May 14, 2012

Hey family! 

 

This week has been superb.  It was so good to talk to you mom and dad.  it really gives you an extra spark to keep going strong.  We had a good mothers day.  Church was swell.  This last week we did a service project for a part member family.  We helped put siding up on his house for a couple three hours.  It was a learning experience, but it was pretty easy.  We also helped pick up his lawn.  He had this trash can back underneath a tree in the back of his backyard that smelled terrible!  I have no idea what it was full of but then water got in it and it was just a mess.  The mosquitos are coming out more and more now here as well.  And i've learned from our King's peak hike that those little buggers really like my blood. I have a couple of bites right now.  You are still beating me though mom.

 

The district is doing good.  We went on exchanges with our zone leaders this last week.  Elder Larson and i went to a more ghetto part of the area and picked up a couple of potentials.  We have meetings set up to go teach Karibah, Shavandah, and Sherita and Johnny.  This random lady also pulled over and walked up to us and gave us 20 bucks for lunch the next day.  When she first stopped the car and got out I thought she just wanted to talk with us or something, but she just gave us the money and left.  She did have a WWJD lanyard around her neck.  That was a definite up for the week. One down is that a less active family we were just starting to meet with told us not to come over anymore and that they were going to start searching out other churches :(  We had a giant luau (is that how you spell that?) at the church last weekend.  We had about 300 people come from all the surrounding area.  About 80 people weren't members.  We dug a hole and even roasted a pig in it.  It was super good! 

 

I kind of started a district emphasis in my district focusing around the christlike attributes which is chapter 6 in PMG.  We've all been studying that chapter for at least an hour through each week.  We have also had trainings in district meetings on the different attributes.  In PMG in the introduction to that chapter is says something to the effect of some chapters tell us what to do like how to teach and how to plan and such but by studying these attributes this work becomes more than just what we do, it becomes who we are.  And as we strive to master these attributes, we gain more self control over the natural man, and we become more like Jesus Christ, see more success, and a whole lot of other benefits.

 

This last week I gave a training on Charity and love.  I showed a short clip off the movie "Special witnesses of Christ."  It's a video that has all the apostles and the prophet bear testimony about different aspects of the Savior and such.  Elder David B. Haight is in the video and he said this about love: I don't have the quote on me (i thought i did) but he said that when he was called to be an apostle by President Kimball he knew that the lesson he was being taught was that the love that the savior showed and hopes that we will achieve is necessary in order to teach the gospel properly.  And as we go out into the world and bear our testimonies of Christ it will be the love that attracts people.  I have a testimony that a love for the people is needed in order to teach the gospel properly.  That is why when members refer people for us to teach and they let us teach them in their home, the love is greater.  I'm so greatful for the advice that my dad gave me before i left for my mission of starting to pray for a love of the people even before I got out here. I have noticed the help that has come from that and i can truly say i love the midwestern people.  I also love Jesus Christ and Heavenly Father and I know that they live and love us as well.

Love, Elder Peterson

May 7, 2012

Hello familia

 

This has been a good week.  It's still been raining a lot.  Now not so much, but the humidity is really starting to kick in.  You could probably cut it with a butter knife.  I was also able to go to the Nauvoo temple this last week which was fantastic!  Such a good time and well needed.  We did a session in the morning and then we went down and watched the youth and some other families in the baptistry.  We have one family who is working on going to the temple who was able to go and do baptisms which was sweet.  We also had a recent convert family come down and tour the Nauvoo area and just feel the spirit that is there.  We drove down with our ward mission leader.  We got to know him better and were able to talk about missionary work a lot and other things as well.  We were also able to pick up 2 new investigators this week as well.  We received our zone emphasis this last week from our zone leaders and it is all about finding.  Kind of a "Where's Waldo" kind of deal.  I feel good about it.

 

Something that i found in my studies this last week is found in Alma 37.  In versus 40 and 41 it talks about the Liahona.  He explains that the spindles would point in the right direction when they were faithful and doing the little things.  But when they forgot to be faithful and dilligent the spindles would stop working and the miracles would cease.  We all have our own spindles in our life that point us in the directions of life.  Mainly, the Holy Ghost.  It's when we remember to keep doing the little things that it keeps working for us and we are lead to our land of promise so to speak.  But when we forget to be faithful it stops working for us.  Luckily for us, if we do forget we can always come back and begin again and the spindles will work again.  I have definitely felt an increase in the spirit as a missionary and i attribute a lot of it because we are constantly doing the little things every day.  Effective scripture study, prayer, going to church, listening to good music, relying on the spirit, repenting, etc.  I testify that as we remember to do these things we will feel an increase in the spirit and he will lead us down the path of righteousness to one day return to live with Christ and Heavenly Father in a fullness of joy.

 

Love, Elder Peterson

April 30, 2012

Dear Family,

This week has been good.  It's been really rainy this week, and today is no exception.  I'm getting a lot of use out of my raincoat.  We have had good progress with the members this week.  We had a couple of investigators at the church and the members did really good at reaching out to them and sitting with them.  All of the priesthood gathered for the third hour since it was the fifth sunday and they went over the ward mission plan that is set up here.  Hopefully more people are now inspired to find missionary opportunities in their lives.

My allergies actually haven't been too bad yet.  The rain is helping with that i'm assuming.  As for skyping on Mother's Day.  We have a member that said we can come do it at their house on Sunday morning for me.  We don't have church until 1 o'clock so that won't be an issue.  So i can call whenever Sunday morning.   Just let me know so i can set it up with them.  I'm excited to talk again!  It doesn't seem like Christmas was all that long ago.  Time flies out here on the mission.  This week we are also going to be getting a different car.  The one we had "died" in the mission... exceeded the mile limit of 50000 for a mission vehicle this month.  They don't tell us what we are going to get though.

The district is doing well.  It's kind of fun to be the district leader and have an extra hour to prepare a training and really just study extra.  Missionary work is really like a milking stool.  It lays on three legs.  Revelation through prayer, revelation through church attendance, and revelation through the book of mormon.  Once they have experienced all three of these things that is when they are truly ready to be baptized.  The church attendance one is definitely the hardest one for us in this area.   We are doing better at getting investigators excited about coming to church though.  And our church meetings really are great so that helps.

We are going to the temple on the 5th and i'm super excited about that.  We have some recent converts going with us as well.  The wife got hooked on cigarettes again after she was baptized... but we have been working with her and she has been going to an addiction recovery class and now she is ready to go to the temple and do baptisms for the dead!  That has got to be the best part of the mission.  Seeing the people that you teach attend the temple.  It really is a blessing.  I hope everyone has a great week!

Love, Elder Peterson

April 23, 2012

Dear Family,

Thanks for the birthday wishes.  Brittany- that is my correct address yes.  This last week was kind of a bummer week for appointments.  We only had one that didn't fall through for us.  On the brightside we were able to find quite a few potentials and we've been training some of our ward missionaries on how to tract.  It's good to get to know these young men better.  We did have a lot of member lessons though so that was good.

Things are going well in the District.  I conducted our first meeting on Saturday.  It was kind of strange being the one conducting instead of just attending haha but it was good.  We set some baptismal goals and got to know each other better.  We have 2 new elders and one new sister in our district.  I have good feelings about our district and we are already getting along swell.  We had a baptism in our ward yesterday.  One of the families in our ward, the Clarkes, had their son baptized so it was good to attend that.  We had a non-member there too which was good.

Other than that not a whole lot has been going on.  We had a pretty big thunderstorm here this last week.  It took the power out for a little while.  The lightning was really lighting up the sky and the rain was coming down hard.  Lucky for us it was at night so we didn't have to be out in it.

One thought that i've had this last week is just about the importance of the Holy Ghost.  With this week not doing well with our scheduled appointment, it was a good thing we had made inspired back up plans.  Through following the Holy Ghost it led us to people who are allowing us to come back and teach them.  Hopefully good things come from this.  Also with the baptism it really showed the difference between the power of the Holy Ghost and the gift of the Holy Ghost to me.  How blessed we are to have this gift in our lives and how lucky we are to be able to share the power with other people.

April 19, 2012

Dear Family,

Things have been going great here this last week.  I am staying with Elder Ashton and will be killing him off since he goes home on June 1st.  I am also now going to be the district leader for our district so that should prove to be interesting.  The zone leaders are going to come train me on how to do it well later this week, but i'm not too worried.  It mostly just consists of calling and collecting the numbers at the end of the week :).  This last week we have been getting in with quite a few of the members here.  Recently President Jergensen reminded us that 75% of our time should be spent with the members seeking referrals and strengthening them.  We still aren't quite up to that percentage yet here in Rock Island.  We did eat dinner with a family, the Davidsons, who have never fed the missionaries before since they lived here which has been several years.  They said it's because none of the other missionaries had ever really bothered to get to know them or ask if they could come over.  You never know how striking up a conversation with a young man can effect you and their family i guess haha.

We had another ward missionary called this last week as well and he is 17.  So we get lots of opportunities to work with some of the young men in the ward and encourage them to serve missions.  All of their parents are super supportive as well and want us to take them with us everywhere pretty much, even if its just finding. (We aren't allowed to use the term tracting anymore.  It has a negative connotation.)  Also, I can't remember if I already told you this or not, but we are only using the Book of Mormon for this next transfer.  This mission as a whole is doing this so all the missionaries are asked to leave their bibles at home... unless you have a quad obviously.  Even in studies it's just the book of mormon and PMG.  It has really been fun for me to have to find answers to every single question in the Book of Mormon instead of resorting to the bible for some of them.  Our mission did this last year around this time and their was a huge jump in baptisms.  I've already noticed a greater portion of the spirit with us.  Especially being so close to a place that has a rich background and history with the book of mormon (Nauvoo). 

My allergies are doing fine.  I'm more stuffed up than anything right now.  I haven't been sneezing a whole lot.  I've been taking the allergy pill though so maybe that is helping i hope. 

Recently I was reading in Helaman 5 about Nephi and Lehi.  In the story where they get thrown into prison and then the lamanites come to kill them, but Nephi and Lehi are surrounded by fire and the lamanites are afraid to touch them for the fear that they themselves would die.  This has always been one of my favorite stories, but I had never thought of it more than they were just literally surrounded by fire.  A connection in my brain clicked this last time though.  Fire is pretty constantly compared to the Holy Ghost.  Nephi and Lehi were encircled about by the Holy Ghost as well as literal fire.  Then later in the story when the cloud of darkness comes and surrounds all the people in the prison and they are overcome with fear, Nephi and Lehi are still surrounded with the Holy Ghost and aren't afraid, but they are talking with the angels in heaven.  And eventually that fire is spread so that it encircles everybody in the prison and nobody is afraid, but a soft whisper of a voice is telling them all peace, peace be unto you because of your faith.  Pertaining to member missionary work and life in general, if we have the Holy Ghost with us, first we will be protected from the cloud of darkness that will surely come, or is already here.  And Second we can spread that fire/holy ghost with those around us who are trapped in the cloud of darkness.  And if we feel like we are the ones trapped in that cloud and are too afraid to move, God tells us how to get out.  He tells the people in the prison, and us, to repent.  He might even have to tell us 3 times before we catch on.  But when we do repent that fire is spread to encircle us and we feel of His love and we feel of that fire and the holy ghost burning within us.  I have definitely seen the fruits of repentance in my own life and in the lives of others.  Having the Holy Ghost with us is so important and such a blessing!!  This church is true.

Love, Elder Peterson

April 9, 2012

Happy Easter Family!

That is super exciting that Steve said Braden is finishing his mission papers.  i'm stoked!  We had a pretty good Easter here.  I was hoping to find some more people to teach with it being Easter and everything but i found that it usually just means that they get more involved with the church they already belong to, even if they never attend during any other part of the year.  We had a really good meeting on Sunday though and it's been really cool to focus on the real meaning of Easter.  We went over to a members house for Easter dinner and then had a big family home evening with them and some other families about the resurrection using Easter eggs so that was fun... especially for the kids.  I got Grandma and Grandpa Pete's package (Thank you thank you if you are reading this). 

We had something super crazy happen to us this week.   Well it didn't really happen TO us but we saw it happen.  We were on exchanges with the Davenport elders and we went to the mall to get dinner.  We were at panda express eating and all of a sudden this big black guy picks up a chair and is like yelling at another black guy and threatining to throw the chair.  Then a mom with two small kids stands up and is telling them to stop because they are scaring her children and what not.  So the guy with the chair throws it over the moms head and almost hits the other guy.  So they get into a fist fight and like out of nowhere like 8 other black guys just come running in and start wailing on this guy.  I seriously don't know where they came from.  Then all the mall cops come running in to try and break it up and stuff and it's just crazy.  Then the one guy who was getting beat up starts to leave and someone else throws a chair and just misses him and it ended up shattering the glass window display for Barnes and Noble.  All of this is happening in the food court at the mall.  During all this was happening we just boxed up our panda and left because we didn't want any part of it but it was super crazy.

Mom and Dad I don't know if you know this, but I got a letter from Rachel Erickson this weekend and she said the Melanie Weitzeil is engaged and so is Amy so that's pretty crazy.  That's probably old news to you by now though.  Well today we qualified to have a zone P-Day because we reached our baptismal goal as a zone of 19 baptisms for the last 3 months.  We are going to have a picnic and play some games and stuff so that should be fun.

Something that I've learned this week has to do with the story in 1 Nephi chapter 7 Verse 17.  This is where Nephi gets tied up by Laman and Lemuel and he prays to have strength to break the bands.  But what i've learned from this passage this time is that when we really understand the enabling power of the atonement we begin to pray not that our surroundings or the situation will change but we pray that we will have the strength needed to get through.  I firmly believe that Nephi had experienced that power already in his life and he knew what he needed to do to turn things around and it wasn't praying that his problems would change, but that he himself would change.  It also reminds me of a pioneer story.  I can't remember exactly who it was, but as they were coming across the plains they didn't have any food.  They ended up having to eat their starving and sickly cattle and it just made all of them sick.  Then all they had left were the hides.  They prayed to know what to do and the Lord showed them how they could make the hides into a sort of jelly type thing.  It was a long process but they didn't have any other choice.  These pioneers prayed that their stomachs would adapt to the food they were eating.  I know if I were there I would probably be praying for a buffalo to walk into camp or something.  But these people knew the enabling power of the atonement and prayed that they would change and be able to survive.  I know that the atonement of Jesus Christ has the power to change us.  I only wish that we would all use it more in our lives.  I know that this church is true!

April 2, 2012

Dear Family,

 

This week has just been solid.  Conference was great.  That is interesting that the members there have to wait a couple of weeks.  We just went to our church building and they broadcasted it there.  For the Sunday Afternoon session we watched it at a members house though with a less active family which was great.  They also fed us dinner and lunch that day haha.  Some of my favorite talks were Dallin H Oaks about sacrifice, Richard G Scotts on receiving revelation, Pres Monson's in priesthood session about Duty, and Dieter F Uchtdorfs on Sunday morning about forgiveness and judging people.  All of the talks were good though and I learned a lot.  Yes, I can look at your blog website that's not a problem.  The pictures don't take too long to download the computers here at the library are pretty fast if you get the right ones.

 

I liked your experience with contacting mom.  We too have been doing a lot of that lately.  We met this really sweet dude named Alonzo at the library.  He helps drive people to doctors appointments and stuff when they need a ride.  Before we could even teach a lesson with him, he came to church and really liked it!  We also received a referall the other day for a man who requested a book of mormon in hungarian.  I'm not sure yet if he speaks english or not but we have plans to go talk with him today.  Things have been going well for us here.  We traded vehicles with the zone leaders so we had to give up the brand new truck.  We have a mazda now.  It's name is the sweetpea because it is green and has been around for a while.  It has 46000 out of the 50 allowed on mission vehicles so i'll probably drive it until it dies in the mission.  Sadly, that is not an april fool's joke.  I didn't really have a chance to pull many pranks today and none got pulled on us.  The sister missionaries in our district did lose their keys last night though.  They also don't have a car so we went to the church building (because they go to the same building as us to watch conference) and spent some time looking for them there but never did find them.  I don't know what they ended up doing last night.  Probably stayed at a members house or something.

 

I'm still trying to get to know all of the members and more importantly the recent converts and less-active members.  The LA's like to avoid us but this last week we actually got in with quite a few of them.  Not a lot of them are all that excited about the church or the gospel in general, but at least they let us in :).  Along with conference again i really felt that a lot of it was focused on the family and the different roles that we all have as a part of our divinely appointed unit.  I'm so greatful to have a loving and supporting family like I do and know that I love each and every one of you.

 

Love, Elder Peterson