Hello hello family!
This has been another great week in the life of a missionary. We did have one snow storm over the weekend, but it's actually been quite warm lately. The snow has been melting, but they say there might be another storm again today. We'll see. Church was good this week. We had a sister give her "farewell" talk. She is going to Arizona on her mission. With stake conference next week and fast sunday after that she gave her talk today, but will still be around for another couple of weeks. We had 2 investigators to church. Charles and his daughter came along with Matthew. Charles and family are moving this week and we are helping them on Thursday. We are trying to convince them to stay in West Des Moines so we can continue to teach them and baptize them. They don't have an apartment lined up yet so we are helping them look. We already looked at apartments for the second set that will be coming into the ward at the end of this transfer anyway. They might end up moving into the same complex that we live in already. For now they just have to rent a storage unit and live in a motel until they can find a more permanent place. We've been helping a lot of people move lately. On Wednesday night we helped a lady move out and then Thursday morning we helped her move in to her new place. We also helped a member of our bishopbric move on Thursday as well and had an impropmtu service opportunity come up while we were out that night and helped a man move some boxes into his new apartment. He had met with missionaries before and had even come to church, so we are going to start teaching him again. We are also helping a senior couple move tomorrow when they go back home to Utah. We have a zone p-day today. We earned it from reaching our 3 month baptismal goal as a zone.
I found this quote by Harold B. Lee that I liked. Talking about the armour of God found in Ephesians "The Apostle Paul took it one step further. He didn't leave the man just with the armour on and expect him to cope against an army, seen or unseen. He had his armoured man holding in his hand a shield and in his other hand a sword, which were the weapons of those days. That shield was the shield of faith and the sword was the sword of the spirit which is the Word of God. I can't think of any more powerful weapons than faith and a knowledge of the scriptures in the which are contained the Word of God." I like it because i never think of the shield as a weapon per se but always just as more defense. But faith is not just to help protect us against the attacks of the wiley one, but it is also a weapon. It leads to action and our shield keeps getting layers added on to it as we go out and act on our faith.
Love, Elder Peterson
February 20, 2013
Hello Family!
With Monday being a holiday the libraries were closed and yesterday we had a zone conference so we weren't able to e-mail that day either. But today we now have the time to e-mail. It has been a good week here. We hear that we are supposed to get between 7-10 inches of snow tomorrow so i'm not too excited about that. We have an appointment kind of far away that night so we have been prepping ourselves to be able to trek there through the snow. The original forecast was 12-20 inches though so it has gone down some in terms of quantity. Zone conference went really well. I'll talk about that a little later towards the end of my e-mail when i leave a spiritual aspect though. I got your Valentine's day package madre and padre. Thank you very much! Those cookies were very delicious and the Russian candy is good too.
We were able to get in contact with quite a few of our investigators this week that previously we had trouble contacting. We also had 2 investigators at church on Sunday! it felt so great after going a while without anyone showing up which was frustrating. The liberian family that we are teaching, the Bowah's, are now officially on date to be baptized on March 30th now that they have come to church. We also had a 13 year old boy named Matthew who is not a member, but his parents are, come to church. We will be setting a baptismal date with him as soon as we meet with him next. I know what Braden means when he talks about Africans being really receptive to the gospel and also hard to get a hold of. In the Des Moines area most of the baptisms are people from Africa. Not so much in our ward... yet... but in the Des Moines ward they are having way good success with Liberians. That is neat that you (mom and dad) are doing so much volunteer work at the MTC now. I'm sure you are such a great help to all of those that you come in contact with. I remember what really made me excited about missionary work more than anything else was teaching in the TRC. Specifically a man named Ciccio, i don't know if he is still there or not.
One of the things that I really liked about zone conference this past week was a saying that went something like this: The good that you do will do you no good unless your heart is in the right place... unless you have charity. It talks about this in 1 Corinthians 13. The whole chapter is great but one of my favorite verses is 3 "And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, and have not charity, it profiteth me nothing." If we don't have charity when we perform service, people will stell be fed and the poor benefit from it, but we do not. Love is what makes all the difference. I can say that I have truly come to love the people here in Iowa and I have a desire to serve them. I know that this church is true and that Jesus Christ and Heavenly Father have a perfect love for us and want to serve us.
Love, Elder Peterson
With Monday being a holiday the libraries were closed and yesterday we had a zone conference so we weren't able to e-mail that day either. But today we now have the time to e-mail. It has been a good week here. We hear that we are supposed to get between 7-10 inches of snow tomorrow so i'm not too excited about that. We have an appointment kind of far away that night so we have been prepping ourselves to be able to trek there through the snow. The original forecast was 12-20 inches though so it has gone down some in terms of quantity. Zone conference went really well. I'll talk about that a little later towards the end of my e-mail when i leave a spiritual aspect though. I got your Valentine's day package madre and padre. Thank you very much! Those cookies were very delicious and the Russian candy is good too.
We were able to get in contact with quite a few of our investigators this week that previously we had trouble contacting. We also had 2 investigators at church on Sunday! it felt so great after going a while without anyone showing up which was frustrating. The liberian family that we are teaching, the Bowah's, are now officially on date to be baptized on March 30th now that they have come to church. We also had a 13 year old boy named Matthew who is not a member, but his parents are, come to church. We will be setting a baptismal date with him as soon as we meet with him next. I know what Braden means when he talks about Africans being really receptive to the gospel and also hard to get a hold of. In the Des Moines area most of the baptisms are people from Africa. Not so much in our ward... yet... but in the Des Moines ward they are having way good success with Liberians. That is neat that you (mom and dad) are doing so much volunteer work at the MTC now. I'm sure you are such a great help to all of those that you come in contact with. I remember what really made me excited about missionary work more than anything else was teaching in the TRC. Specifically a man named Ciccio, i don't know if he is still there or not.
One of the things that I really liked about zone conference this past week was a saying that went something like this: The good that you do will do you no good unless your heart is in the right place... unless you have charity. It talks about this in 1 Corinthians 13. The whole chapter is great but one of my favorite verses is 3 "And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, and have not charity, it profiteth me nothing." If we don't have charity when we perform service, people will stell be fed and the poor benefit from it, but we do not. Love is what makes all the difference. I can say that I have truly come to love the people here in Iowa and I have a desire to serve them. I know that this church is true and that Jesus Christ and Heavenly Father have a perfect love for us and want to serve us.
Love, Elder Peterson
February 11, 2013
Hello Family!
This has been a good week for us. We started up the new transfer by getting Elder Clarke to join our companionship. He is from Rigby Idaho. He is a really good Elder and is bold as a new missionary which i absolutely love. New missionaries now are definitely more prepared than ever before. We had 26 new missionaries come into the field which is our highest total yet. The transfer meeting was HUGE! We are not sure how long it will take to have Elder Clarke get his visa, but we are excited to have him for however long we can. I speak spanish with him sometimes and he'll speak back in portuguese. It kind of works. He teaches me some words in portuguese as well. He still gets an hour of language study each day so basically i get another hour of personally study which is nice somedays. But on the flip side we don't get out of the apartment to do work until 1:00 now. This is my third transfer staying in West Des Moines and after this one i'll have 3 left. I'm not sure what they will end up doing with me. It is just weird to think that I only have so much time left. It goes by too fast! I'm sure you know all about that mom and dad.
It has been really windy here the last couple of days. When we are out walking around you can't make phone calls because the people are guaranteed pretty much not to be able to hear a word you say... learned that from personal experience. We've been adjusting pretty well to having three people living in our apartment now instead of 2. We have a small kitchen is probably the hardest thing. During lunch and dinner we just have to take turns. Surprisingly we all still get to studies on time in the mornings.
We had a pretty sweet lesson with Kim this week. We actually taught her twice. The first time we gave her the Family proclamation to the world to read. Then when we went back 2 days later she had it all marked up and we answered her questions about it. It was such a good lesson and she is so sincere in investigating. The only sad part is that she left for South Dakota on Friday and then directly from there she is going to Colorado for a couple of weeks. We will be keeping in contact with her over the phone, but i wish she wasn't going to be gone for so long. That was way swell to hear about the Berg girls getting baptized!
One of my favorite scriptures that i've been thinking about lately is Omni 1:26
26 And now, my beloved brethren, I would that ye should come unto Christ, who is the Holy One of Israel, and partake of his salvation, and the power of his redemption. Yea, come unto him, and offer your whole souls as an offering unto him, and continue in fasting and praying, and endure to the end; and as the Lord liveth ye will be saved.
I like to switch the last 2 words of be saved to "find new investigators" or "have progressing investigators" or something to that effect. Really as we offer our WHOLE souls as an offering, the Lord helps us in this work. And in our lives. I know these things to be true! I love you all!
Until next week. Love,
Elder Peterson
February 3, 2013
Dear Family,
It has been a week of ups and downs this week. The mission has
taught me well just to focus on the ups though and looking back that's
really all i can remember from the past year and a half. Most of our
investigators were dogging us this week. Sunday morning we went and
personally visited all of them before church to tell them they needed to
come and hold the ones who said they would come accountable.
Unfortunately, none came. We also had to drop Kirk this week. He just
isn't progressing and he says the church just isn't for him right now.
On the bright side though, we definitely influenced him and he
acknowledges that. He prays now and he never used to. He believes in
Christianity once again. As our purpose of "inviting others to come
unto Christ" we have succeeded with him. Just no baptism. I'm sure
eventually in the future he will be baptized though. We are still good
friends and see him pretty often since he just lives down the hall from
us.
The best up of this week is that we had a baptism this Saturday of
Hope. That is Amber's (recent convert) daughter. Elder Dyer baptized
her and I confirmed her. There was a sweet spirit at her baptism. A
lot of ward members showed up to support her which is great. My
favorite thing she said was the person who was talking to her about
baptism and the holy ghost asked her what would happen to her after she
was baptized and Hope said "I'll be wet." Haha he was looking for
confirmed. The other picture is that we also had a pretty good sized
snow storm this week. It was really cold walking around (had to walk
because cars were grounded). With the wind chill it got down to -20...
enough to make your face go numb after just a minute or two. The good
thing about it is that people were more willing to let us in... when
they opened the door. Some would just look outside and tell us it was
too cold.
This week we got our transfer calls. Elder Dyer and I are actually
going to be staying together for another transfer! We were really
suprised when we got the call. We are also getting a third missionary.
A visa waiter who is going to go to Brazil once he gets his visa. He
will probably be with us for the whole transfer though. This next
transfer is only 5 weeks instead of 6. I am technically called to be
his trainer, but it is a joint effort by both Elder Dyer and myself to
train him until he gets to Brazil. No one in our district is getting
transfered, but another 2 companionships are getting visa waiters. That
will put our district at 13 missionaries. It is going to be fun. One
of the missionary companionships who is getting a visa waiter is our car
share, so now when we pick each other up to go to district meetings and
such we will be squishing 6 missionaries into the car. President just
told us to be careful and not to kill ourselves.
Another investigator we had, Dylan, we had to drop. We had high
hopes for him. He definitely had a LOT to overcome, but we thought we
could help him out. He also attended a baptism that some missionaries
had. But he stole some stuff again and got in trouble with the law and
skipped town so we aren't meeting with him anymore. My ankle is doing
good and i'm doing my stretches and exercises every day to get it
stronger and looser again.
My scripture highlights of the week come from:
Psalms 118: 24 This is the day which the Lord hath made; we will rejoice and be glad in it.
and
and
Alma 26: 35 Now have we not reason to rejoice? Yea, I say unto you, there never were men that had so great reason to rejoice as we, since the world began;
yea, and my joy is carried away, even unto boasting in my God; for he
has all power, all wisdom, and all understanding; he comprehendeth all
things, and he is a merciful Being, even unto salvation, to those who
will repent and believe on his name.
bolded for emphasis. But it is true that we have great reason to
rejoice and be happy every day. We determine ourselves whether we will
be happy or not, not our external circumstances. I can honestly say
that I am happy every single day. I know that this gospel is truth. It
is the gospel of Jesus Christ. It brings lasting happiness that can
linger and grow for eternity. I love you all!
Love, Elder Peterson
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