Seamstress Miracle

Dear Family and Friends,                                                                    Dec 8, 2014

This week was quite an interesting one! First of all we had changes this past Tuesday but pretty much no one changed in our zone but a couple people! So, I’m still in good old Villa Hayes with Elder Clark!

Okay, now for the fun part! This week we had our baptism! woo hoo but it was a struggle!  That’s kind of how all baptisms are here in Paraguay!! Baptisms never go as planned (shout out to elder Fielding)!! Well our investigator is a little bit larger than others so we didn’t have any baptismal clothes that would fit her! haha oops!! So, we went to a seamstress on Wednesday and asked if she could have a completely white, but not see through, over sized dress ready by Saturday!  I felt pretty bad putting that on her but there was honestly nothing else we could do! Well, somehow, she did it and we got it about an hour before the baptism! #straightupluck (blessed)

At the baptism, we waited for a presiding member of the branch to show up but nobody came for about an hour! We also had an investigator there to watch and she wasn’t too happy that she had to wait for an hour, but someone finally showed up and we started right away! Well I did the baptism and I was pretty nervous because she is a larger lady and she has really bad knees so she wouldn’t be able to help me out at all and bend her knees a little bit!  I was so nervous that before i started the prayer, I forgot to say her name! Luckily Elder Majia stopped me before I dunked her! So I started over and then it came time to actually do the baptism! Honestly I had been praying for the strength to be able to do the baptism and it was a lot easier than I had expected! I know someone was watching over me because she is not a small lady! Luckily I was able to do it okay and everything turned out to be great! 

After the baptism, she had the opportunity to bare her testimony! She started crying and thanking us or opening her heart! She knows that it was the spirit that truly opened her heart! She is honestly such a special lady and her example has got her daughter wanting to be baptized! So we have a date set for the 26 of December for her daughter to be baptized! : )

Things are going good her in Paraguay and we are starting to see the fruits of our labors! Keep working hard and I’ll do the same!! I love you all so very much! Have a good week!!

Love your favorite Elder!!...besides Elder Holland ; ) haha

Elder Petersen

Quote from Sis. (Hailey) Jones: Serving in the Philippines...

“On Friday we did community service at the house of a member in branch 2 (we're branch 1) We helped her move everything out of her small house and then moved a huge pile of dirt and rocks inside to make it higher up so that it doesn't flood. Only in the Philippines. Even though I see it literally every day, somehow I forgot how poor the people are here. There were a ton of us that showed up to help, and nanay had prepared lunch for us but she was expecting 4-6 missionaries, not 14. We felt super bad because it's considered really embarrassing if you have guests and you can't feed all of them. Somehow though we all ate and were filled:) The work was super hard but super fun. Good thing we helped out when we did too. I've learned on my mission that the best way to serve people is by sharing with them the restored gospel, but if we ignore their physical needs we've missed the whole point.” 

Jeffrey and I (mom) got to "chat" (email) for a little while and he talked about this very thing!  He has a real desire to serve the people of Paraguay, in what ever form that looks like.  Some feel it is better to study about serving, rather then actually doing it.  I told him of an experience that went something like this...

"Do you remember when we lived in Ashland and on Sunday morning, during conference, dad got a call from Keith Woodley?  He said that a mans trailer home was flooding and he needed help moving his stuff to higher ground.  Dad kind of grumbled and mentioned that he was watching conference, then Keith said “Well, we can sit and listen about how we are suppose to serve others, or we can go serve others!”  Needless to say, that was a one lesson, lesson!  It is always better to actually serve then it is to read about serving."