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
May 27, 2013
Hey there family,
I sure do remember the Bradley's! That is way cool that you were able to see them again. We have had a busy week here. We have had a lot of rain this last week. Cold rain too, but anyway it has caused quite a bit of flooding. We have spent a lot of time doing service. In fact we got a forwarded message from our mission president that we could take as much time as we wanted to do service this week because of all of the flooding. We have one river running through town, the Des Moines river, and it is very full. Up past it's banks. Our little duplex did not flood at all though so we don't have to worry about our house we can just help with other peoples. it's pretty warm and sunny today though so that is nice. For memorial day yesterday we did have one barbeque over at the church with several families in the ward. Since it was our p-day we got to stay longer and play games with them as well. We tossed the football around for a while and played some settlers of Catan. Then we grilled up some burgers and brats.
Whenever i hear about who is graduating this year or who is on missions it just blows my mind. They don't seem old enough to be doing those things! I guess i just forget that i'm 21 years old now. I heard from Cody Buxton last week and he is doing well. He was telling me about all of the little buddies we used to hang out with and how they are all on missions now too. Now it is just weird that all of us are coming home soon... or are already home.
We met a less active man miraculously this week. His name is Jim. He is off of our records, but ever since we first saw him he has wanted to become active again in the church now. He too has Chron's and it has been bugging him. He is refusing to go to the hospital though... stubborn Iowans. We've met with him a couple of times and since then he has gotten his job back and has almost quit drinking entirely now. We still have to get him to completely quit drinking and to quit smoking, but one step at a time. He has met the bishop and they are meeting fairly regularly. I see so much potential in this man. He was baptized when he was 8 years old (he's 50 now) but he never made it through the aaronic priesthood or anything. His aunt and uncle are members of the church and he is back in contact with them now and he suprisingly has retained a lot of the knowledge over the years. He already wants to start paying tithing and we weren't even the ones to bring it up to him. He just knew that that is what you are supposed to do with your money and he credits God for helping him get his job back so he wants to pay his tithing.
Oh! We also had a zone conference this last week on Wednesday in Ames. I almost forgot to write about this. The musical number went really good as far as I can tell. President Jergensen told us the good news that they are going to do one more zone conference round next transfer before they leave. It was good to see President Danielson again who lives in Story City and is the stake president. It was kind of full cirlce for me. My first and last zone conferences were in Ames.
Tabby is still doing well and is set to be baptized on the 22nd of June. We get transfer calls this Saturday and we'll find out if Elder Horkley is leaving or not. I guess there is always the possibility that i will be transferred again, but that is highly unlikely. Honestly I could see it going either way of EH leaving or staying. Well all I can think of recently is that when you are in the service of your fellow beings you are only in the service of your God. We helped this one lady clear out her basement and really left an impression on her. She told us that she will never forget us and she tried to pay us money but of course we declined. She firmly believed that you couldn't find any decent people left in the world, so we really made her happy. We have also been able to grow closer to ward members through service, especially helping the Whitehills after their house burned down. Service is great and i'm thankful for the good health and spiritual sustanance from God to be able to help His children.
Love, Elder Peterson
I sure do remember the Bradley's! That is way cool that you were able to see them again. We have had a busy week here. We have had a lot of rain this last week. Cold rain too, but anyway it has caused quite a bit of flooding. We have spent a lot of time doing service. In fact we got a forwarded message from our mission president that we could take as much time as we wanted to do service this week because of all of the flooding. We have one river running through town, the Des Moines river, and it is very full. Up past it's banks. Our little duplex did not flood at all though so we don't have to worry about our house we can just help with other peoples. it's pretty warm and sunny today though so that is nice. For memorial day yesterday we did have one barbeque over at the church with several families in the ward. Since it was our p-day we got to stay longer and play games with them as well. We tossed the football around for a while and played some settlers of Catan. Then we grilled up some burgers and brats.
Whenever i hear about who is graduating this year or who is on missions it just blows my mind. They don't seem old enough to be doing those things! I guess i just forget that i'm 21 years old now. I heard from Cody Buxton last week and he is doing well. He was telling me about all of the little buddies we used to hang out with and how they are all on missions now too. Now it is just weird that all of us are coming home soon... or are already home.
We met a less active man miraculously this week. His name is Jim. He is off of our records, but ever since we first saw him he has wanted to become active again in the church now. He too has Chron's and it has been bugging him. He is refusing to go to the hospital though... stubborn Iowans. We've met with him a couple of times and since then he has gotten his job back and has almost quit drinking entirely now. We still have to get him to completely quit drinking and to quit smoking, but one step at a time. He has met the bishop and they are meeting fairly regularly. I see so much potential in this man. He was baptized when he was 8 years old (he's 50 now) but he never made it through the aaronic priesthood or anything. His aunt and uncle are members of the church and he is back in contact with them now and he suprisingly has retained a lot of the knowledge over the years. He already wants to start paying tithing and we weren't even the ones to bring it up to him. He just knew that that is what you are supposed to do with your money and he credits God for helping him get his job back so he wants to pay his tithing.
Oh! We also had a zone conference this last week on Wednesday in Ames. I almost forgot to write about this. The musical number went really good as far as I can tell. President Jergensen told us the good news that they are going to do one more zone conference round next transfer before they leave. It was good to see President Danielson again who lives in Story City and is the stake president. It was kind of full cirlce for me. My first and last zone conferences were in Ames.
Tabby is still doing well and is set to be baptized on the 22nd of June. We get transfer calls this Saturday and we'll find out if Elder Horkley is leaving or not. I guess there is always the possibility that i will be transferred again, but that is highly unlikely. Honestly I could see it going either way of EH leaving or staying. Well all I can think of recently is that when you are in the service of your fellow beings you are only in the service of your God. We helped this one lady clear out her basement and really left an impression on her. She told us that she will never forget us and she tried to pay us money but of course we declined. She firmly believed that you couldn't find any decent people left in the world, so we really made her happy. We have also been able to grow closer to ward members through service, especially helping the Whitehills after their house burned down. Service is great and i'm thankful for the good health and spiritual sustanance from God to be able to help His children.
Love, Elder Peterson
May 20, 2013
Hola familia,
Well as of today i've been out on my mission for 22 months. Time is flying by way too fast. It has been a great week this last week. The weather has been crazy! We had one day that was over 100 degrees. We've also had some rainy colder days. All that mixed together made for some good ole tornado watch weather. Yesterday as we were driving to an appointment we got a text from the weather alert people or whatever telling us to take take shelter now and that we were in a tornado watch. It was still partly sunny outside, but we could see some dark clouds in the distance so we turned around and went home. We were watching the sky and the clouds were moving very quickly, but they just blew right over us. The sirens did go off a couple of times though (once from a malfunction). It was kind of eerie, but it didn't even get that windy. We heard that the tornado touched down 4 miles away from Fort Dodge, but we don't actually get to watch the news or anything so i don't know if that is correct. The zone leaders ended up grounding us at around 7 30 that night though because of it.
We had 2 investigators at church on Sunday! Wahoo! Tabby was there with her family... thus making her officially on date to be baptized June 22nd now. Also a man named Breon came. We taught him at the library and I guess he came to general conference in October of last year. Well as the sacrament was being passed he leaned over to me on the pew and told me he had been thinking about being baptized since we invited him to be earlier that week. Well he leaned over and told me that it was a yes and that he wants to be. That was just a delight to hear. We will be setting a date with him this coming Thursday. They both only stayed for sacrament meeting this week, but that is a great start! We also picked up a new investigator this week named Taylor. She was a former investigator who stopped being taught because she spent too much time in the hospital? Well we went back to check up on her and were able to teach her the restoration right there on the spot and she wasn't able to make it to church this week because she was out of town, but she really wants to come this upcoming week. We have really been blessed this week and I am very grateful to God because of it.
This upcoming week we have a zone conference in Ames. The four missionaries who are serving right now in Fort Dodge are doing the musical number for it. We are singing 'How Great Thou Art!' It is actually pretty lucky that between the two sisters, Elder Horkley, and I we have all 4 parts so we can sing SATB for some of the versus. We practiced yesterday and actually sound pretty good. Welp, I hope everyone has a good week. I'm not sure if the library will be closed on Monday because of Memorial day or not, so you might be looking for my e-mail come Tuesday. I sure love all of you and know this that I know the church is true and that Joseph Smith really is a prophet of God and the prophet of the Restoration.
Love, Elder Peterson
Well as of today i've been out on my mission for 22 months. Time is flying by way too fast. It has been a great week this last week. The weather has been crazy! We had one day that was over 100 degrees. We've also had some rainy colder days. All that mixed together made for some good ole tornado watch weather. Yesterday as we were driving to an appointment we got a text from the weather alert people or whatever telling us to take take shelter now and that we were in a tornado watch. It was still partly sunny outside, but we could see some dark clouds in the distance so we turned around and went home. We were watching the sky and the clouds were moving very quickly, but they just blew right over us. The sirens did go off a couple of times though (once from a malfunction). It was kind of eerie, but it didn't even get that windy. We heard that the tornado touched down 4 miles away from Fort Dodge, but we don't actually get to watch the news or anything so i don't know if that is correct. The zone leaders ended up grounding us at around 7 30 that night though because of it.
We had 2 investigators at church on Sunday! Wahoo! Tabby was there with her family... thus making her officially on date to be baptized June 22nd now. Also a man named Breon came. We taught him at the library and I guess he came to general conference in October of last year. Well as the sacrament was being passed he leaned over to me on the pew and told me he had been thinking about being baptized since we invited him to be earlier that week. Well he leaned over and told me that it was a yes and that he wants to be. That was just a delight to hear. We will be setting a date with him this coming Thursday. They both only stayed for sacrament meeting this week, but that is a great start! We also picked up a new investigator this week named Taylor. She was a former investigator who stopped being taught because she spent too much time in the hospital? Well we went back to check up on her and were able to teach her the restoration right there on the spot and she wasn't able to make it to church this week because she was out of town, but she really wants to come this upcoming week. We have really been blessed this week and I am very grateful to God because of it.
This upcoming week we have a zone conference in Ames. The four missionaries who are serving right now in Fort Dodge are doing the musical number for it. We are singing 'How Great Thou Art!' It is actually pretty lucky that between the two sisters, Elder Horkley, and I we have all 4 parts so we can sing SATB for some of the versus. We practiced yesterday and actually sound pretty good. Welp, I hope everyone has a good week. I'm not sure if the library will be closed on Monday because of Memorial day or not, so you might be looking for my e-mail come Tuesday. I sure love all of you and know this that I know the church is true and that Joseph Smith really is a prophet of God and the prophet of the Restoration.
Love, Elder Peterson
May 13, 2013
Hello Family!
Man i am so happy right now! Mom and dad it was so great to talk with you last night! What a miracle that our chat was relatively problem free. This was a good week, but a slow week. We actually received an update text from our zone because we have set some specific goals, and as a whole zone not one new investigator was found last week. That is just a set up to see many great miracles this week from all of our new found determination... so look forward to some great stories next week about finding new investigators! We had a baptism in our ward on Friday which was sweet! I sent a picture of us with the main man, Dragon. Or Dynastasias if you want to call him by his real name. He was taught by the sisters in our ward, but we were able to fellowship him at church and help confirm him yesterday and he wants to come out and start teaching with us now as well.
We do visit our recent converts a lot. A couple of times a week usually. It is good for them and they always love having us over! We were invited to a single adults picnic that they had this week to thank us for the good work we've been doing in the ward. They had a LOT of food and we got to take a lot of it home as well. We have a whole pie and a half in our fridge at home. Banana cream... yummy. Also a whole bag of fried chicken and meatballs and what not... it is great to see a fridge full of food again instead of living off of balogna sandwiches like i've been doing. Also on Sunday the young women were selling giant pizza sized cookies for a camp fundraiser and a member bought us one of those so we also have a now half eaten giant cookie at home. All these sweets are going to fatten me up! But I hear that tomorrow it is supposed to be up to 94 degrees so i'll just sweat it all off. It's not too hot today though, still suit coat weather because it's not even over 70. Looks like summer is coming with no spring for us.
I know of Enzio Busche. He has a speech called "Unleashing the Dormant Spirit" which is excellent. I'll leave you with some of my favorite quotes from that talk. I don't remember the quotes exactly, but the gist is the same. He said that the pain of sacrifice is only an instant. It is the fear of sacrifice that is lasting or painful. My own comment to that would be that we need to live the commandment to be of good cheer. For Christ has overcome the world. When we fear the sacrifice, that is what makes it painful. Enzio Busche also said the spirit will give you clarity, but never doubt. If you are ever receiving doubt, it is not from the spirit. Clarity will come from the spirit.
I know that this is God's true and living church on the earth today. I am so grateful to be a missionary at this time! i love you all. God be with you til me meet again!
Man i am so happy right now! Mom and dad it was so great to talk with you last night! What a miracle that our chat was relatively problem free. This was a good week, but a slow week. We actually received an update text from our zone because we have set some specific goals, and as a whole zone not one new investigator was found last week. That is just a set up to see many great miracles this week from all of our new found determination... so look forward to some great stories next week about finding new investigators! We had a baptism in our ward on Friday which was sweet! I sent a picture of us with the main man, Dragon. Or Dynastasias if you want to call him by his real name. He was taught by the sisters in our ward, but we were able to fellowship him at church and help confirm him yesterday and he wants to come out and start teaching with us now as well.
We do visit our recent converts a lot. A couple of times a week usually. It is good for them and they always love having us over! We were invited to a single adults picnic that they had this week to thank us for the good work we've been doing in the ward. They had a LOT of food and we got to take a lot of it home as well. We have a whole pie and a half in our fridge at home. Banana cream... yummy. Also a whole bag of fried chicken and meatballs and what not... it is great to see a fridge full of food again instead of living off of balogna sandwiches like i've been doing. Also on Sunday the young women were selling giant pizza sized cookies for a camp fundraiser and a member bought us one of those so we also have a now half eaten giant cookie at home. All these sweets are going to fatten me up! But I hear that tomorrow it is supposed to be up to 94 degrees so i'll just sweat it all off. It's not too hot today though, still suit coat weather because it's not even over 70. Looks like summer is coming with no spring for us.
I know of Enzio Busche. He has a speech called "Unleashing the Dormant Spirit" which is excellent. I'll leave you with some of my favorite quotes from that talk. I don't remember the quotes exactly, but the gist is the same. He said that the pain of sacrifice is only an instant. It is the fear of sacrifice that is lasting or painful. My own comment to that would be that we need to live the commandment to be of good cheer. For Christ has overcome the world. When we fear the sacrifice, that is what makes it painful. Enzio Busche also said the spirit will give you clarity, but never doubt. If you are ever receiving doubt, it is not from the spirit. Clarity will come from the spirit.
I know that this is God's true and living church on the earth today. I am so grateful to be a missionary at this time! i love you all. God be with you til me meet again!
May 6, 2013
Dear Family,
I believe the saying here in Fort Dodge goes like this: April showers bring May snowstorms? We had a really nice day this last week. It was above 70 degrees so I was able to walk around in a short sleeve shirt and it felt great. But then that night a rain storm came quite quickly and drenched us as we walked the rest of the way home. It was cold. Also the next day we walked to the church which was about a good hour walk in the rain and it was really windy that day too. My forehead was numb by the time we got there. But we had an awesome lesson at the church. We taught Tabby and her Mom and the Jensens were there. Sis Jensen is the young women's president so it was good for her to meet Tabby and be able to be there for her. We set the date of May 25th for her baptism... but she ended up not coming to church this week so it is not officially her date yet. Then on Thursday we woke up to the sight you see in the picture I attached. SNOW! Man, in May too of all things. I think the official recording was 6 1/2 inches, but it was more than that in some places. We stayed in and weekly planned for a good chunk of the day. District meeting got cancelled and moved to Friday because of the storm.
We had a pretty crazy scene happen on Thursday. Elder Horkley and I were in our apartment weekly planning when all of a sudden we hear a bunch of screaming going on outside of our duplex. There was a lot of obscenities in the language so we knew it wasn't anything good that was happening. We looked out our window and saw these 2 guys in their cars yelling at this one guy on the other side of the street. Apparently he had cut them off while driving or something and they had almost gotten in an accident. I saw one of the 2 talking on the phone so I thought he was calling the police to come and get a report or something. The yelling was going on for about 15 minutes or so with just the three of them when it escalated to threatenings and they were trying to start a fight. That is when we locked our doors and started watching from the upstairs window through a small crack in our blinds so they couldn't see us watching them. Well long story short, they 2 guys had called in back up or something because all of a sudden like 5 cars pull up out of nowhere and a mob of like 30 people are then standing outside of our house on the other side of the street and the other guy runs into his house and his mom comes out and starts yelling at the mob. Then our other neighbor and her son come out and start yelling at them and I called the cops and reported the scene and they all scrambled when three units pulled up. They talked to some people and got statements and that was the end of that. Haven't had any trouble since then. It was pretty interesting to watch though.
How crazy that JD gets home this weekend. We set up our skype time. I will be able to skype at 5 o'clock PM Iowa time at a members house. So i'll call you then! I am looking forward to it. It will be really fun! We logged a lot of driving time this weekend. On Friday we drove to Hampton (about an hour away) for district meeting back and forth on Friday. Then on Friday night we drove down to Boone (about an hour away again) to spend the night with our zone leaders. On Saturday morning we got up at 4 in the morning to drive to Iowa City (about 3 30 hours away) to hear Elder Neil L. Andersen speak to us. It was a really great meeting. All 235 IDMM missionaries were seated in the same building. Elder L. Whitney Clayton of the Presidency of the 70 and Elder Dube from the first quorum of the 70 were also there. Elder Andersen talked mostly on the atonement. About strengthening our testimonies of it and inviting people to repent. He emphasized that God knows the end from the beginning. When he testified of the savior, there was no doubting he knew it was true. The only way to describe it is that it looked like he had actually physically seen Christ Himself. We all got to shake his hand at the beginning of the meeting and it was great. We got there early enough that we were able to snag third row seats which was pretty great. Then we drove back which was another 3 30 hour drive. More good news is that the sisters got a new car so we are no longer sharing. Wade- there weren't any jokes that i know of about us sharing. They did try to name the truck Mr. Thornton though. That was a fail on their part.
Today is a bright shiny day though and about 65 degrees already. Most of the snow is now melted. I didn't need my winter coat... i got by with sweaters and ear muffs. The church is true! Grandma and Grandpa Bob, Grandma and Grandpa Pete, Mark and Mindy, Lori, Steve Wright and fam I got your letters this week! Thank you so much for the birthday wishes! The other picture is Elder Horkley and I on a rail road track bridge that goes across a big chasm.
Love, Elder Peterson
I believe the saying here in Fort Dodge goes like this: April showers bring May snowstorms? We had a really nice day this last week. It was above 70 degrees so I was able to walk around in a short sleeve shirt and it felt great. But then that night a rain storm came quite quickly and drenched us as we walked the rest of the way home. It was cold. Also the next day we walked to the church which was about a good hour walk in the rain and it was really windy that day too. My forehead was numb by the time we got there. But we had an awesome lesson at the church. We taught Tabby and her Mom and the Jensens were there. Sis Jensen is the young women's president so it was good for her to meet Tabby and be able to be there for her. We set the date of May 25th for her baptism... but she ended up not coming to church this week so it is not officially her date yet. Then on Thursday we woke up to the sight you see in the picture I attached. SNOW! Man, in May too of all things. I think the official recording was 6 1/2 inches, but it was more than that in some places. We stayed in and weekly planned for a good chunk of the day. District meeting got cancelled and moved to Friday because of the storm.
We had a pretty crazy scene happen on Thursday. Elder Horkley and I were in our apartment weekly planning when all of a sudden we hear a bunch of screaming going on outside of our duplex. There was a lot of obscenities in the language so we knew it wasn't anything good that was happening. We looked out our window and saw these 2 guys in their cars yelling at this one guy on the other side of the street. Apparently he had cut them off while driving or something and they had almost gotten in an accident. I saw one of the 2 talking on the phone so I thought he was calling the police to come and get a report or something. The yelling was going on for about 15 minutes or so with just the three of them when it escalated to threatenings and they were trying to start a fight. That is when we locked our doors and started watching from the upstairs window through a small crack in our blinds so they couldn't see us watching them. Well long story short, they 2 guys had called in back up or something because all of a sudden like 5 cars pull up out of nowhere and a mob of like 30 people are then standing outside of our house on the other side of the street and the other guy runs into his house and his mom comes out and starts yelling at the mob. Then our other neighbor and her son come out and start yelling at them and I called the cops and reported the scene and they all scrambled when three units pulled up. They talked to some people and got statements and that was the end of that. Haven't had any trouble since then. It was pretty interesting to watch though.
How crazy that JD gets home this weekend. We set up our skype time. I will be able to skype at 5 o'clock PM Iowa time at a members house. So i'll call you then! I am looking forward to it. It will be really fun! We logged a lot of driving time this weekend. On Friday we drove to Hampton (about an hour away) for district meeting back and forth on Friday. Then on Friday night we drove down to Boone (about an hour away again) to spend the night with our zone leaders. On Saturday morning we got up at 4 in the morning to drive to Iowa City (about 3 30 hours away) to hear Elder Neil L. Andersen speak to us. It was a really great meeting. All 235 IDMM missionaries were seated in the same building. Elder L. Whitney Clayton of the Presidency of the 70 and Elder Dube from the first quorum of the 70 were also there. Elder Andersen talked mostly on the atonement. About strengthening our testimonies of it and inviting people to repent. He emphasized that God knows the end from the beginning. When he testified of the savior, there was no doubting he knew it was true. The only way to describe it is that it looked like he had actually physically seen Christ Himself. We all got to shake his hand at the beginning of the meeting and it was great. We got there early enough that we were able to snag third row seats which was pretty great. Then we drove back which was another 3 30 hour drive. More good news is that the sisters got a new car so we are no longer sharing. Wade- there weren't any jokes that i know of about us sharing. They did try to name the truck Mr. Thornton though. That was a fail on their part.
Today is a bright shiny day though and about 65 degrees already. Most of the snow is now melted. I didn't need my winter coat... i got by with sweaters and ear muffs. The church is true! Grandma and Grandpa Bob, Grandma and Grandpa Pete, Mark and Mindy, Lori, Steve Wright and fam I got your letters this week! Thank you so much for the birthday wishes! The other picture is Elder Horkley and I on a rail road track bridge that goes across a big chasm.
Love, Elder Peterson
April 29, 2013
Dear Family,
Hola. It has indeed been an eventful week. And a good week as well. My new area that I am serving in is Fort Dodge, IA. It is in the north west corner of the mission essentially. My new companion is Elder Horkley. He is from Washington. He has been out for 3 months and he is a great elder. We are already having fun together. We also have 2 sister missionaries in our ward who we share the car with. Church on Sunday was really nice. We do have a smaller ward... about 100 people on average is what I hear. That means that everyone is really close to each other. They are pretty spread out through the area though and not a whole lot of them live in Fort Dodge itself. Every 4th Sunday they do a pot luck after church though so that was really nice to be able to meet and greet the members and eat with them as well. They are all really good cooks! It was nice too because we don't really have any food at the apartment. I've been living off a Little Caesers pizza for the weekend and some macaroni and cheese so i'm excited to go grocery shopping today. The choir sang in sacrament meeting and I sang with them. It was a really easy arrangement so it was no big deal. they sang Joseph Smith's first prayer to the tune of Jesus lover of my soul. Elder Horkley is also musical and has a really great tenor voice.
My Birthday was just another day. We had district meeting that day out in Mason City. It is a 2 hour drive to get there and another 2 to come back so our whole day was pretty much district meeting. We did still manage to pick up a new investigator that day and visit a less active though. The less active had some leftover cake from his birthday which was on thursday so i had that as my celebration. I'm really excited to be able to Skype on Mother's Day!!! We are locking down where we are going to go so i'll let you know the details next week. We have church from 10 to 1 and meetings in the morning so it will most likely be in the mid afternoon sometime. The e-mail time hasn't changed. We are still allotted the one hour and fifteen minutes. What has changed is that we are now allowed to e-mail more than our family. We can e-mail our friends and recent converts and such.
That is good news to hear back from BYU-I about the track schedule. I'll be doing some thinking about the winter semester of school as well. Right now it sounds like something I would want to do. i'll also contact President Jergensen so I can get permission to take time to do what i need to to sign up for classes and what not. All i've heard about housing from everyone is NOT to stay in the dorms. Is there a deadline as to when i would have to make the final decision on who to live with? I haven't heard from Zach in a couple of weeks, but as of right now i would like to stay with him at least for my first Fall semester there. If it's not really working out after that then i'll reconsider. I'm bound and determined to get good grades though.
I got Rachael's video and i really liked it! It makes me miss all of my nieces and nephews even more! This Saturday is our mission conference in Iowa City. It will be an early morning for us. We need to be there by around 8 30 in the morning and it's about a 3 1/2 hour drive to get there from here. Plus we have to go to Boone to pick up another set of elders which isn't exactly on the way there. I just hope i'm not the one driving back. I'm really excited to be able to sit down and hear personally from an apostle of the Lord though. We were out doing some finding yesterday and we saw a couple sitting on their porch with a baby. I turned to E Horkley and said lets go talk to them. As we were crossing the street he said hello brother brower. It turns out they were members. They invited us to dinner and we made a trade that i would grill the hotdogs so he could drive us home afterwards.
We just had 2 baptisms in the ward in the last part of April. This ward hadn't had any baptisms prior to those 2 in over a year. We are also having one more on May 10th in our ward. A man named Dinastasias... but he goes by Dragon. He is 6'8" and 19 years old. He is a really cool guy. I got to meet him at church on Sunday. I know that this church is true and it can bless the lives of everyone. We need to not look upon people's stature or physical appearance, but on their hearts. When we do this we will see them as God sees them... in white clothing. When they feel of your love, they will want to learn more. That is one thing I have learned on my mission. thank you for all that you do! Especially you mom and dad! Wade and Brittany I got your package.. thank you! That is a stellar tie. I wore it to transfer meetings. Until next week
Love, Elder Peterson
Hola. It has indeed been an eventful week. And a good week as well. My new area that I am serving in is Fort Dodge, IA. It is in the north west corner of the mission essentially. My new companion is Elder Horkley. He is from Washington. He has been out for 3 months and he is a great elder. We are already having fun together. We also have 2 sister missionaries in our ward who we share the car with. Church on Sunday was really nice. We do have a smaller ward... about 100 people on average is what I hear. That means that everyone is really close to each other. They are pretty spread out through the area though and not a whole lot of them live in Fort Dodge itself. Every 4th Sunday they do a pot luck after church though so that was really nice to be able to meet and greet the members and eat with them as well. They are all really good cooks! It was nice too because we don't really have any food at the apartment. I've been living off a Little Caesers pizza for the weekend and some macaroni and cheese so i'm excited to go grocery shopping today. The choir sang in sacrament meeting and I sang with them. It was a really easy arrangement so it was no big deal. they sang Joseph Smith's first prayer to the tune of Jesus lover of my soul. Elder Horkley is also musical and has a really great tenor voice.
My Birthday was just another day. We had district meeting that day out in Mason City. It is a 2 hour drive to get there and another 2 to come back so our whole day was pretty much district meeting. We did still manage to pick up a new investigator that day and visit a less active though. The less active had some leftover cake from his birthday which was on thursday so i had that as my celebration. I'm really excited to be able to Skype on Mother's Day!!! We are locking down where we are going to go so i'll let you know the details next week. We have church from 10 to 1 and meetings in the morning so it will most likely be in the mid afternoon sometime. The e-mail time hasn't changed. We are still allotted the one hour and fifteen minutes. What has changed is that we are now allowed to e-mail more than our family. We can e-mail our friends and recent converts and such.
That is good news to hear back from BYU-I about the track schedule. I'll be doing some thinking about the winter semester of school as well. Right now it sounds like something I would want to do. i'll also contact President Jergensen so I can get permission to take time to do what i need to to sign up for classes and what not. All i've heard about housing from everyone is NOT to stay in the dorms. Is there a deadline as to when i would have to make the final decision on who to live with? I haven't heard from Zach in a couple of weeks, but as of right now i would like to stay with him at least for my first Fall semester there. If it's not really working out after that then i'll reconsider. I'm bound and determined to get good grades though.
I got Rachael's video and i really liked it! It makes me miss all of my nieces and nephews even more! This Saturday is our mission conference in Iowa City. It will be an early morning for us. We need to be there by around 8 30 in the morning and it's about a 3 1/2 hour drive to get there from here. Plus we have to go to Boone to pick up another set of elders which isn't exactly on the way there. I just hope i'm not the one driving back. I'm really excited to be able to sit down and hear personally from an apostle of the Lord though. We were out doing some finding yesterday and we saw a couple sitting on their porch with a baby. I turned to E Horkley and said lets go talk to them. As we were crossing the street he said hello brother brower. It turns out they were members. They invited us to dinner and we made a trade that i would grill the hotdogs so he could drive us home afterwards.
We just had 2 baptisms in the ward in the last part of April. This ward hadn't had any baptisms prior to those 2 in over a year. We are also having one more on May 10th in our ward. A man named Dinastasias... but he goes by Dragon. He is 6'8" and 19 years old. He is a really cool guy. I got to meet him at church on Sunday. I know that this church is true and it can bless the lives of everyone. We need to not look upon people's stature or physical appearance, but on their hearts. When we do this we will see them as God sees them... in white clothing. When they feel of your love, they will want to learn more. That is one thing I have learned on my mission. thank you for all that you do! Especially you mom and dad! Wade and Brittany I got your package.. thank you! That is a stellar tie. I wore it to transfer meetings. Until next week
Love, Elder Peterson
April 22, 2013
Dear Family!
WOOHOO indeed! I'm stoked that I got accepted! Thank you so so so much for all the work you have done on my behalf mother and father! What a great week this has truly been. Lots of good news all around. We had our baptism on Saturday. I attached a picture of it. It was amazing! The spirit was so strong and the confirmation the next day was just as good! Sarah has such a special spirit about her.
So the news is that i'm being transferred! I'm getting a new companion who has only been out for 3 months so i'll be his second companion. I don't know where i'm going yet, i just know that i'm going. So that means if you send a package directly to my west des moines address we better hope that it gets here by wednesday or else i'm not going to get it for a while. We are going to get 10 visa waiters in the mission and that brings our total number of missionaries received this transfer to 41! Holy Cow! I don't know where we are going to fit all of them. Here in west des moines both sets are getting visa waiters so there will be 6 missionaries in the ward. they also split the zone because we were too big so we are in a whole new zone now.
If I get transferred to Illinois again i'm sure that i will have lots of service opportunities available to me from all the flooding that has been going on there. They have received 85 percent of the annual rainfall of last year in the month of April of this year alone. We had a family drive to Chicago recently and they said the river was flooded right up to the road. It kind of looked and felt like they were driving on top of the water is what they said. I've been getting in with a lot of the families here in west des moines to say my goodbyes and leave one last encouraging thought to do missionary work with them. I have been here for 6 months now total.
Thank you for all of the birthday wishes! Parents I got your packages and loved the birthday hats. I had to open it early so that I could pack the stuff into my suitcases to take to my next area. I don't have any big plans for my birthday because i don't even know where i'm going to be. I'll find a fun way to celebrate though. i know we are having a district meeting that day so maybe i'll bake a cake for the whole district.
I am so grateful for this gospel. I recently started the BofM over again this last week. What stood out to me is when Nephi and his brothers went to get the brass plates. I like to think of the brass plates as a new investigator. We are trying to get the new investigators. Nephi and his brothers did what they knew how to do first. They cast lots and Laman went and just asked for the plates. That didn't work. So they did something else they knew how to do on their own. They tried to trade for the plates by giving all of their silver and gold and vast wealth. That didn't work either. We do what we know how to do. We tract or seek referrals or work with part member families etc. and sometimes it just seems like nothing is working. But we know that it is a commandment and promise from the Lord that there are people prepared for us to find. So we keep on doing what we know how to do until we are directed by the spirit and can accomplish what we need to. Nephi wasn't sure what he was going to do that last attempt that he went and found Laban drunk. Sometimes i feel like i don't know what to do, but that doesn't mean we sit around and do nothing. We get ourselves out there and we let the Lord do the rest.
Thanks again for everything!
WOOHOO indeed! I'm stoked that I got accepted! Thank you so so so much for all the work you have done on my behalf mother and father! What a great week this has truly been. Lots of good news all around. We had our baptism on Saturday. I attached a picture of it. It was amazing! The spirit was so strong and the confirmation the next day was just as good! Sarah has such a special spirit about her.
So the news is that i'm being transferred! I'm getting a new companion who has only been out for 3 months so i'll be his second companion. I don't know where i'm going yet, i just know that i'm going. So that means if you send a package directly to my west des moines address we better hope that it gets here by wednesday or else i'm not going to get it for a while. We are going to get 10 visa waiters in the mission and that brings our total number of missionaries received this transfer to 41! Holy Cow! I don't know where we are going to fit all of them. Here in west des moines both sets are getting visa waiters so there will be 6 missionaries in the ward. they also split the zone because we were too big so we are in a whole new zone now.
If I get transferred to Illinois again i'm sure that i will have lots of service opportunities available to me from all the flooding that has been going on there. They have received 85 percent of the annual rainfall of last year in the month of April of this year alone. We had a family drive to Chicago recently and they said the river was flooded right up to the road. It kind of looked and felt like they were driving on top of the water is what they said. I've been getting in with a lot of the families here in west des moines to say my goodbyes and leave one last encouraging thought to do missionary work with them. I have been here for 6 months now total.
Thank you for all of the birthday wishes! Parents I got your packages and loved the birthday hats. I had to open it early so that I could pack the stuff into my suitcases to take to my next area. I don't have any big plans for my birthday because i don't even know where i'm going to be. I'll find a fun way to celebrate though. i know we are having a district meeting that day so maybe i'll bake a cake for the whole district.
I am so grateful for this gospel. I recently started the BofM over again this last week. What stood out to me is when Nephi and his brothers went to get the brass plates. I like to think of the brass plates as a new investigator. We are trying to get the new investigators. Nephi and his brothers did what they knew how to do first. They cast lots and Laman went and just asked for the plates. That didn't work. So they did something else they knew how to do on their own. They tried to trade for the plates by giving all of their silver and gold and vast wealth. That didn't work either. We do what we know how to do. We tract or seek referrals or work with part member families etc. and sometimes it just seems like nothing is working. But we know that it is a commandment and promise from the Lord that there are people prepared for us to find. So we keep on doing what we know how to do until we are directed by the spirit and can accomplish what we need to. Nephi wasn't sure what he was going to do that last attempt that he went and found Laban drunk. Sometimes i feel like i don't know what to do, but that doesn't mean we sit around and do nothing. We get ourselves out there and we let the Lord do the rest.
Thanks again for everything!
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