CRAZINESS!

Dear Everyone,

It sounds like it's been a pretty crazy week! You're gonna have to send me any pictures you can get from the musical, that sounds like it's gonna be a lot of fun.

To answer the questions you had last week:

 

Yes I'm still in Aurora. I know a lot of the missionaries that are around here, because it's the same zone I was in last transfer. It's in the same stake. 

 

And we live at a members' house. It's pretty great because they buy all of our groceries.

 

But Oh MAN! It has been a crazy week, let me tell you. Just a lot of craziness going on. CRAZINESS! Let me give you some highlights:

 

1. 3 out of my first 4 dinners were pizza.

 

2. Met and started teaching a guy from Ghana who's a chief there, just visiting here for a while.

 

3. Went with a member to try some potential investigators, one of them spoke French, as did the member, so we sat there while the member taught the first lesson in French.

 

4. Had a less active deal my companion and the bishop a hand of texas hold 'em (the guy's not all there)

 

5. Completely insane blizzard Saturday evening. It got so bad we weren't allowed to drive our car (perk of this area: we get a 4x4 truck), so we had to get members to drive us around.

 

6. Our chapel is super old, from the time before there was the like standardized building plan. So the chapel has this massive mural of the Sermon on the Mount right behind the pulpit.

 

So yeah things are going good. Lots of meetings, and it's weird not being in Spanish, but I love this ward already. There are some really great members. Our ward mission leader's a really awesome guy, and the ward's just really supportive. We don't have a ton of investigators as of now, but that's alright! We'll get it moving!

 

One thing that's I've definitely learned even more this week is that sometimes, Heavenly Father's gonna put you in situations that you don't want to be in, not because He wants to torture you, but because He knows it's going to make you stronger and teach you something. I'm just doing my best to learn from all the craziness going on. It's a lot of fun.

 

Thank you so much for everything. I love you a lot!

Peter

I got transferred, but not moved :). Okay so I did move house.

To let you all know so you can stop freaking out, which is I'm sure what you've all been doing all day yesterday and today, I got transferred, but not moved :). Okay so I did move house. But the area that I'm serving in falls within the boundaries of the area I just left, if that makes any sense at all. I'm now serving as a Zone Leader in one of the English wards my Spanish area covered the last few transfers. It's pretty dang weird, but it'll be fun. 

My companion's actually also a Spanish missionary, so it's pretty cool. He's probably the most dedicated, hard working Spanish Elder in the entire mission, so I'm excited for that. He's from Texas. He goes home at the end of this transfer. He's pretty great.

Let me tell you, it was pretty sad to leave Spanish. I don't know how I'm going to be able to do it, not eating spicy food and having tortillas with every meal. So it's sad, but I know there's going to be a lot of new opportunities, so that'll be great. Hopefully I'll be back in Spanish before the end of my mission, though.

Time passes really quickly. It's pretty much crazy. I think also, the longer you spend in an area, the faster time seems to pass there. You kind of get into a routine and things speed up. So this week might seem to take a long time, because it's different. I don't know if you've experienced anything similar.

We didn't have anything really special on Valentine's Day. Bishop was planning on doing an activity, but it never ended up happening. So it was basically a completely normal day.

My last week in Spanish for a while was a good one, though, which made it harder to leave, honestly. We were able to find a few new investigators, which was exciting, and a less-active family that hasn't been to church in many months came! It was pretty cool. One of the investigators was pretty interesting--there's a stake that doesn't even technically fall within the boundaries of our ward, but we're the closest Spanish ward to them, so a set of sister missionaries sent us a referral from there, and we picked them up as investigators on Friday! It was pretty crazy, it was a like 20 minute drive out to where they lived, and so that was fun.

My former district is in my zone! And Zone Leaders lead zones! By doing things like helping missionaries in any way we can, like for example, yesterday we drove up a few missionaries on transfer day to a stake center like 30 minutes away. So basically like a district leader, but with more people to worry about.

 

I'm pretty excited for this transfer. It's going to be a lot of fun. I hope all of you had a great week, and that this week goes well!

Love,

Peter!

Hopefully he's just as interested...

Well, it sounds like a good week. Thanks for keeping me updated. It's been busy in Colorado, too, which is good. Highlights:

1. After a like 4 week drought, we were able to find a new investigator on Saturday, yay! The only thing is is he was kind of drunk when we taught him. So but hopefully he's just as interested when he's not drunk!

2. An investigator I'd basically given up on came to church on Sunday! I hadn't seen or heard from her in like more than a month, turns out she went with her member friend to the Dominican Republic, but's back now and we're totally gonna baptize her and it's gonna be great.

3. Thursday was pretty great. We had Zone conference, which was awesome. Basically President Mendenhall told us that if we weren't being obedient, we're Gadianton Robbers and need to repent. That was awesome! And for lunch, we had american enchiladas, the kind with lots of cream and cheese and chicken, and no salsa! At zone conference, we sang "Placentero Nos Es Trabajar" which is a song that's only in the Spanish hymnal, interesting, huh? Just our district sang, plus the one Spanish sister who was serving in the English zones that came. We had three zones (stakes) at the zone conference. Our stake is the only one that has a Spanish ward.

4. Things are going pretty well here in Denver. Right now what we're trying to do is find interested Spanish-speakers in houses, which is a bit of a struggle, but it's fun. We've found that in general, people who live in houses are a bit more legit as in like committed than apartment-dwellers. It's easier to find people who'll let you in in apartments, but there's a lower chance of progression, generally. So we're "discrimatracting" meaning we go to neighborhoods and look for signs of Hispanic-ness. It's exciting!

5. The weather is pretty fantastic! It's pretty much insane--it's been really nice and it's February! What the heck! I don't understand it, it's probably global warming. But I'm enjoying it while I can. It's been in the 70s for crying out loud. And it's FEBRUARY! OH MY GOODNESS WHAT IS GOING ON is how I feel, but it's good, so yay!

So basically it was a good week. It's crazy, this is the last week of the transfer. I don't know what's going to happen, who knows if I stay or go????? Crazy huh????

I'd definitely encourage you to read the scriptures as much as you can, that's a pretty awesome way to get ready for a mission, definitely. I wish I'd read the scriptures more before I came out here. 

Good luck with the everything. I know what it's like. It can be pretty dang nerve-wracking. Procrastination--not the best decision.

I love you all!

Love,

Peter

So I'm sure it's going to be a better week.

Hey!

Thanks for the email! I'm sorry, this is gonna be short because we have to go to a thing, it's actually pretty cool, we're going to sing a song in Spanish at zone conference on Thursday, and we have to go practice it.

A couple of things to answer:

Yeah the Super Bowl wasn't actually a very big thing, weirdly enough. Probably because the Broncos weren't in it, hah!

And a couple things about the Mexican flavors (at the ice cream shoppe):

1. Oh my goodness goat's milk caramel is so good! There are these lollipops that are that flavor and they are delicious.

2. You totally should have got the chili chocolate that sounds delicious.

So this week here in Denver was pretty interesting, in a kind of not very great way. Basically there were some things that were good, like we have some really great less-actives who are progressing, which is really cool (two of them came to church yesterday and bore their testimonies! And they were real testimonies not storymonies!) but then it also turns out that we don't really have any investigators, which is less happy. So that's good in a way, though, because it gives us the opportunity to evaluate what we're doing, and what we should be doing better. 

So we did a lot of evaluating, which was good. During our weekly planning session this week, we actually went through the missionary handbook and just looked to see if there was anything we could be better at. We aren't being disobedient missionaries by any means, but there are a couple things we could sharpen up. And then we were also able to take a moment and think about how we can find better. Mostly we've just been tracting, which is, surprise, not working like super well. But that's okay, because we've been developing this plan for how to use the members more, and we're really excited for that.

And we've got some exciting things happening this week, which is great. We'll have zone conference on Thursday. We've got a lot of cool appointments set up, and we have a less active guy taking us out to dinner at a place that my companion says is really good. So I'm sure it's going to be a better week.

I hope everything goes great with your week as well! I love you all!

Love, Peter