Bautismo

Family, this week was one of the very best weeks of my life.  Hermana Salas arrived Tuesday morning at 8am and from there, it was wonderful miracle after wonderful miracle. 

Hermana Salas is from Peru, is 30 years old (though she sure doesnt look it!), and has 16 months in the mission, and she´s so awesome.  Since both hermana Henao y yo are still baby missionaries there were a lot of skills that we were lacking, things that come with experience.  So hermana Salas is whipping us into shape and I love it!  We dont know how long she´ll be here, but due to a series of events in her old area, and the ever-so-perfect timing of the Lord, she´s with us right now and I´m pleased.  She arrived and we told her about our investigators and the area.  Talking about Gerardo so said, ¨He´s ready to be baptized this Saturday!¨  And shortly after it became apparent that not only was he ready, but that he very much needed to be baptized as soon as possible.  So we met with him every day this week, went to the temple grounds on Friday, and he was baptized on Saturday!  It was such a great service and it was so real.  I don´t know how else to describe it.  When he came out of the water it really was a new birth, he really did enter into the gate, he really was made clean.  

Before the baptism he absolutely refused to take a picture.  Said he has never liked pictures and he would not do it no matter how we begged.  So we took one with Antonio, a recent convert of three months who was the one to baptize Gerardo, leaving a space for where Gerardo should have been.  I´ll send the pictures, they´re great.  After he came out of the water he couldn´t keep the smile off his face and we took a picture right there in the door of the bathroom! He was so happy.  It was incredible.  

He was confirmed yesterday.  Family, I feel so happy!!!!  Heavenly Father prepares people.  Not just a few people either, but lots and lots of people.  Now we are teaching Juana, another incredibly prepared hijo de Dios.  She attended the baptism and felt the Spirit.  She came to all three hours of church on Sunday.  Miracle after miracle after miracle.

I´m learning so much and I love seeing how the Gospel of Jesus Christ changes people.  Faith is a real power.  God is aware of each child and does everything possible to bring us to Him.  He has a plan and it is perfect.  Jesus Christ is our Savior.

I love being a missionary. What a privilegio. 

Besitos,

Hermana Peterson

okay so from left to right it goes Salas, Catillo, Henao, yo, Davis. We all live in the same apartment, cover the same ward.  We have a lot of fun.

                                                            My mini companion.  I am a giant.

                                                                  choripan, close up

                                                                                           gifts from Gerardo!

I love Argentina! Good pic, no?

Meet the wet Gerardo!

funnies

Hermana Henao and I were walking to an appointment and I read a sign and didn´t understand what it was for so I asked and she told me, it is where they sell pañales, which I knew meant tissues, but thought that was a strange thing to advertise so I asked, Like the pañales I use for my nose?  Well hermana Henao thought this was very funny and then she told me pañales are diapers.  Then we talked about having little diapers for our noses and we laughed because we are funny.

We taught an investigator the law of chastity and it went very well.  Afterwards he went home and told his mom he learned about the law of castration. Yikes.

Something that has been happening too frequently is that I´ll be teaching something, completely focused, and an English word will come out of nowhere! It´s horrible because it throws me off, catches me off guard and everyone looks at me all confused. jajaj.  It is so strange.  It´s always with words I know well in Spanish, too, like cuando. Why?

The work is progressing here in Buenos Aires and it is wonderful.  We are working hard to have a baptism before the end of the month and so far everything is looking great.  The Lord is in this work.  The Church of Jesus Christ has been restored and I love it!  We just received news that we will be receiving a third companion tomorrow night, not sure who it is. Exciting!

Love you all.  Keep following Christ and all will be well.  It´s true!

Loves,

Hermana Peterson

La Puerta

It is baptism! And the Spirit testifies it to people every day. Being a missionary is hard and so awesome.  I want to tell you every detail and yet time never permits it!

We went to transfers last Wednesday and it was incredible.  President Carter invites everyone to the transfer meeting every six weeks whether you are being transferred or not.  We are all in a huge gym, sitting with our zones, watching slideshows on a huge projector.  We watched a video of the past month with pictures of all the baptisms, of testimonies of the recently departed missionaries (powerful!), and then after all that- the transfers!  It is dramatic, with each companionship going up on the screen one by one and then the Assistants announce, "Elder Soandso se va and Elder Whatshisbucket recibira..... Elder Whatshisname!!" And then all the missionaries clap like crazy.  It was so fun and exciting.  We are a united team.  President Carter knows what he is doing.  I love it.  We have a mission song that makes me cry every time.  I love being a missionary.

We were waiting for el colectivo (bus) one day this week and hermana Henao stopped a man walking by to invite him to Church.  He told us he has a step-brother that is mormon and that he was willing to meet with us and tehn the colectivo came and we quickly wrote down his address.  Our plans fell through later than day and we were near his house, so we decided to stop by and see if he was home.  He came out and talked to us at his gate for a while, saying he had verguenza to let us in his house where his family would hear.  He had lived a rough life but had recently had some powerful experiences that made him make some drastic changes.  He kept telling us that he couldn´t believe we had actually come.  We really wanted to share the Restoration with him so we asked if we could just sit outside so he went to get some chairs when his mom came out and said, "What are you doing? They can come in the house- we´ve had lots of mormons in the house before!"

Turns out half the people that live in that house are mormons and he had no idea!  His step-dad started pulling up videos on their computer that they had taken of some missionaries singing them a song and everything.  He was just as astonished as we were.  It was great.  We had a great lesson with him and his little step-brother accompanied him to Church yesterday.  He has been so prepared.  He is reading the Libro de Mormon and preparing well for his baptism.  He felt the Spirit so strongly in the capilla.

The Lord is opening our mouths and leading us to prepared people.  His hand is leading this Church and this work.  He helps us to realize we can do so much more than we ever thought possible.  I love these people!  I love seeing the Spirit teach someone what it means to believe in a Savior, that baptism really is the gate through which we must enter, that families really are eternal, that the Book of Mormon really is the word of God.  I know it is true.

I love you. Thanks for being so wonderful and loving and supportive.  Have fun and be safe!! So excited to see the pictures!  You´re all just the BEST!

besitos,

Hermana Peterson