June 24, 2012

Hello Family!

I was able to watch the worldwide training broadcast at our church and it was excellent! That is exciting to hear from Whitney that she (you if you are reading this) will be a pilot mission for all of the technology stuff. I loved all of the videos and success stories that they shared. Unfortunately not a lot of our ward was able to watch it live. We had a member family who had a giant tree fall into their driveway so after our ward potluck that we had after church the vast majority of people went to their house with chainsaws and went to work doing service. When we visit our ward members now we are going to make sure that they watch it and maybe even watch some of it with them.

That is too bad to hear that Steven is having health problems. Is it his back again? And since when is Madeline Ashcraft engaged? She will always just seem like a 14 year old to me. Our goodbye zone conference went well. President and Sister Jergensen stood up and did kind of a question and answer type ordeal giving us advice for life and how to raise our families and such. It was really good, and quite humorous at parts which made the whole saying "goodbye" thing easier for all of us. It was still sad to see them go. We also learned that the Peoria zone of our mission will officially become part of the Illinois Chicago West Mission effective July 1st. Nauvoo will still be in our mission though so we still have a temple!

It's still rainy here. Today it has been raining torrentially with loud loud thunder. The power was out for a while and is still out in some areas. That is not why we are late e-mailing though. We were playing Settlers of Catan with some members this morning for our P-Day and then had lunch and then came to the library. We picked up a new investigator this week named Dianna. We have been helping her move into her new house and we were able to teach her the plan of salvation while doing so. She just came here from California and we look forward to working with her. Deanna came to church on Sunday(not to be confused with Dianna. They are 2 different investigators.) It was good to see her again because we have been having trouble contacting her. But we got an appointment set up and we are all ready to set a baptismal date with her and her son.

I love you all!

Love, Elder Peterson

June 17, 2013

Dear Family,

We have not had any tornado damage here in Fort Dodge. We have been on tornado watch a couple of times, but it has never really been all that bad. The real problem is the flooding that we have had from all of the rain. A lot of the corn fields are flooded and even more have not yet even been planted yet because the ground is too muddy for the tractors to go on and such, so as soon as it dries up there is going to be a mad dash to get all of the crops planted and replanted for what was lost in the floods. We have had some damge in our district boundaries from tornadoes, but that is like over an hour away from where we live.

Camping sounds like a good time! We heard some great news from the girls camp here! One of our beehives took a friend to girls camp and by the end of the camp she was asking how she could join the church because she loved it so much. Her mom works here at the library and we are already friends with her so it is going to be fun to have this member family work with this other family. Now we just need to get the mom on board... hopefully more updates on that story later.

We had a good fathers day here. And happy fathers day to all you fathers out there! Anne gave a talk in church on the Book of Mormon and did a great job, especially since she was baptized only 2 short months ago. Unfortunately Tabby didn't come to church to hear her talk. We might be going bowling with there family and the Bair family and then having an FHE lesson afterwards with them today. The primary baked cookies for all of the dads in our ward and then presented them to them during the final hour, and we got all of the leftovers :) I wore my orange tie that always reminds me of you dad to church on sunday. I guess i'll just have to show you the tie when i get home. I'm also glad that you got my letter.

That's too bad to hear that Zach chose an expensive place... oh well. Is it too late to maybe try and room with Steven then? If it is, just choose a place mom now and then i'll adjust if I don't like it for that second semester. I don't register for classes until Wednesday of this week and i already got permission from President and am good to go for that morning. President Jensen comes in just 2 weeks! And we heard that the group that Dex McKell is coming in has 30+ missionaries coming to the mission that transfer. My departing temple trip is going to be on July 9th. It's going to be an all day thing for me since we are about a 5 hour drive away from Nauvoo here. We have a zone conference this Tuesday as a final goodbye to President Jergensen and then we have another zone conference the week afterward for President Jensens first. Lots of traveling these last few weeks, and then you throw district meetings in there too and we are happily busy all of the time!

One of my favorite scriptures that I have been thinking about lately is in Mosiah 5:13. The verses leading up to it are great too, but 13 says For how knoweth a man the master whom he has not served, and who is a stranger unto him, and is far from the thoughts and intents of his heart? I have truly come to know the master as I have served. I have come to know Jesus Christ as my friend. Another favorite verse of mine is Doctrine and Covenants 93:45 Verily, I say unto my servant Joseph Smith, Jun., or in other words, I will call you friends, for you are my friends, and ye shall have an inheritance with me— 46 I called you servants for the world’s sake, and ye are their servants for my sake— (just substitute your own name and you're good). I am forever thankful for the friendship that i have gained with my savior and with my Heavenly Father. I know that this church is true. Until next time,

Love Always,

Elder Peterson

June 10, 2013

Dear Family,

It still doesn't quite feel like summer here in Fort Dodge. It's still been in the 60's mostly with it getting up into the low 70's and rainy. It actually feels great to be walking around in. I am ready for some sunshine though. This has been a good week. Our stake did mini missions so we had a priest from the Newton branch with us for Friday, Saturday, Sunday. It was a good experience for him and for us. My new companion is Elder Blackburn. He is from Layton, UT. He went to culinary arts school for cooking so maybe he will chef something up for me sometime. Also Elder Brown arrived in the mission from Chico. And an elder Parry from Tremonton is here i don't know if Casey might know him.

At church we had an investigator family show up with a less active man who we are actively trying to reactivate. Deanna is the moms name and they have 3 kids. One of the kids, Jesus, is 8 years old so he is eligible for baptism. It would be sweet to be able to say we baptized Jesus in Iowa. We taught them after church and the mom really wants to get baptized. The dad is happily catholic so we will just let him come in his own time. They live in Webster City which is about 45 minutes away so we are really going to have to 1. budget miles and 2. get help from the members for rides and such. The sisters in our ward are in a tripanionship so we have one more missionary in the ward as well. We had a great turn out this last week at church which was great!

We are still having trouble teaching our other investigators. We are able to talk to them on the phone quite often so we are still in contact (with the exception of Breon) but sitting down and actually teaching seems to be a problem for the last 2 weeks. We had our get to know you district meeting on Saturday. Most of the district is new plus we had our mini missionaries there so it was fun! At lunch afterwards we went to an authentic mexican restaurant again since we were in Hampton and i got a cabeza taco and a tripa taco. Now when people ask me what is something weird that i ate on my mission, i can have a good answer. Cabeza is cow head. I learned how they cooked it after i ate the taco. They take the entire head, like fur and everything, and boil it for 10 hours and then pick it up by the horns and shake the skull until all the meat and brains fall off. That one wasn't my favorite. The tripa was good... it is the inner lining pretty much of the utter of the cow.

Girls camp is this week for our ward and scout camp is the following week. then things slow down for the rest of the summer, but hopefully not for us! I attached a file of Elder Blackburn and I in front of the mystery machine that we found. I love all of you and have a great week!

Love, Elder Peterson

June 3, 2013

Dear Family,

Hello family! I do love testimony meetings! They are great and our ward has had great testimony meetings these last 2 months. That is exciting to hear about all of the missionary work that has been going on in the ward. Both the convert baptisms and all of the missionaries who are serving. Does Dex really go into the MTC before testimony meeting next month? 2 suits will be fine while on the mission. I've been pretty lucky and have had both of my suit coats hold up pretty good. Most missionaries tend to buy at least one other suit at a Goodwill type place (like a DI). I bought a black suit coat for a couple of bucks to have three suits total. Also it's not uncommon for suits to be left in apartments so he might get lucky and find one that fits him for free :)

This has been a pretty slow week for us. We have still been able to do good though. We got our calls for transfers this week and it turns out that Elder Horkley is being transferred so I will have a new companion for my last transfer. We are headed down to Iowa City on Thursday to pick him up and bring him back. This will be President Jergensens last transfer meeting so i'm kind of glad that I get the opportunity to go. It seems like i've been going to a lot of transfer meetings lately, and i know for sure i'll be going to the next one too haha. We had a new member come into the ward last week. He will be staying as long as his job interview goes well today. We actually had dinner with him over at a members house. He is a return missionary and pretty young (still in his young 20's). He will be a great addition to the ward. Most of the ward members are just plain spread out. There is a pretty good community of them here in Fort Dodge, and that is where the church building is. They really do live in a lot of outlying towns and such though. It is beautiful here in Fort Dodge and it is also small. With all of the trees my allergies have been picking up a little lately, but i've been taking my allergy pills and that is helping.

There is a pretty good chance we will be getting some "mini missionaries" on friday this week. They would be priests doing a stake activity where they spend 2 1/2 days with the full time missionaries. If they do come it will be fun for my new companion who won't know the area but going out on splits with this priest. It will just take some solid planning. That will be a problem for our whole zone seeing as how every single companionship in my district is changing. It will be a fun 'get to know you' district meeting on Saturday though with all of the priests and laurels being there too. I wish we would have had more chances like this in Orem. I remember doing the mission week little thing in mutual and being assigned to our respective missions and going over to members houses to eat authentic food from that area, but it's nothing like the mini missions they do out here. It is so cool and so good for the priests who are preparing to serve missions!

I pray for you all every day. I've been studying about some super heroes lately in my studies! People that define the qualities that we want to obtain ourselves. The super heroes i'm referring to are of course not wearing tights, but are in fact the strippling warriors. Their willingness to obey every command with exactness, unity, virtue, and exceeding faith are all examples to me. Not to mention that they did not doubt because their mothers taught them ;) As a mission we are all under President Jergensen as our Helaman and are being as unified as possible. With exact obedience, miracles are performed and great things are wrought in the land. We are all also unified under God as His children watching out for each other and helping lift hands that hang helplessly down. I'm thankful that our family is unified! I love you all so much. I treasure the fact that I can say that in this family, we serve missions!

Love, Elder Peterson