Dear Family,
Tell me something good! We had a great week this
last week. Things are going well in both areas we are covering. On
Sunday we taught the third hour in Geneseo for the combined lesson since
it was the third Sunday. We hooked the branch president's laptop up to
the projector and presented mormon.org
to the branch. It went over really well and the members had a lot of
questions and were really impressed with all of the features that it
contains and all the things you can do on there. I definitely encourage
everyone to check it out and make a profile too! I have a profile up
as well. You can find me by searching for "Brent Iowa Des Moines
Mission" and i should pop up. We also had a good church session in Rock
Island. The combined lesson was all on missionary work. Hopefully the
ward is inspired. We had a really good lesson with a member referral
we got. We taught a family and the aunt and the 2 sisters all agreed to
be baptized! It is really amazing the miracles we see... especially on
the first lesson that we teach them. They also came to church on
Sunday and really liked it. We are meeting with them again on Saturday
to set a baptismal date with them. On Thursday i get to go to Nauvoo
for the pageant. My companion has already gone, but one of the zone
leaders here has not so we are going to go together and then my
companion and his companion will work together that day since they have
both gone already. The member that we are riding down with is doing
security so we will be there early and will get to spend some time in
Nauvoo to explore the city and such. I'm excited! We did not do
anything for pioneer day. We did celebrate Christmas in July though and
had a white elephant gift exchange as a district and then played sand
volleyball together. That was fun. Our golf game went well. These
past 2 times that i've gone has been with people who have never played
golf before so it has taken up the whole P-day. We have also played
basketball these last 2 weeks and have had more investigators present
than members each time which is sweet! Hopefully we can see some
success from this and start to teach them. They get along well with us
and we are becoming good friends. It's really inspiring to see the
youth of the ward doing missionary work and getting their friends
involved with the church. It certainly is helping them with their
decisions to serve missions themselves. I did know that the olympics
started this week. Haven't seen any of it, but i've heard about some of
it. Brittany... i got the package that you sent with that family from
Orem. Thanks for the goodies :) This church is so true!
Love, Elder Peterson
July 23 2012
Dear Family,
I'm happy to hear that your minute to win it activity went well. Also happy to hear that Blake got to go fishing this week. Well we started off today playing sand volleyball as a district. It was hot! We played as early as we could in the morning, which was 10 o'clock because of studies, to try and beat the heat but it was still hot. It was fun though. We are also playing basketball later today with some investigators and also young men from the ward which will be fun. I attached the picture of me at just the entrance to the world's biggest truck stop. It definitely is huge. The main building itself is enormous. Did I already tell you that they had a movie theatre on the 3rd floor? I can't remember. Also how do you like my new hair cut? Golf was fun last week. It took us all day to play 18 holes. I got pretty sun burned, but it is a tan now on my arms and legs. I had some aloe gel so it wasn't bad. I was good at keeping up on using it. We might be going next week too if I can get some more free passes. We'll go with the elders in my district if we go next week.
Sis Rose unfortunately did not come to church last week. We did have a really open and good discussion with her this past week though. We talked all about the Plan of Salvation. She had a lot of questions and was surprised on how simple it seemed. We taught from out of the pamphlets that the church produces and what really caught her off guard I guess is where it says all we need to do to get into the celestial kingdom. The pamphlet words it very simply and is great for teaching. She thought she was just for sure going to the terrestrial and now she actually has a hope for obtaining celestial glory and is a lot happier. We did have 4 investigators at church last week though. We are teaching 2 of them tonight and hopefully setting a baptismal date with both of them. We also have bishop with the dinner tonight and he is having his non-member neighbor over as well. He has been praying for people to invite to take the lessons (something we instituted with him) and now he is seeing the success from doing so.
Sounds like quite a few changes going on at home. I'm so happy to hear that Connor Sharp got his call and is now serving in Canada. That is way sweet! Is he speaking another language do you know?
Love, Elder Peterson
P.S. The church is true! And thanks for sending out a box Brittany! I'm picking it up tomorrow.
I'm happy to hear that your minute to win it activity went well. Also happy to hear that Blake got to go fishing this week. Well we started off today playing sand volleyball as a district. It was hot! We played as early as we could in the morning, which was 10 o'clock because of studies, to try and beat the heat but it was still hot. It was fun though. We are also playing basketball later today with some investigators and also young men from the ward which will be fun. I attached the picture of me at just the entrance to the world's biggest truck stop. It definitely is huge. The main building itself is enormous. Did I already tell you that they had a movie theatre on the 3rd floor? I can't remember. Also how do you like my new hair cut? Golf was fun last week. It took us all day to play 18 holes. I got pretty sun burned, but it is a tan now on my arms and legs. I had some aloe gel so it wasn't bad. I was good at keeping up on using it. We might be going next week too if I can get some more free passes. We'll go with the elders in my district if we go next week.
Sis Rose unfortunately did not come to church last week. We did have a really open and good discussion with her this past week though. We talked all about the Plan of Salvation. She had a lot of questions and was surprised on how simple it seemed. We taught from out of the pamphlets that the church produces and what really caught her off guard I guess is where it says all we need to do to get into the celestial kingdom. The pamphlet words it very simply and is great for teaching. She thought she was just for sure going to the terrestrial and now she actually has a hope for obtaining celestial glory and is a lot happier. We did have 4 investigators at church last week though. We are teaching 2 of them tonight and hopefully setting a baptismal date with both of them. We also have bishop with the dinner tonight and he is having his non-member neighbor over as well. He has been praying for people to invite to take the lessons (something we instituted with him) and now he is seeing the success from doing so.
Sounds like quite a few changes going on at home. I'm so happy to hear that Connor Sharp got his call and is now serving in Canada. That is way sweet! Is he speaking another language do you know?
Love, Elder Peterson
P.S. The church is true! And thanks for sending out a box Brittany! I'm picking it up tomorrow.
July 16, 2012
Hello Family!
Tell me something good. President Jergensen gave a brief training at interviews a couple of weeks ago about this man who would go to a hospital and greet everyone by saying "tell me something good" instead of "How are you doing?" to the sick patients and so we are trying to incorporate that as a mission as well. The heat is still beating down on us. Luckily for us we do have air conditioning though. The only downside to that is where we live it is with a bunch of Indian people and all of their curry smell and such get into the system and it makes our apartment smell like curry the whole time we are there. I'm pretty sure we are the only white people in our building... it's easy to tell when you look at the mailbox. :) They are very nice though and they like to play ping pong with me. Currently we are in a drought here in Iowa... haven't had much rain at all this year. So the corn is growing, but it's actually turning pretty brown along with most everyones lawns. We keep praying for rain for the farmers sake if nothing else. It's not quite corn eating season though, but i'm excited for it to get here because i remember how good it tasted last year when I was eating it. Indeed it is quite a monumental week i suppose you could say with my one year mark being on Friday. The time has definitely gone by so fast. It's crazy to think back on what i've done and where i've been. I have been taking time to reflect and improve as I continue to go forward.
This last week we spent the bulk of the week over in Geneseo. Elder Smith got transferred and went down to Kirksville Missouri so we stayed in Geneseo so he could pack and say goodbye to the members and such. On Thursday then we drove to Iowa City for transfer meeting. It was a small transfer meeting. Maybe 1/3 of how many missionaries are usually there. But with only 5 new missionaries coming out there weren't too too many changes in the mission. We did get a new zone leader this week. It's kind of funny because he was serving in the Davenport 2nd ward when I first got here and he was my district leader and now he is back into the Davenport 1st ward to be our zone leader. It's good to see him again he is a good elder. It was also a different feeling being at a transfer meeting and not having the mystery of not knowing where you are going or who your new companion is going to be. On the way back from Iowa City we stopped at the Iowa 80 which is the biggest truck stop in the world! I got a picture, but look for it next week because i forgot my camera today. It is really huge plus they were having their truck show thingy going on right now so we got to see a lot of colorfully painted semis and such. Today for P Day we are going golfing again. This time it's not free though. However the place where we are going is only 22 dollars for 18 holes plus the cart and i've been saving this month so we could go. We are going with a recent convert in the ward and also a young man. Should be a scorcher again today so i'll have to drink lots of water.
We were driving around town the other day with nowhere specific to go really and I recieved an impression that we should go see Sis Rose. She is a less-active in our ward who we had previously been trying for months and could not catch at home no matter what time we went. She was on the other side of town, but we decided to go anyway. When we drove up to her house she was outside with her friends having them move a couch into her garage. So we were able to help with some lifting, and also we were finally able to have a lesson with her and schedule a return appointment for this upcoming wednesday morning. I was so thankful to be in tune with the spirit to know that at that exact time, we needed to go there. I am also grateful that I did not hesitate on the prompting, because who knows what would have happened if we did. We were able to answer a question she had had pressing on her mind for the longest time and I know we can work with her to get her attending church again. Another neat experience from this last week was when we went golfing last time, I had lost my name tag. I looked for it all through the golf bag i had used, and even the other golf bags and called the course and they hadn't found it and i was praying that I could find it. Then last night we went to pick up clubs again from our WML so we could use them for today and I looked in the place that I remember putting my tag and there it was. I swear I looked there before for it and didn't find it. It was not a coincidence, but rather an answer to prayer i'm sure of it. It reminds me that if something is really important to us, it also becomes important to our Heavenly Father and he will help us with our righteous desires.
Love, Elder Peterson
Tell me something good. President Jergensen gave a brief training at interviews a couple of weeks ago about this man who would go to a hospital and greet everyone by saying "tell me something good" instead of "How are you doing?" to the sick patients and so we are trying to incorporate that as a mission as well. The heat is still beating down on us. Luckily for us we do have air conditioning though. The only downside to that is where we live it is with a bunch of Indian people and all of their curry smell and such get into the system and it makes our apartment smell like curry the whole time we are there. I'm pretty sure we are the only white people in our building... it's easy to tell when you look at the mailbox. :) They are very nice though and they like to play ping pong with me. Currently we are in a drought here in Iowa... haven't had much rain at all this year. So the corn is growing, but it's actually turning pretty brown along with most everyones lawns. We keep praying for rain for the farmers sake if nothing else. It's not quite corn eating season though, but i'm excited for it to get here because i remember how good it tasted last year when I was eating it. Indeed it is quite a monumental week i suppose you could say with my one year mark being on Friday. The time has definitely gone by so fast. It's crazy to think back on what i've done and where i've been. I have been taking time to reflect and improve as I continue to go forward.
This last week we spent the bulk of the week over in Geneseo. Elder Smith got transferred and went down to Kirksville Missouri so we stayed in Geneseo so he could pack and say goodbye to the members and such. On Thursday then we drove to Iowa City for transfer meeting. It was a small transfer meeting. Maybe 1/3 of how many missionaries are usually there. But with only 5 new missionaries coming out there weren't too too many changes in the mission. We did get a new zone leader this week. It's kind of funny because he was serving in the Davenport 2nd ward when I first got here and he was my district leader and now he is back into the Davenport 1st ward to be our zone leader. It's good to see him again he is a good elder. It was also a different feeling being at a transfer meeting and not having the mystery of not knowing where you are going or who your new companion is going to be. On the way back from Iowa City we stopped at the Iowa 80 which is the biggest truck stop in the world! I got a picture, but look for it next week because i forgot my camera today. It is really huge plus they were having their truck show thingy going on right now so we got to see a lot of colorfully painted semis and such. Today for P Day we are going golfing again. This time it's not free though. However the place where we are going is only 22 dollars for 18 holes plus the cart and i've been saving this month so we could go. We are going with a recent convert in the ward and also a young man. Should be a scorcher again today so i'll have to drink lots of water.
We were driving around town the other day with nowhere specific to go really and I recieved an impression that we should go see Sis Rose. She is a less-active in our ward who we had previously been trying for months and could not catch at home no matter what time we went. She was on the other side of town, but we decided to go anyway. When we drove up to her house she was outside with her friends having them move a couch into her garage. So we were able to help with some lifting, and also we were finally able to have a lesson with her and schedule a return appointment for this upcoming wednesday morning. I was so thankful to be in tune with the spirit to know that at that exact time, we needed to go there. I am also grateful that I did not hesitate on the prompting, because who knows what would have happened if we did. We were able to answer a question she had had pressing on her mind for the longest time and I know we can work with her to get her attending church again. Another neat experience from this last week was when we went golfing last time, I had lost my name tag. I looked for it all through the golf bag i had used, and even the other golf bags and called the course and they hadn't found it and i was praying that I could find it. Then last night we went to pick up clubs again from our WML so we could use them for today and I looked in the place that I remember putting my tag and there it was. I swear I looked there before for it and didn't find it. It was not a coincidence, but rather an answer to prayer i'm sure of it. It reminds me that if something is really important to us, it also becomes important to our Heavenly Father and he will help us with our righteous desires.
Love, Elder Peterson
July 9, 2012
Dear Family,
This week has been a scorcher. It's been in the 100's and with the heat index (the temperature that it actually feels like with the humidity and such) was up to 112! I've been going through a LOT of water lately. It's been a good time to visit members and such. They are especially welcoming and enjoy getting us out of the heat. Luckily for us, we have air conditioned apartments so at home it doesn't feel bad. Every time you walk out the door though you just get this huge wave come over you and you have to swim through the air to get from place to place. The fourth of July was fun. On the 3rd we were able to watch fireworks. We were actually in Geneseo that night so it was a smaller show than the Red White and Boom show in the quad cities, but it was still fun to watch. Geneseo is about a 25 minute drive from Moline so it's not too bad. I've had fun working with Elders Smith and Craven for this last week. We've been driving back and forth a lot lately so that we could work in both areas. We also went to church in both areas yesterday so we got 6 hours of church in last week... more with the PEC's and coordination meetings as well. I better get used to it though because we got our transfer calls and it turns out that because of a shortage of missionaries (9 going home and only 5 coming out. Plus 2 other missionaries went home this last transfer... including my last companion) they had to close 3 areas. One of those areas is Geneseo but I will serve with Elder Craven in Rock Island. President Jergensen told us that one day a week we will still work in Geneseo and we will still go to church on Sundays and then after this next transfer our missionary count will be back up so Elder Craven will go back to Geneseo to open the area again and then i'll get a new companion to stay in Rock Island/Moline with. So it's pretty unusual to know who my new companion will be already. And i've served with him for the last week and we get along well. After 6 weeks of going to church for 6 hours, 3 hours will seem really short!
On the actual 4th of July we went over to a members house and had a barbecue with a couple of families in the ward. They too made a flag cake so i got a little taste of home. Also with transfers this week we are getting a new zone leader. And one of the sisters in my district is going home so there will be one new sister as well. The other missionaries are staying the same. Minus Elder Craven being new as well, but both of the Elders i'm currently serving with were at district meeting last week so his "first" district meeting will really be his second. I got your forwarded message from Mindy, but I didn't get an attachment of the announcement. Was I supposed to? Also did they send that other package off because I haven't gotten it. I did get the first one. I think i already told you that.
The work here is going well. We still continue to meet with the Gillmores. She asks us a lot of questions about our church since she is a devout catholic and in turn we get to ask her questions about her church. Often times she can't answer right then but she always gets back to us with an answer. David's testimony has really gotten stronger in the last months though and they now come to sacrament every week. He can't stay any longer because of his feet. We also received a call from a man by the name of Jerry on Friday night saying that he wanted to get back into the church and just moved back from Mississippi. We visited him Saturday morning and he came to church on Sunday. He set up a time to meet with the Bishop and also we are starting the stop smoking workshop with him this week. We are also having dinner with the bishop this week and are hoping to be able to bring one of our new investigators along as well. We are also going to start teaching one of our ward missionaries girlfriends this week on friday and then they are going to feed us dinner. The member boyfriend is still a little iffy on if he wants to serve a mission or not so hopefully this convinces him that he wants to and the spirit can work it's magic.
Some cool verses I ran into in my studies this last week are found in the Doctrine and Covenants. I won't type out the verses themselves, but they are in Section 33. It tells us what we need to do to become good missionaries in this time of harvesting while the field is white. It also tells us how we can "become even as Nephi of old who journeyed from Jerusalem in the wilderness." (verse 8) It tells us in verses 8-10 to just open our mouths. Each verse starts with open your mouth. It's that easy (sounds that easy at least. Actually doing it can be hard.) But it tells us what to say as well. It says our mouths will be filled in essence with the Doctrine of Christ, which is Faith, Repentance, Baptism, Receiving the gift of the Holy Ghost, and Enduring to the end. The doctrine of Christ has been a huge focus of the mission so I thought it was neat that it tells us that when we open our mouths that is all we need to fill it with. I've seen miracles come from just opening my mouth to someone who you would never think would want to hear about the gospel. This church is true! I love all of you and thanks for your prayers. I pray for you as well. :)
Love, Elder Peterson
This week has been a scorcher. It's been in the 100's and with the heat index (the temperature that it actually feels like with the humidity and such) was up to 112! I've been going through a LOT of water lately. It's been a good time to visit members and such. They are especially welcoming and enjoy getting us out of the heat. Luckily for us, we have air conditioned apartments so at home it doesn't feel bad. Every time you walk out the door though you just get this huge wave come over you and you have to swim through the air to get from place to place. The fourth of July was fun. On the 3rd we were able to watch fireworks. We were actually in Geneseo that night so it was a smaller show than the Red White and Boom show in the quad cities, but it was still fun to watch. Geneseo is about a 25 minute drive from Moline so it's not too bad. I've had fun working with Elders Smith and Craven for this last week. We've been driving back and forth a lot lately so that we could work in both areas. We also went to church in both areas yesterday so we got 6 hours of church in last week... more with the PEC's and coordination meetings as well. I better get used to it though because we got our transfer calls and it turns out that because of a shortage of missionaries (9 going home and only 5 coming out. Plus 2 other missionaries went home this last transfer... including my last companion) they had to close 3 areas. One of those areas is Geneseo but I will serve with Elder Craven in Rock Island. President Jergensen told us that one day a week we will still work in Geneseo and we will still go to church on Sundays and then after this next transfer our missionary count will be back up so Elder Craven will go back to Geneseo to open the area again and then i'll get a new companion to stay in Rock Island/Moline with. So it's pretty unusual to know who my new companion will be already. And i've served with him for the last week and we get along well. After 6 weeks of going to church for 6 hours, 3 hours will seem really short!
On the actual 4th of July we went over to a members house and had a barbecue with a couple of families in the ward. They too made a flag cake so i got a little taste of home. Also with transfers this week we are getting a new zone leader. And one of the sisters in my district is going home so there will be one new sister as well. The other missionaries are staying the same. Minus Elder Craven being new as well, but both of the Elders i'm currently serving with were at district meeting last week so his "first" district meeting will really be his second. I got your forwarded message from Mindy, but I didn't get an attachment of the announcement. Was I supposed to? Also did they send that other package off because I haven't gotten it. I did get the first one. I think i already told you that.
The work here is going well. We still continue to meet with the Gillmores. She asks us a lot of questions about our church since she is a devout catholic and in turn we get to ask her questions about her church. Often times she can't answer right then but she always gets back to us with an answer. David's testimony has really gotten stronger in the last months though and they now come to sacrament every week. He can't stay any longer because of his feet. We also received a call from a man by the name of Jerry on Friday night saying that he wanted to get back into the church and just moved back from Mississippi. We visited him Saturday morning and he came to church on Sunday. He set up a time to meet with the Bishop and also we are starting the stop smoking workshop with him this week. We are also having dinner with the bishop this week and are hoping to be able to bring one of our new investigators along as well. We are also going to start teaching one of our ward missionaries girlfriends this week on friday and then they are going to feed us dinner. The member boyfriend is still a little iffy on if he wants to serve a mission or not so hopefully this convinces him that he wants to and the spirit can work it's magic.
Some cool verses I ran into in my studies this last week are found in the Doctrine and Covenants. I won't type out the verses themselves, but they are in Section 33. It tells us what we need to do to become good missionaries in this time of harvesting while the field is white. It also tells us how we can "become even as Nephi of old who journeyed from Jerusalem in the wilderness." (verse 8) It tells us in verses 8-10 to just open our mouths. Each verse starts with open your mouth. It's that easy (sounds that easy at least. Actually doing it can be hard.) But it tells us what to say as well. It says our mouths will be filled in essence with the Doctrine of Christ, which is Faith, Repentance, Baptism, Receiving the gift of the Holy Ghost, and Enduring to the end. The doctrine of Christ has been a huge focus of the mission so I thought it was neat that it tells us that when we open our mouths that is all we need to fill it with. I've seen miracles come from just opening my mouth to someone who you would never think would want to hear about the gospel. This church is true! I love all of you and thanks for your prayers. I pray for you as well. :)
Love, Elder Peterson
July 2, 2012
Hey family. My companion ended up going home last night. Sad to see. so today we are figuring out where i'll be and such for the next 10 days until next transfers. I'll probably be going to Geneseo until transfers. I'm doing good though!
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