December 31, 2012

Dear Family,

 

This e-mail says part 1, but i don't have the part 2 yet so i'll just go off of this.  It has been just a crazy week for me this last week.  We've been running around like chickens with our heads cut off it would seem.  Christmas was awesome!  It was so fun to be able to talk to you (parents) on Christmas.  It was the highlight of the day for sure.  Your example continues to inspire me to continue to become a better missionary.  As well as the example of now Braden and Whitney and all the examples that came before.  So some exciting news... we reached our mission goal of 400 baptisms for the year 2012!!  We actually baptized exactly 400 people as of yesterday and i think there is one or two more today.  What is even more exciting is that Elder Dyer and I ended up having a baptism yesterday and he was number 400!  We baptized Gary Weis.  He was the one that I thought was crazy when I first met him because he sang a song to me that he didn't really know the words to and such.  We've been meeting with him for a while now and we both felt impressed that he was to be a part of the 400 souls that were to be baptized this year.  We picked him up for church last week and he said that he had been smoke and drink free for 3 weeks now.  He also came to church yesterday.  We saw him on Thursday and told him that he was ready to be baptized on Sunday, 3 days later.  He said Ok and we went over the baptismal interview questions with him and he knew all of them.  We saw him Friday as well and filled out the baptismal record and did some more review.  He had his interview on Saturday and passed and then the baptism on Sunday.  Everything just fell into place and it's true that the purposes of the Lord will roll on and be fulfilled.  I'm just glad that I could be a part of His work.  It really was a white Christmas for me!

 

Well normally P-Days we work from 6-9 at night but because today is New Year's Eve, our cars are grounded at 6.  We can be with members at their house, but they have to pick us up and we still have to be back in by 9 and asleep by 10:30 which I am more than happy to comply with.  So it's basically like we get the whole day for a P-Day.  We are going to be going over to the Churchill's for dinner and might play some games or something.  Our investigator Kirk is still doing well.  We actually had him drive us to church and stay with us so that was a great way to get him to come to church!  It worked out for us too because we didn't have the car.  We are teaching him the word of wisdom on Wednesday so we will see how that goes.  He is a pretty accomplished drinker you could say.

 

A member of our ward gave a talk at Gary's baptism and he phrased something about eternal families in a way that I had never thought of before.  Imagine you are looking for someone in New York City who just stays in one place the whole time.  You eventually would find them, but it would take years to look everywhere with the 8 or so million people that live in that city.  Now imagine being in the spirit world with billions of people trying to find your family without being sealed to them.  Being sealed is a gaurantee that we will be able to find our families and be around everyone that we love in the life hereafter.  Just a cool thought that I had never crossed my mind.

 

So the pictures are of Gary's baptism.  Our bishop performed the actual ordinance, but Elder Dyer was in the font as well to help with the dunking part because Gary isn't in the best of health.  Then i confirmed him.  The next is us with the Bruins.  We spent Christmas Eve with them and went back over on Christmas day as well.  Then me with the presents, and them under our little tree and the wreckage on Christmas morning.  I'll send more pictures in another e-mail. 

 

I love you all so much and thank you for all of the thoughts, e-mails, cards, packages, etc and mostly thank you for all the love and prayers in my behalf!  i know that this church is true!

 

Love, Elder Peterson

I found the closest thing I could to a mountain here in Iowa.  It's in the parking lot of the mall here in West Des Moines.  i don't know how they plowed the snow up that high, but it's like 2/3rds of the way up that light pole.  Also a poor little VW bug in our parking lot that won't be going anywhere anytime soon.

Merrry Christmas!

Merry Christmas Family!

 

So with the libraries being closed next week until after Wednesday we've been asked to do all of our e-mailing today instead of on P-day.  This has been a pretty good week.  We finally got our first snow of the year, and boy did it come down.  We woke up Thursday morning to 11 inches i think was the official recording.  Also it was super windy and cold and all of everywhere was just iced over.  I wonder if i got a little taste of Russia in this storm.  All of the cars were grounded on Thursday and we had to cancel district meeting.  Usually these days are a great opportunity to get out and do some service with a snow shovel, but with my ankle how it is I wasn't even allowed to leave the apartment because they didn't want me to slip and fall.  We were allowed to go to our dinner appointment though, they just had to come pick us up.  I watched from inside the doorway as Elder Dyer helped some of our neighbors get unstuck from their parking places.  Also we went with the Bishop and helped Amber get her car unstuck as well after dinner.  It was a slow day.  We weekly planned and cleaned our apartment and played Risk a couple of times.  It is a good thing we cleaned though because the next day we got a call that they wanted to come inspect our apartment this morning so we passed that cleaning check with flying colors.  We even cleaned the base of the toilet just like you taught me mom ;)

 

I've been meaning to take some pictures of all the snow and what not, but for some reason haven't.  Next week i'll hope to send you all some pictures of my latest adventures.  All of the roads are still icey and the cars are all grounded after 6 pm until further notice.  We don't have the car this week though so it doesn't effect us a whole lot i guess.  With the Christmas season coming up most of our investigators are now home for the holidays and a lot of the members are gone too.  We have quite a bit of students in our ward so they are all gone.  We do have a sweet line up for Christmas eve and Christmas day though.  Not as sweet as a pirate Christmas.  It's funny because i've actually been on somewhat of a pirate kick with my companion lately so it made me laugh when i heard this years theme for the party.  We are going to have dinner with the Relief society president and also a part member family and two single moms in the ward so that will be sweet. 

 

The part member family that we will be with on Christmas is one that we have been working with. This last monday we actually had a church presentation with them.  We went around to different rooms and taught their whole family the Restoration.  It was really powerful.  His daughter started crying near the end and bore her testimony and his wife also.  It was just a powerful lesson.  We invited him to find out for himself if this was true and then to be baptized and he said that he would put some effort into finding out.  Before when the missionaries would talk to him and invite him he would just say "no thank you" and not show any interest.  This time was way different though. He is a unique man.  He comes to church every week with his family and even has a calling in scouting that he does a great job at fulfilling.  He just isn't a member.  We also got him hooked up with some bomb home teachers that are a perfect match for him so i think that will be helping out a lot as well.

 

With this snow storm coming and also with my study in the scriptures i've been thinking about service a lot lately.  I was mainly thinking about the contrast in techniques that Ammon and Aaron both initially took when they first started their missions.  Aaron just immediately started preaching and calling the people to repentance and he got thrown into jail with his brethren.  And it wasn't entirely his fault.  The scriptures say it was his lot to fall into a more stiffnecked and hard hearted people.  But Ammon the first thing he did was go to the king and ask to be his servant.  Before King Lamoni even knew Ammon was a missionary, Ammon was doing service for him.  Eventually this lead to a great conversion and a lot of people came unto Jesus Christ because of this.  Also after Aaron was let out of prison he went to King Lamoni's father and said let me be your servant if you will spare our lives and then from there taught King Lamoni's father and converted him and his wife and a lot of other people as well.  I was kind of bummed out because i wasn't able to get out and do a lot of manual labor service for people in the snow, but i've been finding ways that i can serve people.  Whether it's baking them cookies or just talking to them while Elder Dyer does the manual labor haha.  This one lady, Layton, we helped get unstuck and then gave her some goodies and now we have an appointment to go teach her tonight.  Miracles happen when you serve others.  Also let us not forget the greatest example of all, Jesus Christ.  Christmas is the perfect time for us to celebrate Christ's birth by going out and serving other people.  I know that this church is true.  I love all of you!

 

Love, Elder Peterson

 

P.S.  I got Kallie and Casey's card and also Mark and Mindy's card.  Thank you so much!  I appreciate all of you!

December 17, 2012

Dear Family,

This has been a somewhat interesting week.  First off thank you to everyone who has mailed me packages!  I forgot to make a list to make sure I said everyone's that i have received because I know you wonder if i ever get them sometimes.  I got G&G Peterson, G&G Wright, Wade and fam, Steve Wright and fam, and I think that is all.  This is going to be a great Christmas.  To answer your question mom, transfers was not this week.  They are going to be on the 27th of December.  Next week will go by real quick because it's Christmas Eve, and then Christmas, then P-Day, then Transfers.  My guess is that both Elder Dyer and I will be staying together for another transfer.  To go along with this interesting week, last Monday while playing basketball i injured my ankle... see the picture.  The picture is actually 3 days after the fact or so and it is still swollen up.  I'm icing it and elevating it and wrapped it.  I hesitate to say we were PLAYING basketball because we were at the church for like 3 minutes still just warming up and shooting around and I jumped up and came down on it wrong.  So it got really big, like size of a cantelope big, and we went back to the apartment and I called sister Jergensen.  She told me just to take ibuprofen, ice it, elevate it, things I already knew and they also had some crutches at the mission home that we had a member pick up for us and deliver them to me.  So this past week i've been on crutches.  We weren't originally supposed to have the car this week, but the other elders were nice and let us have it.  The sad thing is that the crutches were meant for someone who is a maximum 5'10''.  I had to slouch to use them, but they were what was available.  Luckily for me, our ward is chalk full of Foot Doctor students who are going to DMU to become pediatrists and also a full fledged foot and ankle surgeon.  So I went and saw him 2 days later and he said i should probably come into his clinic so that they could x-ray it and make sure nothing was broken and so that i could get a boot.  I called sister Jergensen again, because my ankle was still huge half way through the week and bruising now, to seek permission to go see a doctor. This was Thursday night now.  Friday she called back and I talked to her and then Elder Craner (who is the Doctor assigned to this mission and 2 others i believe) and he said i should go see a doctor and get a boot.  By the time i got the permission to go though it was too late in the afternoon and i couldn't find anywhere until today and i went and saw the surgeon in our ward.  Nothing is broken, but it's badly ruptured they said and now i'm in a walking boot for a minimum of 6 weeks.  We are still working out the details of how the car share is going to work and all that jazz. 

So that is my story for the week.  I've been hopping around everywhere until today where i can walk again.  On a funnier shaft in the whirlwind of the devil thrown at me note, i also dropped my toothbrush in the toilet yesterday morning.  However i still have a smile on my face and we are working as hard as we can.  So some cool news, our Recent convert Amber went to the temple on Saturday and loved it!  It is so sweet seeing her still work hard after her baptism to keep progressing.  In other news we are still working with Kirk and he is doing great.  Didn't make it to church this week unfortunately.  We are meeting with him tomorrow night though.  He has come along way since we first talked with him at our mailbox. 

Unfortunately I don't have a lot of time this week because my doctor's appointment and then we had our carpets cleaned today by our zone leaders ate up most of our p-day and we still have to go shopping and set up for a church presentation we are putting on tonight.  I love you all and have enjoy the season!  Wade and Brittany are you still carrying on the Christmas Eve tradition and if so what is the theme this year?  This church is true!

Love, Elder Peterson :)

December 10, 2012

Dear Family,

 

I am recovered from my food poisoning stint.  Well it is finally starting to feel like winter here.  We had our first snowing of the season yesterday.  All of it is gone today, but the temperatures are below freezing so it gave me a good excuse to break out my big fluffy russian winter coat.  Yesterday we went to our investigators houses and scraped the snow off of their cars for them and to make sure they were coming to church, but unfortunately none of the ones we visited came.  We did have one father who is not a member attend with his family and we set up a church presentation for next monday night to do as a Family Home Evening.  If you haven't sent off the christmas packages yet, i've thought of something else i could use.  Ear bud headphones would be nice to have for when we are on mormon.org in the library so i can listen to the videos and such.  With all the hype of Santa going around I was thinking the other day about when Clark would come to our house as Santa and specifically when Wade was sitting on his lap and asked for ski poles.  However he had to promise to help with the dishes or else he would only get one ski pole.  It makes me smile to think about and that's the memory of the week.

 

So we actually picked up 3 new investigators this week.  2 of them were former investigators that we got back in contact with and started teaching again.  One of them is named Beverly and she is 83 years old.  She really loves the church, but her son is mostly what is holding her back.  We always have good lessons with her though and a sweet spirit is there when we teach with her.  Our other new investigator actually came from the new roommate of a less-active in the ward.  We as missionaries are assigned to 3 people to be their home teachers.  We went to home teach this lady and her roommate was pretty interested in the church so we actually ended up teaching the first discussion.  It was awesome!  We taught our investigator Kirk a super sweet lesson.  We taught all about faith.  We talked about prayer as well and he actually told us that he feels like his prayers are being heard now.  He even had a tear brought to his eye while praying and he now recognizes what the Holy Ghost feels like and that God indeed answers prayers.  We set a baptismal date with him for Januray 19th.

 

We got news that the transfer of February to March is only going to be 5 weeks now instead of 6 weeks.  Then the transfer cycles will be going back to 6 weeks again like normal after that.  So in the grand scheme of things, i'll be coming home a week earlier, just one day shy of my 2 year mark.  I heard from my friend Zach who is serving in Ukraine that he is coming home 4 weeks earlier because of the cycle changes in his mission.  It's exciting to have these changes happening and to start receiving more missionaries into the field.  I got a letter from Whitney a couple of weeks ago to answer your question.  I know that she is going to be serving a mission!  And that her papers are received in SLC.  I'm excited to see where she will go.  The family from Africa... Saliboko, Tunza, Mawazo, and Pascal were all baptized on Saturday.  I was really glad to see that they were baptized.

 

My thought of the day comes from Helaman 3.  Some context: members of the church are starting to become prideful because they are prospering in the land.  They also just had 10,000 baptisms.  Probably pretty stoked at this point.  The verse I want to focus on though is verse 35.  It says: Nevertheless they did ^afast and ^bpray oft, and did wax stronger and stronger in their ^chumility, and firmer and firmer in the faith of Christ, unto the filling their souls with joy and consolation, yea, even to the ^dpurifying and the ^esanctification of their hearts, which sanctification cometh because of their ^fyielding their hearts unto God.

 

We had a lesson in Elders quorom about forgiveness and we talked about the need to be humble in order to forgive and to be forgiven.  This verse kept coming back to my mind.  Sometimes we think of humility as weakness, but we see that when we wax stronger and stronger in humility, our faith becomes firmer and firmer in Christ.  In Jacob we learn that-  and having all these ^bwitnesses we obtain a hope, and our faith becometh unshaken, insomuch that we truly can ^ccommand in the ^dname of Jesus and the very trees obey us, or the mountains, or the waves of the sea.  We can do all things in line with the will of God when our faith is great.  So humility really equals strength.  There are other things that I love about Helaman 3:35, but no time to tell you all of them.  I will tell you this though, that i know the church is true.  I know that the book of mormon is true.  I love you all!

 

Love, Elder Peterson

December 3, 2012

Dear Family,

 

This week has been a week of highs and lows.  The high was definitely Amber's baptism on Saturday and confirmation on Sunday.  The low was that both Elder Dyer and I got food poisoning Sunday night so we were down for the count from about 7 o'clock sunday night until when we woke up this morning.  We are feeling better today but still not 100%.  That doesn't stop us from going out and doing the work though.  It does explain why this e-mail is a day late though.  No worries, we are doing just fine. 

 

So going back to the baptism.  We had everything go wrong, but everything turn out right.  We got a call from Amber in the morning that her daughter Hope had been sick and throwing up all night.  We asked her if she thought they would survive the car ride over and she said yes so they came to the church and we gave Hope a priesthood blessing.  Within the next 5 minutes she was running around again as if she had slept through the night like no big deal.  That was a miracle!  Then there was another baptism in the building that morning.  We had filled up the font for them and watched their baptism and it was great, but apparently the font was slowly draining so when it came time for Amber's baptism the water level was fairly low.  But after the third attempt she was completely submerged and no problems there.  Then we confirmed her on Sunday and it was great.  We unfortunately missed the Christmas Devotional due to being ill, but i'm hoping to get a chance to watch it on lds.org sometime this week perhaps.

 

I haven't had to wear my big russian coat yet this winter.  Yesterday it was in the 60's and today it's sunny and in the 50's.  Really odd, but i'll take it.  It didn't shed feathers all over my suitcoat last year, so i'm hoping it won't this year either.  This morning we had an appointment set up with a former investigator whos name is Bev.  We actually just ran into her on the street and started talking with her and set up an appointment to go visit with her and she told us her name and i thought to myself this name sounds familiar.  It turns out she was a former investigator.  She is 83 years old and almost joined the church a couple three years ago, but her son got in the way.  We had a really good lesson this morning that was definitely led by the spirit.  We invited her to be baptized and she said of course if she comes to know that the book of mormon is true.  We are meeting with her again on Saturday.

 

We had our ward Christmas party on Saturday night.  It was great.  We had a program first that our ward choir put on and they did a wonderful job.  They really brought the spirit in.  Then we had dinner and Santa came to visit and pass out candy canes and have the children sit on his lap.  A lot of the students who attend Des Moines University who used to be part of the ward before it got split came to the party as well.  I didn't know any of them, but Elder Dyer had fun seeing them again.  You asked about the mission office address being in urbandale in your last letter.  So the office where all the mail goes is in Urbandale which is only about 15 minutes from where we live.  The mission home is where President and Sister Jergensen live when they are  in town and where the missionaries stay their first and last night in the mission.  That is pretty much just up the street from us.  So two different places.

 

I also wanted to thank you for forwarding Braden's e-mails to me.  I really enjoy reading those!   On a seperate note, my debit card expired.  So do i need to order a new one or is that something that you can do from home or what not.  I'm not really sure how to proceed with that, but i need a new one.  And i thought of something that i might need for Christmas and that is a writing journal.  My other is probably going to be all filled up by the end of this week.

 

Here is a brief thought I had from my studies recently.  I've been studying about the light of Christ and how to connect it with the Holy Ghost essentially.  Here is something i've come up with.  In the Bible Dictionary it says, “The light of Christ should not be confused with the personage of the Holy Ghost, for the light of Christ is not a personage at all.  Its influence is preliminary to and preparatory to one’s receiving the Holy Ghost.  The light of Christ will lead the honest soul who ‘hearkeneth to the voice’ to find the true gospel and the true Church and thereby receive the Holy Ghost”.   True conversion is a spiritual witness from the Holy Ghost.  One thing i've been working on is to personalize, in a sense, the way people feel the Holy Ghost and the way I invite it into their lives so that it connects with them in such a way to give them that true conversion.  I know that it truly is through the Holy Ghost that we become converted to this gospel.  I'm so greatful for the Holy Ghost in my life and for the conversion it has brought to me.  i know that this church is true!

 

Love, Elder Peterson

November 26, 2012

Hola Familia,

 

My Thanksgivings were fantastic.  It was a super nice day... perfect for a turkey bowl.  Unfortunate how we couldn't participate this year due to some missionaries getting injured playing football in the past.  Our stake put on a turkey bowl i believe and it went well... only one person got a concussion.  We did have 2 back to back dinners.  Even though I thought i was being conservative on my first and only plate at the first dinner, i was still full but still found the room to squeeze down another full plate at our other members house.  They had Amber and her daughter over to eat with us and also a lady who is originally from Brazil.  She speaks pretty good english and we got to talk with her a little bit about the gospel and things we are greatful for in our lives.  We did not go around the table and all say things we were thankful for, but i did think about that and how i was missing out on that tradition this year.

 

Amber passed her interview with flying colors so we have the go ahead for the baptism this Saturday.  It's going to be super sweet!  The spanish branch that meets in the same building is also having a baptism that morning.  It was interesting because their branch president came up and talked to us because their baptism is scheduled for 10 and ours is for 10 30.  It shouldn't be a problem, but i'll never complain about having too many baptisms being in the way of eachother!  It was kind of an interesting week at church.  A lot of the ward was gone for Thanksgiving.  Also with the new boundaries there were altogether new members to the ward and also some people visiting for the holidays so everyone was all mixed up.  The organist and the chorister were impromptu asked to participate for that day and they did pretty good.  Elder Dyer and I gave talks in Sacrament meeting and also helped pass the sacrament due to the lack of priesthood holders there this week.  Also we taught in second hour the gospel essentials class which got combined with the 14-18 youth class because their teacher was gone also.   We also half taught the third hour.  It was a crazy sunday.  It all worked out though and things are going great.  Luckily for us, our presidencies weren't lost like much of the other wards with their presidents moving into the other ward boundaries so we still had some organization there.

 

I can't remember if I told you about our investigator named Kirk or not.  He lives just down the hall from us and is a drummer in a band.  We've taught him a couple three times now.  He came to church on Sunday!  He was even dressed up in slacks, a white shirt and a tie.  It was amazing to see this gentleman, who doesn't really know who God is or the role He plays in our lives, exercise a little particle of faith and come to church to help his little faith seed grow.  He stayed for the first 2 hours and then left before priesthood which is ok.  I'm just glad he was there.  We are going back over there this week.

 

It's been getting a lot colder now recently.  Our abnormally warm winter is back to it's regular Iowa winter stage now.  I think it might supposed to warm up in the next couple of days but i'm not sure.  Elder Dyer got a little plastic foot tall tree that we set up in the apartment.  I put all the 4 packages i got from wal mart next to it and tried not to totally hide the tree.  I've decided to wait until Christmas to open them. ;)  To answer your question Wade and Rachael I can't really think of anything i need for Christmas.  Something small and easy to tote around would be good seeing as how i'll probably already be having to send things home by mail since it won't all fit in my trunks under the weight limit.  It's boring, but money or gift cards are always much appreciated.  Or snacky foods are good too.  Good looking ties are always a favorite, although i have plenty.  A nice hand written sentiment would even be enough.  Speaking of Christmas we have been told about Mormon.orgs new Christmas Campaign thing that they have launched.  I haven't had a chance to dabble around on it much yet, but it's supposed to be really cool and a good way to share the gospel with people.  We as missionaries are to have a short christmas message prepared at all times because you can now request the missionaries to specifically come just to share a christmas message with your family.

 

Also Wade to answer your question about the car share.  We have it a week on and then a week off.  We share with one other companionship who borders our area.  You don't get to sign up for it and car hogs aren't available.  Unless you consider areas with a full time car car hogs.  Biking around has been fun... but then my tire popped so we have to go fix that today.  Not quite sure how it popped, because it happened when it was just resting in the apartment and not while we were riding around.  I'll count that as a blessing though.  There are not as many people outside now that it's getting a lot colder though.  You might have already told me this, but Rachael are you having a boy or a girl? 

 

This gospel is so true and i am so thankful for it.  Much love

November 19, 2012

Hey there family,

 

Alrighty so my new area is in West Des Moines.  I actually live just like right down the street from the mission home.  President and sister Jergensen are always gone though so he assures me that i'm not here just so he can keep an eye on me, but we joke around about it still.  The reason for the e-mail on Tuesday this week is because we had our mission tour yesterday and so our p-day got pushed back to today.  Elder Clarke from the seventy came and instructed us.  It was really neat.  I'll share some thoughts later in the message.  My new companion is Elder Dyer.  He is from Alabama.  Interestingly enough he was actually Elder Taylor's MTC companion.  So i'm his breaker, which just means i'm his second companion in the mission field and break some of the habits that he and his trainer had and show him other styles of missionary work and such.  He's a cool dude and we'll be getting along great.  I've seen some of the area but haven't had a chance to meet too much of the ward yet.  It was actually stake conference on Sunday.  This time last year i attended the same stake conference in Des Moines.  I even saw some people I knew from the Lenox branch so it was fun to see them again.  When i was there last year the stake presidency got reorganized and now it's crazy to think the President Pence has been in for a year now.  It was good to see him again as well and the meeting was great. 

 

We had one investigator there.  Her name is Amber.  We are going to be baptizing her on December 1st.  She also has a 7 year old daughter named Hope that came as well.  We got a chance to teach her the first night I was in town.  She has to be interviewed by President Jergensen in order to be baptized and that is going to be taking place next Sunday.  So assuming that that goes well we will have a baptism here pretty soon.  We also have 2 investigators on date for the 15th of December but i haven't met them yet and they weren't able to make it to the stake conference.  I guess recently Gladys Night did a fireside concert type thing in Des Moines about the church and they are referalls from that.  I heard it was really good, but i wasn't here to go to it.  We have also found 3 new investigators in the short time i've been here.  One just lives down the hall from us and is a drummer in a band and the other 2 are teenagers of a part member family.  There dad is fairly active and they both want to be baptized from what i could gather in our lesson with them.  They  already consider themselves mormons so we just have to teach them all the true doctrine they need to know.  Look for a baptismal date with them for december as well.  It was actually a miracle that we got in to set up an appointment with them because we biked to their house and knocked on the door and nobody answered.  We were going to bike away and Elder Dyer got a little ahead of me but the visor thing fell off of my helmet so i stopped in the driveway to put it back on and I yelled at him to stop and he saw the dad working on their fence in the backyard and started talking to him and he let us in and we saw the two boys and were able to set up a time to go teach them and our teaching appointment worked great.  By small and simple things are great things brought to pass.  it was not a coincidence that my visor fell off. 

 

I am in a car share again so we got to do a lot of biking the first week i was here.  It's actually pretty fun because in West Des Moines here the biking trails pretty much just honeycomb the city and you can really get anywhere.  The bike I have is pretty interesting and only has a front wheel brake... but i haven't flipped over yet so that's good.  The ward from what i've heard is really good.  I did meet the bishop at stake conference and he seems like a great guy.  I think we have 2 or 3 Thanksgiving dinners lined up for this week so we definitely won't be lacking in the food area.  On Friday, the day after I got here, we went to Ames to the Iowa State University campus and did service for the Iowa games. It was basically a big basketball tournament for all ages and boys and girls. What we did, along with our whole zone of missionaries and the Ames zone of missionaries, is sit behind a table and keep score for the games.  It was pretty fun, but by the 11th game that we did it for we were done.  It was a long time to be sitting behind a table.  We were over the 8th grade boys, so they were pretty entertaining to watch.  Our mission helps with it every year and we got a free shirt and on the back it lists our church as one of the sponsors so that is pretty cool.  They also brought around free waters and powerades a lot more frequently than last year i guess so that was good too.

 

Well I love you all!  I hope everything continues to go well and that God continues to bless you.

 

Love, Elder Peterson

November 12, 2012

Dear Family,

 

This has been a very busy week.  We got the official call on Saturday that i'll be leaving this area.  Sorry I couldn't e-mail on Monday, but the library was closed due to Veterans day the day before.  But i'm still alive no worries!  We have been running around like crazy to go visit a bunch of people before I leave.  We have had people to see about every hour from 11 to 9 every night and still haven't been able to see everybody.  Today will start the packing adventure.  I've been doing a little bit the last couple of nights.  We also need to clean the apartment today and it's just going to be busy plus we have some more people scheduled to go see later tonight as well.  I've really gotten to know these people pretty well from being here for 9 months.  I'm excited to move on and meet new people though, but sad at the same time to leave these amazing people behind.

 

Things are continuing to go well with Saliboko and his family and also with Simeon and Prince.  The Rock Island elders who are also in our ward have recently found a lot of refugees and so the missionaries here are going to start up an English class.  Won't be here for that.  This last week the person who we would normally take with us to translate was out of town.  We asked around the other wards in the quad cities and found 2 more people who know french and they were able to come along with us and translate for us during the 2 lessons we had.  Tomorrow morning we head to Iowa City and i'll learn where i'm going which i'll tell you in next weeks e-mail.  The weather is getting colder here, but haven't had any snow yet... knock on wood.  Haven't had to break out the big heavy coat yet either. 

I'm sorry for the letter being so short, but we have a lot to do today.  I love you all and appreciate the e-mails!  it's so good to hear updates.  That's cool the Lauren Richardson is going on a mission.  We were visiting the Henderson family yesterday and with the new age for missionaries they might have 3 missionaries out at the same time!  This work is just awesome

 

Love, Elder Peterson

November 5, 2012

Hello hello family,

 

It has been a great week this week as usual.  Of course, every week is great if you choose to make it that way.  We taught two lessons this week in French.  Those lessons are always fun for me and really spiritual.  We have found more french speaking members in the quad cities who are willing to come and help us.  I know what you mean when you say you have to factor in the time that it takes to translate.  My favorite part is at the end when we ask them to pray, although we don't know what they are saying, we feel the spirit.  The gospel is true no matter what language it is in.  With Saliboko he sometimes prays in Swahili so that his wife understands and then even our translator doesn't know what he is saying, we just recognize Yesu Kristo Amen and say amen.  We had our first lesson with Simeon and Prince who came to church last week.  They had really good questions and they are so ready for this gospel.  We will be going back on Saturday and trying to set a baptismal date for the 15th of December.  Simeon came to church again this week (Prince was at the hospital with his sister) and he got along really well with Saliboko.  It is good for them to have a friend at church.  I don't know what they talk about or anything, but they love coming to church and are dedicated to come every week.  And the members are dedicated to picking them up every week which is good as well.  In total our ward had 14 investigators at church on Sunday! 9 of them were ours and 5 were the Rock Island elders.  We had a great testimony meeting and even went over on time about 20 minutes because people were non stop bearing there testimonies.  I got up and bore mine because I knew it would probably be the last chance I got before the transfer is over.  We get calls this Saturday to know for sure who is getting transfered.  I'm pretty certain that I will be leaving though after spending 9 months here and just finishing training.

 

I am so happy to hear that every thing went well with Braden entering the MTC.  I wish I could have been there for that, but I wouldn't trade what i'm doing right now for anything in the world.  It truly is the happiest i've been in my life.  I wish you the best (if you are reading this) on these next two years buddy.  The time goes by too fast.  We had a movie night on Friday night where we showed the Joseph Smith:Prophet of the Restoration video in our gym at the church.  It's the same one they play at the memorial building.  We had a pretty good turnout.  About 25 people came to watch the movie.  6 of them were missionaries... but we had i think 5 non members in attendance.  We were hoping to have around 50 people show up.  We spread the word like crazy and gave out flyers about 2 weeks in advance and were committing everybody to come.  We also had cookies and brownies and cupcakes afterwards and we had a LOT of extras that we got to take home.  We've also gotten a lot of candy from various people for Halloween so my sweet tooth is fully satisfied.  I also got your package Grandma Joan and Grandpa Pete.  Thank you so much!  The cookies are delicious (my favorite).  I will also save that golf ball to play when we get back... even if it has the BYU insignia on it.

 

I do remember that brown paper bag game.  That was a fun game.  For Halloween we were in by 6 and my companion and I played some games together in our apartment.  Then the Luthy family picked us up and we went to their home for a little while and taught them a lesson.  Kind of a not-so-exciting day.  We did attend a trunk or treat that the Methodist church invited us to.  We do service at the food pantry that is in the church so they invited us to their dealio.  We mostly went because they were cooking hotdogs for everybody and we didn't have a dinner appointment.  It was funny because we were in our suits with our tags on and then i just put some sunglasses on so they thought we had dressed up as the FBI or something like that and we got a lot of compliments on our costumes.  We met the head pastor that night, I had only ever met his wife before who is the associate pastor, and he was very nice and glad that we came.  Carrie is still doing great.  It is actually the home teachers duty here to teach the new member lessons.  However we are teaching her son Trever so we get to teach her the lessons again through her son.  We set a baptismal date with him for Jan 19.  We only get to teach him every other weekend because he is with his dad every other week.  He also has ADHD which makes us have to think of how we can make the lessons exciting and hold the attention of an 11 year old for more than 5 minutes :)

I know that this church is true with all of my heart!  Love you all,

 

Elder Peterson

October 28, 2012

Dear Family,

What a wonderful week we have had here.  We had Carrie's baptism on Saturday and the confirmation that following day.  We had a good turnout at the baptism.  Around 50 people were there... including 2 investigators from some of the other missionaries serving around us.  One of the investigators that came was able to set her own baptismal date afterwards which was super sweet!  The spirit that was their was great and i know that everyone who attended was able to feel it.  It took three times in the baptismal font until she was completely submerged.  On Sunday Elder Taylor confirmed her and then we had the primary program that day.  That was great.  We had 2 more investigators we found from Congo that came to church that day and we sat with them and explained what was going on around them.  Their names are Prince and Simeon.  It was pretty funny actually because they called us Sunday morning and said that they needed a ride to church.  Prince was a referral we got from the MTC and then he brought his friend along with him to church and we are both going back over on Saturday to teach them.  They speak a little English, more than saliboko and his family, but mostly french and swahili again.  So we are bringing the one ward member we have to come with us and translate into french if needed.  Saliboko and his wife Tunza and her sister Mawazo all accepted to be baptized on the 24th of November.  They were all at church again this last week as well.  We got a text message from our relief society pres that Tunza went into the hospital because she was having really bad back pain from her pregnancy and they decided to go ahead with the c-section today so we are going over later to check up on her and make sure everything went ok.  We have scheduled to teach the Plan of Salvation on Thursday so i don't know if that is going to happen, but it would be a super sweet lesson to teach to someone who just had a baby 3 days before.

While we were walking around we found this house that had turned their tree into a giant pumpkin (see picture).  A lot of houses really go all out for halloween decorations.  For us on halloween our cars are parked at 6 o'clock, but we can still have appointments if the families we are going to teach come and pick us up.  So we will still be teaching two families that night.  Some of the ward members gave us some candy on Sunday and i'm sure we will be getting a lot more later as well.  The weather has been getting colder here and i've had to start wearing some sweaters and even the beanie at night.  We are preparing for our mission tour that will be next month.  Elder Clark from the 70 is coming out.  He hasn't given us any assigned reading or anything so we don't know what he is going to be talking about.  Well i know that this church is true!  I love you all so much

Love, Elder Peterson

October 22, 2012

Dear Family,

 

This has once again been a fabulous week.  We have the baptism coming up on Saturday which will be fantastic!  Carrie has asked that I baptize her which i'm way stoked about.  We have ironed out all the details and we are hoping that we will get a good crowd there as well with people inviting their friends.  Also we are lucky to be close enough to the other missionaries in our district that they can bring their investigators to see the baptism as well.  Something else really cool that happened is last monday night the bishop called us and gave us a referral for Saliboko and Tunza-John.  They are married and she is from tanzania and he is from congo and they have 3 kids and she is expecting her 4th in november.  She has a brother that is a member and he got in contact with the bishop and said they wanted to learn more about the church so we went and taught them the first lesson and it was way sweet.  They don't speak too much english so we have to go slow and make sure they understand.  She speaks mainly Swahili and he speaks mainly French.  We did secure books of mormon in both of those respective languages that we were able to give them later in the week.  Plus she has a sister named Mawazo that wants to learn too.  They all came to church on Sunday and a whole one of the middle pews was full of just their family! It was so sweet to see them all walk in.  The ward made a good effort to go and pick them up and actually had to make 2 trips because their were more bodies than they were expecting!  One of our ward members served his mission in Switzerland and still is fluent in french so he translated for them in priesthood meeting and in sunday school.  Just a super good sunday.  We are definitely seeing the blessings come from being the most exactly obedient missionaries we can be.

 

The zoo last week was fun.  You can see some of the pictures i'll attach here.  We are going again today, but as a district this time and having a picnic as well.  it's nice when it's free zoo month!  It was funny when we were looking at the lions because they were all just taking it easy and lounging and then a plane flew over and they all hopped up and watched it fly over them and until it went out of sight and landed at the airport nearby.  I also pet a goat and a sheep and fed some ducks and swans.  It was interesting because at the bird aviary some of the birds weren't in cages, but just in some tree things set up down the middle of the path with a sign that just said caution: birds may bite or something like that. I tried to snag a pic of the lion looking like it was roaring, but it didn't work out too it's intended purpose.  It's mouth is still open though.  Also they had dinosaurs at the zoo.  Don't ask me why. This week we did a role play with the bishop and his family and had them practice with us how they can invite their neighbors to the primary program which is also next week.  It was fun... but it can be really awkward sometimes too.  It wasn't this time though.  The great thing about it though is that they went out and did it that week and both the ones they invited agreed to come!  Hopefully they actually show up.  Primary program is always one of my most favorite sacrament meetings of the year.  We also had some old families who moved out of the ward recently come back because her sister was getting married. It was good to see them again.  Her parents (who are serving a mission in SLC) also were able to come to attend the wedding and then will be going back to their mission today.  It was good to see them as well since I had known them before they left.

 

Something that i found in my scripture study this last week is found in alma chapter 4.  This is where Alma delivers up the judgement seat and allows being the high priest over the church become his full time job i guess you could say.  But there is a pattern that we can apply in our own lives here... Especially being full time missionaries and member missionaries.  Step 1 is in verse 3.  At the end it says therefore they were awakened to a remembrance of their duty.  When times got hard, they didn't shun God and move away from him, but rather they were awakened to their duty and desired to draw closer to Him.  Step 2 is in verse 18.  It is when Alma delivers up the judgment-seat unto Nephihah.  He gave up something that was not a bad thing to give up, but was drawing him away from a more important calling.  Plus he consciously decided to give it up, it is not something that he lost or that he was forced to leave.  Then Step 3 is in verse 19.  Near the end it says seeing no way that he might reclaim them save it were in bearing down in pure testimony against them.  That is our duty, to bear pure testimony.  I know that as we remember our duty and give up the things keeping us from doing it to the best that we can and bear pure testimony to the people we come in contact with that we will be able to reclaim and rescue them.

 

Love, Elder Peterson

October 15, 2012

Dear Fam bam,

 

This has been a great week as usual.  It's been really rainy the last couple of days.  And it was also during the days we did not have the car so we got wet quite a bit but it didn't dampen our spirits.  We really needed the rain though so it was good.  It might be just a little too late to save the piggies though and help the pork prices.  Things are still going well with Carrie.  She is ready for the 27th. We are going over there tonight and will be setting up all of the details for the baptism itself.  We had kind of a funny story this week.  We were visiting with our investigator friend Koudzo, and we were reading Moroni 6 with him which is all about church.  His Book of Mormon is in french though because that is the language he best understands.  So we are reading in English and he is reading in French and we finish the chapter, but then he reads another verse and Elder Taylor and I look at each other and realize we don't have any idea what he is reading or where he was, but when we asked him what the chapter was about he understood it so as we talked about it, we were able to teach well.  He also sang a song to us in French about God helping prophets such as Jonah and Daniel and said he wants to sing in our church sometime.  Now all we have to do is actually get him to come to church which is proving to be difficult.  I invited him to come listen to us sing in the choir yesterday and he still didn't show up.  We are still able to meet with him weekly though and feel of his good spirit when we read with him and teach him.

 

Mindy and Mark, I got your package this last week. Thank you so much!  It was a delight to open and see all of the goodies.  Also the gloves will come in handy this next week as we go help a sister in the ward tear her roof off so she can put a new one on.  We will be on the ground picking up the stuff they throw down so no need to worry about us falling off of a house.  While Elder Taylor and I were out tracting this week we met a nice family.  The parents names are Dennis and Lisa and they let us right in and gave us a glass of ice water and we read 3 Nephi 11 with them.  It was a super sweet experience especially because Elder Taylor had prayed over a map before we left and felt like we should go there and we saw a miracle!  We will be going back soon to see if they read more of the account of Jesus Christ's visit to america.  We are going to the zoo today for P-day.  I guess it's free today so we'll go check it out.  I love you all and i know that this is the true church!

 

Love, Elder Peterson

October 8, 2012

Dear Family,
   This has been a fantastic week. Not only were we able to watch all of conference at our ward building, but we had pretty good attendance as well. Plus we had people feeding us lunch between both sessions which was super nice of them. Also Carrie received and answer from God that the Book of Mormon is true!! We set up a baptismal calendar with her (which is a calendar that lists times when we are going to meet and what we will teach and also other things she can do to prepare) and she is even more willing than before to do whatever is needed to be baptized. She continues to be well fellowshipped in the ward and I can't wait until the 27th. We taught her the law of chastity last night which was Elder Taylor's first time, and he did a good job. We mostly just read out of the pamphlet because it's less awkward that way if you aren't real comfortable talking about that stuff yet. The announcement for younger missionaries definitely is awesome. I loved it when they showed the people in the audience with the dumbfounded faces after Pres Monson announced it over the pulpit... priceless. I definitely think it will bring an increase in especially sister missionaries. I think I would have left a year earlier if the option was available, but I'm super glad that I got to go to college and meet the people I did and have the experiences I had.
   Since today was Columbus day and all of the High Schools around here had the day off of school we played basketball this morning with some of the young men in the ward. It was fun and had been a little while since we were last able to play. We also learned that the zoo is free on weekdays all this month so we are going to be going to the zoo next week for p-day. We had a fun get to know you district meeting this week. There were no new missionaries in the district so we had to be creative to get know each other better. I think that this will be an advantage because we have a lot of unity going into this next transfer and that should help us achieve our baptismal goals.
   I have to say one of my favorite talks was by elder Nelson. Just the repeated phrase of "ask the missionaries, they can help you" was a feel good talk. I'm thinking of just burning a bunch of cd's with that talk on it and handing it out to all the people that are struggling to get back into the church and won't let anyone help them. I also really enjoyed Elder Uchtdorf's talk in the priesthood session about being in the different circumstances. Since I've served in small branches and in a large ward now I can relate to that talk. It really made me appreciate more the faithful members that came every week to church in those small branches. I know that this church is true. I'm glad to hear that everyone is doing well and I hope that continues :)

Love, Elder Peterson

These are some action shots of when we went to Bro Robinson's place of work. He is a machine tester pretty much for John Deere so we got to go see a lot of big machinery. The first is an action shot of me operating the smallest excavator that Deere makes (it's the only machine that I was allowed to try out.) The controls are the same in all of the excavators though. The next two are the biggest excavators that they had on the site. Probably as big as the titanic! The next is Deere's latest and greatest. It has 560 horsepower. Last two, the giant loader and a dozer with a claw on the back.

October 1, 2012

It is crazy that it is October already. I don't really know where the month of September went. It's also weird to think that i'm half way done training my boy and i'll be out of this area next transfer. Our whole district is staying the same. I got released as District Leader after 6 months of being DL here in the same district and Elder Meservy will be taking over. He is a great elder and will do a great job. As for me, i get to take a 6 week break from leadership (aside from being a trainer) and President told me i'll be put back into a leadership position after this next transfer. In fact there is only one elder from our whole zone that is leaving and his companion will be training. We got our car back this week. it is good timing too because the tubes in E Taylor's bicycle wheels popped so we were walking long distances for a while there which i don't mind, it just takes a lot of time. Things with Carrie are going good. We attended a baptism with her over in Davenport and then she went to the RS general broadcast. She is also coming to General Conference this week and we'll be playing general conference bingo with her 2 kids haha. We also helped her take apart an old entertainment center and trash it so we've been keeping good contact with her and she loves the church! At the baptism all of the missionaries in our district sang "i like to look for rainbows" for a special musical number and it went great.

This last week for district meeting I had every missionary prepare a 10 minute talk on a different Christlike Attribute and that went well. All of them came up to me afterwards and said that the one they studied was one that they needed to work on. So between inspiration and the fact that if you study any of the attributes you realize you need to work on it, it was a really good meeting. We then had little ceasers for lunch and for dinner we had plans to eat with a member, but they ended up cancelling because their kids were feeling ill and they ended up bringing us over little ceasers pizza. So we had 3 pizzas in the fridge this week and a stomach ache to go with each. At church this week we also a had a student from some religions of the world class at college come to sacrament meeting. The ward welcomed her really well and Sis Ferguson and her son sat nex to her and fellowshipped her and then after the meeting E Taylor and I answered some of the questions that she had... both for school and personal questions. She was really impressed and might be coming back with her family next week for a session of general conference. Our second councilor in the bishopbric is moving to Germany on wednesday so he was released and a new brother was called. The mission prep class started this last saturday and we had 6/7 of the boys attend from our ward. That was great! They talked about their favorite missionaries in the scriptures and compared them to latter-day missionaries. It's an every other week class and we are going to be talking about the Abrahamic covenant next session. I know that this church is true! I love you all,
Elder Peterson

September 24, 2012

Dear Family,

 

It has been a really good week for us here.  Carrie is still progressing towards the end of October to be baptized.  We are going to a baptism over in Davenport with her on Saturday where she will also be attending the general relief society broadcast with some members of the ward.  She was at church yesterday along with her 6 year old daughter and things are going swimmingly.  I haven't been here in the Rock Island ward for 9 months yet, but by the time I leave it will be 9 months.  I've been here for a total of 7 right now.  The mission prep class hasn't officially started yet, they had a meeting with all of the sons and parents after church last night and is starting up this week.  Sister McClellans son is attending, along with 4 or 5 other young men which is great.  We haven't had a missionary out of this ward in over a year now.  The class should be fun because we get to go in and role play with them to help them practice their teaching skills.  When we have gone on splits with some of these young men, they haven't been the best at relaying the message they are trying to, but when they share their testimonies it is a powerful thing.

 

We also met 2 new investigators this week.  Their names are Kossi and Koudzo. They actually aren't related, but they are both from Togo, Africa.  They speak french and pretty good english.  They were both former investigators and had copies of the BoM in french.  Kossi is a really nice guy and he really likes to talk.   Koudzo was a way sweet experience.  He has been living in the United States for 6 years now saving up to bring his wife and 6 kids to America.  He knows that the book of Mormon is true and that Joseph Smith was a prophet.  We invited him to be baptized and he wants to wait for his family to be here.  He said he is going to have enough money by December which will be way sweet.  I'm not sure why missionaries stopped teaching him in the past, but we found him again and set a time that we can go over to his apartment every single week at the same time.  We gave our first "church presentation" this week.  We learned all about how to give them while at zone conference this past week.  You basically just teach the first lesson while going through different rooms of the church.  We did it with a part member family, the Neyens.  When we bore testimony of and related the experience of Joseph Smith the spirit was really strong.  We talked a little about temples and sister Neyens, who is the less-active member wife, bore a powerful testimony of how she misses the temple and wants to go back.  I think it will be a real turning point for them.  They were also at church last week which was sweet because it was the first time she has come in a really long time and the first time he has come ever for the whole block.

 

We got a different missionary in Rock Island this week.  Elder Brandley had to go home because a past neck injury wasn't really healing and was being too much of a burden so he went home to get it fixed and then hopefully will be coming back out.  They new elder is Elder Spain.  He has been out for 17 months and is a good missionary.  Very musically inclined.  At zone conference we talked a lot about the harvest and the laws of the harvest.  If you compare it to a corn field, we are to go out and pick the ripe corn that is ready to come off the stalk.  We don't hover around the ones that are almost ready or "getting there" but move on let the missionary's after us harvest those souls.  We also aren't supposed to be planting seeds.  The time for planting is past and our call is to harvest.  Planting seeds is just a natural by product that comes from us doing our work, but is not our goal as a missionary.  Just as you wouldn't see a farmer planting seeds during this season.  We also talked about the warning of not letting the ripe corn rot on the stalk because no one was their to pick it.  It was just a very good conference and motivated us even more to work harder for our mission goal of 400 baptisms for 2012.  The church is true!  Much love,

 

Elder Peterson

September 17, 2012

Dear Family,

 

You will be happy to know that I survived biking all week this week.  My legs were pretty super tired the first couple of days but it's getting better now.  Also our car went into the shop this morning for 2 weeks to get fixed so there will be no break.  I'll be able to rival Lance Armstrong by the end of these transfers.  haha.  It has been really nice weather for being outside lately.  The colors aren't changing too much yet, but at least it's green now since we have gotten some rain.  We spent a couple three hours outside on Saturday helping Brother Gillmore with his house again.  We still aren't finished with the project.  We just have one side of his house left to do and then we'll be done.  Probably 2-3 hours of work left.  His wife was super nice and gave all of us missionaries care packages full of groceries which is good since we don't really have a way of going to the grocery store at the moment. 

 

Sunday was just a phenomenal day.  We went back to see Carrie again.  We taught her the restoration and brought a member family along with us who fellowshipped her very well.  We set a baptismal date for her on October 27th.  She accepted and is excited for that day.  She also has an 11 year old son so we are working on having him sit in on the lessons and participate as well.  He really enjoyed primary on Sunday so that is good.  Also we set a baptismal date for that same day with Kelsie and Christine.  Even though they technically aren't in my teaching area anymore we were still able to be there for that meeting.  We all met after church along with our WML and made a plan of how we can allow them to receive permission from their grandparents by that day.  So as we go forward with faith I know that we will be able to baptize them on that day.  We also picked up a new investigator this week named Michelle.  We found her in an apartment complex and she is doing pretty good.  We arranged a member from the ward to come pick her up for church on Sunday but unfortunately she wasn't home when they got there.  Maybe next Sunday will turn out better for her.  On Sunday for choir practice we had more men than we have ever had.  The whole back row was filled up which has never happened before and we actually outnumbered the women about 2 to 1.  We are learning an arrangement of "He Sent His Son" which we will be singing in church in 2 weeks.

 

Interviews went well as usual this week. President Jergensen talked all about gathering scattered Israel and priesthood keys.  We went on a scripture chase mostly through the Doctrine and Covenants and learned a lot.  We also learned some proper etiquette from sister Jergensen.  This next week on Wednesday we have zone conference.  We are still looking for a ride to get over there.  I'm excited to go though I always love zone conferences.  I know one of the big emphasises (is that right?) is going to be on church tours.  We have a church tour scheduled for Friday night and already have a part member family committed to come to that event so now we can learn how to best proceed in giving the tour.  I've done some reading on how missionaries have done it in the past and it's really cool because you teach the restoration as you go from room to room and it works out really well.  It definitely would be a unique experience to serve in the same place for the whole duration of your mission.  I'll have spent 9 months in this area by the time I leave and i've already really grown to love all of these members.  It almost makes me sad to have to share them with another 2 missionaries now!  But i still get to see all of them at church on sundays so no worries.  Our ward has started a mission prep class this week and it'll be every other week for a couple of months.  The first class is this weekend and starts at 6 in the morning.  It should really show these young mens dedication that's for sure.  In the ensuing weeks it will be later, but because the bishop is teaching it and has meetings starting at 8:30 that week it has to be really early.

 

I love all of you!  Mom i did get your magazine letter.  Does anyone have an update on Braden?  i can't remember when he was going into the MTC.  The church is true!  the book is blue

 

Love, Elder Peterson

September 10, 2012

Hello Family!

This has been another great week.  We have interviews coming up on Thursday of this week which will be great.  We are also having district meeting on that day so it will be a very meeting filled day.  Then we have zone conference that next wednesday so we will get to see a lot of President and Sister Jergensen these next two weeks.  The weather has been good recently.  It's starting to cool down a little bit and has been breezy the last couple of days and it just feels nice.  Shortly here it will become suit coat weather again.  Peaches and cream corn is just like one of the varieties of corn.  It's a little sweeter and the kernels are kind of smaller.  It doesn't have to do with literal peaches or cream... that's just what it's called.  We did a service project this week for the Gillmore family.  We continued to side his house.  We started back sometime in May or June.  We are going to be finishing this Saturday.  The project got put on hold because Brother Gillmore broke both of his feet.  He is doing really well now and can walk around.  He can even wear tennis shoes now for some of the time.  Elder Taylor and I also dismantled his wheelchair ramp he had going up to his door on Saturday.  That same day we also did some service for a referral that two sister missionaries gave us from Bettendorf.  We went and met Carrie and put together a computer desk for her.  She works for a member in the Bettendorf ward and was really interested in the church. We gave her a book of mormon to read and set up a time to go back this week and teach her the first lesson.  I'm really excited to start teaching her.

I like that lesson idea about the origami bird.  One object lesson that we have started using that I remembered back from when I was at Utah State is about finding people to teach.  You get a small tupperware and fill it with uncooked rice and then put 4-5 small safety pins into it (closed so you don't hurt yourself.)  Then you have three phases.  First you have them close their eyes and don't tell them what they are looking for, just that it's not rice and you ask them to pull it out of the container.  So far none of them have been able to.  Then phase 2 is you tell them what it is, so you tell them they are looking for safety pins, and ask them to pull one out.  They still can't do it.  Then for phase 3 you tell them they can look in and pull them out.  For some reason the safety pins just feel exactly like the rice and so it's virtually improbable for them to pull one out with just rubbing the rice around in their hand and fingers.  The moral of the lesson though is that if we are blindly going through our days knowing that there are blessings(phase 1) or specifically people to teach the gospel in our homes(phase 2) we still won't be able to find them unless we keep our eyes open and really look for them(phase 3).  And when we are looking for them, they are easy to pull out.  Just a cool little lesson that's fun for kids as well.

Well i know that this church is true!

Love, Elder Peterson

September 3, 2012

Dear Family,

 

This has been a really good week.  I feel like my faith is always increased when i'm serving around new missionaries.  This week we have been studying PMG chapter 9 which is all about finding people to teach.  The first thing that it says in PMG is having the faith to find.  We have been doing some finding this week and have had good success.  We found this guy named Corey (who goes by c) and we talked to him for a while.  He is in to mixed martial arts and trains at a gym in our area.  He told us that he wanted us to come by his gym and teach all of the kids that he helps with their fighting skills and such.  We dropped by the gym and he wasn't in yet, but we were able to talk with the owner of the gym and he is interested in the gospel now as well.  Hopefully I can follow up with that story as it continues.  We also received 2 solid referrals from members in our ward.  One has been wanting to learn about the church for 6 months now, her friends had just never invited her.  So when we had a lesson with these members and invited them to give a friend a book of mormon with their simple testimony written in the front cover, they gave it to her.  Her name is Rosemary and we have started teaching her.  Just before I got here to the library, we were teaching a lady by the name of Sis Gilbert.  She is a less-active lady who was invited by the ward council to take the missionary lessons again and she agreed.  We taught her the restoration and the spirit was really strong as we taught her.  Plus it was good practice for Elder Taylor!  She also agreed to come to church on Sunday and she is bringing her friend Beverly.  When she comes to church it will be the first time in a long time. 

 

Yesterday we had a labor day taco feed with our ward.  It was fun, we had it at the same park that we did the memorial day picnic.  We also had a salsa contest (the chip dip not the dance) and had a lot of entries.  One of our recent converts one first prize and got to sign the hideous pig.  It's just this ceramic pig that the ward has that they let people sign when they win a competition of sorts.   Last time they did it was for a chilli contest.  On Saturday we had a lot of rain come down.  We were actually in a hurricane watch and had to text our zone leaders every hour on the hour so they knew that we were safe, but it wasn't that bad.  By the afternoon it had stopped raining and we were playing soccer with some investigators outside.  I guess it did get pretty bad in some parts of the mission though.  We needed the rain however so it was good to get it.  We've been starting to get fed a lot of corn again recently and it is really delicious!  The peaches and cream variety is my personal favorite.  We had a part member family come to church on Sunday.  The Neyens are their name.  We have taught them twice now.  She went to BYU idaho after she was baptized and really loved it there but then moved away and got married and fell away from the church.  We have started getting her husband interested.  They had met the missionaries before but he didn't like them and didn't want to meet with them because they had no sense of humor.  So when I and my companion came over, he at first didn't want to talk with us or anything and we were just talking with his wife, but after we cracked a couple of jokes he joined in with us and came to church on sunday.  They actually weren't able to attend our 1 o'clock block so we went with them to the 9 o'clock sacrament meeting with the Bettendorf ward that meets in our same building.  In 2 weeks they will be able to come at 1 though which will be good.

 

Well Elder Taylor got his bike in the mail today so now we can start biking around instead of just walking.  So now we can go farther and get places faster when we don't have the car.  Also when the other elders had the car on Saturday someone ran into the back of them because of the slick roads and got the corner of the bumper all bent out of shape and the light is broken.  So we will have to get those fixed and we will be without a car for even longer during that time.  Just more time to allow the Lord to make my weak things strong unto me.  I was reading in the general conference issue of the ensign recently about a talk that speaks on real growth.  That is something that we are implimenting in our ward and we are really trying to retain all of our members that have started coming back.  This church is true and i know that as we experience real growth in the church we will be the happiest we have ever been!

 

Love, Elder Peterson

August 27, 2012

Hello hello Family!

This week has been a busy one. I have now started the training process which has been fun. My boys name is Elder Jordan Taylor. He is from Riverton Utah. His family owns Taylor's bike shop if any of you know the name. We had a big group of new missionaries come out this last transfer. 18 new missionaries. Only those getting transferred and their companions come to the transfer meetings. The 2 new elders that came to rock island also are Elder Meservy and Elder Brandley. I actually came out with Elder Brandley. Elder Meservy was in the same zone so i served around him a little bit and they are both way sweet elders. I'm stoked for this new and upcoming transfer. We had our first district meeting on Saturday and got to know the new people in the district a little better. We got a new zone leader, Elder Holmes who i actually came out with as well so now there are 3 missionaries in my same "age" group in the district. We also have a new missionary from montana and one from texas. Today we are going over to the stake center and we are going to play dodgeball as a district and also some other games. This last week we spent a lot of our time moving the other missionaries into their apartment. We didn't close the deal until Friday morning so they actually stayed the night with us on that Thursday. Then we got everything situated and moved them in. We also spent a lot of time dividing up the area and telling them the work that is going on here and who they need to focus on and such. We met with the bishop and the ward mission leader and they are really supportive of the missionaries and they also give us referrals to go see all the time. Mostly less-active members to go strengthen. We have instituted a rescue program and out ward attendance has increased from about 140 each week to now 160 at least each week just since i've been here and i hope to see it continue to go up as well. We are now also in a car share so every other week we will be walking until we secure another bike in our area. It will be good for us. We got wet yesterday from a huge rainstorm. It was coming down good for the whole day. It was much needed though and we are greatful for that blessing. I found a scripture that i really liked in the Doctrine and Covenants this morning. It's section 11 verse 7. It says Seek not for riches but for wisdom; and behold, the mysteries of God shall be unfolded unto you, and then shall you be made rich. Behold, he that hath eternal life is rich. Then verse 8 is a good verse for us missionaries. It says Verily, verily, i say unto you, even as you desire of me so it shall be done unto you' and, if you desire, you shall be the means of doing much good in this generation. It really just highlighted to me the importance of desire. It's when you desire to do good and to grow closer to God and to experience his blessings that we really make the most progress. The church is true!

Love, Elder Peterson
Also here is a pic of me and my new comp.