Hello Family!
I was able to watch the worldwide training broadcast at our church and it was excellent! That is exciting to hear from Whitney that she (you if you are reading this) will be a pilot mission for all of the technology stuff. I loved all of the videos and success stories that they shared. Unfortunately not a lot of our ward was able to watch it live. We had a member family who had a giant tree fall into their driveway so after our ward potluck that we had after church the vast majority of people went to their house with chainsaws and went to work doing service. When we visit our ward members now we are going to make sure that they watch it and maybe even watch some of it with them.
That is too bad to hear that Steven is having health problems. Is it his back again? And since when is Madeline Ashcraft engaged? She will always just seem like a 14 year old to me. Our goodbye zone conference went well. President and Sister Jergensen stood up and did kind of a question and answer type ordeal giving us advice for life and how to raise our families and such. It was really good, and quite humorous at parts which made the whole saying "goodbye" thing easier for all of us. It was still sad to see them go. We also learned that the Peoria zone of our mission will officially become part of the Illinois Chicago West Mission effective July 1st. Nauvoo will still be in our mission though so we still have a temple!
It's still rainy here. Today it has been raining torrentially with loud loud thunder. The power was out for a while and is still out in some areas. That is not why we are late e-mailing though. We were playing Settlers of Catan with some members this morning for our P-Day and then had lunch and then came to the library. We picked up a new investigator this week named Dianna. We have been helping her move into her new house and we were able to teach her the plan of salvation while doing so. She just came here from California and we look forward to working with her. Deanna came to church on Sunday(not to be confused with Dianna. They are 2 different investigators.) It was good to see her again because we have been having trouble contacting her. But we got an appointment set up and we are all ready to set a baptismal date with her and her son.
I love you all!
Love, Elder Peterson
June 17, 2013
Dear Family,
We have not had any tornado damage here in Fort Dodge. We have been on tornado watch a couple of times, but it has never really been all that bad. The real problem is the flooding that we have had from all of the rain. A lot of the corn fields are flooded and even more have not yet even been planted yet because the ground is too muddy for the tractors to go on and such, so as soon as it dries up there is going to be a mad dash to get all of the crops planted and replanted for what was lost in the floods. We have had some damge in our district boundaries from tornadoes, but that is like over an hour away from where we live.
Camping sounds like a good time! We heard some great news from the girls camp here! One of our beehives took a friend to girls camp and by the end of the camp she was asking how she could join the church because she loved it so much. Her mom works here at the library and we are already friends with her so it is going to be fun to have this member family work with this other family. Now we just need to get the mom on board... hopefully more updates on that story later.
We had a good fathers day here. And happy fathers day to all you fathers out there! Anne gave a talk in church on the Book of Mormon and did a great job, especially since she was baptized only 2 short months ago. Unfortunately Tabby didn't come to church to hear her talk. We might be going bowling with there family and the Bair family and then having an FHE lesson afterwards with them today. The primary baked cookies for all of the dads in our ward and then presented them to them during the final hour, and we got all of the leftovers :) I wore my orange tie that always reminds me of you dad to church on sunday. I guess i'll just have to show you the tie when i get home. I'm also glad that you got my letter.
That's too bad to hear that Zach chose an expensive place... oh well. Is it too late to maybe try and room with Steven then? If it is, just choose a place mom now and then i'll adjust if I don't like it for that second semester. I don't register for classes until Wednesday of this week and i already got permission from President and am good to go for that morning. President Jensen comes in just 2 weeks! And we heard that the group that Dex McKell is coming in has 30+ missionaries coming to the mission that transfer. My departing temple trip is going to be on July 9th. It's going to be an all day thing for me since we are about a 5 hour drive away from Nauvoo here. We have a zone conference this Tuesday as a final goodbye to President Jergensen and then we have another zone conference the week afterward for President Jensens first. Lots of traveling these last few weeks, and then you throw district meetings in there too and we are happily busy all of the time!
One of my favorite scriptures that I have been thinking about lately is in Mosiah 5:13. The verses leading up to it are great too, but 13 says For how knoweth a man the master whom he has not served, and who is a stranger unto him, and is far from the thoughts and intents of his heart? I have truly come to know the master as I have served. I have come to know Jesus Christ as my friend. Another favorite verse of mine is Doctrine and Covenants 93:45 Verily, I say unto my servant Joseph Smith, Jun., or in other words, I will call you friends, for you are my friends, and ye shall have an inheritance with me— 46 I called you servants for the world’s sake, and ye are their servants for my sake— (just substitute your own name and you're good). I am forever thankful for the friendship that i have gained with my savior and with my Heavenly Father. I know that this church is true. Until next time,
Love Always,
Elder Peterson
We have not had any tornado damage here in Fort Dodge. We have been on tornado watch a couple of times, but it has never really been all that bad. The real problem is the flooding that we have had from all of the rain. A lot of the corn fields are flooded and even more have not yet even been planted yet because the ground is too muddy for the tractors to go on and such, so as soon as it dries up there is going to be a mad dash to get all of the crops planted and replanted for what was lost in the floods. We have had some damge in our district boundaries from tornadoes, but that is like over an hour away from where we live.
Camping sounds like a good time! We heard some great news from the girls camp here! One of our beehives took a friend to girls camp and by the end of the camp she was asking how she could join the church because she loved it so much. Her mom works here at the library and we are already friends with her so it is going to be fun to have this member family work with this other family. Now we just need to get the mom on board... hopefully more updates on that story later.
We had a good fathers day here. And happy fathers day to all you fathers out there! Anne gave a talk in church on the Book of Mormon and did a great job, especially since she was baptized only 2 short months ago. Unfortunately Tabby didn't come to church to hear her talk. We might be going bowling with there family and the Bair family and then having an FHE lesson afterwards with them today. The primary baked cookies for all of the dads in our ward and then presented them to them during the final hour, and we got all of the leftovers :) I wore my orange tie that always reminds me of you dad to church on sunday. I guess i'll just have to show you the tie when i get home. I'm also glad that you got my letter.
That's too bad to hear that Zach chose an expensive place... oh well. Is it too late to maybe try and room with Steven then? If it is, just choose a place mom now and then i'll adjust if I don't like it for that second semester. I don't register for classes until Wednesday of this week and i already got permission from President and am good to go for that morning. President Jensen comes in just 2 weeks! And we heard that the group that Dex McKell is coming in has 30+ missionaries coming to the mission that transfer. My departing temple trip is going to be on July 9th. It's going to be an all day thing for me since we are about a 5 hour drive away from Nauvoo here. We have a zone conference this Tuesday as a final goodbye to President Jergensen and then we have another zone conference the week afterward for President Jensens first. Lots of traveling these last few weeks, and then you throw district meetings in there too and we are happily busy all of the time!
One of my favorite scriptures that I have been thinking about lately is in Mosiah 5:13. The verses leading up to it are great too, but 13 says For how knoweth a man the master whom he has not served, and who is a stranger unto him, and is far from the thoughts and intents of his heart? I have truly come to know the master as I have served. I have come to know Jesus Christ as my friend. Another favorite verse of mine is Doctrine and Covenants 93:45 Verily, I say unto my servant Joseph Smith, Jun., or in other words, I will call you friends, for you are my friends, and ye shall have an inheritance with me— 46 I called you servants for the world’s sake, and ye are their servants for my sake— (just substitute your own name and you're good). I am forever thankful for the friendship that i have gained with my savior and with my Heavenly Father. I know that this church is true. Until next time,
Love Always,
Elder Peterson
June 10, 2013
Dear Family,
It still doesn't quite feel like summer here in Fort Dodge. It's still been in the 60's mostly with it getting up into the low 70's and rainy. It actually feels great to be walking around in. I am ready for some sunshine though. This has been a good week. Our stake did mini missions so we had a priest from the Newton branch with us for Friday, Saturday, Sunday. It was a good experience for him and for us. My new companion is Elder Blackburn. He is from Layton, UT. He went to culinary arts school for cooking so maybe he will chef something up for me sometime. Also Elder Brown arrived in the mission from Chico. And an elder Parry from Tremonton is here i don't know if Casey might know him.
At church we had an investigator family show up with a less active man who we are actively trying to reactivate. Deanna is the moms name and they have 3 kids. One of the kids, Jesus, is 8 years old so he is eligible for baptism. It would be sweet to be able to say we baptized Jesus in Iowa. We taught them after church and the mom really wants to get baptized. The dad is happily catholic so we will just let him come in his own time. They live in Webster City which is about 45 minutes away so we are really going to have to 1. budget miles and 2. get help from the members for rides and such. The sisters in our ward are in a tripanionship so we have one more missionary in the ward as well. We had a great turn out this last week at church which was great!
We are still having trouble teaching our other investigators. We are able to talk to them on the phone quite often so we are still in contact (with the exception of Breon) but sitting down and actually teaching seems to be a problem for the last 2 weeks. We had our get to know you district meeting on Saturday. Most of the district is new plus we had our mini missionaries there so it was fun! At lunch afterwards we went to an authentic mexican restaurant again since we were in Hampton and i got a cabeza taco and a tripa taco. Now when people ask me what is something weird that i ate on my mission, i can have a good answer. Cabeza is cow head. I learned how they cooked it after i ate the taco. They take the entire head, like fur and everything, and boil it for 10 hours and then pick it up by the horns and shake the skull until all the meat and brains fall off. That one wasn't my favorite. The tripa was good... it is the inner lining pretty much of the utter of the cow.
Girls camp is this week for our ward and scout camp is the following week. then things slow down for the rest of the summer, but hopefully not for us! I attached a file of Elder Blackburn and I in front of the mystery machine that we found. I love all of you and have a great week!
Love, Elder Peterson
It still doesn't quite feel like summer here in Fort Dodge. It's still been in the 60's mostly with it getting up into the low 70's and rainy. It actually feels great to be walking around in. I am ready for some sunshine though. This has been a good week. Our stake did mini missions so we had a priest from the Newton branch with us for Friday, Saturday, Sunday. It was a good experience for him and for us. My new companion is Elder Blackburn. He is from Layton, UT. He went to culinary arts school for cooking so maybe he will chef something up for me sometime. Also Elder Brown arrived in the mission from Chico. And an elder Parry from Tremonton is here i don't know if Casey might know him.
At church we had an investigator family show up with a less active man who we are actively trying to reactivate. Deanna is the moms name and they have 3 kids. One of the kids, Jesus, is 8 years old so he is eligible for baptism. It would be sweet to be able to say we baptized Jesus in Iowa. We taught them after church and the mom really wants to get baptized. The dad is happily catholic so we will just let him come in his own time. They live in Webster City which is about 45 minutes away so we are really going to have to 1. budget miles and 2. get help from the members for rides and such. The sisters in our ward are in a tripanionship so we have one more missionary in the ward as well. We had a great turn out this last week at church which was great!
We are still having trouble teaching our other investigators. We are able to talk to them on the phone quite often so we are still in contact (with the exception of Breon) but sitting down and actually teaching seems to be a problem for the last 2 weeks. We had our get to know you district meeting on Saturday. Most of the district is new plus we had our mini missionaries there so it was fun! At lunch afterwards we went to an authentic mexican restaurant again since we were in Hampton and i got a cabeza taco and a tripa taco. Now when people ask me what is something weird that i ate on my mission, i can have a good answer. Cabeza is cow head. I learned how they cooked it after i ate the taco. They take the entire head, like fur and everything, and boil it for 10 hours and then pick it up by the horns and shake the skull until all the meat and brains fall off. That one wasn't my favorite. The tripa was good... it is the inner lining pretty much of the utter of the cow.
Girls camp is this week for our ward and scout camp is the following week. then things slow down for the rest of the summer, but hopefully not for us! I attached a file of Elder Blackburn and I in front of the mystery machine that we found. I love all of you and have a great week!
Love, Elder Peterson
June 3, 2013
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
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!
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