July 1, 2013

Hey this is Elder Peterson.  

 

Things are going great out here.  This past week, we got a call from one of our LA that we are working with.  She has been struggling with money problems, and was working on liquidating all of her assets including her house.  But she was able to get a job this past week working at a lumber mill as a security officer  which was so exciting to hear about.

This past week was really cool.  We had our Zone Conference on Wednesday, and oh my gosh it was awesome.  I really felt like I learned a lot from it, especially from the AP's.  The focus was on learning to recognize the spirit and follow those promptings.  They showed parts of Elder Bednar's Patterns of Light.  It had some really good ways it talked about how revelation comes.  I definitely feel like Elder Bednar when he compared receiving revelation to a foggy day.  He said that he felt like he would get just enough revelation to see one or two steps in front of him, but not enough to see the big picture.  It reminded me of the song Lead, Kindly Light

 

Keep thou my feet; I do not ask to see The distant scene—one step enough for me.

2. I was not ever thus, nor pray'd that thou
Shouldst lead me on.
I loved to choose and see my path; but now,
Lead thou me on!
I loved the garish day, and, spite of fears,
Pride ruled my will. Remember not past years.

I definitely think that as we work with the revelation that we have, then we will be blessed as we listen to the Lord.

We also have been working with an excommunicated member of the Church with permission from the bishop.  It is so awesome.  he said that when she feels ready, she can be baptised!!  And we set a date for her baptism just this past week!!!

Love Elder Peterson

June 25, 2013

I had this really weird dream last night.

I dreamed that I was with my roommate from the MTC and we were in a military boot-camp.  We were standing at attention and I sassed the sergeant.  We were then told that we would lead the squad in conditioning drills at some point in time (but I never got to that point).  Then we went onto a survival course.  We were given a map and a compass, and dropped off with a backpack for both of us with clothes and a tarp to create a shelter, but not told where we were in relation to the map and we were told to get to a certain point.  We started running towards the direction that we thought we should be going and we ended up in the middle of a fire fight without any guns.  We wrestled a gun away from one of our attackers, and kept going.  Then I woke up.  It was really weird.  I don't know if it is supposed to mean anything or if it was just a strange dream.

But this next week we hope to be able to set baptismal dates with about 4 of our investigators.  I am super excited.  We started working with an excommunicated member and her husband last week.  She had never stopped coming to church or anything which was really cool, plus she really really really wants to get rebaptized.  We were given the okay from Bishop V. to start teaching her two weeks ago, and we are hoping to set a baptismal date with her for the 13th of July.  Hopefully she has been reading and praying with her husband M., who is a non-member, so that he is also gaining and strengthening his testimony of the church.  

Also, this last week, one of our investigators asked us to come over and give a blessing to his kids while they were away visiting family.  So that was super cool.  We haven't been able to meet with him for about a month and a half, so we were able to also talk with him and set up a time that we can come over and teach them.

Love you,

Elder Peterson

June 18, 2013

Hey, I don't have a lot of time right now, but things are going awesome out here.  We went tracting this last week and found a couple people to teach potentially, so that was awesome, but they still haven't split my area.  We don't have enough time in the day to do everything and keep a balanced area.  They definitely need to split it.  We will be all over the place and back and forth who knows how many times this month/transfer.

Hey good news though,  I am still in the OPM (Oregon Portland Mission).  But both my other companions have gone out to other missions.  Elder Jorgensen ( my trainer) is a district leader in Salem, and my MTC companion is in Salem as well, so I won't be able to see them any more.

Love 

Elder Peterson

Romans 8:16-18

Our Divine potential is outstanding.  Stand worthy to receive the blessings that come with it.

June 11, 2013

This past week started out a little rough but it definitely more than made up for it at the end of the week. By Tuesday, we had already had 5 cancelled lessons.  It is so frustrating to see people forget or just decide to cancel appointments because they don't realize the blessings that come with the Gospel.  But throughout the week, we had plenty little miracles that made up for all of the set backs.  We were able to contact a few people that have resulted from the ward mission process.  We have been trying to get a hold of the L's for almost 4 months now, and on Tuesday, Elder Barlow and I were able to find them at home and set up a time to be able to meet with Brother L and his wife for today.  We then went over and were able to contact another person to visit for this Thursday.  N has been less active for a long time because of a terminal illness.  She gets upset when people try to tell her how to deal with her illness, and a lot of that was happening at church.  So she slowly stopped going to church with the hopes that people would slowly forget about her illness.  As a result she hasn't been to church for many years.  She still has a super strong testimony of the gospel, and she is willing to meet with us.  She said that she loves 20 questions, so if you guys know some cool questions to ask, please let me know because I have never been good at coming up with those kinds of things.  

On Wednesday, we were able to meet with A, and she is doing really well.  She started coming back to church when her best friend died, and she had a lot of questions about the plan of salvation and what happens after we die.  We have been meeting with her for about 4 months now, and she went in for her interview with the Bishop to get a temple recommend!!!  It was super exciting!!!  Then on Saturday, we were able to share a spiritual thought with a less active member out in Beavercreek named E.  She left the church because she found out something that made her think that the church wasn't for her.  She hasn't told us what it is yet, but we were finally able to make contact after 2 months of trying.  

Sunday was an amazing day.  While we were in Gospel Doctrine, we were told by Brother M that his son W had decided that he wanted to get baptized on the 22 of June!!!!!  Bro M's family has been going to church for about 3 years now and W has been attending seminary, but hadn't none of them had decided that they wanted to get baptized.  Then when we went over to visit them after church, and we found out that his daughter M wants to get baptized as well on the 12 of July!!!!  Now we are just waiting for the mom to want to get baptized with the rest of her family.  

This past week was great.  Then on p-day, there was an elder who tried to headbutt me, and that was strange.

Love you all

Elder Peterson

As we listen to the Holy Ghost, it will come line upon line, precept upon precept.  That connection will grow stronger.  Then one day, we will be called upon to stand as witnesses of Christ, and we will stand as Abinadi before King Noah, testifying of truths that we cannot and will not ever deny

June 3, 2013

I had my interview with Pres. Morby this week.  It was really cool to be able to sit down with him and be able to just talk about what I am feeling instead of trying to put those feelings down in writing and send them off to him.  He was definitely hinting towards splitting the area that I am serving in which is super exciting.  You have no idea how much I miss being able to dance with someone just for fun, and not worry about making a fool out of myself. Things are getting even better with my new companion.

This past week we had exchanges, and it was super nice to have someone who is willing to teach with me instead of me just rambling on and on all by my lonesome.  Elder L is a really fun person to be around.  Just being around him helped me to be a better missionary that day.

So I was able to start studying with those materials that were sent out, and they have totally changed my studies, and I feel like I am definitely getting more out of them.

This past week in church, we had two investigators come to church.  C, N's daughter, and M, N's mother.  They are both awesome people.  But all awesome people have their struggles.  Hopefully this week we will be able to set up a baptismal date with C and things will continue to progress with that family.  R, C's son, sat in while we were reading in the Book of Mormon for the first time and that was awesome.  We were also able to pick up a new investigator for each ward.  C, and a woman name P.  We had been working with P for a while now, fellow shipping her and slipping in little spiritual thoughts, here and there, and this last time, we pretty much taught her parts of all of the different lessons because of all of the different questions that she had, so things are definitely starting to pick up.  But on the flip side with how many lessons we had, our finding time has gone down a lot.  We were only able to get in about 2-3 hours of finding time this past week.  We are relying heavily on the ward mission process to keep things going in our area.  If that goes down, then all of the work that will be happening goes down with it.

Love 

Elder Peterson

"Behold, O my son, how great iniquity ye brought upon the Zoramites; for when they saw your conduct they would not believe in my words."

People watch what we do all the time.  Even when we are not out with black  name badges on, people notice everything that we do.  We need to allow our actions to reflect positively on our religion.  

"I say unto you, is not a soul at this time as precious unto God as a soul will be at the time of his coming?"

The worth of a soul is precious in the sight of the Lord.  D&C say that our joy will be great if we bring one soul unto him.  The opposite is also true.  If our actions lead to the destruction of souls, we will suffer even as Alma did, except it will not be for just 3 days and nights, it will be for eternity.

May 28, 2013

Hey, so this past week has been kinda slower than most.  I know that some times it sound a little ridiculous, but we were only able to teach 16 lessons, however, we did hand out a couple Book of Mormons  But the awesome thing is that if we don't have any canceled lessons, then we will teach 27 scheduled lessons, and we still have time for other people to go teach.  It is kinda crazy.  We have a list of 32 people that we are actively teaching, or trying to contact to take the lessons. 

This past district meeting we worked on door approaches and one of the things that really stood out to me was not standing there and saying " hello we are the missionaries from the ..."  but rather trying to invite the spirit by testifying of truths.  But I don't really get much of a chance to do that because of how busy Elder Barlow and I are here in Molalla.  I am still trying to get over how huge my area is.  We cover 4 cities and parts of almost 3 others.  On Thursday, we got a couple referrals, but when we went to contact them, either they weren't home, or they weren't interested.  We also decided to contact the former investigators in our area book, and the same thing happened there too.

N wasn't at church this week.  It was frustrating. 

But this week will be amazing.  There is no choice.  I command it to be amazing.  I take away this week's agency. HAHA

Love Elder Peterson

 

Let thy bowels also be full of charity towards all men, and to the household of faith, and let virtue garnish thy thoughts unceasingly; then shall thy confidence wax strong in the presence of God; and the doctrine of the priesthood shall distill upon thy soul as the dews from heaven.

If we have confidence in the Lord and strive to do our best to help those around us, then the dews from heaven, or the Spirit of the Lord, will strengthen and nourish us as we receive personal revelation from our Heavenly Father and feel love from our Savior and Advocate with the Father.

May 20, 2013

Wow those pictures are really cool.  I love it how Andrew has his pointer finger out on his lower hand.  It's just like he is saying "I'm #1 and you can't stop this!"  It is really funny.  

It sounds like things are starting to get really busy.  

 If Andrew's toe is broken, then there probably isn't anything that they can do for it.  It is too small to put a brace or something on, so it'll just hurt for a while.  A friend from team did a similar thing to one of his toes and there wasn't anything that the doctors could do for it, except tell him to stay off of it for a little while. But we both know how well that'll work for Andrew, especially if he is planning on playing football, soccer, baseball, and basketball.

Things are going great out here.  We were able to teach 17 lessons this past week, and N was baptized.  She is deathly afraid of water, so when she had said that she was ready to be baptized, Elder Jorgensen and I were super excited.  Then Elder Jorgensen was transferred.  But Elder Barlow and I were able to continue working with her.  But just this past Thursday, she was talking with one of the members about how she wanted to postpone the baptism to a later date because of all of the crazy stuff that was going on.  But her friend was able to talk to her about not postponing the date.  Then that morning, Elder Barlow and I got roped into a service project that was only supposed to take about 2 hours, but then when on for another 4 after that!!! So getting back onto schedule that Saturday was a mess.  We were helping someone move, and there were only four of us that were actually doing anything!!  Plus, the people we were helping weren't even packed at all!     All we did was move furniture for 6 hours all over the place because no one knew where they wanted stuff or anything like that.  Note to self:  Always be ready and packed if people are coming over to help you move.  It was more that slightly ridiculous.  But we were able to get to the baptism on time and baptizing Nora was an amazing experience.  

The next day, N was to be confirmed, but no one showed up to pick her up for Church!  She doesn't have any source of transportation, and so she walked, and she lives all the way across town from the church.  It was at least a 2 1/2 mile walk!!!  Elder Barlow and I were kinda frustrated with the members that we had asked to help N, because this is not the first time that this has happened.  But we will make sure that it never happens again.

Things are amazing out here.

Love 

Elder Peterson

Read "Never Forsaken" in the 2011 January Ensign. It is really good. 

When Christ was on the cross, He cried, "My God, My God, why hast thou forsaken me?" In Psalms 22 it starts out the same way, but goes on to say "Our fathers trusted in thee: they trusted, and thou didst deliver them " Christ was not giving up hope, but was expressing His faith and His trust in our Heavenly Father that He was doing the right thing. 

God has not forsaken us.