Dear Family,
Howdy! You may not be able to type in Russian, but I can type in Iowan haha. I'm getting down the Iowa lingo pretty well. It isn't a whole lot different but it can be funny at times. A lot of people whistle while they talk because a lot of them are missing teeth but they are the kindest people. I'm doing good and the work couldn't be better. I gave out my first book of mormon yesterday to a fellow named Rodney. He is a truck driver and he will only be in Iowa for two weeks before he goes to north dakota, but it was fun talking to him. We are going by his house again tonight. I hope he read some of it! I've been studying mostly on the first lesson in PMG during personal study time and me and my companion have practiced teaching it together and it seems to go smoothly in practice. We don't spend a whole lot of time tracting. I've been for maybe like an hour and a half total. Yesterday we were in Gilbert, a city pertinear to Story City, for a dinner appointment. After dinner we contacted the house of the pasture for the Gilbert Lutheran Church and offered to teach in his sunday school class to answer questions and such, but he declined the offer.
The less actives are really good. Most of them are coming to church pretty consistently now. It's fun teaching them, because the lessons we plan aren't usually out of preach my gospel, because they know the basics of the doctrines. One of the people we are teaching is having a tough time. Her son was married to a girl and they had a child, but they took a DNA test and it isn't his son. So it's been interesting to teach her, but she is coming to church and hopefully finding peace in the gospel. I can tell a difference in her already from just the two weeks i have been here. There are some pretty crazy stories with the people out here though. One of our recent converts had a child at the age of 13... and it was planned. So she is 23 and her oldest son is 10 but she is the sweetest person and a very good church member. The heat actually hasn't been that bad. The first week i was here the humidity was low but now it is slowly climbing back up. Nothing too too hot yet though. Knock on wood.
That is SO awesome that Kallie and Casey are getting sealed this week. I am so happy for them. I wish that I had gone to the Logan temple before i left. I hear it is really beautiful though. I get to attend the Nauvoo temple at least 4 times on my mission, and the pagaent once. On P-Days if you live close enough to the temple you can go and also if you are in the Nauvoo area itself, you can help clean the temple as well. We only have a certain number of miles to drive though so i don't know how often we will actually go. Where I am right now is definitely out of the question. We don't even have enough miles to go to all the cities in our area consistently. Iowa Falls is in our area but it's 90 miles round trip. I haven't actually been up there yet but we are planning on going this sunday and meeting with the more active families to set up some member missionary work. That is one reason why there aren't many people from up there that come to church because they can't afford the gas money to come here every week.
That stinks that you have 2 houses flooding. Satan really does love to create opposition right when good things are about to happen. We actually taught a lesson on just that to a less active. We used the story of Joseph Smith and of Moses. We all know the story of Joseph Smith, but I find it interesting that Satan didn't try to stop him with a whole lot of opposition until he actually started praying in the grove. If good things are meant to happen, they will. It is during this time of most opposition that we need to exert ALL our powers to call upon God to deliver us from the enemies which hold us bound. With the case of Moses, Satan was wanting Moses to worship him. Satan even lied to the point where he called himself the only begotten son. But Moses received first a little strength to stand against Satan. Then Satan came back harder and put fear into Moses. However it was at this time that he received all the strength he needed in order to get rid of Satan and the fear. I know that this gospel is true and we can draw on the strength of our Heavenly Father whenever we need to.
Love, Elder Peterson
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