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