Hermana Rachel Ruth Peters

March 17, 2015

Hey Family,

Hope that everyone is having a wonderful St. Patricks Day :) Honestly i completely forgot about that holiday so i am not wearing green.. Shoot... hehe

And i am sure you all heard about the volcano... yeah that was something new... haha on Thursday we were walking around, when all of a sudden i look over at Hermana Perez, and was like "hmm there is something all over her glasses," and then i looked down at my shrit "shoot, that something is all over me" and then we turned a corner, looked down the street to see nothing but a whole bunch of ashes. Yeah at the time i didnt know what was going on, but then people started yelling the name of the volcano that i cant remember right now.. haha so we hurried to the house because i had my contacts in, ya bad idea with the ash. And grabbed a whole bunch a baby wipes that we just happened to buy last week. We walked around that day and the next with wipes over our nose and mouth. so everything and everyone got covered in ashes for 2 days, which opened many doors for us to go serve.

So yesterday was Hermana Perez birthday and let me just tell you, it is so hard to try and surprise your companion with something for their birthday because you´re always with them.. Haha but i tried my best :) i woke up like 15 minutes early and had banana pancakes ready for her, and chocolate milk :) haha and then we had our normal study time and then got permission to go to the mall :) so we went and ate lunch with some other sisters and then went shopping. I felt sooooo weird to be in a big mall again, eating quiznos and shopping in normal stores. How weird is real life.... haha but Hermana Perez was so happy and so i was too :) It was also a weird day Monday and Sunday night because we were waiting to hear if we have tranfers or not. Everyone here was positive that Hermana Perez was going to leave because she´s now been here for 6 months. So sunday night she was basically just waiting to know where she was going. But we never got a phone call.. Then the leaders sent us a message saying they havent heard anything about tranfers.. So we dont know if one day this week we will have tranfers, or what is going to happen. I think that maybe something might happen Friday because we are going to have a meeting with the WHOLE mission. Yeah everyone!!! So who knows if they will make a big announcement or what.. but i will let you know next week :)

We have an investigator right now, and she is one that i like to call... an eternal investigator. Someone that is progressing slowly, and all the misisonaries know that she will get baptized someday, but no one really knows when. Right now she has been having a hard time receiving answers to her prayers. We have challenged her so many times to pray about the church, about the authority of God, and about Joseph Smith, but she always says that she didnt feel anything... So we were about ready to drop her, but decided to give her one more chance. So this past week we were having a lesson with her, reading a conference talk. The spirit was so strong as we talked about the power of prayer. I was them prompted to bear my testimony with her. As i did, my eyes began to fill with tears, as i simply started what i know is true. And at the end we asked her again to pray and really wait to feel an answer. She sat there for a minute and then said "Well want to know something, i know it´s true. i know that everything you said is true." Wow. So she promised that she would come to church (which didnt happen) but i feel hope again. I know that when things like that happen it´s heavenly father saying "dont give up on this one yet". What a great reminder.

Also this morning i was studying, with a prayer in my heart to find something. i didnt really know what i was looking for, but i felt that something was missing right now in me and my mission. I want to be able to live every day without regrets, and to feel good about what i am doing with the Lord´s time right now. I felt like I was doing good in many things, knew that i lacked a lot of things, but felt like there was something more. As i was studying i read 1 Corinthians 13:2... it hit me like a rock. Maybe i do have faith, have the knowledge of the Book of Mormon, i have a testimony, but without one certain thing i am NOTHING. and its Charity, something that i have always heard about, studied a lot, but now realize just how important it is. especially charity for my companion. I love her but i need to be better at showing it, and loving her as much as i can right now.

OH and I will now be writing on Mondays again, just so everyone knows :)

Love you alll soooo much!! Have a wonderful week!! :)

Love,

Hermana Peters