Shake it Off!

First and Foremost, 

HAPPY BIRTHDAY MOM!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 

WOO WOO!!! that is just so exciting! :) 

Hope your birthday is just fabulous! :)  

Last week was so long and good and hard! Ya know.. the usual.  We had a Zone Conference with my Mission President and Wife, The Burt's and their two sons and it was SO. GOOD. Like dang. they remind me a lot of Utah.  We are having Elder Mayne's, Who is a General Authority, come on Saturday SO I am pretty stoked about that! On Wednesday I am driving with the Burt's to the Temple and my convert Merle (who got baptized a year ago yesterday) is getting endowed! SO that's gonna be awesome! :) :) Yeah.. Hopefully this will be a good week!

All You Can Eat!:)

So, I think at the end of May, there were these two elders in the Spanish area in this city named Surrey, who were out contacting it up on the streets!  One of them spotted this guy across the street and they ran over to talk to him. This man's name was JC (short for Juan Carlos) and I mean, he was nice and listened to them but wasn't looking for a church.  He told them that he is 99.9 percent sure that he was not going to convert to their church.  One of the Elders told him that they would work with that point one percent.  That softened his heart and he was baptized four weeks later in Spanish, into the Richmond 1st Ward! The Spirit was SO strong at the service! I'll never forget it.  I tell you this story because I absolutely love this man! He is one of my favorite people! He is so converted that it is not even funny.  He will always randomly text us and tell us How proud God is of us and how awesome we are for doing what we do and he is just the best!  He got his temp temple recommend on Sunday and he is going to do baptisms for the Dead with Maricel this Wednesday! Sniff.. So proud! :)  Well about four weeks ago, He calls us and wants to meet.  So we show up at the church and sit down with him and among other things, JC tells us that he wants to love his neighbors more and needs advice.  He happens to have REALLY REALLY REALLY bad road rage. like I mean it is really bad haha. So we suggested that he listens to different and softer music on the road. (he likes to BLAST heavy metal/rock music in his huge truck!)  He was very hesitant about the idea, but he said he would try it.  A week later, he comes to our scripture study, and when we asked him about listening to softer music, he said and I quote, "I felt like I was getting stabbed several times over!" Ha. lovely.  We told him to hang in there and Work iT!!  A week later we were having a pretty 'eh' day when we get a voicemail from JC.  I don't remember word for word, but he basically said, "Hi Sisters, JC Here.  I've got two good news. Not sure which one you want first.. the good news or the good news.  Ok. so first I called Malcom (our investigator who he is true friends with) and he said he is coming to church.  Second, I went to church at the one by the temple (Brookswood ward baby) and the temple was amazing! I walked all around it and there was a garbage can right there by it. So I went into my truck and I got all my heavy metal music and rock and one by one I threw away over 20 CD's.  Now All I have to listen to is 3 CD's of the Book of Mormon in Spanish! Well I hope that brightened your day! Have a Wonderful Capital letters, W-O-N-D-E-R-F-U-L day! God Bless. Talk to ya soon!"  OH. MY. HECK. We were dying!!!!!!!!!!! He has so much faith! He is just so amazing and he has no more road rage! just sayin! :) I've thought about the change of heart he had a lot and he truly shook off the natural man and became a Saint through the Atonement of Christ the Lord.  It has been so cool to witness.  

As we know, the Natural Man is an enemy to God and has been since the Fall of Adam.  I studied about it in the Book of Mosiah this morning and it made me realize that it is so natural to get upset. It is so NATURAL to get annoyed and impatient and sad and frustrated!  It is natural to be disobedient.  I guess that is why we are a chosen people.. because we are trying to shake off the natural man and become as a child.. we try to choose the right and be submissive, meek, kind, humble, loving, patient, understanding, willing, obedient.... ya know, all that good stuff.  I know that when we do those things, Heavenly Father is just like so, so, so, dang proud of us because he knows it's not exactly natural for us to be that way right now.  He knows it takes effort and that is why when we are Christ-like and follow Him, He blesses us so dang much!  It's because He really is pleased!  He really is happy! So I challenge you guys to become the Saints he knows we can be and repent of anything you need too and then shake off the Natural man! Will you do that?! I promise that when you make those small and simple changes in your life, great things will come to pass!

Sister Haight, Gibb, me, Galbraith, Willmore.  They all went home last week! Sis Willmore was my MTC comp! We all came out the same day! :) these are my girls!

So Be strong and of a Good Courage and fight off the natural man Baby! I love you all SOOOOOO much! Thanks for all the support! WORK iT!! Five Stars! :)
Love Sister Petersen:]