And I Thought I Was Getting Better at Basketball...

 Sorry y'all. I went to the temple, so this is my (shorter) summary of the last two weeks. The temple was amazing!

I'll start it out with what happened on my last p-day. Have you ever wondered what would happen if 4 Sister Missionaries walked into a liquor store? Well now you don't need to wonder! We were trying to go to a restaurant to meet the Elders and we walked in the wrong door... the man stared at us so confused and the Sister that walked in first just stood there in shock. 😂 It was like she couldn't figure out where she was at. The man asked if he could help us and we asked where the restaurant was and he looked so disappointed and told us, "next door" and then laughed REALLY hard! So awkward! We tried to get the liquor sign in the picture too, but we couldn't quite fit it with our whole district in the way. I promise it's there though. 😂

We got told so many times this week that we were not allowed to "solicit" on private property. What is it with Florida and soliciting! We are just trying to spread happiness 😃 haha! At least the sales bros will talk to us. They are everywhere. 

I tried Honduran, Cuban, and Haitian food this week! So many cultures here!! I found out that our mission is technically categorized as foreign! 

I am happy to announce that we broke the record for bagging at the homeless shelter! We made over 800 bags in 3 hours, and the record was 400. It was insane! Missionary service is magical I swear!!

Speaking of magic, since I was the last interview I got to say a kneeling prayer with President Pingree and it was sooooo powerful!! So cool! Transfers are in a week and I'm so excited, but also terrified to see what happens!

A little girl told me this week that she thought that I was 76 years old. Oof.

I got to harvest honey this week with a lady in our ward! At first, they only had 3 bee suits and my roomies took them. 😬 I am terrified of bees!!! The lady told us that the bees were aggressive because of the bad weather, so she told me to stand in the far corner. I was SOOOOO scared!! I almost started crying! I said a prayer that none of the bees would touch me because they were EVERYWHERE and it worked! They would come close and then fly away. I finally got one of the bee suits and I thought I felt something on my pants, but I figured I was just being paranoid 😅 I WASN'T. When I took off the bee suit there was a bee in it!!! I can't believe I didn't get stung!

Update on creepy dude: haven't seen him since he made fun of us at the park for being too short to play basketball 🙃.  Speaking of being too short to play basketball, there's something that Elders like to do called pros-ball. Guess who else played pros-ball? We did!!! 😂 These two guys invited us to play, so we made a deal with them. If we could make a shot, they would come to church. Welp. I didn't make the shot 😂 it was fun though.

Awkward story of the week: I was at the store and I grabbed a bag of mangoes. I went and put them in the cart by my companion and this lady comes up and says, "that's not your cart" 😂 My companion turned around and started laughing at me and I got so embarrassed, so I grabbed them and almost hit into somebody else while I was trying to get to the actual cart. So dumb 🤦‍♀️

Weirdest thing... we talked to this lady on the phone and she was saying that she went in the water in our "cathedral" for her ancestors. She's not a member?! We were like, "you went to the temple?!" She told us that "the people in the front" didn't want her to go in, but she convinced them. WEIRD! She was talking bad about "John Smith" too!

Miracles: we were searching for a referral and he only put the apartment complex, but not the number. We decided to knock 2 doors and the one that answered was his house!!!! CRAZY!!!! We have been teaching his family. They are adorable. We haven't even met him yet though!! 😂

Lastly, our friend Sharon finally came to church after 3 months of trying to get her there! Our jamaican bobsledder friend (who is single I might add) has been joining us for lessons and they ended up really hitting it off! She got lost on the way to church, and she asked for Deion to come save her. He did and we all sat together at church 😏 hehe. I love missionary match making! 

I love you all and hope that you have the best week!! Pray for our friend Willie please! He promised us he'd come to church this week!!! 🙏 

The Hedge

This week was wacky!! I'll start off by talking about my day of bad luck. All of you know that I have the weirdest luck ever, and this one day proved it! I thought I was cursed. 😂 It started out the day before when we drew chalk on the sidewalk at a park with some plan of salvation questions and our number. One of them said, "what happens after we die?" Apparently someone took it the wrong way because in the morning we got a text saying that it needed to be removed immediately or they would call someone to make us remove it... awkward!! So we took water bottles and got rid of it. Then we went and did our studies at the park and guess who we saw AGAIN?! Creepy dude! We thought he was gone! A cop pulled up and talked to him while we were there and then left and he walked over to us and said his usual and then walked to the tennis courts. I didn't think much of it until I looked over and he was watching us through the bushes! Sooooooooo creepy! So we left, and soon enough we saw another cop pulling in. RIP creepy dude. Then as we were biking, a bug flew directly into my eye! It stung sooooo bad 😂 My eye turned red and it was watering so bad I couldn't see for a really long time. 30 minutes later as I was still dying from my eye, I backed up because my companion turned around and I fell into a ditch. 😂  All in one day 🙏 It was interesting for sure.

So back to the good stuff. At district council our district leader brought us Krsipy Kreme! It was so nice! They even gave us a little hat! We had problems with "interrupting" and someone got annoyed, so we used the hat as a "talking hat." Whenever one of us was wearing the hat, we could talk. It was so funny!!

Update on Willie (my blind friend) he is the best!!! He finally gets to listen to the Book of Mormon because he ordered it on audio! HUGE step for him!! He loved Joseph Smith's story and how the Book of Mormon came about, and he said he felt a special feeling every time we said his name. He called us just to tell us that he finally made the jump and ordered it!!! He told us that money was somehow left over in his bank account and he knew that that was what it was for. God is soooo aware of all of us! It was also cool because during that lesson these guys pulled up and they looked kind of scary. They were saying some weird stuff and they were obviously drunk. They started coming towards us, but something literally stopped them. They didn't walk any further and Willie said "these are church ladies" the guys apologized and left!!! Willie ALWAYS tells us that there is a "hedge" around his house and that God keeps bad things out with the hedge. I totally believe him now! Only good things are allowed in the hedge! Also, he made his own tea and gave us some. We didn't drink it of course, but I'm very curious of how he made it while not being able to see... Props to him for doing it anyways! He also called to tell us that he made a good choice and God rewarded him by winning the lottery! 😂 So funny! God answers all of our prayers differently, and I guess for Willie, He answered them by letting him win the lottery.

Another funny story: so my mission president and his wife spoke in my sacrament meeting this week! They gave me a shout out, but they called me Sister Anderson. 😂 Then they corrected it, but it was so funny! They apologized after so many times!

We also talked to some high people on the phone that asked if we were vampires 🧛‍♀️. 

The devil was working hard this week. One of our friends told us that he couldn't come to church because someone hit him in the face with a pipe... That's almost as bad as last week when someone else told us that their son was robbed at gunpoint... man.

We had a lesson with someone from Nigeria this week too! I guess Facebook does come in handy sometimes lol. Also! The Stls went on exchanges and the Sister that came to my house was a girl that I went to efy with a few years ago! So weird!!! 😂 

We had a lesson with a guy that wouldn't take off his reflective sunglasses. The entire time I couldn't tell who he was looking at! So awkward! We also went biking, but apparently there was a fire nearby and there was ash all over the air! The sky turned purple when the sun set and it was stormy! I felt like I was in a movie.

Also, I killed a spider!!!!! He was so scary! We named him Diablo Diabala. (Devil devil) I crushed him with a water bottle while he was trying to attack my companion. He used to live in our steering wheel... not anymore! 

Lastly a miracle! (And karma)

We were at service and the elders asked me to sing my school song for them. I told them no, and that I didn't like to sing in front of people. 😂 But... we are teaching this lady that has had some very traumatic experiences and she cries a lot over the phone. My companion got a really strong prompting to call her, so we did and she was not doing well. We prayed with her and she was just bawling. I got a prompting that we needed to sing to her. (The sisters that referred her to us used to do that) and I was like, absolutely not. I'm terrified to sing in front of people, and especially over the phone! But I muted the phone and told my companion and she said absolutely not. Then we unmuted and sang to her 😂. Immediately she calmed down and her whole demeanor changed. She was completely at peace and she told us that we motivated her to get out of bed. Always follow promptings! Lesson learned. The spirit works in so many different ways!! I totally got karma for earlier though...

One thing that I have learned so far is that you are NEVER too far from God. He always wants you. There is nothing that you could ever do to drive Him away. He loves you. He always has his hands stretched towards you, sometimes you just have to make the jump to grab it! ❤️

I love you all and I hope you all have a great week! Don't forget your worth! 

Gargoyles and Kidnapper Vans

 So I'm starting out my email by saying that President Pingree and God really like to mess with me together lol. We had zone day on Tuesday and President and Sister Pingree were about to do a roleplay. Last zone day they made me come up and do it with them. It was TERRIFYING! Since I did it last time I thought I was safe... nope. They called me up AGAIN. It was so funny. Don't worry, apparently I did okay. Haha!

We were walking through a Portuguese neighborhood because the Portuguese sisters sent us a referral for one English person that lives there. As we were walking I literally lost count of how many kidnapper vans there were! I didn't know they were such a popular vehicle! Then when we got to his house there were gargoyles in front as well as a kidnapper van. 😳 He answered and said he was busy and I saw a fireplace in his house which was really weird for Florida, and then he said try again tomorrow and that was that. Super weird interaction. 😂 Then we had Brazilian food for dinner! Brazilian lasagna and dessert are so much better than American!

For service this week I folded like 500 towels and put beans in bags for the homeless. Turns out I'm really weak though because I got so sore!!! 😂 RIP. 

Now for the best stories...

I went on exchanges this week and it was sooooo fun! I finally got to go to bird lady's house! The Sisters weren't joking when they said over 30 birds were just roaming around the house. I was literally dodging birds that were flying at my head and they were on the ground and on all the furniture. It was CRAZY! Bird lady's husband went OFF on his career as a "rock musician" and how he plays so much better when he drinks beer. We had no idea what to say because he just kept going and going. It was so awkward 😅 I was just standing there dodging birds!!

Earlier that morning we cleaned the church and the bishop's wife went to open the door and go outside. The whole door literally just came off! We kept telling her she was the hulk while they tried to fix the door. It was just so funny! I was also cleaning the bathroom when a brother in our ward came in to fill up the toilet paper. He just said, "oops, don't tell your mother that you met a man in the bathroom" oops... the cat is out of the bag mom. 😂 It wasn't weird until he said that.

Lastly, we were at a park and these kids came and talked to us. They look at me and go, "is she your mom?" Referring to my companion. 😂 I burst out laughing because we had just been making fun of her for being old because she called a video chat a picture call! I told him that we were just friends and he goes, "oh, well, is she at least older than you?" 😂 Yes. Yes she is. Lol. 

Miracles: This week has been so hard, but so good. Every time I want to give up, God gives me a little miracle that makes me realize that He wants me here.

I was teaching one of my favorite people (he's blind) and he turns to us and goes, "I admire all of you, but I definitely admire Sister Peterson the most. I don't have to see her to know that she is so special. Sister Peterson, you're my guardian angel." At that point I really thought that I wasn't even helpful because my companion basically teaches everything, so I feel like that was God's way of telling me that I am making a difference. Similar things happened all week! It was insane how much people enjoy shy missionaries 😂

Anyways. I love you all so much and I miss you! I pray for you every night! ❤