I feel like I'm at Mission Control.

Hi!

I'm glad you guys have had a good normal week. It was funny reading my cousin's comments on training--it's pretty true that the trainer has a really big influence on the new missionary's mission, for better or for worse, there'll be an influence.

 

Also, the picture of the backyard made me miss the rain, although we have been getting some here in Colorado lately, which is pretty unusual, I think. Spring seems to have finally come to Colorado, So I've actually been wearing some short sleeve shirts occasionally, feeling like I'm at Mission Control.

I thought of Sweet Tomatoes this week a little, actually--a member took us to a buffet, and it was basically the same experience, but with a lot less salad. The soft serve was the same!

This week had some really cool parts! So, as seems to happen every week, we were able to see some people who we hadn't seen in quite a while, including that family that came to church that one time, then kind of dropped off the face of the earth. But we met them this week, and that was cool! 

Also, we were looking for an investigator, basically trying to catch him home--he wasn't home at that time, but a relative(?) was there, and he was super interested--he was like 17 years old, but he was really mature--he kind of said that he had a really good life, but that he was missing something, and that he thought that that was going to church. So we left him with the Book of Mormon, and came back the next day, and he'd read the introduction, and had tons of great questions, and said he felt like it was good, and what he needed! Then comes the disappointing-ish part: He actually lives in New Mexico! He was just here in Colorado for a few days, and we caught him at just the right time. But we got his NM address and Phone number, so we're going to call the mission office and send some Missionaries to meet him! So that was really cool.

Another super cool thing: So a couple of weeks ago, my former companion called me up (with permission) and told me that one of the investigators we were teaching back in the ward was getting baptized! So she actually did end up being baptized this Sunday, and I got permission to go down there! That was really awesome. Even from when we were teaching her, I could see such a difference. She really had a testimony of the truthfulness of the gospel, and it was just amazing. I got to see some familiar faces from the ward too. It was totally weird to be around an English-speaking ward again. 

And then we're both staying here! This'll be our third transfer together, which is kind of rare. It's pretty awesome, we're going to really make this a good transfer. We're going to work really hard and do the best we can to remember and fulfill our purpose.

I know people have been asking for missionary tips. But basically, as with everything, it all comes down to: Have Faith. Change your will to meet God's will. Keep Covenants. Ask for, be worthy of, and listen to the Holy Ghost. Repeat. That's the Gospel, and it basically works for everything. Obviously there are a lot of other things that go into it, but that's basically it :).

I hope everything is going well with you guys. I love you, and miss you (2 weeks until Mothers' day, though!). Thank you for everything!

Love,

Peter

Gracias a El

First of all, Happy Easter! It's a pretty great holiday, and it was pretty great here in Colorado to celebrate, even though it mostly just a regular day. I assume you'll want to know that I did get the package, it actually got here really fast. And the Because of Him video is probably the best video I've seen the church put out so far, that was awesome.

This is probably going to be pretty short, because we don't have a ton of time to do email stuff today, and that also might mean I might not get to email some of my brothers, please please tell them sorry for me. We have to get shopping, because there's an activity that starts at noon that we really want to go to as quickly as possible. But don't worry, I still love you guys!

I'm really glad you guys had a good Easter--it's always nice to take a break from the hubbub (good word right there) of life and just think about family and the gospel a bit.

For us, this week was pretty great as well! There were a couple of families that we hadn't been able to see in a while that we got in touch with, which was awesome. One of those we actually taught last night, and it was pretty great: The sixteen-year-old "acts like a daughter but is actually a sister" started off the night by basically saying that she didn't get Easter, and we kind of just looked at each other and were like "we can help you with that :)." We showed them the Because of Him video (in Spanish it's called "Gracias a El", and I think I like it even more in Spanish--specifically that one part where in English it says "But unlike those who had preceded him...", in spanish it says "Pero hubo una diferencia", which means "But there was a difference", which just is pretty much great).

We also were able to finally teach a new investigator who we found like a month or so ago, who's a friend of a member--it was pretty crazy: We had an appointment with the investigator, but she cancelled it, because she wasn't going to be home at that time. But the next hour, we had an appointment with the member friend, and while we were chatting, the member totally just called the investigator and invited her over, and she came, and we taught and it was awesome.

Some less fun things this week: There's been a sickness going around the missionaries in our ward--I didn't get it, but my companion did, and so we had to stay in Friday night and Saturday Afternoon, which made it hard to get a ton of work done, but we worked it out. 

Another kind of funny experience with that: one of the sets of sisters was sick on thursday, and asked us to come and give them a blessing. So we did (although we had to stop at target to get some oil, and then consecrate it--that was the beginning of the chaos), but then we had dinner like immediately afterward, and it was ridiculously far away, so we got there about a half hour late. So that was an adventure!

Things are generally going pretty well here. It's getting to be the end of the transfer--we find out this Saturday who's staying and going. I really hope I stay. 

Thank you so much for your email, I always love hearing about what's going on, never ever worry about boring me :). I'm sorry, I don't have a ton of time to email today, but I want you to know I still love you and am enjoying being a missionary. 

Thanks for everything, and I hope you have a great week.

Love,

Peter

Bring it!

Hey!

So I have had a pretty great week! And it had been feeling like spring, until yesterday, when it dropped to the twenties and snowed! But aside from that, things are going pretty well, I'd have to say. 

As far as I know, my ward isn't planning anything special for Easter, just normal church. I could be wrong, but I don't think so. The only special thing I know of is that all of us missionaries are going to have dinner together (all 8!), whereas usually it's just four of us.

So there is an exercise routine that I guess I have been trying to do, which is out of a book that my companion has called "Bring it" by Tony Horton, the guy who does P90X. It's good, but it's hard for me sometimes to get up the motivation to work out in the morning. I'd say that's probably the thing I'm working the most on changing, obedience to the mission rules-wise.

Yeah, it was interviews. So that was pretty cool, it's always nice to chat with President Toombs. It was kind of weird, that was actually the last round of interviews that President Toombs'll do before he goes home! And he did have some words of wisdom, as always, mostly about getting the real desire to spread the gospel--not just a sense of duty, but of really wanting to go out and do missionary work. When I like get to know people, it's easy to want to share the gospel with them. It's mostly when we're finding new people to teach (e.g. tracting) that it's kind of a struggle to get motivated.

Luckily we don't tract too much, but some. There are a couple of apartment complexes that have a lot of spanish-speakers, and aside from that, sometimes we'll go check out some neighborhoods that have signs of being spanish families.

And I'm so jealous that you guys'll see Elder Aidukaitis. You'd better go, that accent is awesome! :)

For us, this week was pretty good, although lessons-wise, kind of slow again. There were a lot of complications, because one of the other Elders got sick, so we had to be at their house a couple of times, on Wednesday and Sunday, to help work things out, give a blessing, give the sacrament. We had to cancel a couple of appointments because of that sort of thing, and some cancelled as well, which was, as always, a little frustrating. But, again as always, there were some great things that happened this week too! 

There was an investigator who was referred from a member, and we taught her once, and then we were trying to get in touch with her for like a month. But then last week (two thursdays ago, I think), when I was on exchanges, We found her husband at home, and set up an appointment, and so we taught them last week, and it was awesome, and they're super receptive, and it was great! 

There's also a less-active family who we finally were able to teach, who have a son who hasn't been baptized, and he's 9 years old, so we're going to be teaching him, hopefully!

Aside from that, we had interviews, as I said, which were great, and we had zone meeting, which is like district meeting but twice as long and with all the zone. It's like halfway between district meeting and zone conference (three zones), and it was pretty great. It was a lot focused on the atonement. We were given a couple of talks beforehand to study, "His Grace is Sufficient" by Brad Wilcox (which Dad totally sent me last P-day), and "In the Strength of the Lord" by Elder Bednar, I would definitely recommend those talks to everyone.

So yeah, this week was pretty good!

Oh also you asked me last time about what I meant by feeling like I was in training for a while--mostly just that it took me a while to get back to where I was in english in spanish, and I'm still not there, and probably won't be on my mission. But that's okay! Heavenly Father helps me, and I can do his work!

I love you guys! Have a great week!

Love,

Peter

P.S. oh I forgot to tell this story, even though it was hilarious. Okay, so there's this one family in our ward that lives all the way in Boulder (no, I don't know why they come to this ward), so we can't come to their house for dinner. But they sometimes sign up, and then give us money or give us food at the church. So this week, they gave us a gift card to Chipotle. So we went there, and then while we were there, another Member from an english ward approached us and told us they were going to pay for our food. We couldn't really say no, so now we still have $ to chipotle, so we're probably going to go today, and some other time or whatever.

We can't just give up when things are hard.

Hey!

I'm glad you guys all had a good conference weekend, it sounds there was a lot of important things accomplished :).

This week was pretty good for us! We finally got our car back on Wednesday, which made things a lot easier. On Thursday, we went on exchanges, and for the first time on my mission I actually stayed in the area, and my companion left, so that was kind of exciting. (I think that's a little weird, and mostly has to do with the fact that in the first two areas I didn't really go on exchanges much, and then last transfer I don't think I was particularly trusted to manage the area with my extremely limited spanish skills :)). So that was a cool experience--I also had the opportunity to drive for the first time in quite a while, which was a little (a lot actually) nerve-wracking at first, but I got used to it by the end of the day.

In terms of exciting missionary work type things, we were able to get in touch with two families of investigators that we hadn't seen in a while, which was great, and found a new family to teach also, which was super great. 

After dinner on Sunday, we didn't have a ton to do until about seven, and we were kind of just going around trying people, most of whom weren't home. I was getting fairly discouraged, especially when at 7, our set appointment wasn't home. But we tried his neighbor, who was actually a potential investigator, and they were home, and we taught them, and they are super awesome and receptive! So that was a pretty great testimony-booster of working hard for me. We can't just give up when things are hard. If we really persist, we'll find success.

And then conference! That was pretty sweet. In between sessions on Sunday, the missionaries in the ward made homemade pizza which was pretty great. And the talks were pretty awesome also. Some of my favorites were:

Elder Nelson

Elder Hales

Elder Zwick

President Uchtdorf's Priesthood Session and his Sunday Morning one

President Monson's Sunday Morning Talk

Elder Corbridge

and Elder Aidukaitis (and not just because of his accent :))

I really liked it, and I would definitely encourage you all to check out the talks you missed on lds.org, I particularly liked Elder Holland's and Elder Anderson's talks in the saturday morning session. I also (somewhat surprisingly) really liked the talk that the Counselor in the primary presidency gave on Sunday. I'll be honest, when I heard the word "primary", I kind of started worrying, but the talk was really good, I thought, even if it was delivered in a bit of a "primary voice".

To answer your questions:

General Conference isn't really a holiday for missionaries, we still have to work when General Conference isn't on--I guess Saturday was pretty unusual, but Sunday was actually a pretty normal Sunday--church ends ordinarily at 4:00 anyways, so there wasn't much of a difference.

There isn't a Ward Choir in the ward--if the ward wants to have a song in sacrament meeting, they'll just hold a few practices, and then do it. We haven't participated in that so far. Last month, we sang "Come unto Christ" which is I think a like youth theme song at an open house that we had. We sang the verses in english, and the chorus in spanish--it was pretty great.

No, we don't live close at all to the other Spanish missionaries, although the sisters that serve in the YSA branch actually live in our same apartment complex.

Yes, I'm feeling more settled in as a Spanish missionary, although I feel like I'll probably be "settling in" for my entire mission. I kind of do feel like I was trained, and then when I got here I was kind of trained again, which is a little frustrating, but it's alright--I feel like I've had a kind of weird mission so far, but I'm trying to make it work :).

We've had access to members' laundry machines as long as I've been here, but before coming here we've had to physically do the laundry. Here we kind of just drop off our dirty laundry and it magically comes back clean :). We're really grateful that the family does it for us.

Thank you for everything! I love you a lot, and yeah, Mother's day will be really great. I'm not exactly sure how that'll work, but it'll be great no matter what.

I hope everything's going well for you guys! I love you and miss you!

Love,

Peter

Rejoice evermore!

Hey, Mom! And anyone else who reads this!

I'm glad you had a good spring break, it sounds like there was a lot of fun had by all :). I'm especially missing settlers--it was recently decided that we can't play it, even on P-days, because apparently it would take too much time. It makes sense, I suppose.

For us, this week was good, although kind of slow. We had a lot of appointments cancel, which was disappointing--we even had some appointments cancel, re-set, and then cancel again, which was a little bit frustrating. But we made it work, and we found success in other ways, I think. For instance, when one potential investigator cancelled, after we'd already gotten a member to come with us and everything, we decided to bring the member (our Ward Mission Leader) to try and visit another potential investigator, although we were a little apprehensive about the chances of finding him home.

Well, we did, and we were able to teach him, and the Ward Mission Leader did a great job, and the guy seems really interested in learning more! And then afterwards, Hermano took us to Wendy's! So basically what I've learned is that on a mission, just like in "real life", there are things that are hard about every week (every day, even), and things that make it better.

Sunday was a little bizarre for us, too--it was fifth Sunday, so the men and women had class together, and the missionaries (eight of us) were left in charge of the primary. That was pretty crazy--I'd forgotten how much energy little kids can have.

Oh, another kind of crazy thing--our car is in the shop right now (apparently there was a like minuscule dent on it that had been there since before I came that the vehicle coordinator finally decided needed fixing), so we've been on bikes for the past few days! It's been kind of insane, and difficult, but we've been trying to get as many rides as we can, and pushing through. Hopefully we'll be getting the car back tomorrow, but for now, we're enjoying the increased visibility--last night at like 8:00, we were actually walking our bikes, because the wind was so strong that we didn't feel like biking uphill would be effective at all, and a member stopped his car, parked, and gave us $! So that was kinda really cool.

All in all, it's been a kind of hectic week, but good as well. I'm really looking forward to General Conference, that should be really awesome. I'm pretty sure I'll be watching Conference in English. There will be a broadcast at the chapel in English, and I think in some other rooms it will be in Spanish, so I'll probably be watching in English.

Mission trivia answers: 

I would say that probably 75% or more of the dinners we have are Mexican food. There are a couple of families that usually give us non-Mexican food, like this one where I believe the husband works at an Italian restaurant, so we usually have really good Italian food with them.

Most things have been pretty normal, from the point of view of Spanish culture I think. Probably the weirdest thing that was an option has been at dinner on Saturday, where we were offered pig feet, to put in our soup. None of the missionaries took it, so I assumed it wouldn't be bad to not take it. So that was kind of weird.

I don't really do too much budgeting, because I don't buy too much stuff. The only things we have to pay for are groceries, laundry, and like personal stuff. The mission pays for rent, utilities, gas, and other stuff like that. So that's nice. So most of the time I don't have to be too worried about money, it's mostly just like don't buy too much food, which isn't really a problem too much, because members feed us so much.

And yes, we do do stuff like (play soccer with other missionaries) occasionally, but not like super often, because we the Spanish missionaries live really far away from the other missionaries in our zone. But once a transfer, we have this thing called a zone P-day, where like everyone in the zone gathers up and does play sports or something. Not always soccer, but something. And then like last week the four of us Spanish elders played soccer together, and today we're going to go play soccer with some members of the ward.

As long as the senior companion has driving privileges, he drives. Driving is never really a split responsibility here, there's always one "designated driver."

My collection of ties has grown, but really only once, when my companion gave me a bunch of ties when he went home. So I do have more ties than I did when I left!

There's actually a member who does our laundry for us, which is really nice of her. So we don't even have to spend money on that!

In almost every ward there's a person who will give missionaries haircuts for free, so we go to her. But if we can't find someone like that, we'll go to somewhere like great clips. 

I love you all.

Love,

Peter

P.S. a couple of scriptures that I've found the past couple of weeks that I thought were just pretty awesome, and wanted to share:

1 Thessalonians 5:16 (the second shortest verse in the bible, also: awesome)

Jacob 6:12 (also awesome and short)