. Struggled, cast out, spit on, rejected, ignored". This does not just apply to missionary work! In life we maybe feel cast out or will struggle etc. He felt that too, He knows you and wants to help. SO PRAY AND READ YOUR SCRIPTURES!

I love you all and so does God! SEE YOU IN JAPAN AHHHHH

<3 Sister Peterson

 Hot Goss of the week: an elder got sent home because he was SECRETLY MARRIED AHAHHA WHATTTT HE HAS A WHOLE WIFE AT HOME crazy town

-Emma Nissen! Listen to her music! I predict she's gonna get famous

-a little taste of mine and Sister Merrills adventure this week (NOT my foot!) HA

-We <3 apples 

-RAT TAT PHT PHT

-sprite and bananas (did not end well)

Cinco de Mayo

 This quilt I call my Strawberry Shortcake Quilt. I call it that because the colors reminded me of the 80's Strawberry Shortcake doll. Stephanie gave me the jelly roll she had sitting in her garage for years when she found out I like to quilt and I found this cool triangle pattern that was perfect for using jellyrolls. I think it turned out so cute.

With her busy temple schedule it was hard for Alison to find a time to come watch Rylee play Lacrosse. She was finally able to make it to the last game of the season and the two of us along with Bodi were able to watch Rylee play in her final game of Junior year. The team did not win but Rylee did a great job on defense, no surprise there. 

Spooky Halloween Quilt

Sister Peterson Week 8

Another week down!

I feel like I do not have much to report from this week because we are doing the same things each day. Filled with classes and meal times. 

I did forget to mention last week that me and Sister Merrill did our second Helping Others (fake investigator lessons) in full Japanese and we are so proud of ourselves. It was a 15 minute lesson and she asked questions that I partly understood!! It was very exciting. Most of the time she talked though, we just smiled and nodded at her. She is very kind and patient with us!

We have been here for about 6.5 weeks now and have seen so many people come and go. The stateside missionaries are only here for 2 weeks which is absolutely wild to me. 2 weeks was right when I got past the hard adjustment and started liking this place. Which is weird to say that I will be very sad to leave. But we do not have to worry about that right now.

Visas! Half of us got ours and half got reassignments. We got girls going to West Virginia, North Dakota, Virginia, Canada, and England (The last 2 are from around those places). Such lucky people these girls are going to bless in those places! We are all very excited for them.

I gave a talk on Sunday! I will attach a link to it! My district sang Love at Home in Japanese in Sacrament meeting too! The spirit was real strong that meeting;)

Here is a thought that has been on my mind a lot this past week. I am a firm believer in the importance of trials. Something that I love to think about is that God gives us trials according to our spirits. He gives us trials that He knows we can overcome (with His help of course) and that He knows will strengthen us into a better person. When you are going through something hard remember that it is for your benefit and your benefit only. God trusts you with this trial and He trusts you to get through it the right way. Through HIM! Remember that He loves you! And I do too!!!

Have a great week :)

<3 Peterson

Good morning!

Growing up I knew the Book of Mormon was important so I read it every night. I cannot tell you one thing I learned from all those years because I was just doing the motion, checking the box off. It was only until I really understood how important the Book of Mormon really is that I actually started to get things from it. Instead of just hurrying through a chapter or a page every night, I now go into the Book of Mormon looking to take something out of it. My life has been blessed so much since this mindset change and I have been more excited to read it and share about it. 

Starting my first semester at Byui Last September, I signed up for a Book of Mormon class. My professor challenged us to take 30 min out of each day to study the Book of Mormon. Not in a particular order, wherever we wanted at the time, and to heavily record our thoughts and feelings. 

I started out really strong at the beginning of the semester and absolutely loved the challenge. I was filling up pages of my notebook every study and sharing all the cool things I found with my roommates. After a few weeks the craziness of 1st semester at college got in the way and I was back to hurrying through a chapter each night. I found myself missing those 30 minutes of pure revelation, and i am glad to say i have reconnected with thay habit since being here.

One night before coming here me and my dad were talking and I had some realizations. I also recently found Preach my Gospel talks a bit about this too. When we strengthen our testimony of the Book of Mormon we can't help but strengthen our testimonies of almost every other category in the gospel. For example, Joseph Smith. If we believe this book was true, we naturally believe that Jesus Christ used Joseph Smith to translate it. We then naturally believe that we have modern day prophets who are God's mouthpieces. When you put it like that it really makes sense on why it is considered the keystone of our religion. Joseph Smith once said, "take away the Book of Mormon and the revelations, and where is our religion?"

Since being here at the MTC I have heard almost everyday that the Spirit first of all but second the Book of Mormon are our most important tools as missionaries. I always believed in the Book of Mormon but I was confused on why it is so important. I started to dive deeper into and and read chapters, applying them to my life. One of my favorites was talked a lot about last week during fast and testimony meeting and that was Jacob 5, the story of the lord of the vineyard. While I read it I thought of my mission. I found so many truths and comfort through this chapter. I highly encourage each of you to read that story and apply it to you. 

The reason the Book of Mormon is such an important tool is because it is a source that the spirit can talk to us easily. When we are fervently studying this book the spirit will teach us and help us feel exactly what God needs us to. I can testify that it will be the exact same for our friends that we invite to read it. 

As we strengthen our testimony of the Book of Mormon, we will become better missionaries! In PMG chapter 5 it says

 "Your own testimony of the Book of Mormon can lead to a deep and abiding faith in its power to help others become converted. Help the people you teach recognize the enlightenment they feel as they read it sincerely. Emphasize its powerful witness of Jesus Christ. Encourage them to pray to receive their own witness that the book is true."

Our friends can receive their own personal conversion through this book, but it is most important to first gain your own firm testimony of its truths. As individual missionaries we need to recognize the Book's enlightenment, the powerful witness of Jesus Christ, and pray to know of its truth.

 I can promise that as we strengthen our own testimony of the Book of Mormon, our power to help others strengthen theirs will be unbeatable. I know this Book of Mormon is true and it has been so neat to dive into it and listen closely to what Heavenly Father needs me to hear out of it. 

I know this church is true and I know we are doing God's work. We are right where he needs us to be, so we need to be prepared for what he needs us to do. Remember God loves you and is proud of you!

I will end on one of my favorite scriptures that comes out of the Book of Mormon. 

Jacob 3: 1-2

1 But behold, I, Jacob, would speak unto you that are pure in heart. Look unto God with firmness of mind, and apray unto him with exceeding faith, and he will bconsole you in your cafflictions, and he will plead your cause, and send down djustice upon those who seek your destruction.

2 O all ye that are pure in heart, lift up your heads and receive the pleasing word of God, and feast upon his alove; for ye may, if your bminds are cfirm, forever.

In the name of Jesus Christ amen!