So, what did I do this week?

Hey!

Sounds like things have been going well in Oregon--I'm a little bit unsympathetic about the fog and cold you've been getting...to get to the library today we biked something like 3 miles while it was like 20 degrees outside. But it's okay! Actually, the weather here has been really nice, considering it is January--a couple of days ago it was in the like 60s, which was pretty dang insane.

So, what did I do this week? Lots of stuff. Some highlights, though:

So, during the tracting thing that we did a couple of weeks ago, we found a person who was interested in hearing our message. We taught her one other time, but then our ward mission leader decided that it'd probably be a lot easier to coordinate if we handed her off to the Sisters. So on Tuesday we visited her with the Sisters, and it went okay, but later, the Sisters kind of decided that they felt that we would be better to teach her. But then our ward mission leader decided the Sisters needed to try again, which is I think the next step at the moment. So kind of a lot of chaos there.

Another kind of cool thing--we had an appointment with another one of our newer investigators, but he wasn't super available, so we went and tried another guy who we'd found during tracting, and he was there! We were able to share the message of the restoration, and he said he'd read the Book of Mormon, yay!

Last super cool thing: so there's a recent convert in the ward who's recently been struggling to come to church, but he came this Sunday! And we had a lesson with him that same Sunday, and we were able to teach his non-member wife as well, and she said that she'd be interested in hearing the missionary lessons! YAYYY!

So anyways, that was basically the week. We were also able to do quite a bit of service, at the Covenant Cupboard and Project Cure, which was cool.

I love you all, and miss you guys! See you in a while!

Love,

Peter

It really doesn't seem like it was that long ago...

Hey! I have been having a pretty great week, and it definitely is very strange to think that I've been gone for 5 months. It really doesn't seem like it was that long ago that I got on that plane to Mexico City. It seems like things tend to go a lot quicker out here, away from basically all other influences. Kind of strange, I guess.

Also, I've come to realize that the prediction made oh so long ago that you all would still be going to pack meetings when I was in college will never come to pass. So sad.

Okay, to answer your questions: The temple was super great. It's always super great to go there, but it was made especially awesome by the fact that it'd been like 3 months since I'd been there, and because (this was pretty cool), I saw the new temple video! I thought it was really great, and I'm glad I don't have to wait another three months before I get to go the temple again.

We just had interviews this week with our mission president. It was pretty great to get to just talk to him for 15 minutes or so.

This week was pretty great. We got in contact with a couple of the people that we found while we were doing all of that tracting--one of them actually almost dropped us, but we were able to help her resolve a lot of the concerns that had cropped up, so that was cool.

We also got to visit another guy who we'd found. He's had quite a bit of contact with the church--he had a Mormon roommate in college, and is actually dating at the moment a less-active member. He seems really open, so we're encouraged by that.

We were also able to go to a baptism that was really special--it was of an eight-year-old, but the kid's Dad had just been baptized about six months ago. We'd been working a lot with him (the Dad), because he'd been struggling a little, but with the motivation of his child's baptism, he was basically able to rededicate himself (I think he probably would have done it without us), and was actually able to baptize his kid, which was super duper cool.

Another kind of interesting thing: In the past like three days, we've had two members, both of whom are fairly recent converts, tell us that they're struggling with drinking coffee. It'd never really crossed my mind that after baptism, that would continue to be an issue, but it completely makes sense, I guess. When something like that's been a part of your life forever, I imagine that it would be fairly easy to give it up for enough time to be baptized, but significantly harder to keep it out of your life. I don't really know, though. Just thought it was interesting.

Transfers are in two weeks--February 3. Coming up soon! Don't really know what's going to happen. A lot of people are predicting that I'll be finally going Spanish, but I have no idea. We'll see!

Love,

Peter

Okay, here are some pictures:

1) the first of those paper toy things you sent for Christmas--I finally got a glue stick!

2) The Denver Temple, yay

3) one place that we do service, covenant cupboard

We did miss whatever this polar vortex thing is

Well, it sounds like you've had a pretty busy week. I did too, which was pretty great. Thanks a lot for all of the news about things going on in Portland.

Okay, this week: This week was pretty great! We had a lot of teaching going on, and were able to even find some new people to teach!

So I think two Tuesdays ago, the zone leaders challenged us to knock on 150 doors between two Thursdays ago and last Wednesday (inclusive). That could be tracting, visiting members, set appointments with people, etc. But mostly the focus was on tracting. So for the first few days of that challenge, we weren't able to do much of that, because we had a lot of set appointments. By last Tuesday, we found ourselves having about 110 doors to go to make it to the 150 number (and we'd been promised food if we could make it, so there was a little bit of motivation right there). 

So, on Tuesday, we went tracting at this apartment complex for something like three hours straight (I'm sure to Dad this doesn't seem like anything special, but that's probably more tracting than I'd ever done on my entire mission combined so far). We knocked something like 105 doors (we got the rest the next day), and we were actually able to find some receptive people, which was awesome. There was this one lady who said that she was going through a hard time in her life, and that she was really disillusioned with the religion that her parents had tried to force on her all of her life. She was really impressed, I think, with the friendly way that we presented the gospel. 

Then, there was a couple who also seemed pretty receptive. He said that he had a couple of friends who were actually serving missions, and that his boss was actually a member of the church as well (there's that power of example!). So, we set up times to meet with them tomorrow, and hopefully all that will go well!

We also were able to have a lesson with the other couple taking the lessons that I think I've told you guys about before. We went with the Ward Mission Leader, and talked about commandments, and it went pretty well. They're great--I think we're meeting with them three times this week. The ward's also been really welcoming to them--all three of the times we're meeting with them, it'll be at a member's house, with food involved :).

The injured elder is actually doing a lot better, and has been okayed to start working again--I think that happened midway through last week. He's still not 100% well, but he can work!

A couple of exciting things about this coming week: We get to go to the temple on Wednesday, which will be awesome! That'll be the first time since October that I've gone--in November my companion wasn't able to get up at the 4:00 time that we would have had to, and we weren't allowed to go in December due to Christmas and things. So this'll be great.

And then also on Wednesday, we'll be having interviews with our mission president which should be really cool.

I do know that being on a mission right now is the right thing for me. That doesn't necessarily mean that I never wish that I could listen to music or read books :), but I know that this is the right thing for me.

As far as I can tell, we did miss whatever this polar vortex thing is. Things have been decent recently--there has been some snow, but it's been manageable, and it hasn't been too terribly cold. So we're doing alright.

In terms of other service, we have a couple places that we do community service. First off, every Friday we go to this place called "Covenant Cupboard", which is basically a food bank/pantry/I don't know associated with a Presbyterian Church. We get to help distribute the food, and it's a really cool place. We also go to this place called project Cure, although not super often, and we help them pack and ship medical supplies to like third-world countries.

Well, I think that's about it. Hope you're having a great day, week, year, etc.

Oh, and here's some pictures! they're of Me & My companion, and of my terribly messy desk.

Love!

Peter

Happy New Year!

Hey!

Thanks for the email, news, etc. 2014 has had a great start here in Colorado.

I am still in the same place, and it is probably okay to send mail there. Probably starting in about two weeks, it'd be better to send things to the mission office, just in case of transfers and fun stuff like that.

This week has been pretty awesome, with only a couple of hitches. The week before (Christmas), we had planned basically everything about this week, and so we were able to get a lot of good work done. Making set appointments really helps things! What a surprise! 

So, we visited quite a few people. Even with the pretty bad weather, we were able to get a lot of rides from appointment to appointment, and things really just went smoothly.

One crazy thing that happened: so, there's this member in our ward who's from Ethiopia. We had an appointment with him last Friday, and beforehand, he actually called us to see if he could bring a friend (also from Ethiopia). Well, we showed up at his house, expecting his friend to be there with him, and found out that in fact, he (the friend) was waiting for us at his house. So, the member that was coming with us drove us to this guy, and we shared the first lesson with him. Odd things about the lesson: his house was not only out of our area, but out of our zone (going out of the zone is not a good thing to do in general), and we're not really sure how much of the lesson he understood--his English was not super good. However, we're gonna try to keep teaching him (probably we'll have him come to the member in our ward's house or something), and maybe we'll have him translate into his language, which I think is called Amharic.

Aside from that interesting thing, we also spent a little bit of time in the another area. On Christmas Eve, one of the missionaries in the district was fooling around, and fell on the ground and actually cracked his skull. So he has to stay in bed most of the time. We went to help his companion keep working in their area. So that was pretty interesting, and a little bit weird. 

And then, on Sunday, my companion was fairly sick with what looks like the flu, so we had to stay home basically all day :(, although we were able to get to sacrament meeting, which was good.

Things are going really well here, and it seems like we are doing good here. I'm really glad that I'm able to serve in this area, and to serve with my companion. I hope things are going well with you guys. Happy New Years! It's pretty crazy that it's already 2014.

Love,

Peter