Dear Family,
Unfortunately i do not have any stories to top the "Murl Story" this week. I wish i did. This week has actually been quite crazy here as well. We went to Des Moines (which is about 2 hours away) 3 times in the last 3 days. Early early friday morning we went for our zone conference/mission tour. Elder Bowen from the 70 was touring our mission and giving conferences to the missionaries. He remembers wade very well and said to tell you hello. He also gave me a hug because i'm your little bro... the only missionary to get a hug there. His wife also says hello. They are great people. They taught us about the oath and covenant of the priesthood, the abrahamic covenant, and the house of israel. They were also pushing forward for a more exactly obedient mission. We all felt pretty rebuked at the end, but in a very loving way. This last week we were also asked by Pres Jergensen to only listen to MoTab from now on in the mission. And also conference talks. The rest of the day on Friday we went on exchanges with my district leader in Osceola. Then Saturday morning we drove back to Lenox and were picked up a couple of hours later to go back to Des Moines. It was also Stake Conference for us and the adult session was saturday night. We were allowed to go if we brought an investigator and drove up with members and we were able to do that so we were able to go. Elder Bowen and Elder Milchen from the 70 were speaking at that session of conference as well. They gave a quick intro and then just opened it up to a question and answer type scenario where people from the audience could just raise their hand and ask a question and they would answer it. I learned a lot and it was a really good session. After that we went to a restaurant called the Machine Shed which was super delicious. then we drove back to Lenox, and didn't get back until midnight unfortunately. We got back only to find that we were locked out of our house. so we were trying to card our way into our house and were doing that for a little while with no success. Then i asked elder Huston to try one more time as i was saying a silent prayer and before i was even done praying the door popped open. Prayers really are super effective to help ourselves, and also our investigators here in the mission. On sunday morning we then woke up extra early again and went back to Des Moines (this time with a different member) for the general session. Elder Bowen was once again their because the stake presidency was getting reorganized. so i got to hear him speak 3 days in a row which was way cool. a lot of driving though. Then we drove back to Lenox that afternoon and witnessed this miracle. We were visiting with an investigator, Amos. He said that he smoked his last cigarette yesterday and was very ready to be baptized. We set a date with him for December 10th because he has to be smoke free for 2 weeks before he can be baptized. Awesome things are happening in the Lenox branch. also on a quick side note... in Lenox we meet in a house like i've said before and whenever someone gets up to the pulpit and says good morning, the congregation always says good morning back to them. It caught me off guard the first time, but now i'm used to it. so used to it that i almost said good morning at stake conference when Elder Bowen got up to speak.
It sounds like you have seen a lot of family and friends in the last couple of days/weeks. Tell them all hello back for me if you see them again. It's good to hear that everyone is doing well. I still get an e-mail from Everett every couple of weeks and it's pretty much the same story with me. I'm sure you did amazing in your "farewell" talks. It sounds like it would have been a superb and emotional sacrament meeting.
For Thanksgiving we are going over to a member's house. And they are having a bunch of people over including family and friends (some of which are non-members) so we will be able to do some teaching as well when we are over there. We have received about 4 invitations to other peoples houses as well so we are being taken care of very well. This last wednesday we had a pre thanksgiving dinner as well. the YM/YW invited us to the thanksgiving dinner they were having for mutual and it was a legit dinner.
That's interesting that they are doing all of those renovations to the MTC. Moving the bookstore sounds like quite a big task to do. They have a lot of service volunteers around though haha. I'm glad that you are starting to get the real experience of being there and partaking of the wonderful spirit that is always their... even in the cafeteria. We have 19 missionaries from the des moines stake serving missions. One of them is from our branch. It was a real eye opener. I was trying to think, do we have around 10 serving from our ward alone? It's good to see that the work is moving forward though wherever you are in the world.
I actually haven't worn my big coat around yet. I think i'm just hoping that it will stay not warm, but at least not freezing cold for a little while longer. We've only had the one snow storm so far. I've been fine with just a sweater and my suit coat, and sometimes a hat. We had a nice recent convert in our branch just make us scarves as well. She crocheted them for us. That's probably not how you spell that. Thank you so much for all of the support for me and my parents (whoever else reads this). We really do feel your prayers.
Love, Elder Peterson
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