May 27, 2013

Hey there family,

I sure do remember the Bradley's! That is way cool that you were able to see them again. We have had a busy week here. We have had a lot of rain this last week. Cold rain too, but anyway it has caused quite a bit of flooding. We have spent a lot of time doing service. In fact we got a forwarded message from our mission president that we could take as much time as we wanted to do service this week because of all of the flooding. We have one river running through town, the Des Moines river, and it is very full. Up past it's banks. Our little duplex did not flood at all though so we don't have to worry about our house we can just help with other peoples. it's pretty warm and sunny today though so that is nice. For memorial day yesterday we did have one barbeque over at the church with several families in the ward. Since it was our p-day we got to stay longer and play games with them as well. We tossed the football around for a while and played some settlers of Catan. Then we grilled up some burgers and brats.

Whenever i hear about who is graduating this year or who is on missions it just blows my mind. They don't seem old enough to be doing those things! I guess i just forget that i'm 21 years old now. I heard from Cody Buxton last week and he is doing well. He was telling me about all of the little buddies we used to hang out with and how they are all on missions now too. Now it is just weird that all of us are coming home soon... or are already home.

We met a less active man miraculously this week. His name is Jim. He is off of our records, but ever since we first saw him he has wanted to become active again in the church now. He too has Chron's and it has been bugging him. He is refusing to go to the hospital though... stubborn Iowans. We've met with him a couple of times and since then he has gotten his job back and has almost quit drinking entirely now. We still have to get him to completely quit drinking and to quit smoking, but one step at a time. He has met the bishop and they are meeting fairly regularly. I see so much potential in this man. He was baptized when he was 8 years old (he's 50 now) but he never made it through the aaronic priesthood or anything. His aunt and uncle are members of the church and he is back in contact with them now and he suprisingly has retained a lot of the knowledge over the years. He already wants to start paying tithing and we weren't even the ones to bring it up to him. He just knew that that is what you are supposed to do with your money and he credits God for helping him get his job back so he wants to pay his tithing.

Oh! We also had a zone conference this last week on Wednesday in Ames. I almost forgot to write about this. The musical number went really good as far as I can tell. President Jergensen told us the good news that they are going to do one more zone conference round next transfer before they leave. It was good to see President Danielson again who lives in Story City and is the stake president. It was kind of full cirlce for me. My first and last zone conferences were in Ames.

Tabby is still doing well and is set to be baptized on the 22nd of June. We get transfer calls this Saturday and we'll find out if Elder Horkley is leaving or not. I guess there is always the possibility that i will be transferred again, but that is highly unlikely. Honestly I could see it going either way of EH leaving or staying. Well all I can think of recently is that when you are in the service of your fellow beings you are only in the service of your God. We helped this one lady clear out her basement and really left an impression on her. She told us that she will never forget us and she tried to pay us money but of course we declined. She firmly believed that you couldn't find any decent people left in the world, so we really made her happy. We have also been able to grow closer to ward members through service, especially helping the Whitehills after their house burned down. Service is great and i'm thankful for the good health and spiritual sustanance from God to be able to help His children.

Love, Elder Peterson

May 20, 2013

Hola familia,

Well as of today i've been out on my mission for 22 months. Time is flying by way too fast. It has been a great week this last week. The weather has been crazy! We had one day that was over 100 degrees. We've also had some rainy colder days. All that mixed together made for some good ole tornado watch weather. Yesterday as we were driving to an appointment we got a text from the weather alert people or whatever telling us to take take shelter now and that we were in a tornado watch. It was still partly sunny outside, but we could see some dark clouds in the distance so we turned around and went home. We were watching the sky and the clouds were moving very quickly, but they just blew right over us. The sirens did go off a couple of times though (once from a malfunction). It was kind of eerie, but it didn't even get that windy. We heard that the tornado touched down 4 miles away from Fort Dodge, but we don't actually get to watch the news or anything so i don't know if that is correct. The zone leaders ended up grounding us at around 7 30 that night though because of it.

We had 2 investigators at church on Sunday! Wahoo! Tabby was there with her family... thus making her officially on date to be baptized June 22nd now. Also a man named Breon came. We taught him at the library and I guess he came to general conference in October of last year. Well as the sacrament was being passed he leaned over to me on the pew and told me he had been thinking about being baptized since we invited him to be earlier that week. Well he leaned over and told me that it was a yes and that he wants to be. That was just a delight to hear. We will be setting a date with him this coming Thursday. They both only stayed for sacrament meeting this week, but that is a great start! We also picked up a new investigator this week named Taylor. She was a former investigator who stopped being taught because she spent too much time in the hospital? Well we went back to check up on her and were able to teach her the restoration right there on the spot and she wasn't able to make it to church this week because she was out of town, but she really wants to come this upcoming week. We have really been blessed this week and I am very grateful to God because of it.

This upcoming week we have a zone conference in Ames. The four missionaries who are serving right now in Fort Dodge are doing the musical number for it. We are singing 'How Great Thou Art!' It is actually pretty lucky that between the two sisters, Elder Horkley, and I we have all 4 parts so we can sing SATB for some of the versus. We practiced yesterday and actually sound pretty good. Welp, I hope everyone has a good week. I'm not sure if the library will be closed on Monday because of Memorial day or not, so you might be looking for my e-mail come Tuesday. I sure love all of you and know this that I know the church is true and that Joseph Smith really is a prophet of God and the prophet of the Restoration.

Love, Elder Peterson

May 13, 2013

Hello Family!

Man i am so happy right now! Mom and dad it was so great to talk with you last night! What a miracle that our chat was relatively problem free. This was a good week, but a slow week. We actually received an update text from our zone because we have set some specific goals, and as a whole zone not one new investigator was found last week. That is just a set up to see many great miracles this week from all of our new found determination... so look forward to some great stories next week about finding new investigators! We had a baptism in our ward on Friday which was sweet! I sent a picture of us with the main man, Dragon. Or Dynastasias if you want to call him by his real name. He was taught by the sisters in our ward, but we were able to fellowship him at church and help confirm him yesterday and he wants to come out and start teaching with us now as well.

We do visit our recent converts a lot. A couple of times a week usually. It is good for them and they always love having us over! We were invited to a single adults picnic that they had this week to thank us for the good work we've been doing in the ward. They had a LOT of food and we got to take a lot of it home as well. We have a whole pie and a half in our fridge at home. Banana cream... yummy. Also a whole bag of fried chicken and meatballs and what not... it is great to see a fridge full of food again instead of living off of balogna sandwiches like i've been doing. Also on Sunday the young women were selling giant pizza sized cookies for a camp fundraiser and a member bought us one of those so we also have a now half eaten giant cookie at home. All these sweets are going to fatten me up! But I hear that tomorrow it is supposed to be up to 94 degrees so i'll just sweat it all off. It's not too hot today though, still suit coat weather because it's not even over 70. Looks like summer is coming with no spring for us.

I know of Enzio Busche. He has a speech called "Unleashing the Dormant Spirit" which is excellent. I'll leave you with some of my favorite quotes from that talk. I don't remember the quotes exactly, but the gist is the same. He said that the pain of sacrifice is only an instant. It is the fear of sacrifice that is lasting or painful. My own comment to that would be that we need to live the commandment to be of good cheer. For Christ has overcome the world. When we fear the sacrifice, that is what makes it painful. Enzio Busche also said the spirit will give you clarity, but never doubt. If you are ever receiving doubt, it is not from the spirit. Clarity will come from the spirit.

I know that this is God's true and living church on the earth today. I am so grateful to be a missionary at this time! i love you all. God be with you til me meet again!

May 6, 2013

Dear Family,

I believe the saying here in Fort Dodge goes like this: April showers bring May snowstorms? We had a really nice day this last week. It was above 70 degrees so I was able to walk around in a short sleeve shirt and it felt great. But then that night a rain storm came quite quickly and drenched us as we walked the rest of the way home. It was cold. Also the next day we walked to the church which was about a good hour walk in the rain and it was really windy that day too. My forehead was numb by the time we got there. But we had an awesome lesson at the church. We taught Tabby and her Mom and the Jensens were there. Sis Jensen is the young women's president so it was good for her to meet Tabby and be able to be there for her. We set the date of May 25th for her baptism... but she ended up not coming to church this week so it is not officially her date yet. Then on Thursday we woke up to the sight you see in the picture I attached. SNOW! Man, in May too of all things. I think the official recording was 6 1/2 inches, but it was more than that in some places. We stayed in and weekly planned for a good chunk of the day. District meeting got cancelled and moved to Friday because of the storm.

We had a pretty crazy scene happen on Thursday. Elder Horkley and I were in our apartment weekly planning when all of a sudden we hear a bunch of screaming going on outside of our duplex. There was a lot of obscenities in the language so we knew it wasn't anything good that was happening. We looked out our window and saw these 2 guys in their cars yelling at this one guy on the other side of the street. Apparently he had cut them off while driving or something and they had almost gotten in an accident. I saw one of the 2 talking on the phone so I thought he was calling the police to come and get a report or something. The yelling was going on for about 15 minutes or so with just the three of them when it escalated to threatenings and they were trying to start a fight. That is when we locked our doors and started watching from the upstairs window through a small crack in our blinds so they couldn't see us watching them. Well long story short, they 2 guys had called in back up or something because all of a sudden like 5 cars pull up out of nowhere and a mob of like 30 people are then standing outside of our house on the other side of the street and the other guy runs into his house and his mom comes out and starts yelling at the mob. Then our other neighbor and her son come out and start yelling at them and I called the cops and reported the scene and they all scrambled when three units pulled up. They talked to some people and got statements and that was the end of that. Haven't had any trouble since then. It was pretty interesting to watch though.

How crazy that JD gets home this weekend. We set up our skype time. I will be able to skype at 5 o'clock PM Iowa time at a members house. So i'll call you then! I am looking forward to it. It will be really fun! We logged a lot of driving time this weekend. On Friday we drove to Hampton (about an hour away) for district meeting back and forth on Friday. Then on Friday night we drove down to Boone (about an hour away again) to spend the night with our zone leaders. On Saturday morning we got up at 4 in the morning to drive to Iowa City (about 3 30 hours away) to hear Elder Neil L. Andersen speak to us. It was a really great meeting. All 235 IDMM missionaries were seated in the same building. Elder L. Whitney Clayton of the Presidency of the 70 and Elder Dube from the first quorum of the 70 were also there. Elder Andersen talked mostly on the atonement. About strengthening our testimonies of it and inviting people to repent. He emphasized that God knows the end from the beginning. When he testified of the savior, there was no doubting he knew it was true. The only way to describe it is that it looked like he had actually physically seen Christ Himself. We all got to shake his hand at the beginning of the meeting and it was great. We got there early enough that we were able to snag third row seats which was pretty great. Then we drove back which was another 3 30 hour drive. More good news is that the sisters got a new car so we are no longer sharing. Wade- there weren't any jokes that i know of about us sharing. They did try to name the truck Mr. Thornton though. That was a fail on their part.

Today is a bright shiny day though and about 65 degrees already. Most of the snow is now melted. I didn't need my winter coat... i got by with sweaters and ear muffs. The church is true! Grandma and Grandpa Bob, Grandma and Grandpa Pete, Mark and Mindy, Lori, Steve Wright and fam I got your letters this week! Thank you so much for the birthday wishes! The other picture is Elder Horkley and I on a rail road track bridge that goes across a big chasm.

Love, Elder Peterson


April 29, 2013

Dear Family,

Hola. It has indeed been an eventful week. And a good week as well. My new area that I am serving in is Fort Dodge, IA. It is in the north west corner of the mission essentially. My new companion is Elder Horkley. He is from Washington. He has been out for 3 months and he is a great elder. We are already having fun together. We also have 2 sister missionaries in our ward who we share the car with. Church on Sunday was really nice. We do have a smaller ward... about 100 people on average is what I hear. That means that everyone is really close to each other. They are pretty spread out through the area though and not a whole lot of them live in Fort Dodge itself. Every 4th Sunday they do a pot luck after church though so that was really nice to be able to meet and greet the members and eat with them as well. They are all really good cooks! It was nice too because we don't really have any food at the apartment. I've been living off a Little Caesers pizza for the weekend and some macaroni and cheese so i'm excited to go grocery shopping today. The choir sang in sacrament meeting and I sang with them. It was a really easy arrangement so it was no big deal. they sang Joseph Smith's first prayer to the tune of Jesus lover of my soul. Elder Horkley is also musical and has a really great tenor voice.

My Birthday was just another day. We had district meeting that day out in Mason City. It is a 2 hour drive to get there and another 2 to come back so our whole day was pretty much district meeting. We did still manage to pick up a new investigator that day and visit a less active though. The less active had some leftover cake from his birthday which was on thursday so i had that as my celebration. I'm really excited to be able to Skype on Mother's Day!!! We are locking down where we are going to go so i'll let you know the details next week. We have church from 10 to 1 and meetings in the morning so it will most likely be in the mid afternoon sometime. The e-mail time hasn't changed. We are still allotted the one hour and fifteen minutes. What has changed is that we are now allowed to e-mail more than our family. We can e-mail our friends and recent converts and such.

That is good news to hear back from BYU-I about the track schedule. I'll be doing some thinking about the winter semester of school as well. Right now it sounds like something I would want to do. i'll also contact President Jergensen so I can get permission to take time to do what i need to to sign up for classes and what not. All i've heard about housing from everyone is NOT to stay in the dorms. Is there a deadline as to when i would have to make the final decision on who to live with? I haven't heard from Zach in a couple of weeks, but as of right now i would like to stay with him at least for my first Fall semester there. If it's not really working out after that then i'll reconsider. I'm bound and determined to get good grades though.

I got Rachael's video and i really liked it! It makes me miss all of my nieces and nephews even more! This Saturday is our mission conference in Iowa City. It will be an early morning for us. We need to be there by around 8 30 in the morning and it's about a 3 1/2 hour drive to get there from here. Plus we have to go to Boone to pick up another set of elders which isn't exactly on the way there. I just hope i'm not the one driving back. I'm really excited to be able to sit down and hear personally from an apostle of the Lord though. We were out doing some finding yesterday and we saw a couple sitting on their porch with a baby. I turned to E Horkley and said lets go talk to them. As we were crossing the street he said hello brother brower. It turns out they were members. They invited us to dinner and we made a trade that i would grill the hotdogs so he could drive us home afterwards.

We just had 2 baptisms in the ward in the last part of April. This ward hadn't had any baptisms prior to those 2 in over a year. We are also having one more on May 10th in our ward. A man named Dinastasias... but he goes by Dragon. He is 6'8" and 19 years old. He is a really cool guy. I got to meet him at church on Sunday. I know that this church is true and it can bless the lives of everyone. We need to not look upon people's stature or physical appearance, but on their hearts. When we do this we will see them as God sees them... in white clothing. When they feel of your love, they will want to learn more. That is one thing I have learned on my mission. thank you for all that you do! Especially you mom and dad! Wade and Brittany I got your package.. thank you! That is a stellar tie. I wore it to transfer meetings. Until next week

Love, Elder Peterson