Sabriel is the name

This week has been one of spring and sunshine and....snow. It started raining yesterday afternoon and all the sudden it was snowing and I almost froze. Utah weather is so sporadic, I was enjoying all the tulips and beautiful skies but I guess that can be compared to how life takes a turn on us sometimes. My testimony this week is that God knows us all individually and he meets our needs in ways we sometimes fail to recognize. I've been thinking a lot about the stark contrast between light and dark and how that relates to faith and doubt. Just as darkness can never overpower light, doubt cannot overpower our faith as long as it is strong. Everything the gospel proclaims has to do with faith, light, knowledge, from which growth stems. From doubt we get uncertainty, confusion, fear and misdirection. I know that God expects us to live by faith in this life, and that the devil tries to fill us with doubt. We need not fear faith- it is the path to God. 

Quote from my favorite 7th graders this week:

Sister Callahan: Who wants to pray today? (Silence from 5 14 year old boys). If you pray your spouse will be better looking!

Graham: What's a spose?

Sister Callahan: It's like your husband or wife

Graham: (with a look of utter disbelief) "Wait, you seriously think me, Dylan, Creed, or Noah is actually going to get married?"

This is the same boy who prayed that Sister Hatch would  make them delicious food. Oh boy.... (pun intended) 

Favorite scripture this week:Moroni 7:13 (from the Book of Mormon)- all good things come from God! When you have the thought to do something for someone else, just think- is this a good thing or a bad thing? If it is good, just do it! No questions asked. Sorry I didn't have much time this week but I'll write more next week!

Love,

Sister Pearson

The Missionary Whisperer

Let me be blunt here: YES I know that missionaries aren't the first people you hope will be outside your door when you hear a knock on your door... a girl scout with cookies, a delivery man with a package, or even a pest control salesman might be more desirable to people than two girls with black name tags who want to bear their soul to teach teach you about Jesus Christ. But please, can people have a little courage and at least open the door to tell us they aren't interested??? Explanation for this rant: Last night around 7:30 we knocked on the apartment door of a less active member of the church whose 10 year old son who isn't a member just had a birthday. We heard music and laughter and rang the doorbell. Then we heard "who is it?" whispered voice: "the missionaries!" LOUD whispered voice: "Quick, Hide!!" I was so taken aback at what had just transpired that I begged Sister Hornberger to let me say "We know you're in there, open up so we can help you!" but she constrained me, so I settled for singing happy birthday very cheerfully before we left. Some people.

 My time to write is short but here are a few of my favorite moments from this week:

Last night we had a lesson about the Plan of Salvation with the 14 year old we are teaching at the home of the Hatch family, some amazing members that are super musical and cool. The lesson's we've had before have been crazy because Dylan's 7th grade friends have been there. Need I say more? This time it was just brother Hatch and his young son and Dylan. The spirit was so strong at the end as we asked him his thoughts on baptism and why he might want that. I know that we all chose to come to this Earth and I am so blessed to have the privilege to help remind people of God's plan- a plan they already chose before this life. At the end of the lesson I got to play "give Said the Little Stream" on guitar and Brother Hatch played his ukulele. I've missed music!

We had a big dinner with a few families and one of the people we're teaching, rich. Rich has been on his own since he was 15 and when he sat down to the table and notcied the wonderful group we had with us he immediately suggested we take a picture because he's not used to this sort of thing and it was kind of nice. The gospel gives us such a loving, supportive community.

The mountains take my breath away daily. I feel so much peace when I look up at them and remember that I am a child of a great creator. 

Love you all, keep writing me!

Love,

Sister Pearson

P.S. I contacted a hispanic man on the roof and a woman in the Walmart bathroom. success. I love people!

Being late means more than you think!

2 pages. 2 full pages. Yes, that is what the new person we are teaching, Rich, handed us when we walked into his house yesterday at 6:10 rather than 6 for our appointment. What was contained in those pages you may ask? Only 7 different definitions for the word late. Hey, it feels good to be so wanted for once. Rich is a blessing we've received this week and after just two meetings he is our new favorite. He already gave all of us occupations and told me that I'm going to be a teacher because apparently when I talk everyone listens up. He is hilarious and honest in the best way.

   Favorite quote from church yesterday: "To love another person is to see the face of God" (from Les Miz)

   Actually as much as I love that quote, my FAVORITE favorite comes from the little boy that walked past us holding his dad's hand on their way to the little boy's room : "Well dad, it looks like it's just you and me!" I love children. 

I don't have time to write today, but it's okay,I'll make up for it by reading letters from all of you. right? Write? please! Call me old fashioned, but i love letters.

Thought from this week: Belief is a very very important and precious word. But in order to truly exercise belief, we must do some work to get there. If you don't plant strawberries, none will grow. We must decide what we want to change in order to put forth the necessary work to make that happen. When we do all we can to make changes in our lives, God will see our willingness and make up for what we never could do ourselves. so I just encourage you all this week to believe in the impossible, and change something in your life! God's love is real, as is the atonement of Jesus Christ. 

Love always,

Sister Pearson

P.S. I love the scripture 2 Nephi 4:27-28. Read it!

My Companions!

Here we are the happy threesome!

So Grandma gives a mean fist bump!

So I'm sure you're expecting a super spiritual moment to be the highlight of my second week as a missionary, but I must confess the most joyful moment I've recently experienced was getting a fist bump from 89 year old grandma in her nightgown. I feel like an unwritten bucket list item should get checked off. If I could choose any word to describe the glorious moment when knuckles collided on knuckles I think it would have to be.. geriatric. Yes, it was definitely a geriatric experience. Before I move on to the serious stuff, I need to share the grandma quote of the week:

Gma: (After announcing her upcoming 3 week trip to Arizona) "Just don't have any wild parties while I'm gone"

Sister H.: "You mean we can't have Peter, James, and John over?"

Gma:" Well, if it were Peter James and John you could... just no Tom, Dick, and Harry"

I love this grandma ALMOST as much as my blood-related ones:)

Shout out to Michelle and Brad who just had birthdays! I love you two, so much so that I won't reveal your ages on this public blog;) I can't believe how fast time goes by. I realized I forgot to mention how incredible the weather has been since I got here- yesterday topped all, it was 60 degrees in full sunshine. Sorry, Ohio if you're still in the negatives! It has been nice because though we have a car, with all this sunshine we have a good excuse to walk everywhere since the area we cover is only 1 mile by 1 mile. On Tuesday we were lucky to have Elder Ballard come speak to our mission, and unbeknownst to us all, he walked in with none other than Bill Marriott, the owner of Marriott Hotels and former area seventy (fancy word for a big leadership responsibility me can have in our church). At 83 he is still the chairman for his company board, and he is totally with it. Elder Ballard talked about how God only puts up with people completely rejecting Him and His Son for so long, and that if belief in Christ keeps getting pushed more and more out of the public square as is currently happening, there will be a consequence for the world. Kinda freaky, kinda cool.Both men emphasized the need to really know the doctrine of what we teach so that people don't have to wonder and we don't have to worry about answering obscure questions, if we just teach clear, true principles, people will more easily be able to understand and from there decide whether or not they accept our message, which is always always always focused on Christ. Each and every day I'm more amazed by the Savior's sacrifice for us, and as I've been reading the Infinite Atonement by Tad R. Callister, I'm just in awe of the things that Christ did on earth, and who he actually is.   

      This weekend I learned why Christ tells us to be like little children. We went to a dinner that ended up going wayyy too long and being really frustrating because when we tried to teach it was like we could barely get a word in and we were jumping from obscure doctrine to random question and none of us could reel things in. I would like to reiterate the wise words of my friend Hope Thomas who said something along the lines of you don't go into Intro to Bio 100 with an advanced Bio 576 book in hand, ready to ask questions from page 1000. People need to understand the basics of our religion before anything else will ever have a hope of making sense. Anyway, that analogy pretty much describes how our lesson went and needless to say, we left discouraged and found that we had missed 10 calls from the person we were supposed to see after dinner. Luckily we were still able to see sweet little 10 year old Redina who wants to be baptized more than anything in the world but isn't allowed to be. And this is where I learned why Christ wants us to be like children. Children have such a sweet, gentle way of loving and making life feel so much simpler. We were going to teach a lesson but then Redina asked if we could please read the story about when Christ came to the Americas in the children's picture version of the Book of Mormon. We all took turns reading paragraphs and I started tearing up as I thought "What 10 year old little girl would choose to sit down and read stories about Jesus with missionaries on a Saturday night?" Redina has such a pure spirit and I know that if she continues on the path of faith that she's on, she will be able to be obtain the desires of her heart when she is old enough to decide for herself.

        My last thought for this week is that everyone has their own unique story. Something I love about being missionary is that having this tag over my heart day in and day out, I have the responsibility and privilege to go up and talk to everyone I see and invite them to come closer to Christ and learn about the gospel. It is sad to find out after talking to people that say they're just not interested that the real reason they don't want to go to church is that they have been offended at some point in their life. I'm not blaming them for letting that hold them back because we are human and we have emotions and that just makes life hard but the quote from Dad's office came to my head when talking to one particular person this week. "He who takes offense when none is intended is a fool. He who takes offense when it is intended is a greater fool." When it comes down to it, offense is a choice, and though we can't get over a lot of things on our own, we can get over ANYTHING with the Savior's help, because he's felt your offense and worse.I love the scripture 1 John 4:18 that talks about how perfect love casts out all fear. Already, I've talked to many people who are uninterested, quick to run, or just flat out rude. Every time that happens to me or to you or to anyone else we have a choice to either be offended or to have understanding and just love. It doesn't matter how many times I get put down or glared at or rejected because God loves all of His children and if there is even a slight chance of my words brightening someone's day, leading them to truth, or letting someone see that God loves them, it is worth the worst mockery they can offer. I like to think of what my wise sister-in-law Michelle told me before I came here: "What would you do if you knew you wouldn't fail?" I invite you all to think about that this week. I also invite you to think of one person who could use a little more love in their life and do something for them, no matter how small. I promise that as you do this, not only will you understand a little bit more about God's love for that person, but you will gain insight into his eternal and infinite love for you.

Love,

Sister Pearson

P.S. I am able to receive letters so if anyone wants to be pen pals, email my mom for my mission address:) kjpearson7@gmail.com I would LOVE to hear from some of you! (Once you write me then I'll let you know if you're one of those someones ;)

This salty water keeps me afloat!

Hello from the Great Salt Lake! Before I jump into details about my first area as a missionary, I would like to give a little bit more info about my MTC experience.

The MTC

Comic relief of the week:

Me (at the lunch table with my district): So, what do you all think of when I say the word 'Muslim' ?""

Sister-whose-name-will-remain-secret-but-i'll-give-you-a-hint-she's-from-Alabama: "Buddha?"

Yep, we're definitely mormon.

The MTC flew by but I really did have an amazing time there. I learned that people are very different and life is better when you choose to be happy weather or not the sun is shining. (GEt it?) But really, whenever I felt lonely or unloved by my companion (she is awesome but just not very sentimental which is the opposite of me) I would just sing one of my favorite church hymns or look out at the mountains and think WOAH. God is real, and he loves me, so why would I ever be sad? He created an incredible Earth for all of his children, and though life can be hard, the happy moments make it all worth it. The more people I get to know and the more I study and talk about the gospel, the more I feel that the way I am cleansed is through the atonement of Christ and other people. I am so grateful that I am not on this Earth alone, and even when I am alone in a physical sense, the holy spirit is with me spiritually. Probably the most important thing I gained from the MTC was a stronger testimony of the prophet Joseph Smith and I would like to share that with you all. For those of you reading this who don't really know who Joseph Smith was, please read this with an open mind towards a young boy who was seeking to know his standing with God and had no idea what God had in store for his life.

(From my study journal)

First of all, I want to share my witness that God sends us down to the Earth at times fit for what he wants us to do. He wouldn't have sent Bill Gates to the Earth before electricity was invented just as it wouldn't make sense to send Steve Jobbs before Bill Gates (though he probably would have just invented apple first but just go with it for the analogy's sake). By being born in the time that they were, both of those men were able to put their God-given talents to use and drastically change this world. Likewise, there are reasons that all of the people here on the earth right now are her now and not 1,000 years ago. As I've pondered the timing of the restoration of the gospel, my testimony of God's timing has greatly increased. It's no surprise that though God had removed the fulness of the gospel from the Earth after prophets like Abraham and Noah and Moses were rejected, he took it from the Earth for the longest period of time only after the crucifixion of His own son. I can''t imagine how unbearable it was for the Father to witness that, as I'm sure any parent can relate.In order for the gospel to again be restored to the Earth at a time that it would never again be taken away, it had to be in a time of religious freedom in a free land like America. When this perfect situation was secured thanks to our founding fathers, the boy Joseph Smith had a great desire to know if he was saved in the eyes of God and at the young age of 14, humbly knelt in prayer to ask God what he though as it directed him in the Bible (James 1:5). When Joseph Smith entered that grove of trees to pray, he didn't know that the course of his entire life was about to change. I'm certain he was shocked after he had the first vision and after angels began to visit him to prepare him to be a prophet of God. He didn't know that his name would be had for good and for evil hundreds of years later, or that because of his life, 14 million people would be brought to a knowledge of Christ's true gospel. He just had a simple question and ended up getting a less than simple answer from the very eternal father of Heaven and His only begotten Son, Jesus Christ. They did indeed appear to him and converse with him, and the Book of Mormon is evidence of this. I love the Bible very much and it has taught me so much about Christ and his life. I love the Book of mormon because it only adds to the truth of the bible by giving us a full understanding of the atonement, something that the Bible lacks. Christ's suffering is the center of everything I believe and hold dear to me. Without his life and his divine act, life would be meaningless and I would not be hear as a missionary proclaiming this sweet message of redemption to everyone I meet. I know that the Book of Mormon is true and I know that Joseph Smith is a true prophet of God. If you have never though about these things, I invite you to because hey, why not?

I didn't leave much time to write about what is going on here but I will do a full update next week. Just know that I am in Centerville utah covering 11 wards (WUT), being spoon fed help with our work from the leaders here and living with THE cutest 89 year old woman who refuses to let us call her anything but grandma. I have been received into the loving arms of Sister Hornberger(Arkansas) and Sister Weber(Hawaii) and they are a blessing in my life. I love being a missionary and wouldn't want to do anything else with my life at this time. I look forward to my journey ahead and I am already learning that as long as I place my trust in god and the Savior that nothing else matters and all will be okay. My scripture of the week is Helaman 5:12 because I know if I build my foundation on my Lord Jesus Christ, I could be penniless and homeless and friendless and I would have everything I need.

Aloha,

Sister Pearson

P.S. the funniest moment of this week was when one of the men we're working with referenced the devil as "el Diablo". For him, it's a "he-who-must-not-be-named situation there. I love being a missionary.