6/20/16

Hello! Hmm, spiritual thought for the week. Well, I was reading where I'm at in the New Testament right now and was in Matthew 26 and reading about Christ and the Passover and atoning in Gethsemane. So like the Savior went to the garden and then in verse 38, the effects of the atonement are starting to hit Him and he asks Peter and the two sons of Zebedee to stay with him and "watch with me." Then He goes off to pray and plead and suffer. I mean, not too much to ask, right? Hey guys, this is really painful and hard and I'm about to take upon myself every single sin of the entire world, not to mention every sorrow and pain too. Can you just stick around for some moral support? But yet, He can back and saw they were asleep. And He says to Peter, "What, could ye not watch with me one hour?" Like bro, for real? You couldn't just stay awake one hour? And then He went back to continue praying. He came back to them asleep not just once, not just twice, but THREE TIMES. But He never got angry. 

The last time He came back He said, "Sleep on now, and take your rest." How many times in our life do we feel completely and utterly alone in our hardest times? How many times do the people who we are closest to leave us in our time of need? And how many times do we get angry and hurt and bitter because of this? How many times do we get angry at God and say, "Why God? Why would you leave me alone at a time like this?" How many times have we really needed support and encouragement, but no one was there? Christ himself, the most perfect man to walk the Earth, was left to bear the hardest burden ever to be taken alone. Just Him and Heavenly Father. But that didn't happen just once. It happened three times. 

The Saviors closest friends and disciples left Him. They didn't give Him that support that He asked for. So in those times when you feel so alone in your trials and burdens and feel like no one is there, just remember: Christ understands. Christ knows. He's been there. And because of that, you are NEVER alone. Heavenly Father is always there and so is His son, Jesus Christ. The two only friends you'll ever need. Just remember, Christ knows and Christ understands. 

Sister Peardon

6/13/16

So I had a super cool experience yesterday that I will share quickly cause I don't have a lot of time. So we went over to a less actives house yesterday who we had never met. And so we pull up and see that her front door is slightly open and so we went and knocked on it. She answered and invited us in and we go in and sit in her living room which is all dark and had like no lights on. And she goes on to tell us about how she barely has enough food to eat at all and how she never has any desire to do anything and like missed her cousins wedding the night before because of it. And she told us about how she thinks she is slipping into a depression. And we shared a few scriptures and thoughts with her and the change was amazing. She went and got her scriptures and turned some lights on and slowly started to open up more and her heart started to soften. She started telling us about her baptism and showed us pictures of it and of her family and laughing and telling us stories. It was incredible because we were seeing the light of Christ re-ignite in her right in front of our eyes. You could see that she could feel the spirit again and she was remembering what it was like to have it in her life. She had told us that she barely went outside anymore but she walked us out and talked to us more on her front porch and yeah, it was so cool to see how the Doctrine of Christ can change someone so drastically and so quickly. I hope we will continue to get to work with her and change her life back to how it used to be. Allow this gospel and Christ to change your life like it changed this womens. 

-Sister Peardon

6/6/16

So, one of our investigators Ray made us fried frog legs this week and I ate it and it wasn't that terrible, actually didn't taste like much. Needed a little more seasoning.  

My theme of my email this week is going to be member missionary work. Before I came out on the mission, member missionary work in my life was like nothing. We had the missionaries over for dinner sometimes and stuff, but I personally wasn't doing much cause I didn't think I had to. I didn't know it was a responsibility of being a member of the church. We see so many less active people and it is so interesting, like so much of the time, they don't come anymore because someone offended them or because they stopped going for a little bit and no one cared to check on them or something. It's always something to do with the members and never with the actual gospel of the church. I mean yes, as silly as it all is, but all of the things they talk about are so preventable. 

Like being a missionary, I get to see the huge impact that the tiniest things make. Like how important visiting and home teaching is and fellow shipping and just all the little things. Like we as missionaries have to rely on members SO much, because for the people we convert and re-activate, we aren't going to be there for them 24/7. We can't be their only friends. If they don't feel welcomed and accepted into the ward, they won't stay. They have brand new and fragile testimonies that won't survive on their own. They need fellow shipping and friends to help them along. It's very interesting working with a small branch here that averages 80 people per Sunday compared to my usual ward back home with like a billion and 4 people. Honestly, the branch here is a little dysfunctional and hostile. Like this branch needs to be a lot more unified and supportive of each other. 

Like I had some ideas of ways to get our investigators and the members together to fellow ship but then my companion was like yeah right, that could never happen in this branch. Just being in a branch is such a different concept to me. I'm so used to my huge ward back home with loving and supportive members. We are working on changing the branch though, it'll just take time. Ok, getting off track. 

SO I would like to challenge every one of you to go and visit someone who you haven't seen at church in a while or ask the Bishop for someone you could have over for dinner. It'll be fun, I promise. And it'll make a bigger impact than you know. In fact, it could affect generations. If that one person or family you visit or have over for dinner continues to go to church because you care, their kids and their kids kids and their kids kids kids could all end up growing up in the gospel. It's so worth the few hours of your time. I hope you all have a great week!! :-)

-Sister Peardon   

5/31/16

Well, not a whole lot to say about this past week. EXCEPT THAT IT WAS SO FRICKEN BUSY HOLY COW (We have cows in our backyard lol) Ok, fun fact about Flemingsburg, we live at LEAST 30 minutes away from anything of any worth or value in life. I literally spend like half of every day driving in a car. Our church building is 30 min away. So we had to drive like 4 hours this week to go to the mission home for new missionary training. It was so great though, learned so much, totally #worthit. 

We FINALLY got one of our investigators on a baptism date this week. His name is Paul and he's like 45 and used to smoke like a pack a day, but we've worked him down to like half a pack now. And tomorrow is his official stop smoking date so we will see how that goes. But so our mission has this thing right now, it's like #EveryoneBaptizesInJune, so like that's out mission goal right now and hopefully Paul will be our baptism. 

Yesterday was my official one month of being out in the mission field. Good times. Our mission president said the most amazing greatest thing in the world thing ever the other day. Like I would get it tattooed on my forehead get stickers and put it on everyones shirt I see. "If you want to do what nobody else has done, you need to be willing to do what nobody else is willing to do." UGH LOVE IT Like I mean think about it, it makes SO much sense but nobody ever thinks like that. So many people, me totally included like 50 times, talk about what they want to do all the time, but then don't do anything about it. Or we want to be extraordinary but then do ordinary things. It's like NO, if you wanna BE great, you gotta BEHAVE great. Idk, totally random thought but I still love it though. Hope ya'll are doing stellar and amazing and great :-)

-Sister Peardon