Skyler is called to Chile!!! March 7, 2011

Oh my gosh! I watched the video 3 times and cried and cried. I felt the spirit so strong. I felt like I just did that. I'm going to miss Skyler by a month. Bummer. But Man I'm going to miss him. He was like a ball of fun. lol I bet his whole family is freaking out. Another Spanish speaker. That whole family might as well learn it because they all practically speak it. It was so cute when he was like, "I can't read what it says." lol I thought that would be me. But thank heaven it wasn't. State side is easy to pronounce. It's so funny at the end of your mission you seem to always go back to the first part. I felt like I just got here. Crazy!!

Oh, Sister Mitchell, you know the cute red head. She is married. She sent me an invitation. So stinkin cute! She married her high school sweet heart. They came back from their missions around the same time. It was really fast. Kayla is engaged? To who? Is he a good return missionary that is going to take care of her? I hope so. She deserves that. I bet Christopher is weirded out. His first friend to be engaged. lol

Yes I got your package and I loved it! I have been memorizing like crazy and I think I have up to the fourth week memorized. I still have to think before I say it but soon it will just come. I'll be able to quote it to you for mother's day. Mother's day will be weird. I'll being seeing you in a month or so by then. Crazy huh?

We'll not much is going on this week. We had president interviews and that was amazing. We are learning to become master planners. I'm loving it and learning a lot. Our mission president is so efficient. He is amazing. I love him and Sister Barry so much. They have really changed the way I look at things and at myself. President Newman was to show me the fire of teaching powerfully and how hard I can work and how far I can push myself and now that I know that, comes how to do it with love and planning how to use that fire. Like burning leaves. Everyone does that down here. You can start setting leavings on fire no matter where you are and cause destruction if it's not controlled. Yes you have burned all the leaves but you also have destroyed your trees and your house. A Controlled fire allows you to care of your surroundings and add more leaves to the fire as necessary. Hope that makes sense. It does in my head. Anyways I love you so much and thank you for the video. Oh and for the letters. Tell the kids I love them and tell McKenna that she still owes me one. Did she get my letter in the mail?

I love you all~ Pray for you'll all the time

Love your Sister Missionary~

Some day I'm going to bring the whole family out here. It is just amazing and it would be so fun to introduce you to people. So awesome!

President Barry~

It seems that this week our teaching pool has gotten smaller. We are as of yet working with one person. Not from a lack of effort but we seemed to be dropped left and right or they are too busy to meet with us. It gets a little discouraging but we have been praying about how we can improve and felt that there are two main things that can be changed along with all the planning we are doing. Door approaches need to be more powerful and direct and we need to do more miracles with members by teaching the restoration. We started it when we first got here but it seemed that we were able to get into their homes to teach them but they weren't coming out with us, now they are coming out with us but we aren’t able to get into their homes. We are striving to find some sort of balance and I faith that it will work and we can find it. God is in control and I trust him. I know that if I go to him that he can show me what we can work on in order to improve the work and he has. I'm very grateful for that.

We had a dinner with the king family in our branch that we found out are moving. They have been one of our go to families in the branch if we need anything at all. They have been truly amazing and we will miss them. We were in the middle of dinner when their son Nathanial, who is in the MTC waiting on is visa to Brazil, called. He called to tell them that he was leaving on the next plain to go to Long beach California for the next few months while the waiting continues. I was touched as I watched his parents with smiles on the faces and tears in their eyes express how proud they were of their boy. It bought me back to my first flight out to the mission when I called home and talked to my family for the brief 5 minutes. They were both excited and nervous for me but they expressed their love as well. I think back at that moment and I feel like it was yesterday. It was only yesterday as I said goodbye to my family for 18 months and practically skipped to the airplane for this amazing adventure God had called me to do. It has been an experience I wouldn't trade for the world.

Brother King bore a very strong testimony on Sunday about God's love for us and how he showed that love by sending his son. Then he bore his testimony about the blessing of his son serving a mission and the blessings that have come to the family since he has been gone. The family moving is an answer to a long prayer of looking for a better job. He said that this is one of the many blessings that have come. I look at their family and think of my own and the struggle it must be to have both me and my brother out on a mission and yet the excitement that must come on their face as they talk about their children on their missions. You must wonder why I’m telling you all this but I think of all the things that Satan tries to put into my head of being a failure of a missionary and I think, Even if I’m not receiving a lot of success here at the moment, and I will soon. I see the blessing it has been to my family and I realize that a mission is an ongoing success here or at home. I realize more every day the blessings of a mission. They are innumerable. I'm so grateful to serve. I may still have a lot to change and things to work on and improve but the blessings have been forever flowing since I got here and I cannot be pulled down by Satan’s little lies.

We may not see a big teaching pool right now but we will and we will baptize because it is God's will that we do. That is his work and it is all for his Glory.How grateful I am for that knowledge. It keeps me safe and in the light.

Till next week. Lots of love-

~Sister Pedersen