Merry Christmas Family!
So with the libraries being closed next week until after Wednesday
we've been asked to do all of our e-mailing today instead of on P-day.
This has been a pretty good week. We finally got our first snow of the
year, and boy did it come down. We woke up Thursday morning to 11
inches i think was the official recording. Also it was super windy and
cold and all of everywhere was just iced over. I wonder if i got a
little taste of Russia in this storm. All of the cars were grounded on
Thursday and we had to cancel district meeting. Usually these days are a
great opportunity to get out and do some service with a snow shovel,
but with my ankle how it is I wasn't even allowed to leave the apartment
because they didn't want me to slip and fall. We were allowed to go to
our dinner appointment though, they just had to come pick us up. I
watched from inside the doorway as Elder Dyer helped some of our
neighbors get unstuck from their parking places. Also we went with the
Bishop and helped Amber get her car unstuck as well after dinner. It
was a slow day. We weekly planned and cleaned our apartment and played
Risk a couple of times. It is a good thing we cleaned though because
the next day we got a call that they wanted to come inspect our
apartment this morning so we passed that cleaning check with flying
colors. We even cleaned the base of the toilet just like you taught me
mom ;)
I've been meaning to take some pictures of all the snow and what
not, but for some reason haven't. Next week i'll hope to send you all
some pictures of my latest adventures. All of the roads are still icey
and the cars are all grounded after 6 pm until further notice. We don't
have the car this week though so it doesn't effect us a whole lot i
guess. With the Christmas season coming up most of our investigators
are now home for the holidays and a lot of the members are gone too. We
have quite a bit of students in our ward so they are all gone. We do
have a sweet line up for Christmas eve and Christmas day though. Not as
sweet as a pirate Christmas. It's funny because i've actually been on
somewhat of a pirate kick with my companion lately so it made me laugh
when i heard this years theme for the party. We are going to have
dinner with the Relief society president and also a part member family
and two single moms in the ward so that will be sweet.
The part member family that we will be with on Christmas is one
that we have been working with. This last monday we actually had a
church presentation with them. We went around to different rooms and
taught their whole family the Restoration. It was really powerful. His
daughter started crying near the end and bore her testimony and his
wife also. It was just a powerful lesson. We invited him to find out
for himself if this was true and then to be baptized and he said that he
would put some effort into finding out. Before when the missionaries
would talk to him and invite him he would just say "no thank you" and
not show any interest. This time was way different though. He is a
unique man. He comes to church every week with his family and even has a
calling in scouting that he does a great job at fulfilling. He just
isn't a member. We also got him hooked up with some bomb home teachers
that are a perfect match for him so i think that will be helping out a
lot as well.
With this snow storm coming and also with my study in the
scriptures i've been thinking about service a lot lately. I was mainly
thinking about the contrast in techniques that Ammon and Aaron both
initially took when they first started their missions. Aaron just
immediately started preaching and calling the people to repentance and
he got thrown into jail with his brethren. And it wasn't entirely his
fault. The scriptures say it was his lot to fall into a more
stiffnecked and hard hearted people. But Ammon the first thing he did
was go to the king and ask to be his servant. Before King Lamoni even
knew Ammon was a missionary, Ammon was doing service for him.
Eventually this lead to a great conversion and a lot of people came unto
Jesus Christ because of this. Also after Aaron was let out of prison
he went to King Lamoni's father and said let me be your servant if you
will spare our lives and then from there taught King Lamoni's father and
converted him and his wife and a lot of other people as well. I was
kind of bummed out because i wasn't able to get out and do a lot of
manual labor service for people in the snow, but i've been finding ways
that i can serve people. Whether it's baking them cookies or just
talking to them while Elder Dyer does the manual labor haha. This one
lady, Layton, we helped get unstuck and then gave her some goodies and
now we have an appointment to go teach her tonight. Miracles happen
when you serve others. Also let us not forget the greatest example of
all, Jesus Christ. Christmas is the perfect time for us to celebrate
Christ's birth by going out and serving other people. I know that this
church is true. I love all of you!
Love, Elder Peterson
P.S. I got Kallie and Casey's card and also Mark and Mindy's card. Thank you so much! I appreciate all of you!
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