Hermana Rachel Ruth Peters

Oct. 6, 2014
Hello Family :)

I hope all is well with everyone at home and that you all enjoyed conference weekend! i know that i did. Let me just tell you, conference is a whole new ball game here, haha but i love it. I have NEVER learned so much from conference in my life. I think thats because, one because my mind was so focused on finding answers. i was thinking about my investigators, and how i can be a better missionary here. As i watched i had so many answers come to me, and it was so amazing to receive revelation. Wasnt it cool how much that talked about the importance of our prophet here, and that he really is called of God? I loved that and was so happy that some of my investigators got to here that. Oh and wasnt it cool how they had people speak in their native language?!? i had such a greater appreciation for this as i sat in on a few talks in spanish. It is a lot harder to pay attention when the speakers mouth and the words dont line up. Well plus i had a hard time anyways... Haha but dont worry, most i watched in english. I just thought it was cool for people around the world to be able to listen in their native language :)

This is one of our investigators, Yenzel. She is the sweetest girl, only 14 years old, but with such a desire to know the gospel :)

This is where I wash my clothes

This is a turtle egg, with some sauce. Yes i did drink that last night. Don't worry i didn't through up.

Okay so anyways... This week was great! We have a new district now, and we are offically the youngest district in the whole mission! The oldest person in our district has been here for 7 months... And all of the companionships have one of the two in training.... Crazy right? I was thinking about it for a while and was a little confused, because here in Santa Cruz, as you know, we are working super hard for a ward. And i thought, Why so many baby missionaries in a place that needs so much help? Right after that i repented because i know that my mission president has been called of God and i shouldnt think twice about anything that happens with things like that. Because its all straight from God. But then my question got answered in our district meeting as our district leader explained the power of a ¨baby¨ missionary. Right straight from the MTC, with a fire in your heart, is what the people need here. I realized in that moment that this isnt a time for me to just sit back and use the excuse of spanish to keep me from giving my all, from doing my very best all the time, and being the best missionary i can.

The tall one is my district leader who has finished his mission and is going home. Sad Day.

We are still working very hard with the family of Victor. They are the ones with a baptismal date for this Saturday, and for part of this week, we were doubting on whether it was going to happen or not because we had a lesson that just wasnt as good as we wanted. And victor once again was having a lot of doubts. And we were having a hard time responding to his doubts, and i felt like it was turning into more of an argument... Which means the spirit is not there. And when the spirit is not there... Our teaching is not what He wants. So the next time we went back, we made sure to pray right before, and then went in with prayers in our hearts. This was last night and the lesson went a lot better. We will be working very very very hard this week, with this family. They are so ready for this gospel. i can feel it. And i hope that they will continue to listen to the spirit and not the world around them.

We are also teaching this little girl right now named Alison. Her mom is less active, and her dad isnt a member. But one day she came and found me and hermana holmes and said ¨Hey i want to be baptized. When can I?¨ She turned 8 like 2 weeks ago so we are teaching here now and preparing her for her baptism on Sunday :) She is adorable and i love teaching her because it really is just the fundamentals of the gospel, the basics, and she loves it all!! We taught her yesterday about how she is a princess, a daughter of a king. And her face light up like it was Christmas morning. It was sooo cute :)

Speaking of Christmas, since they dont celebrate Halloween, or Thanksgiving, so know what that means? Yep i have started to listen to Christmas music :):) haha dont know if i will keep doing it like daily, because i only have a few songs on my ipod... Haha but why not right? haha 

Also some other good news this week.... I got ice cream :) hahaha me and hermana holmes found some in this little store this week and decided we deserved some ice cream and ahh it tasted soo good. OH and something that didnt taste to good was that turtle egg i sent. Yeah when i got handed the cup, and just kinda looked at it, said a little prayer, and drank it. ewwwww.

Haha but dont worry we are working hard. This week we taught 31 lessons, plus had 6 investigators at general conference which is incredible. :) i was soo happy! We will be working hard this week to find more investigators. Right now we have about 26 or so and our goal is to get that up to 40. We will be working VERY hard. But hard work has never felt so good :)

I love you all so much and hope you all have the most amazing week! Know that you are all in my prayers every night, every morning, and many other times in the day too :)

Love,

Hermana Peters