Spring has arrived in Ohio!

Dear Mom and Dad (and everyone else):

Spring's here!! It's been so nice. Things are really greening up here, and there's a lot of trees with huge flowers blooming on them. We went down to McConnelsville again on Saturday, our outlying area in the huge ward boundaries, and got to give service at the Griesmyer farm. We weeded and cleaned up their deck for spring, in our skirts- it was AWESOME. I also took advantage of their hammock and rope swing that was up on the hill, haha. I attached a picture of their driveway, and another of me with their chickens. Unfortunately, their pigs didn't make it into the picture. We also helped the youth in the ward with delivering mulch for spring. Kind of nasty, and I could barely lift those huge bags of dirt, but I got to wear jeans and felt pretty normal that evening! Haha.

In other news this week, we had a solid zone meeting on Wednesday, and we got addressed on the desire that's needed in serving a mission, and being the obedient missionary who wants to be there and try her/his best. Later that day we saw Gary again, and I FINALLY got the opportunity to teach the first lesson to someone for real!! We also gave him the Book of Mormon he requested. His wife was a little unsure, but she wants us to keep coming back to see her because of her health problems that keep her at home, and wants us to always pray for her. Gary seemed interested though, so we'll definitely be stopping by again this week to see how his reading is doing.

Had exchanges with Sister Burton and Sister Pollock again, this time they came to Zanesville. I absolutely love them, and got to work with Sister Burton for all of Thursday. Also, Sister Burton is the BEST, we went RUNNING OUTSIDE the next morning in the rain!! It felt SO good and we loved being out. I learned a lot and I finally got to go tracting too, with the change in companionship. It was an AWESOME day. We found several potential investigators and got a few return appointments. We got invited into some Jehovah's Witness's house, and she talked to us for a LONG time... there was just this sick feeling in there when she talked about this memorial they do for Christ's death (the scripture reference they go off of regarding "do this in remembrance of me" TOTALLY references taking the sacrament, but they see it as celebrating/remembering his death).

There was also this house I've been wanting to knock on for a long time, by one of our less-active's homes. Turns out this family with 4 kids lives there, and the mother was sick, but they wanted us to come back. Next door, we talked to the oldest daughter who was babysitting over there and we gave her the first lesson on the porch and she was interested! Sister King and I went back yesterday but it wasn't a good time (we were originally supposed to come back Saturday but we were out of town); however the mom told us to come back on Friday when she isn't working. As we left, one of the kids in their backyard waved and shouted, "It's the Mormons!!" Even before I knocked on their door, I have felt really good about that family. While on exchanges, I finally saw the huge amount of potential that Zanesville has. There is SO much work that can be done here, and I'm dying to do it.

Today for P-day we had another zone fun day, and played volleyball, capture the flag in the rain (we were sopping wet!) and had a barbecue. Good times.

 

Exchanges were SOOO beneficial for me. I sat down with Sister Burton and she helped me with planning, and then she totally had my back when we knocked doors and talked to people.  Seriously though, bless Sister Burton! She's there if I need to call her for any problems, and we have so many similarities it's not even funny. We're going to be really close after the mission at BYU.

Pictures for the week:

#1: The Griesmyer farm in McConnellsville

#2: A moment with chickens.

#3: Daffodils in the Griesmyer's garden. We cut some and took them to people.

#4: Me, Sis. Burton, Sis. King, and then Sis. Pollock before our dinner appointment on Thursday.

Love,
Sister Petersen