December 17, 2012

Dear Family,

This has been a somewhat interesting week.  First off thank you to everyone who has mailed me packages!  I forgot to make a list to make sure I said everyone's that i have received because I know you wonder if i ever get them sometimes.  I got G&G Peterson, G&G Wright, Wade and fam, Steve Wright and fam, and I think that is all.  This is going to be a great Christmas.  To answer your question mom, transfers was not this week.  They are going to be on the 27th of December.  Next week will go by real quick because it's Christmas Eve, and then Christmas, then P-Day, then Transfers.  My guess is that both Elder Dyer and I will be staying together for another transfer.  To go along with this interesting week, last Monday while playing basketball i injured my ankle... see the picture.  The picture is actually 3 days after the fact or so and it is still swollen up.  I'm icing it and elevating it and wrapped it.  I hesitate to say we were PLAYING basketball because we were at the church for like 3 minutes still just warming up and shooting around and I jumped up and came down on it wrong.  So it got really big, like size of a cantelope big, and we went back to the apartment and I called sister Jergensen.  She told me just to take ibuprofen, ice it, elevate it, things I already knew and they also had some crutches at the mission home that we had a member pick up for us and deliver them to me.  So this past week i've been on crutches.  We weren't originally supposed to have the car this week, but the other elders were nice and let us have it.  The sad thing is that the crutches were meant for someone who is a maximum 5'10''.  I had to slouch to use them, but they were what was available.  Luckily for me, our ward is chalk full of Foot Doctor students who are going to DMU to become pediatrists and also a full fledged foot and ankle surgeon.  So I went and saw him 2 days later and he said i should probably come into his clinic so that they could x-ray it and make sure nothing was broken and so that i could get a boot.  I called sister Jergensen again, because my ankle was still huge half way through the week and bruising now, to seek permission to go see a doctor. This was Thursday night now.  Friday she called back and I talked to her and then Elder Craner (who is the Doctor assigned to this mission and 2 others i believe) and he said i should go see a doctor and get a boot.  By the time i got the permission to go though it was too late in the afternoon and i couldn't find anywhere until today and i went and saw the surgeon in our ward.  Nothing is broken, but it's badly ruptured they said and now i'm in a walking boot for a minimum of 6 weeks.  We are still working out the details of how the car share is going to work and all that jazz. 

So that is my story for the week.  I've been hopping around everywhere until today where i can walk again.  On a funnier shaft in the whirlwind of the devil thrown at me note, i also dropped my toothbrush in the toilet yesterday morning.  However i still have a smile on my face and we are working as hard as we can.  So some cool news, our Recent convert Amber went to the temple on Saturday and loved it!  It is so sweet seeing her still work hard after her baptism to keep progressing.  In other news we are still working with Kirk and he is doing great.  Didn't make it to church this week unfortunately.  We are meeting with him tomorrow night though.  He has come along way since we first talked with him at our mailbox. 

Unfortunately I don't have a lot of time this week because my doctor's appointment and then we had our carpets cleaned today by our zone leaders ate up most of our p-day and we still have to go shopping and set up for a church presentation we are putting on tonight.  I love you all and have enjoy the season!  Wade and Brittany are you still carrying on the Christmas Eve tradition and if so what is the theme this year?  This church is true!

Love, Elder Peterson :)

December 10, 2012

Dear Family,

 

I am recovered from my food poisoning stint.  Well it is finally starting to feel like winter here.  We had our first snowing of the season yesterday.  All of it is gone today, but the temperatures are below freezing so it gave me a good excuse to break out my big fluffy russian winter coat.  Yesterday we went to our investigators houses and scraped the snow off of their cars for them and to make sure they were coming to church, but unfortunately none of the ones we visited came.  We did have one father who is not a member attend with his family and we set up a church presentation for next monday night to do as a Family Home Evening.  If you haven't sent off the christmas packages yet, i've thought of something else i could use.  Ear bud headphones would be nice to have for when we are on mormon.org in the library so i can listen to the videos and such.  With all the hype of Santa going around I was thinking the other day about when Clark would come to our house as Santa and specifically when Wade was sitting on his lap and asked for ski poles.  However he had to promise to help with the dishes or else he would only get one ski pole.  It makes me smile to think about and that's the memory of the week.

 

So we actually picked up 3 new investigators this week.  2 of them were former investigators that we got back in contact with and started teaching again.  One of them is named Beverly and she is 83 years old.  She really loves the church, but her son is mostly what is holding her back.  We always have good lessons with her though and a sweet spirit is there when we teach with her.  Our other new investigator actually came from the new roommate of a less-active in the ward.  We as missionaries are assigned to 3 people to be their home teachers.  We went to home teach this lady and her roommate was pretty interested in the church so we actually ended up teaching the first discussion.  It was awesome!  We taught our investigator Kirk a super sweet lesson.  We taught all about faith.  We talked about prayer as well and he actually told us that he feels like his prayers are being heard now.  He even had a tear brought to his eye while praying and he now recognizes what the Holy Ghost feels like and that God indeed answers prayers.  We set a baptismal date with him for Januray 19th.

 

We got news that the transfer of February to March is only going to be 5 weeks now instead of 6 weeks.  Then the transfer cycles will be going back to 6 weeks again like normal after that.  So in the grand scheme of things, i'll be coming home a week earlier, just one day shy of my 2 year mark.  I heard from my friend Zach who is serving in Ukraine that he is coming home 4 weeks earlier because of the cycle changes in his mission.  It's exciting to have these changes happening and to start receiving more missionaries into the field.  I got a letter from Whitney a couple of weeks ago to answer your question.  I know that she is going to be serving a mission!  And that her papers are received in SLC.  I'm excited to see where she will go.  The family from Africa... Saliboko, Tunza, Mawazo, and Pascal were all baptized on Saturday.  I was really glad to see that they were baptized.

 

My thought of the day comes from Helaman 3.  Some context: members of the church are starting to become prideful because they are prospering in the land.  They also just had 10,000 baptisms.  Probably pretty stoked at this point.  The verse I want to focus on though is verse 35.  It says: Nevertheless they did ^afast and ^bpray oft, and did wax stronger and stronger in their ^chumility, and firmer and firmer in the faith of Christ, unto the filling their souls with joy and consolation, yea, even to the ^dpurifying and the ^esanctification of their hearts, which sanctification cometh because of their ^fyielding their hearts unto God.

 

We had a lesson in Elders quorom about forgiveness and we talked about the need to be humble in order to forgive and to be forgiven.  This verse kept coming back to my mind.  Sometimes we think of humility as weakness, but we see that when we wax stronger and stronger in humility, our faith becomes firmer and firmer in Christ.  In Jacob we learn that-  and having all these ^bwitnesses we obtain a hope, and our faith becometh unshaken, insomuch that we truly can ^ccommand in the ^dname of Jesus and the very trees obey us, or the mountains, or the waves of the sea.  We can do all things in line with the will of God when our faith is great.  So humility really equals strength.  There are other things that I love about Helaman 3:35, but no time to tell you all of them.  I will tell you this though, that i know the church is true.  I know that the book of mormon is true.  I love you all!

 

Love, Elder Peterson

December 3, 2012

Dear Family,

 

This week has been a week of highs and lows.  The high was definitely Amber's baptism on Saturday and confirmation on Sunday.  The low was that both Elder Dyer and I got food poisoning Sunday night so we were down for the count from about 7 o'clock sunday night until when we woke up this morning.  We are feeling better today but still not 100%.  That doesn't stop us from going out and doing the work though.  It does explain why this e-mail is a day late though.  No worries, we are doing just fine. 

 

So going back to the baptism.  We had everything go wrong, but everything turn out right.  We got a call from Amber in the morning that her daughter Hope had been sick and throwing up all night.  We asked her if she thought they would survive the car ride over and she said yes so they came to the church and we gave Hope a priesthood blessing.  Within the next 5 minutes she was running around again as if she had slept through the night like no big deal.  That was a miracle!  Then there was another baptism in the building that morning.  We had filled up the font for them and watched their baptism and it was great, but apparently the font was slowly draining so when it came time for Amber's baptism the water level was fairly low.  But after the third attempt she was completely submerged and no problems there.  Then we confirmed her on Sunday and it was great.  We unfortunately missed the Christmas Devotional due to being ill, but i'm hoping to get a chance to watch it on lds.org sometime this week perhaps.

 

I haven't had to wear my big russian coat yet this winter.  Yesterday it was in the 60's and today it's sunny and in the 50's.  Really odd, but i'll take it.  It didn't shed feathers all over my suitcoat last year, so i'm hoping it won't this year either.  This morning we had an appointment set up with a former investigator whos name is Bev.  We actually just ran into her on the street and started talking with her and set up an appointment to go visit with her and she told us her name and i thought to myself this name sounds familiar.  It turns out she was a former investigator.  She is 83 years old and almost joined the church a couple three years ago, but her son got in the way.  We had a really good lesson this morning that was definitely led by the spirit.  We invited her to be baptized and she said of course if she comes to know that the book of mormon is true.  We are meeting with her again on Saturday.

 

We had our ward Christmas party on Saturday night.  It was great.  We had a program first that our ward choir put on and they did a wonderful job.  They really brought the spirit in.  Then we had dinner and Santa came to visit and pass out candy canes and have the children sit on his lap.  A lot of the students who attend Des Moines University who used to be part of the ward before it got split came to the party as well.  I didn't know any of them, but Elder Dyer had fun seeing them again.  You asked about the mission office address being in urbandale in your last letter.  So the office where all the mail goes is in Urbandale which is only about 15 minutes from where we live.  The mission home is where President and Sister Jergensen live when they are  in town and where the missionaries stay their first and last night in the mission.  That is pretty much just up the street from us.  So two different places.

 

I also wanted to thank you for forwarding Braden's e-mails to me.  I really enjoy reading those!   On a seperate note, my debit card expired.  So do i need to order a new one or is that something that you can do from home or what not.  I'm not really sure how to proceed with that, but i need a new one.  And i thought of something that i might need for Christmas and that is a writing journal.  My other is probably going to be all filled up by the end of this week.

 

Here is a brief thought I had from my studies recently.  I've been studying about the light of Christ and how to connect it with the Holy Ghost essentially.  Here is something i've come up with.  In the Bible Dictionary it says, “The light of Christ should not be confused with the personage of the Holy Ghost, for the light of Christ is not a personage at all.  Its influence is preliminary to and preparatory to one’s receiving the Holy Ghost.  The light of Christ will lead the honest soul who ‘hearkeneth to the voice’ to find the true gospel and the true Church and thereby receive the Holy Ghost”.   True conversion is a spiritual witness from the Holy Ghost.  One thing i've been working on is to personalize, in a sense, the way people feel the Holy Ghost and the way I invite it into their lives so that it connects with them in such a way to give them that true conversion.  I know that it truly is through the Holy Ghost that we become converted to this gospel.  I'm so greatful for the Holy Ghost in my life and for the conversion it has brought to me.  i know that this church is true!

 

Love, Elder Peterson

November 26, 2012

Hola Familia,

 

My Thanksgivings were fantastic.  It was a super nice day... perfect for a turkey bowl.  Unfortunate how we couldn't participate this year due to some missionaries getting injured playing football in the past.  Our stake put on a turkey bowl i believe and it went well... only one person got a concussion.  We did have 2 back to back dinners.  Even though I thought i was being conservative on my first and only plate at the first dinner, i was still full but still found the room to squeeze down another full plate at our other members house.  They had Amber and her daughter over to eat with us and also a lady who is originally from Brazil.  She speaks pretty good english and we got to talk with her a little bit about the gospel and things we are greatful for in our lives.  We did not go around the table and all say things we were thankful for, but i did think about that and how i was missing out on that tradition this year.

 

Amber passed her interview with flying colors so we have the go ahead for the baptism this Saturday.  It's going to be super sweet!  The spanish branch that meets in the same building is also having a baptism that morning.  It was interesting because their branch president came up and talked to us because their baptism is scheduled for 10 and ours is for 10 30.  It shouldn't be a problem, but i'll never complain about having too many baptisms being in the way of eachother!  It was kind of an interesting week at church.  A lot of the ward was gone for Thanksgiving.  Also with the new boundaries there were altogether new members to the ward and also some people visiting for the holidays so everyone was all mixed up.  The organist and the chorister were impromptu asked to participate for that day and they did pretty good.  Elder Dyer and I gave talks in Sacrament meeting and also helped pass the sacrament due to the lack of priesthood holders there this week.  Also we taught in second hour the gospel essentials class which got combined with the 14-18 youth class because their teacher was gone also.   We also half taught the third hour.  It was a crazy sunday.  It all worked out though and things are going great.  Luckily for us, our presidencies weren't lost like much of the other wards with their presidents moving into the other ward boundaries so we still had some organization there.

 

I can't remember if I told you about our investigator named Kirk or not.  He lives just down the hall from us and is a drummer in a band.  We've taught him a couple three times now.  He came to church on Sunday!  He was even dressed up in slacks, a white shirt and a tie.  It was amazing to see this gentleman, who doesn't really know who God is or the role He plays in our lives, exercise a little particle of faith and come to church to help his little faith seed grow.  He stayed for the first 2 hours and then left before priesthood which is ok.  I'm just glad he was there.  We are going back over there this week.

 

It's been getting a lot colder now recently.  Our abnormally warm winter is back to it's regular Iowa winter stage now.  I think it might supposed to warm up in the next couple of days but i'm not sure.  Elder Dyer got a little plastic foot tall tree that we set up in the apartment.  I put all the 4 packages i got from wal mart next to it and tried not to totally hide the tree.  I've decided to wait until Christmas to open them. ;)  To answer your question Wade and Rachael I can't really think of anything i need for Christmas.  Something small and easy to tote around would be good seeing as how i'll probably already be having to send things home by mail since it won't all fit in my trunks under the weight limit.  It's boring, but money or gift cards are always much appreciated.  Or snacky foods are good too.  Good looking ties are always a favorite, although i have plenty.  A nice hand written sentiment would even be enough.  Speaking of Christmas we have been told about Mormon.orgs new Christmas Campaign thing that they have launched.  I haven't had a chance to dabble around on it much yet, but it's supposed to be really cool and a good way to share the gospel with people.  We as missionaries are to have a short christmas message prepared at all times because you can now request the missionaries to specifically come just to share a christmas message with your family.

 

Also Wade to answer your question about the car share.  We have it a week on and then a week off.  We share with one other companionship who borders our area.  You don't get to sign up for it and car hogs aren't available.  Unless you consider areas with a full time car car hogs.  Biking around has been fun... but then my tire popped so we have to go fix that today.  Not quite sure how it popped, because it happened when it was just resting in the apartment and not while we were riding around.  I'll count that as a blessing though.  There are not as many people outside now that it's getting a lot colder though.  You might have already told me this, but Rachael are you having a boy or a girl? 

 

This gospel is so true and i am so thankful for it.  Much love

November 19, 2012

Hey there family,

 

Alrighty so my new area is in West Des Moines.  I actually live just like right down the street from the mission home.  President and sister Jergensen are always gone though so he assures me that i'm not here just so he can keep an eye on me, but we joke around about it still.  The reason for the e-mail on Tuesday this week is because we had our mission tour yesterday and so our p-day got pushed back to today.  Elder Clarke from the seventy came and instructed us.  It was really neat.  I'll share some thoughts later in the message.  My new companion is Elder Dyer.  He is from Alabama.  Interestingly enough he was actually Elder Taylor's MTC companion.  So i'm his breaker, which just means i'm his second companion in the mission field and break some of the habits that he and his trainer had and show him other styles of missionary work and such.  He's a cool dude and we'll be getting along great.  I've seen some of the area but haven't had a chance to meet too much of the ward yet.  It was actually stake conference on Sunday.  This time last year i attended the same stake conference in Des Moines.  I even saw some people I knew from the Lenox branch so it was fun to see them again.  When i was there last year the stake presidency got reorganized and now it's crazy to think the President Pence has been in for a year now.  It was good to see him again as well and the meeting was great. 

 

We had one investigator there.  Her name is Amber.  We are going to be baptizing her on December 1st.  She also has a 7 year old daughter named Hope that came as well.  We got a chance to teach her the first night I was in town.  She has to be interviewed by President Jergensen in order to be baptized and that is going to be taking place next Sunday.  So assuming that that goes well we will have a baptism here pretty soon.  We also have 2 investigators on date for the 15th of December but i haven't met them yet and they weren't able to make it to the stake conference.  I guess recently Gladys Night did a fireside concert type thing in Des Moines about the church and they are referalls from that.  I heard it was really good, but i wasn't here to go to it.  We have also found 3 new investigators in the short time i've been here.  One just lives down the hall from us and is a drummer in a band and the other 2 are teenagers of a part member family.  There dad is fairly active and they both want to be baptized from what i could gather in our lesson with them.  They  already consider themselves mormons so we just have to teach them all the true doctrine they need to know.  Look for a baptismal date with them for december as well.  It was actually a miracle that we got in to set up an appointment with them because we biked to their house and knocked on the door and nobody answered.  We were going to bike away and Elder Dyer got a little ahead of me but the visor thing fell off of my helmet so i stopped in the driveway to put it back on and I yelled at him to stop and he saw the dad working on their fence in the backyard and started talking to him and he let us in and we saw the two boys and were able to set up a time to go teach them and our teaching appointment worked great.  By small and simple things are great things brought to pass.  it was not a coincidence that my visor fell off. 

 

I am in a car share again so we got to do a lot of biking the first week i was here.  It's actually pretty fun because in West Des Moines here the biking trails pretty much just honeycomb the city and you can really get anywhere.  The bike I have is pretty interesting and only has a front wheel brake... but i haven't flipped over yet so that's good.  The ward from what i've heard is really good.  I did meet the bishop at stake conference and he seems like a great guy.  I think we have 2 or 3 Thanksgiving dinners lined up for this week so we definitely won't be lacking in the food area.  On Friday, the day after I got here, we went to Ames to the Iowa State University campus and did service for the Iowa games. It was basically a big basketball tournament for all ages and boys and girls. What we did, along with our whole zone of missionaries and the Ames zone of missionaries, is sit behind a table and keep score for the games.  It was pretty fun, but by the 11th game that we did it for we were done.  It was a long time to be sitting behind a table.  We were over the 8th grade boys, so they were pretty entertaining to watch.  Our mission helps with it every year and we got a free shirt and on the back it lists our church as one of the sponsors so that is pretty cool.  They also brought around free waters and powerades a lot more frequently than last year i guess so that was good too.

 

Well I love you all!  I hope everything continues to go well and that God continues to bless you.

 

Love, Elder Peterson

November 12, 2012

Dear Family,

 

This has been a very busy week.  We got the official call on Saturday that i'll be leaving this area.  Sorry I couldn't e-mail on Monday, but the library was closed due to Veterans day the day before.  But i'm still alive no worries!  We have been running around like crazy to go visit a bunch of people before I leave.  We have had people to see about every hour from 11 to 9 every night and still haven't been able to see everybody.  Today will start the packing adventure.  I've been doing a little bit the last couple of nights.  We also need to clean the apartment today and it's just going to be busy plus we have some more people scheduled to go see later tonight as well.  I've really gotten to know these people pretty well from being here for 9 months.  I'm excited to move on and meet new people though, but sad at the same time to leave these amazing people behind.

 

Things are continuing to go well with Saliboko and his family and also with Simeon and Prince.  The Rock Island elders who are also in our ward have recently found a lot of refugees and so the missionaries here are going to start up an English class.  Won't be here for that.  This last week the person who we would normally take with us to translate was out of town.  We asked around the other wards in the quad cities and found 2 more people who know french and they were able to come along with us and translate for us during the 2 lessons we had.  Tomorrow morning we head to Iowa City and i'll learn where i'm going which i'll tell you in next weeks e-mail.  The weather is getting colder here, but haven't had any snow yet... knock on wood.  Haven't had to break out the big heavy coat yet either. 

I'm sorry for the letter being so short, but we have a lot to do today.  I love you all and appreciate the e-mails!  it's so good to hear updates.  That's cool the Lauren Richardson is going on a mission.  We were visiting the Henderson family yesterday and with the new age for missionaries they might have 3 missionaries out at the same time!  This work is just awesome

 

Love, Elder Peterson

November 5, 2012

Hello hello family,

 

It has been a great week this week as usual.  Of course, every week is great if you choose to make it that way.  We taught two lessons this week in French.  Those lessons are always fun for me and really spiritual.  We have found more french speaking members in the quad cities who are willing to come and help us.  I know what you mean when you say you have to factor in the time that it takes to translate.  My favorite part is at the end when we ask them to pray, although we don't know what they are saying, we feel the spirit.  The gospel is true no matter what language it is in.  With Saliboko he sometimes prays in Swahili so that his wife understands and then even our translator doesn't know what he is saying, we just recognize Yesu Kristo Amen and say amen.  We had our first lesson with Simeon and Prince who came to church last week.  They had really good questions and they are so ready for this gospel.  We will be going back on Saturday and trying to set a baptismal date for the 15th of December.  Simeon came to church again this week (Prince was at the hospital with his sister) and he got along really well with Saliboko.  It is good for them to have a friend at church.  I don't know what they talk about or anything, but they love coming to church and are dedicated to come every week.  And the members are dedicated to picking them up every week which is good as well.  In total our ward had 14 investigators at church on Sunday! 9 of them were ours and 5 were the Rock Island elders.  We had a great testimony meeting and even went over on time about 20 minutes because people were non stop bearing there testimonies.  I got up and bore mine because I knew it would probably be the last chance I got before the transfer is over.  We get calls this Saturday to know for sure who is getting transfered.  I'm pretty certain that I will be leaving though after spending 9 months here and just finishing training.

 

I am so happy to hear that every thing went well with Braden entering the MTC.  I wish I could have been there for that, but I wouldn't trade what i'm doing right now for anything in the world.  It truly is the happiest i've been in my life.  I wish you the best (if you are reading this) on these next two years buddy.  The time goes by too fast.  We had a movie night on Friday night where we showed the Joseph Smith:Prophet of the Restoration video in our gym at the church.  It's the same one they play at the memorial building.  We had a pretty good turnout.  About 25 people came to watch the movie.  6 of them were missionaries... but we had i think 5 non members in attendance.  We were hoping to have around 50 people show up.  We spread the word like crazy and gave out flyers about 2 weeks in advance and were committing everybody to come.  We also had cookies and brownies and cupcakes afterwards and we had a LOT of extras that we got to take home.  We've also gotten a lot of candy from various people for Halloween so my sweet tooth is fully satisfied.  I also got your package Grandma Joan and Grandpa Pete.  Thank you so much!  The cookies are delicious (my favorite).  I will also save that golf ball to play when we get back... even if it has the BYU insignia on it.

 

I do remember that brown paper bag game.  That was a fun game.  For Halloween we were in by 6 and my companion and I played some games together in our apartment.  Then the Luthy family picked us up and we went to their home for a little while and taught them a lesson.  Kind of a not-so-exciting day.  We did attend a trunk or treat that the Methodist church invited us to.  We do service at the food pantry that is in the church so they invited us to their dealio.  We mostly went because they were cooking hotdogs for everybody and we didn't have a dinner appointment.  It was funny because we were in our suits with our tags on and then i just put some sunglasses on so they thought we had dressed up as the FBI or something like that and we got a lot of compliments on our costumes.  We met the head pastor that night, I had only ever met his wife before who is the associate pastor, and he was very nice and glad that we came.  Carrie is still doing great.  It is actually the home teachers duty here to teach the new member lessons.  However we are teaching her son Trever so we get to teach her the lessons again through her son.  We set a baptismal date with him for Jan 19.  We only get to teach him every other weekend because he is with his dad every other week.  He also has ADHD which makes us have to think of how we can make the lessons exciting and hold the attention of an 11 year old for more than 5 minutes :)

I know that this church is true with all of my heart!  Love you all,

 

Elder Peterson