Starbursts, Baptisms, and Birthdays

(Dec. 30, 2013)

Dad!!!!!!!!!! HAPPPPPY BIRTHDAY!!!!!!!!!!!!! Hope this day is rockin'!

 

And also HAPPY ANNIVERSARY to you guys tambien. Mom and dad.

 

Well, like always, I have a BILLION things to say and never enough time.

 

It was soooo good to see your cute little faces on Christmas!!!! I know none of you could really hear me, but it was still such a blessing :)

 

This Christmas was AMAZING. At our Fiesta de Navidad con todos los misioneros, my companion Hma. Rodriguez told me that Juan Carlos got baptized and I got to see pictures!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Juan Carlos was a referencia de un menosactivo and I taught him for a while before translados. Best Christmas present ever. 

Also, you all sent me Starbursts and I seriously could have DIED HAPPY. I don´t know how long I have been craving those. Haven´t made the pumpkin cookies yet but I´m so excited about those. :)

 

Thank you so much for your love and gifts and letters!

 

Alright, so excitement. Our air conditioning is broken so during the day we freeze water bottles and at night we strip down and sleep with our frozen water bottles by our sides ha ha. 

Oh man. 

The life of a missionary. 

I love it. :)

 

Oscar came to a baptism and to church. He asked us if he had to wear long pants. We told him that if he didn´t want to he didn´t have to. He came wearing swim shorts, tank top, soccer shoes, a baseball hat and sunglasses... I think all the members were jealous because the fans and air conditioning were broken. 

Oscar- the only one that´s got it figured out. :)

 

I love you guys!!! 

Merry Christmas!

Happy New year! 

Hermana Peterson

Milagros

Milagros [miracles]. Cada dia [each day]!! En serio [seriously]! It´s amazing. Se que esta es la obra del Senor [This is His work].

God is always helping us out. Sunday we went to go pick up Victor for church and his kids were crying because they wanted to come too. So we ended up waiting para siempre [forever] for them to hurry and shower and get dressed for church. We missed the bus. When Hermana Melton and I make that walk it takes about 20 minutes if we are almost running. (We would know).  But, with Victor and his kids, at the rate we were walking... we would still be walking. 

We were both praying so hard that some how we could get to church on time and take the sacrament. We were talking about calling a taxi but in the past we´ve had to wait about 15 minutes for them to come get us and there were some problems with the number we had that I won´t take time to explain all that. Haha ANYWAY. Praying hard. 

We got to the place where we would normally catch the bus and at the same time we were passing the bus stop a taxi was pulling up to drop someone off right there. Miracle. Got to la capilla [the chapel] at exactly 9:00. 

Otro Milagro de Domingo [Another Sunday miracle]. Ultimo Domingo [Last Sunday], Victor´s kids didn´t make it through Sacramental and he ended up missing about half the meeting. So this Sunday, I was praying the whole time that his kids would be good so he could be there for the entire meeting. They were little angels. But God likes to stress me out a little because the speakers talked PARA SIEMPRE and the meeting went 20-30 minutes over time. HA. Milagro. Literally, a miracle because me and mi companion were getting way more antsy than Victor´s kids were. 

While Solidad was being confirmed in sacrament meeting, Victor leaned over to me during the blessing and was like, "How do you feel right now? Do you feel that?"  I LOVE BEING A MISSIONARY.  It´s seriously THE COOLEST THING EVER to see people being able to feel the spirit for maybe the first time in their lives and help them recognize what that AWESOME feeling is.

Did I already talk about how HOT it is here? I can´t remember the last time I was dry. Rexburg is sounding like HEAVEN right now. 

I started reading the New Testament last week! I love it. One thing that I always have thought is SO cool is how Jesus does so much for people. When he´s sad and tired and hungry and hurt he is still performing miracles and still teaches and is still an example. Even though our life as missionaries is NOTHING compared to what Jesus went through, I feel like we have had a little taste of that this week and I´m trying so hard to respond as Jesus would. 

It´s HARD to act happy and be happy for the next lesson after an investigator tells you not to come back, or it´s hot or your fasting or people are super mean or all of the above at the same time! Haha But Jesus was a PERFECT example of this and I totally want to be like that. 

I don´t think I will have the opportunity to email you next Monday, so hasta Navidad [until Christmas]!!

Love you all!

Meg

Doing SO GOOD

We got to see a little bit of the First Presidency Christmas message. All the missionaries in our zone that speak English crowded around a computer in the church to watch it in English. :) Haha, it was cute. I LOVE hearing from the prophet. 

This week, this random guy came out of his house while we were walking by and was like, "Hey! Can you come teach me and tell me about your church sometime?" HA. Can we? We walk around in the HEAT all day looking for people who will listen to us. Can we come teach you? joke. We talked to him about the Book of Mormon a little bit and are going back to see him again this week. STOKED. 

Edgardo. He is hilarious. He didn't come to church and later yesterday while we were walking he flagged us down on his bike. He was apologizing for not coming to church. And was telling us why he couldn't come. Someone in his girlfriend's family found out they had cancer.
And then the other excuse was because his bird died. I thought he was kidding, so I laughed out loud...  

Oh man. This bird. It flew into their house and so he caught it and has been keeping it in a shoe box feeding it bread & water.  "...and my bird died. It's been a rough day." He's like 30 I think. 

Legit excuse though. He's coming next week.

Love you all!!! Sounds like you are doing so good!!! I'm so jealous that I'm not there to go skiing and snowboarding with y'all. Have fun!!!!!

Lovs. Hermana Megan Peterson

Megan's Address in Argentina

WRITE ME!!!

My address in Argentina:
(This is the office address. So it should be good the rest of the time I am in Argentina).
Hermana Megan Peterson
Mision Argentina Resistencia
Entre Rios 435
Resistencia Chaco CP 3500
Argentina

You can also send a letter through DearElder. It is free.
-Go to DearElder.com
-Enter the mission:  Argentina Resistencia
-Type away & they mail the letter!

Wake up! It's time to hear the Gospel!

I´m so glad you guys had a good Thanksgiving!!! It sounds like it was fun!

I´m definitely grateful for you guys and I´m so grateful that my family can be together forever!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Dora has a ton of kids and then random people live with them so we always run into some interesting people over there. None of them really like us. When we went over there this week, her crazy son came to the door holding a GIANT knife. The biggest kitchen knife I´ve ever seen. It was slightly intimidating. And so hard to concentrate on what he was saying because the whole time we were watching the knife. After we were done talking to him, we were both laughing SO HARD because neither of us really knew what he said. Hopefully nothing super important... :)

Ok, so we were talking to this atheist guy. Super nice, but totally not interested. He was like, "I like to read books from the United States." He kept trying to describe these books to us and I had NO idea what in the world he was talking about. Then he goes into his house and brings out a John Grisham book. haha SO funny. Reminded me of that one Christmas when mom and dad got the same John Grisham book for each other.

Anyway. Random.

Same guy, his friend pulls up on a bike and Atheist man is like, maybe you will have better luck with my friend. His friend is like, "Ya! totally. What church are you from? Do you have something to write down my address? When can you come over? Right now? You can come over right now?" 

HA! Of course we could. 

We went over to teach his wife, who is un pocito crazy, but when we went back yesterday we had THE COOLEST lesson with them. He loved everything and told us that he thinks everything we are saying is true. They are preparing to get baptized on the 21st.

They have what they call siesta here. Where EVERYONE sleeps from like 1 to 4ish or later. It´s super hard to work during this time because people always come to the door and say, "Don´t you know it´s siesta right now. Everyone is sleeping. Stop bothering us." It´s especially bad right now because it´s summer and so we are LITERALLY the only people walking the streets at that time. It´s basically a ghost town. Wake up!!

SO. Presidente Heyman changed our horario that we work. We get up at 7:00 now (It´s like God knew me when he called me to this mission or something), work in the mornings, study during siesta and work again at night until 9:30 instead of 9. 

Still hot. 

We had a SUPER rough day this week. But at the very end of the day, our last leccion of the night, Raquel told us that while reading the Book of Mormon she felt the spirit and reading the Book of Mormon made her feel so good. She was so excited to tell us about it. It´s funny how that .5% of our day that was good made up for all the hard stuff. I don´t know how the math works out but that´s how the entire mission is. Those small moments of joy and happiness make everything worth it (Alma 26:30).

Love you guys!!

Hermana Peterson