Dear Family!
WOOHOO indeed! I'm stoked that I got accepted! Thank you so so so much for all the work you have done on my behalf mother and father! What a great week this has truly been. Lots of good news all around. We had our baptism on Saturday. I attached a picture of it. It was amazing! The spirit was so strong and the confirmation the next day was just as good! Sarah has such a special spirit about her.
So the news is that i'm being transferred! I'm getting a new companion who has only been out for 3 months so i'll be his second companion. I don't know where i'm going yet, i just know that i'm going. So that means if you send a package directly to my west des moines address we better hope that it gets here by wednesday or else i'm not going to get it for a while. We are going to get 10 visa waiters in the mission and that brings our total number of missionaries received this transfer to 41! Holy Cow! I don't know where we are going to fit all of them. Here in west des moines both sets are getting visa waiters so there will be 6 missionaries in the ward. they also split the zone because we were too big so we are in a whole new zone now.
If I get transferred to Illinois again i'm sure that i will have lots of service opportunities available to me from all the flooding that has been going on there. They have received 85 percent of the annual rainfall of last year in the month of April of this year alone. We had a family drive to Chicago recently and they said the river was flooded right up to the road. It kind of looked and felt like they were driving on top of the water is what they said. I've been getting in with a lot of the families here in west des moines to say my goodbyes and leave one last encouraging thought to do missionary work with them. I have been here for 6 months now total.
Thank you for all of the birthday wishes! Parents I got your packages and loved the birthday hats. I had to open it early so that I could pack the stuff into my suitcases to take to my next area. I don't have any big plans for my birthday because i don't even know where i'm going to be. I'll find a fun way to celebrate though. i know we are having a district meeting that day so maybe i'll bake a cake for the whole district.
I am so grateful for this gospel. I recently started the BofM over again this last week. What stood out to me is when Nephi and his brothers went to get the brass plates. I like to think of the brass plates as a new investigator. We are trying to get the new investigators. Nephi and his brothers did what they knew how to do first. They cast lots and Laman went and just asked for the plates. That didn't work. So they did something else they knew how to do on their own. They tried to trade for the plates by giving all of their silver and gold and vast wealth. That didn't work either. We do what we know how to do. We tract or seek referrals or work with part member families etc. and sometimes it just seems like nothing is working. But we know that it is a commandment and promise from the Lord that there are people prepared for us to find. So we keep on doing what we know how to do until we are directed by the spirit and can accomplish what we need to. Nephi wasn't sure what he was going to do that last attempt that he went and found Laban drunk. Sometimes i feel like i don't know what to do, but that doesn't mean we sit around and do nothing. We get ourselves out there and we let the Lord do the rest.
Thanks again for everything!
April 15, 2013
Greetings family!
Another great week has flown by! We are excited to have Sarah's baptism coming up this next Saturday. It was announced in sacrament meeting so hopefully we have a good turnout. I know she has been making a lot of friends so i'm sure the ward will do great in supporting her. Also in sacrament meeting I gave a talk along with Elders Olson and Lewis. I spoke on the blessings that come from following the prophet and apostles. A good follow up topic with conference being last week. We had our fast sunday the week before conference here. Also Lindsay and her family were there for church and stayed for the whole block which was great. Sister Esser who has been helping us teach and is her mother-in-law has gone back home to Kansas now but will be back up for the baptism in May. I don't know if I'll still be around for that or not. We have transfer calls this Saturday so next Monday i'll be able to tell you what i'll be doing for my last 2 transfers.
The weather this week has been rainy. It was great weather on Monday for our outdoor zone p-day which was nice, but the rest of the week has been rainy and windy. Not too too cold though so that is good. We also had the car this week. Josh Ledbetter is back in town from BYU-I now and he will be spending a lot of time with us since he is still a pre-missionary. He has his meeting with the stake president today to submit his mission papers into SLC. At zone p-day i caught a shoulder to the lip and my lower lip was bruised up and bleeding. I didn't need to get stitches or anything so that is good and i'm almost fully healed up now.
This week we found a super cool family originally from Nepal. They moved to America 4 years ago and converted to Christianity. The father is still Hindu, but the wife and 3 children and 1 cousin consider themselves Christians. We taught them the restoration and invited them to be baptized and they said yes. At the church they currently go to I guess they won't baptize you until you are 13. When we told them that they could be baptized at age 8 the 9 year olds face lit up and he was really excited. The oldest sibling is 18 and the youngest is 9. We are going back on Wednesday to teach them again and I just hope that there current pastor doesn't anti them or anything.
I know that this church is true. i see it every day when I go out and talk to people. They are attracted to the light that we who have the gospel emit. The hard part for them is that they have been in the great and spacious building for too long and once they leave they feel the mocking and the pointing fingers. it is our job to find the elect who will grab hold of the light and hold on steadfastly and endure to the end regardless of what the darkness may throw at them. I am grateful for the light that i have and for the light that I and we will continue to receive throughout the rest of our lives as we shun the darkness.
Love, Elder Peterson
Another great week has flown by! We are excited to have Sarah's baptism coming up this next Saturday. It was announced in sacrament meeting so hopefully we have a good turnout. I know she has been making a lot of friends so i'm sure the ward will do great in supporting her. Also in sacrament meeting I gave a talk along with Elders Olson and Lewis. I spoke on the blessings that come from following the prophet and apostles. A good follow up topic with conference being last week. We had our fast sunday the week before conference here. Also Lindsay and her family were there for church and stayed for the whole block which was great. Sister Esser who has been helping us teach and is her mother-in-law has gone back home to Kansas now but will be back up for the baptism in May. I don't know if I'll still be around for that or not. We have transfer calls this Saturday so next Monday i'll be able to tell you what i'll be doing for my last 2 transfers.
The weather this week has been rainy. It was great weather on Monday for our outdoor zone p-day which was nice, but the rest of the week has been rainy and windy. Not too too cold though so that is good. We also had the car this week. Josh Ledbetter is back in town from BYU-I now and he will be spending a lot of time with us since he is still a pre-missionary. He has his meeting with the stake president today to submit his mission papers into SLC. At zone p-day i caught a shoulder to the lip and my lower lip was bruised up and bleeding. I didn't need to get stitches or anything so that is good and i'm almost fully healed up now.
This week we found a super cool family originally from Nepal. They moved to America 4 years ago and converted to Christianity. The father is still Hindu, but the wife and 3 children and 1 cousin consider themselves Christians. We taught them the restoration and invited them to be baptized and they said yes. At the church they currently go to I guess they won't baptize you until you are 13. When we told them that they could be baptized at age 8 the 9 year olds face lit up and he was really excited. The oldest sibling is 18 and the youngest is 9. We are going back on Wednesday to teach them again and I just hope that there current pastor doesn't anti them or anything.
I know that this church is true. i see it every day when I go out and talk to people. They are attracted to the light that we who have the gospel emit. The hard part for them is that they have been in the great and spacious building for too long and once they leave they feel the mocking and the pointing fingers. it is our job to find the elect who will grab hold of the light and hold on steadfastly and endure to the end regardless of what the darkness may throw at them. I am grateful for the light that i have and for the light that I and we will continue to receive throughout the rest of our lives as we shun the darkness.
Love, Elder Peterson
April 8, 2013
Dear Family,
I really super enjoyed this conference weekend! We only watched two sessions of conference at the church this go around. We watched one session over at Lindsay's house with her family who are now on date to be baptized on May 11th. That is the soonest they could do it where everyone could be there who would need to be. We also watched two sessions over at a members house and Sarah was there as well. She is really stoked for getting baptized on April 20th and it is for sure going to happen. We've reserved the building and everything for that morning. We also talked with her about the Holy Ghost after the Sunday Afternoon session of conference and it really answered a question that she had had so that was good. One of my favorite talks was M. Russel Ballard's talk. The analogy about the tomato plants really struck a chord with me and i'm excited to see what harvest will come in the future from the seeds that are being planted today.
We got some exciting news from our mission president this week. Here is an excerpt of his weekly letter: Sister Jergensen and I have some exciting news to share with you. On May 4th the seven stakes that are part of this mission will have a Priesthood Leadership Conference (PLC) at the Iowa City Stake Center from 1-5 PM in the afternoon. All of the stake presidencies, the bishops and branch presidents will be in attendance to be trained and taught by a member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles as well as a member of the Presidency of the Seven Presidents of Seventy. Sister Jergensen and I are not exactly sure who will be in attendance for the PLC; but Elder Reall, our Area Seventy has informed us that the member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles who will be here would like to have an IDM Mission Conference earlier in the day. All of the missionaries throughout our mission will be invited including all elders, sisters and senior couples.
So we get to meet with a member of the quorum of the twelve apostles in a month. I'm stoked! We don't know who it will be yet, but i'm guessing M. Russel Ballard. Feel free to add your guesses to the pot. That is cool that Dex McKell is coming the IDMM. I will see him at his first transfer meeting which will be my last transfer meeting so that will be fun. President McGinn will be able to have a new favorite missionary now as well. We are having our zone P-day today. Our zone has been doing really good at reaching our baptismal goals and we have seen a lot of miracles lately for which I am very grateful to God for.
I don't really have any specific birthday requests except for having some fresh garments waiting for me at home. That would be nice. Other than that i can't really think of anything.
One of the most overlying themes of conference that I gathered was being obedient. And i'll take it one step further and relate it to being exactly obedient. I have personally seen that obedience brings blessings, and exact obedience invites miracles. It truly is true that when we receive any blessing it is because we obeyed some law that the blessing was connected to. I know that God lives and that He is ready and waiting to bless us when we are obedient to His commandments!
I also attached some pictures. I finally tracked down and had the picture of Saliboko and fams baptism e-mailed to me. It is a lot of white! And the other is Elder Olson and myself. Sorry it's kind of blurry.
And one other thing. Sister Gardner in the mission office just wanted to double check and confirm that i will be flying into the SLC airport. she is already having to make travel arrangements. If you could let me know in next e-mail that would be great. Thanks!
Love, Elder Peterson
I really super enjoyed this conference weekend! We only watched two sessions of conference at the church this go around. We watched one session over at Lindsay's house with her family who are now on date to be baptized on May 11th. That is the soonest they could do it where everyone could be there who would need to be. We also watched two sessions over at a members house and Sarah was there as well. She is really stoked for getting baptized on April 20th and it is for sure going to happen. We've reserved the building and everything for that morning. We also talked with her about the Holy Ghost after the Sunday Afternoon session of conference and it really answered a question that she had had so that was good. One of my favorite talks was M. Russel Ballard's talk. The analogy about the tomato plants really struck a chord with me and i'm excited to see what harvest will come in the future from the seeds that are being planted today.
We got some exciting news from our mission president this week. Here is an excerpt of his weekly letter: Sister Jergensen and I have some exciting news to share with you. On May 4th the seven stakes that are part of this mission will have a Priesthood Leadership Conference (PLC) at the Iowa City Stake Center from 1-5 PM in the afternoon. All of the stake presidencies, the bishops and branch presidents will be in attendance to be trained and taught by a member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles as well as a member of the Presidency of the Seven Presidents of Seventy. Sister Jergensen and I are not exactly sure who will be in attendance for the PLC; but Elder Reall, our Area Seventy has informed us that the member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles who will be here would like to have an IDM Mission Conference earlier in the day. All of the missionaries throughout our mission will be invited including all elders, sisters and senior couples.
So we get to meet with a member of the quorum of the twelve apostles in a month. I'm stoked! We don't know who it will be yet, but i'm guessing M. Russel Ballard. Feel free to add your guesses to the pot. That is cool that Dex McKell is coming the IDMM. I will see him at his first transfer meeting which will be my last transfer meeting so that will be fun. President McGinn will be able to have a new favorite missionary now as well. We are having our zone P-day today. Our zone has been doing really good at reaching our baptismal goals and we have seen a lot of miracles lately for which I am very grateful to God for.
I don't really have any specific birthday requests except for having some fresh garments waiting for me at home. That would be nice. Other than that i can't really think of anything.
One of the most overlying themes of conference that I gathered was being obedient. And i'll take it one step further and relate it to being exactly obedient. I have personally seen that obedience brings blessings, and exact obedience invites miracles. It truly is true that when we receive any blessing it is because we obeyed some law that the blessing was connected to. I know that God lives and that He is ready and waiting to bless us when we are obedient to His commandments!
I also attached some pictures. I finally tracked down and had the picture of Saliboko and fams baptism e-mailed to me. It is a lot of white! And the other is Elder Olson and myself. Sorry it's kind of blurry.
And one other thing. Sister Gardner in the mission office just wanted to double check and confirm that i will be flying into the SLC airport. she is already having to make travel arrangements. If you could let me know in next e-mail that would be great. Thanks!
Love, Elder Peterson
April 1, 2013
Hello hello family dearest
We had a great Easter Sunday here in West Des Moines. We had a great sacrament meeting. It was our fast and testimony meeting because of conference next week. We had a lot of good testimonies born about our Savior Jesus Christ. We also had a lot of less active members and such come out of the woodwork to come to church. Ironically, none of the less active members we specifically invited to come and said they would didn't show, but ones that we didn't ask were there. It was good to see a full chapel though. We also had quite a few investigators at church as well from both of us sets of missionaries. Sarah was at church again and just loves it. She is really happy now. She announced in the combined RS, HP, and elders meeting (because of the 5th sunday) that she was being baptized on the 20th so that's pretty much going to happen. Also Lindsay and the rest of her family were there for sacrament meeting as well. We were really stuffed with the spirit... and food! After church we went to the Gales and had a turkey Easter feast. Then we went straight from there to a less actives family get together and had crescent sandwiches. Then we had like an hour break so we went and visited Amber and her boyfriend who was in town for the weekend. Then we went to Lindsay's and had a ham dinner with her family. Lots of good food and fellowship. We also dropped by the Churchill's at night because they had some extra dessert for us to pick up. A very delicious day.
We reached our zone baptismal goal of 10 for the month of March so we will be getting another zone p-day again. That will be fun. This man named Nelson was baptized by our zone leaders and we brought Sarah to come watch. She was going to be out of town this weekend but she called us on Friday and told us that it turns out she wasn't leaving so we invited her to the baptism that next day and she came. She said she was very glad to be able to see what would be happening to her. The spirit was really strong and what impressed me was that after Nelson was baptized, immediately he clasped his hands together and said a short silent prayer of gratitude in the baptismal font. What a wonderful gift we have all been given to be baptized and be born again. And every week we have that same privilege when we partake of the sacrament worthily.
I got a package from the Easter bunny. That was very nice of him and the candy is delicious. We were chosen to hide the eggs for the Easter egg hunt that the less active family, the Robinsons, was putting on. They had a lot of eggs and it was fun to watch all of the little kids go and kill each other over them. Ha. There were plenty for each of them so the fighting was minimal. It's getting cold again here for this week. I think it just likes to be cold for the weeks that we don't have the car. I have been able to go and look at my application for BYUI. I filled out the essays and President Jergensen did the ecclesiastical endorsement with me Sunday night so we should be good to go when we get the Seminary and Institute thing figured out. Also there were some questions at the bottom of step 7 about parents education levels and families estimated income for the year and I wasn't sure what to put so you might want to fill those in for me.
One study technique that I have been doing lately with the scriptures is going through and writing down all of the questions that I can find. In Luke chapter 23 it talks about the resurrection of Jesus Christ and asks a very good question. The angel asks Mary: "Why seek ye the living among the dead?" Are we seeking the living Christ who is alive and well and wants to help us? Or our we just saying wrote prayers and not looking for His hand in our lives... essentially seeking a dead Christ? And on the flip side our we spiritually alive that we can feel promptings and be sought out as tools in the hands of our Heavenly Father or are we spiritually dead? I know that Christ lives and because He lives we too will live again.
Love, Elder Peterson
We reached our zone baptismal goal of 10 for the month of March so we will be getting another zone p-day again. That will be fun. This man named Nelson was baptized by our zone leaders and we brought Sarah to come watch. She was going to be out of town this weekend but she called us on Friday and told us that it turns out she wasn't leaving so we invited her to the baptism that next day and she came. She said she was very glad to be able to see what would be happening to her. The spirit was really strong and what impressed me was that after Nelson was baptized, immediately he clasped his hands together and said a short silent prayer of gratitude in the baptismal font. What a wonderful gift we have all been given to be baptized and be born again. And every week we have that same privilege when we partake of the sacrament worthily.
I got a package from the Easter bunny. That was very nice of him and the candy is delicious. We were chosen to hide the eggs for the Easter egg hunt that the less active family, the Robinsons, was putting on. They had a lot of eggs and it was fun to watch all of the little kids go and kill each other over them. Ha. There were plenty for each of them so the fighting was minimal. It's getting cold again here for this week. I think it just likes to be cold for the weeks that we don't have the car. I have been able to go and look at my application for BYUI. I filled out the essays and President Jergensen did the ecclesiastical endorsement with me Sunday night so we should be good to go when we get the Seminary and Institute thing figured out. Also there were some questions at the bottom of step 7 about parents education levels and families estimated income for the year and I wasn't sure what to put so you might want to fill those in for me.
One study technique that I have been doing lately with the scriptures is going through and writing down all of the questions that I can find. In Luke chapter 23 it talks about the resurrection of Jesus Christ and asks a very good question. The angel asks Mary: "Why seek ye the living among the dead?" Are we seeking the living Christ who is alive and well and wants to help us? Or our we just saying wrote prayers and not looking for His hand in our lives... essentially seeking a dead Christ? And on the flip side our we spiritually alive that we can feel promptings and be sought out as tools in the hands of our Heavenly Father or are we spiritually dead? I know that Christ lives and because He lives we too will live again.
Love, Elder Peterson
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