March 26, 2012

Hello Family!

 

I actually don't have a lot of time today because they are throwing interviews with the president into the mix today.  If we have some time afterwards maybe i can send another short e-mail later today as well.  This week has been a good one.  I've been getting to know the ward a lot better now and have made some pretty good friends with the young men already.  We continue to have zero investigators at the moment.  We have taught the first discussion several times this last week though.  It saddens me to know that the spirit is present and that the person we are teaching can feel it, yet they choose still to not meet with us again.  I don't let it get me down though.  We are still working hard to find new people.  I did a training in this last district meeting about receiving revelation through church attendance and it went pretty well.  That is one of the big problems that we have in our zone/mission is getting people to church.  We generated some good ideas though to try and incorporate into the work to see if we can't get these people to come to church and to have a spiritual experience while we are there.  It is important for them to feel the spirit while they are there.  And the same applies to us as well.  We need to try to make church meaningful in our lives and seek the spirit while we are there.  How do we make the sacrament meaningful to us every week?  Do we think about all that the savior has done for us as we partake of it?  Do we think of the covenants we are renewing as we do so?

 

In my ward our ward missionaries are great.  They have come with us to teach several times.  One of them actually served his mission in the Ogden, UT mission and spent 11 months of his mission in Logan.  So we have some fun talking about that.  Well i'm sorry that this is so short this week.  Know that i love you.  I know that this church is true.  I know that Jesus Christ really did atone for our sins.  I am so greatful for that.  I know that Thomas S Monson is the living prophet today.  Let us all take the opportunity with conference this next week to go into it with a question.  I promise you will find an answer.

 

Love, Elder Peterson

March 19, 2012

Hello hello Family!

 

This week has been great.  We have seen miracles.  We received 5 referalls this last week from the members.  That has definitely got to be a new record for me.  As we went to go see these referrals, none of them were home.  BUT we found people outside close to their houses due to the beautiful weather who were ready to hear the message that we had.  Hopefully we can add the referalls to our teaching pool as well along with these new investigators.  This week one of my personal goals has really been to listen more to the spirit specifically while trying to find new people to teach, and i have seen results come from the prayers I have offered in this effort i have put forth.  So now we actually have people to teach which is good.

 

I am still getting acquainted with the new area.  We have a lot of ground that we cover.  My second week at church was good.  I am still trying to meet all of the members and get their names down.  We have a lot of families in the ward haha.  This last week we had a zone conference with the Mission President and the AP's and our zone.  My MTC companion is in my zone now and it was fun to see him.  One thing that stood out to me during the conference was the difference between spending time and investing time.  One example that i thought of was in fishing.  If two guys go fishing and one of them has his line in the water for 10 hours he will see more success and he knows the purpose that he has.  If the other fisherman spends too much time worrying about his line and lunch and other things and only has his line in the water for 2 hours, he won't see as much success.  There is a difference between just being busy and actually focusing on our purpose of bringing people to Christ.  It also reminded me of a little poem in the book "How to be Totally Miserable" that dad gave me that says, one man builds a net, the other stands and wishes.  Would you like to bet, which one gets the fishes?

 

One thing that we are doing in this ward as well is working with the young men a lot more.  We actually have 4 ward missionaries in the ward along with our ward mission leader.  3 of them are priests and the other one was actually just called this week.  He is getting married next month, but he actually served his mission in the Ogden, UT mission and just graduated from BYU.  So we have plenty of opportunities to go on splits with the young men. I love doing that and having the opportunity to teach them and encourage them and get them excited about serving missions.  I am so thankful that i am serving a mission right now and i know that this church is true!  I love you all!

 

Love, Elder Peterson

March 12, 2012

Hello Family!

I am doing great this week and i hope all of you are doing well as well.  My new area is the Rock Island Illinois area.  We live in Moline and our apartment is really nice.  It is right on the border of Illinois and Iowa.  I'm actually in the quad cities.  We cover Rock Island and Moline and then Davenport and Bettendorf are on the other side of the river.  The area we have to cover is huge.  We used to have spanish speaking elders in the area as well, but they left this last transfer because the mission doesn't have enough spanish speakers to keep them here so we now have their area.  But we got a brand new truck to drive around so that's cool.  My new comp is Elder Ashton.  He doesn't have a driver's liscense so i get to drive.  He has been out for 21 months so i'll probably be his last companion before he goes home.  My new zone leader is Trent Howard.  He lives in Pleasant Grove and says he knows Whitney and Kayla.  I'm surprised we weren't friends or never ran into each other because we are very similar and like all of the same stuff.  We have sister missionaries in our district now too.  They serve in the Bettendorf area.

The weather has been great.  This whole week it's supposed to be in the low 70's so I'll be hanging up the jacket!  Let's see, in our area we don't have any current investigators.  So we will be doing a lot of finding.  The last missionary that was here that i replaced is actually from Orem, but he didn't do much.  We received 2 referrals just yesterday though so the members are willing to help.  It kind of feels weird being in a Ward now instead of a Branch.  We had like 2 times as many people here as I've seen in the last 7 months and I guess a lot of people were even gone today.  I've been meeting some of the families and the Recent Converts and they are all really good people.  I'm excited to be here.  I was hoping that i would come to a bigger city and i got my wish :)

This last week in my studies i've been reading in Mormon.  In Chapter 8 it talks about how their was no contention in the land because of the love of God that was in the people.  It stood out to me because even if people don't accept the gospel or the invitation to learn about it, we can still spread the love of God that we have.  Even if all we do is love the people, they will come closer to Jesus Christ.  That is the best way to bring people into the fold, is to just love them.  I love all of you and God does too!

1- District Pyramid

2- Attemted District Jump

3- Mormontown (Blockton IA)

4- E Harris (ZL) and Peterson

5- Lenox Sign

6- Herrin and Peterson

7- Peterson St

8- District Photo

9- E Berthold and Peterson

10- E Maughan and Peterson

11- Sunset

12- E Herrin and Peterson at transfers

March 7, 2012

Hello Family!

I just realized that I forgot my camera back at the house... so look for pictures on Monday.  I am getting transferred this week.  I don't know where to yet, so look for that on Monday too.  I've been going around and saying goodbye to all of the members and such this week.  I'm going to miss Lenox, but i'm ready to move on and start some new adventures.  I'm hoping that I get moved to a bigger city now.  We leave for Iowa City tomorrow morning at 6.  I'll probably be spending all of today packing.  I don't know how i've accumulated so much stuff already.  I haven't heard from Cody or Everett in a little while actually.

I have been doing good this week.  We got another article in the paper for another city in our area.  We picked up one investigator from it named Kim.  She is doing good and said she would be coming to church this week.  I hope she does.  We also finally got back in contact with Sasha again.  When we taught her the word of wisdom a couple of weeks ago, i guess our Branch Mission Leader offended her so that is why they haven't been coming to church because they know he will be there.  So we are working with her on that.  Other members of the branch have been reaching out to her though so I think she just needs some time and she will come along.  

This week I was studying in Mosiah 18 and in verse 9 it talks about some of the things we covenanted to do at our baptisms.  One of them is "to stand as witnesses of God at all times and in all things, and in all places that ye may be in, even until death, that ye may be redeemed of God, and be numbered with those of the first resurrection, that ye may have eternal life."  I've also been reading some of the past general conference reports from this last conference and it goes along perfectly with President Monson's talks about standing in holy places and not being afraid to stand alone.  I would encourage you to go back and read those talks again.   I know that if we are always standing as witnesses of God at all times that our lives will be blessed.  We will receive more personal revelation.   We will find more missionary opportunities, and we will feel the love of God in our hearts stronger.

Love, Elder Peterson

Feb. 27, 2012

Hey Family!

Here is a special Happy Birthday Shout out to you Dad!  I wasn't on the ball to send out a card months in advance.  It sounds like you had an enjoyable birthday which is good!  This week has been pretty interesting for me.  Our investigator Sasha is having troubles quitting coffee so she won't be baptized on the 10th after all.  We are still working with her to get her on the right track though.  Other than that, things have been great.  We are teaching a lady named Kim who got dropped about a year ago because she never kept commitments.  We ran into her in the library and she wanted us to come over.  She actually kept the commitment we left her of reading 2 Nephi 31 which is all about the doctrine of Christ.  This week i've been thinking about temples lately.  The closest temple to me is the Winter Quarters  temple in Nebraska but since it is out of my mission boundaries we are not allowed to go.  We are having 3 of our recent converts go to do baptisms on march 3rd!  That has been one of our focuses i guess you could say. Getting recent converts thinking about and attending the temple.  It's crazy to think of how many temples we have near us in Utah valley.  I definitely appreciate them more than I used to.  I'm sure it's even more of a challenge to go to the nearest temple in Russia.

We had an interesting/scary thing happen this week.  Since E Herrin is the district leader we get to go on exchanges with all of the other missionaries in our district.  We went to a city called Osceola this last week.  I was working with a new missionary, E Hinman.  We went to go visit this guy named Terry.  He drank a lot beers while we were there.  But all of a sudden the right side of his face just froze up and was all tense and he started screaming kind of.  Then he would start laughing, but tears were flowing out of his cheeks.  I didn't know what to think. I thought maybe he was being posessed by an evil spirit or something.  I was just sitting there and reached into my pocket and grabbed my oil and was ready to put my arm to the square, but it ended.  He said that he had just had a heart attack and he has one every night.  We offered a blessing but he just wanted us to leave.  He is still alive though, the elders went back to check on him.  That about sums up the excitement for the week.

~Elder Peterson

February 21, 2012

Hello Family!

 

This last week has been pretty good.  I actually haven't been talking with Dad about ways to get our names out into the community... i guess great minds just think alike.  We were able to have a zone p-day this last week.  President said if everybody in the zone remembered to do the weekly e-mail to him we could have a zone p-day and our zone did it.  It was pretty fun. I'm feeling sore this morning though... I haven't been that active in a while now.  And yesterday was also Presidents Day which is why I am e-mailing you today.  We played soccer, basketball, ate lunch and had a nerf war.  The weather was nice enough in the morning to play soccer outside which was fun.  It was raining pretty hard by the time we were driving home though.  But I am surviving the winter just fine. It really hasn't been too bad at all.  People and missionaries when I first got here would always tell me how bad winter was here, but their stories haven't lived up to this mild winter.

 

For Valentines day we ate dinner over at a members house and had some really good fall off the bone ribs.  I also wore a pink tie to celebrate the occasion. Brittany I got your package... thank you thank you.  It has been serving me well.  We picked up 4 new investigators this week and they all accepted a soft baptismal invitation.  That is where they agree to baptism, but don't have a date set for those who don't know.  They are in cities that are fairly far away from Lenox though so members have been really helpful in driving us there so we can save on miles, and they really add a great spirit to the lessons as well.  Some members from E Herrin's last ward came and visited this last Sunday.  They brought us a care package that had a bottle of fry sauce in it because the dad was recently in Utah.  I was pretty excited. 

 

In District Meetings we have been having some really good trainings.  This last week some elders trained on faith and dilligence.  Something that came to my mind while they were teaching is that sometimes people use faith as an excuse.  They will tell you that they don't need to go to church or live the commandments because they have a faith in Jesus Christ.  But faith is much more than that.  If we really have a faith in Jesus Christ it will lead us to action.  We will demonstrate love to Christ and our Heavenly Father by showing that we are willing to do their will... even if it is hard for us.  Faith also increases our confidence in the Lord.  Once we build that confidence, missionary work becomes easier.  It constantly keeps a smile on your face, even when people don't want to listen to you.  I know that this church is true!

 

Love, Elder Peterson

February 13, 2012

Hello Family,

Well it snowed again today.  It didn't snow a lot, but the wind drifts make it look like it did in certain places that's for sure.  It hasn't been super cold during the day yet but it's been getting down to about 2 below at night.  I did find a blanket that I can use.  And we got a space heater and that helps at night a lot too.  We are still trying to find more people to teach.  We've tracted into some pretty sweet families so I'll keep you updated on them.  Sasha has moved her baptismal date to March 10th so that her family can attend.  That's 2 days after transfers so i might not be here for that is the only bad thing.  But we felt that the 10th is when it was supposed to be so i don't mind.  We went over and had a big family dinner with her husband's family that all live in the little town of Blockton.  It reminded me of our big family dinners that we would have with extended family and what not.  Then we watched the restoration DVD and the spirit was really strong. Videos can really bring the spirit into a room and we use them often when we are teaching people.

We have that same problem with the "traditions of their fathers" especially with the Methodists.  Except here in Iowa it's more of a "my parents took me here when I was a kid" and now they don't go at all but they still don't want to change.  We've been trying to get our name out into the community lately.  We have articles coming out in the Lenox and the Corning Newspaper.  They only print one issue a week and ours should either be in the one this week or the one next week.  Also for Creston, our biggest city in the area, we have some air time on their radio station that a bunch of people listen to on Thursday so i hope that goes well.  We've also had plenty of snow shoveling service opportunities.  We also served dinner at a soup kitchen type place and might start getting some volunteer work at a hospital so things are going well.

I've been studying up on Joseph Smith and church history lately.  It always amazes me how in the early days of Joseph's life, specifically before he was 14, everything just aligned perfectly.  Like how when he got the infection in his leg after typhoid fever that the only doctor in the WORLD that could have saved his leg was right there to perform the surgery.  God's work will go forward no matter what.  I'm just so happy that I can be a part of it.

Love, Elder Peterson