Thanksgiving!

I did not take very many pictures this year, I guess that's a sign of too much fun, right? Like every "Peterson Year" we hosted again this year.

 Sadie and Gentry waiting for the crew to show up!

 The set-up!

 The most important...the PIES!

 Looked outside and saw this...haha! Troy was begging grandpa for food but he was doing a good job of ignoring him. 

 Back yard laser tag with the cousins!

After dinner while some went shopping, others stayed to played games. It was a pretty low key year. Thanksgiving will always be my favorite Holiday!!

Sadie's Last Sadie's

Sadie's asked Dylan Beck to her last Sadie Hawkins Dance!

I never seem to get a picture of Sadie's asking/answering but here is how Dylan answered (apparently it makes sense to "the teenagers") haha!

For their day date they went down to Vegas to Top Golf. It was a long, fun day. She never came home in between to get ready. She left at 7:00 in the morning and we didn't see her until midnight. 

 The girls! After Top Golf they had pictures taken and then went to Kassidy's for Dinner. They had Soup, Salads and rolls. We provided a potato soup. 

Pics - Dylan and Sadie

 Trying to high five while doing Parkor off the wall. 

 Sadie, Ally and Kell

 Besties

 The Group

Kell and Sadie aka Dwiddle Dee and Dwiddle Dum. She had so much fun! Like always the dance was her favorite part. 

We Crashed a Muslim Party

So they say I'm going home 2 weeks, I don't believe it but that's what they're saying. But ya, anyways this week was my birthday, I am 21 years old... gross. It was good, a lot of members made it super special. I ate cake like 4 times that day,  haha The members here are so loving! The family from Las Vegas made us a full on Thanksgiving meal, my goodness I wanted to cry, complete with sweet potatoes with marshmallows and cranberry sauce. My companion was cute as well and made lots if notes and breakfast for me. We had an intercombio the day before and they bought me a cheesecake and today the district tried to make me pancakes but.. didn't turn out haha! It's the thought that counts right? Oh also Wilson (the recent convert from Sabadell) somehow found our phone number on face book and called me on my birthday and then sent this cute little video that he had made for my birthday! Also really amazing news, both Wilson and Joe are going to the temple this month for the first time to do baptisms!! And Wilson will be doing the work for his grandpa, and he's so excited!! Made me so happy! But ya, this week was very eventful. We went to go visit our African friend from Synagogue, and we had the cutest little young women helping us that day, but we show up and he lets us into his house and it is just full of Africans like 10 at least all just watching futbol and drinking a weird teaish drink idk, so I just yelled, "we are going to share a message about God, is that ok?" And actually the said yes and all sat down to listen. They immediately made it very clear to all of us that all of them were Muslim (and idk how much y'all know about Muslims, I didn't know anything before my mission but basically they are very very strong in what they believe), They were yelling weird Muslim things and doing weird signs with their tea drink I don't really know, but we began to talk about Christ and then we said he was the son of God and they all went quiet and began to disagree and yell and there we were 3 little girls in a house full of Muslim men. The pour little young women that was helping us was like cornered in the back of the sofa she was so scared. We then talked about who Christ was and shared the video "Thanks to Him," and shared our testimony's about Christ and how what is possible in our lives thanks to what he did. And they were all perfectly quiet and listening, it was honestly a really powerful lesson,we shared our message and asked if they would like to learn more about Christ and our message and they said yes, we are going back this week. And they all thanked us so much for coming. We also met with Alejandro and had a really good lesson with him, he had a lot of questions about the trinity and Godhead so we prepared all of the Scriptures and talks we could find and went, we started talking about the Godhead but it all turned back around to the restorations and Book of Mormon. We asked him if what he thought about the Book of Mormon and he told us he knows it's true 100% and we explained to him that if the Book of Mormon is true, Joseph Smith is a prophet and he saw Christ and God that day. And it just clicked and made so much sense to him. Everything goes back to the Book of Mormon. I have really learned the power of the Book of Mormon on my mission, it really does bring everything into the light and clarifies everything. Fun facts about Spain- well this week I learned something very interesting about Catarroja, when someone dies in the town they go around with a giant van and speaker and announce,  "so and so has died and their funeral will be tomorrow at _____ time" and you can hear it throughout the whole town, kinda weird but Spain's great! I am just so grateful for my mission and for everything I have learned and continue to learn and I'm excited to apply all I've learned in my family and life. This Church is the only true church on the face of the earth and the only place we can find true joy. Love you all lots! Alma:29:10 10 And behold, when I see many of my brethren truly penitent, and coming to the Lord their God, then is my soul filled with joy; then do I remember what the Lord has done for me, yea, even that he hath heard my prayer; yea, then do I remember his merciful arm which he extended towards me.

Calli's "Las Vegas Family"

 P-day Hike with her district

 They found a cave

 Dinner after the Hike

Thanksgiving P-Day!

Another week gone, well 3 more weeks, I don't know how I feel, its super weird, everything. I can see the Lord is slowly preparing me to go home, I don't know it just seems like its coming so fast I honestly forgot this week is my birthday, hey also thank you everyone for the birthday wishes, literally made my day! Y'all are the best. Well don't remember much that happened this week, um well there is the cutest little American family in my ward, the husband is from Spain and the wife is from Las Vegas! And they have the 3 cutest kids and 2 little girls that remind me of me and Sadie. haha! We ate with them and I played shop kins and Littlest pet shop with the little girls and the family made us In n Out hamburgers! With animal fries and everything! And then gave us banana splits, I defiantly threw up after but wow it was so good. It was so weird speaking English eating In n Out and listening to Christmas music in English. I don't know how to explain it, it was so weird. We found a family in the area book a while ago that the elders were teaching, they came to church 9 times, they had a date to be baptized but for some reason they never were and didn't want anything to do with the missionaries. A few weeks ago we randomly showed up one day with brownies and the mom was pretty weird about it but we asked if we could come back and set a day to visit her but she wasn't answering our calls, but we went anyways and she let us in and we sat down, then she told the family we were there and they ALL came in and sat down to listen. We played happy Salmon with them and talked about the 1st 2 point of lesson one with them and we invited them to church, it was silent for a long time, then the mom said "if the boys want to" and the youngest son without missing a beat said "I want to go" It was a huge miracle! And we are praying for them! The mission is great I have spoken Spanish for 4 weeks now and actually love it. My companion keeps joking that I am going to marry a Latino. And she is learning English, she really wants to go to school in Utah so we practice English. But also one of the highlights of my week, was today the whole zone got together and we had Thanksgiving like full of Thanksgiving stuffing and everything and it was Hermana Tenorios first thanksgiving!! Me and Hermana Robinson started trying to throw and catch whipped cream in our mouths and got everyone doing it from across the room it was so fun! Ah it probably doesn't seem really big but being in Spain for a year and a half, you miss little American things. Ah but ya that's a little of whats going on, me and Hermana Tenorio are really having a hard time in our area honestly. We work hard, but no one wants anything from us and it just seems like no one is progressing, we had a hard night and started breaking down crying a little, its so hard when you feel like you're doing everything you can and it's not enough, when you don't see any fruits from your efforts but I found this quote the other day that really helped me.  "Every  missionary  goes  through  a  drought  period  in  their mission  life.  A period  of  time  where  they  are  fighting homesickness,  praying harder  than  they  ever  have,  are  living more righteously  than  ever  in  their lives  up  to  this point  in  time,  and  no  one  seems  interested  in  hearing the  gospel. It  is  at  this  time  that  the  Lord  tests  you  as  a missionary.  The  reason,  I  have  always  believed,  is  to  see  if you  can  be  trusted.  Father  in  Heaven  has an  incredible work  to  do  to  prepare  the  earth  for  the  coming of  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ.  The  mission  field  has a  dual  purpose  to bring souls  unto  Christ,  and  to  sift  us  as  missionaries  into  the  parts  we  will  play  throughout  our  lifetime  in  building the  Lord’s  kingdom  –  to  prepare  us  for  “leading”  OR prepare  us  for  “following”,  both  are  important,  but  what  are followers  without  leaders?  The  missionaries  who  recognize  the  drought  and  remain  strong to  the  higher law  of missionary  work  (absolute obedience)  end  up  converting the  most  critical  investigator  of  all…themselves.   You  will be  your  greatest  conversion  in  the  mission  field.    God knows what he's doing and I trust him.
Love you all! And see you in 3 short weeks! -Love Hermana Peterson 

Cute Spain

More Spain Sunsets

Heart Attack

Euros for dayzzz

In -n- Out Burger and Fries

 Banana Splits

 

Zone Thanksgiving

 

24 Hour Book of Mormon Activity

Wow! What an amazing experience! In talking with the YW about their personal progress we realized that so many of them were getting held up on the Virtue project of reading the entire Book of Mormon. We had quite a few girls that were completely done with everything else except that. (Sadie included) So we decided to give them a push. Us leaders got together and planned a Super 24 hour Book of Mormon activity. 

 We got everything planned and made arrangements with the Stokes in our ward to take over their basement and backyard. They had the perfect set-up for us. A huge living room with couches and chairs, bathrooms, an outdoor entrance and a big back yard. 

 Heading in for 24 hours of reading. I was so excited about this activity and being a part of doing something like this, but I was also so worried too. I really wanted to be able to stay the entire time but when I get even a little tired I fall asleep without even realizing it. So I spent weeks praying for strengthen that I would be able to accomplish this activity without going home in the middle of the night. 

We planned out the entire schedule, so we knew what chapters to read during which hours. We planned for meals to come in, we had snacks, activities (bracelet making, coloring pages, parts to act out, etc.) and cameo appearances to keep our interest peaked. 

 We had signs of encouragement all around the room. 

 Props for acting out some of the stories to help us stay awake. 

We arrived at 4:30 for set up and instructions and then started reading right at 5:00pm. I posted an instagram story during the 24 hours for parents and girls who couldn't be there so some of the pics come from that. 

Let's do this!!

We had a board set up that anyone could write on during our reading. Any thoughts or feeling that they might have during the activity. The girls loved this part and used it a lot. 

The Iron Rod

 Binding Nephi

Our first cameo was Nephi.  They would come in character and act out and read those chapters.  We also had Samuel the Laminate, Christ visiting the Nephites, Helaman  and the brother of Jared.  It was nice to have a little break from reading. 

 Making bracelets while listening to the audio. During Isaiah and some of the wars we sped up the speed to get through those parts quicker. You really had to follow along during those parts to understand the words. haha!

 Time for Dinner. We were so spoiled when it came to the food. Karen one of the leaders was unable to come and stay so she did all the food for us. She had it all prepared and would just show up at mealtime and feed us. Some times we kept listening while we ate and sometimes we had a break. 

 We also had snacks all through the night about every 2 hours. Everything was super healthy, full of protein to keep us going. Very little sugar, we didn't want them to crash. 

 During Isaiah, Bishop and Glory popped in to talk to the girls for a minute and gave them all an ornament with a name of Christ of each one. They loved that. We really do have the best bishop. The youth just love him. We had the entire bishopric stop by at one time or another either as a cameo or just to read with us for a while. 

 Midnight Break. Keeping up our energy going outside and jumping on the tramp in the cool air!

 2:00 am and still smiling. 

 Back at it. 

 Gentry as King Benjamin acting out the story as we read.

 People in their tents facing the temple. 

 From 3:00-6:00am was hardest stretch. 

 Sadie on the exercise bike trying to stay awake. It was so funny. This was a regular occurrence through the night. You'd just see a girl get up randomly and head for the bike. Others would go outside and make a few laps around the yard. 

Did a bit of Yoga to keep them relaxed and their minds aware. 

We built a timeline as we went of the events that were taking place. This was it at 4:30am

During this time we did lose a few girls and as they succumbed to sleep. They started dropping like flies. At one point or another everyone fell asleep even if it was just a quick nap. We had a chart to keep track of what chapters they missed while sleeping so they could go home and make them up. 

 Around 5:30 am we had lost most of them so we decided to act out another story and get them all up. 

 Some were not very awake for the story. 

 Sadie and I were laughing so hard at Gentry and she stretched and yawned all the way through her part as Abish as we acted out Ammon. 

 But once the sun came out and we had breakfast, everyone was awake and spirits were high again. 

We went outside and read for most of the day for some "much needed" fresh air.

Lunch Time

Looks like a bomb went off. This is what success looks like!

 Back inside for the last few hours. 

This became a struggle as well. The girl started getting tired again around 2:00pm...just 3 hours left. 

 The last few chapters we went around the circle and took turns reading and then when we finally came to the last 3 versus of the Book of Mormon we read those all together out loud. It was pretty powerful. They girls all shouted...Amen!!

We did it!! We can do hard Things!!

 I was able to do it with just an hour cat nap. I was so proud of these girls. Not only did they give up a Friday night and weekend to hang out with friends but they came with good attitudes and read the entire Book of Mormon. I was so worried about Bo, she LOVES her sleep. I was worried that if she did fall asleep that would be it, we'd never get her up again and she would miss the whole thing. But she, Sadie and all the girls were Rockstars. They fought all night to stay awake, if they did fall asleep it was just for a short time and then they would get up when we asked.  WE DID IT! 

 The following Sunday we had 7 girls receive their medallions and 2 receive their Honor Bee in sacrament meeting...Sadie and Gentry were among those girls...They each received their medallion together.

 What an amazing experience it was. I am so glad I got to be a part of it and can now say "I read the Book of Mormon in 24 hours! I hope this is something the girls will never forget.