Happy Spring Break!

Hey!

Sounds like a good week! I'm glad everything's been going well (especially with March Madness :). With that, like the Olympics, we don't get too much news here in the Spanish Ward, although I don't know if that'd be different in an English Ward. Probably. Go Stanford, I guess!). Also, it's pretty cool about the Eagle project at the Co-op.

Another just random thing I was thinking about re: spelling and stuff, that was brought up by reading in my spanish-english dictionary the section about English pronunciation, is that the letter "e" has a really bizarre role in some words. For example, the word "Father". How would you pronounce that word differently if it was spelled "Fathr"? The "e" in "Father" really doesn't have a sound. The only difference I can think of is that if you ommitted the "e", I don't think my mind would "sound" the "th" (I guess the difference is between the "th" in "the" and "threat", if you get what I'm saying"). "E" is weird, man.

Wow, sorry, that was a super long tangent. Anyways, my week went pretty well. We got to go to the Temple, which was super cool, as always. Afterward, we went to the Deseret Book that's really close, and I got a scripture case, finally! Hopefully my scriptures won't fall apart now :). 

On Saturday, we had breakfast at the Stake President's house, which was a lot of fun--it's like a tradition thing, that we do the first saturday of each transfer. So anyway we had french toast, which I think that was the first time I'd had it in like all my mission, so that was pretty awesome. 

Sunday was probably the best day of the week. Aside from getting to go to church, we actually had someone come to church! He isn't technically an investigator yet, as we haven't taught him, but he was a referral from some other missionaries. We'd been trying to contact him for a while, without luck. We tried calling him on I think Friday, and he picked up, and asked for where the church was, and then he came to church! Yay! So that was really awesome. We really hope we can teach him some more and help him come into the church. 

Also on Sunday, one of our appointments cancelled, so we went looking for another investigator, who we hadn't been able to contact that week. He was home, we taught him, and he seems really great! He really has a desire to follow Christ, and we were actually able to set him with a baptismal date! That was great. So, this week was pretty good, and we're looking forward to an even better week next week. Really looking forward to General Conference, too, in a couple of weeks.

I'm glad Ward Conference went well; we had ward conference last week, and that was pretty great, too. Lots of translations with the Stake people talking, but it was good anyways. I got to see a bunch of people who I remembered from a past ward, including the High Councilor who's responsible for our ward (and actually also speaks spanish pretty well), so that was pretty cool.

Things are going pretty well with Spanish. Sometimes I mess up, or realize midway through a sentence that I don't actually know how to say what I'm trying to in Spanish, but things work out. I think I have had a couple of experiences dreaming in spanish, which is a little weird, and actually, according to my companion, I've been talking in my sleep in spanish a little bit, which is bizarre, because as far as I know, I haven't really had a problem with sleep-talking before. Must have something to do with my brain going crazy.

It's great that my brothers enjoyed the missionary crafted bookmarks. Here's the wonderful secret of laminating as a missionary: packing tape :) The only problem with the packing tape is that it loses the effect when the thing you're "laminating" is larger that the packing tape. But it works, ish.

Have a great week!

Love,

Peter

Someone's going to pinch me!

Hey!

Ack! I'm not wearing green! Someone's going to pinch me!. Maybe we'll stop home really quick so I can grab a green tie or something.

To answer your questions: I am.... still here, still serving with the same companion, for the next 6 weeks, at least. So that should be good, we'll be continuing to work with those that we've been teaching so far. It'll be great!

And other than rats, what kind of wildlife is there in Colorado? Um, the things that I've seen the most of have been: groundhogs and rabbits. There are tons of both of them, it's kind of insane. Aside from that, not a ton of out-of-the-ordinary things.

This week was pretty good, and pretty busy as well! Lots of service, which was good, and lots of teaching, which was also pretty awesome. 

On Tuesday, we helped a family (who if I'm understanding the situation correctly is related to a bunch of members of our ward, but goes to the local English Ward) to move, which was pretty great, because it was snowing pretty hard for like the whole time. But it was alright, because afterwards, they gave us some really good food! So that was pretty awesome! 

On Wednesday, we went up to my former area to do service at this place called Kidz Quiltz, which I think I've told you guys about before, and I actually finished the quilt that I was working on, which was exciting. I'll attach a picture so you can appreciate the majesty.  We like to serve there because basically it's the most entertaining service we have, and we have the miles for it, as long as we carpool occasionally with the other set of elders in the ward. We don't have a ton of local options for service, and the one that we do have bores my companion immensely, so we don't go there too often. To make the quilt, I cut out fabric, sewed together the fabric, put the like filling stuff in, sewed it all together, did the little tie thingies, all with a lot of help from others :). I don't know anything about quilting terms like binding, I just know what I did.

Another really cool thing on Wednesday, was that we got to teach a new investigator, who was a referral from a family in the ward, with that family. It's always the best when you can teach people with members that they're already familiar with helping--there's a support system built in, as I think it says in Preach my Gospel. 

On Thursday, we had a zone meeting, which was pretty awesome--we had seven trainings in total, one from each of the district leaders in the zone, from each of the zone leaders, and each of the sister training leaders. So that was a ton of training, which was great.

Sunday was a pretty cool day as well, even though none of our investigators were able to come to church (that seems to be a problem that we have here, is that we aren't able to really help those that we're teaching understand the importance of coming to church). 

On Sunday, though, we were able to teach with a couple of families that I think I mentioned last week. Both of those lessons went pretty well, and we got to know about their situations a little bit more, which was interesting. The first family apparently grew up believing in the Book of Mormon, and that Joseph Smith was a prophet, but doesn't have a testimony that the Church is true. I think we can help them with that :). The other one, we found out, is actually going to a different church, right now. But we're helping them to read the Book of Mormon, so they can find out for themselves that this is the true church.

But yeah, that was my week. Nothing new with transfers, only two out of the eight missionaries in the ward are leaving, so things are largely staying the same. We see the the other Elders every day, because we have dinner with them, and we see the sisters fairly regularly, whether at service, or at district meeting, or at church. 

I hope everything's going well for you guys. I love you lots.

Love,

Peter

Okay this member made us hats, it's supposed to be Mike Wazowski, and it's awesome.

It randomly died...

Hey!

It seems like everything is going really well, also many thanks for the reminder of Prairie Home Companion--it's funny the things that make you smile.

It sounds like, from all reports, that Footloose went really well--hopefully there will be opportunities for me to see clips or something when I get back :).

And, wow, that's super exciting that she got her call! I'm sure she'll do a great job, and really enjoy the MTC--it's a great place. Basically, it was pretty awesome... I can't think of anything in particular, but if they have specific questions, I'd be happy to answer as best I can, although it's probably a bit different now.

For me, this week was pretty good, although a little bit slower than in the past. We had quite a few cancellations, especially from investigators, which is disappointing and hard, but it's alright. 

We were, though, able to get in touch with some people that we hadn't been able to in the past, which was exciting. It's been really difficult to get in touch with that one family that came to church a couple of weeks ago, but we finally reached them, and set up an appointment with them for this week, so hopefully that'll go through. We were really worried for a while, because they hadn't been answering their phone, but when we dropped by last night, there didn't seem to be any problem, so hopefully all is well.

Another pretty great experience: on Thursday(?), we had dinner scheduled with a family, but they ended up passing us off to her Mom, who also lives in the ward. The cool thing was, though, that at dinner, some other relatives who are a part-member family, showed up, and we were able to talk to them, and actually set up an appointment for yesterday, which they kept! We'd been trying to get in touch with them for a while, so that was pretty great. They seem really awesome-- it's like, the Mom and her 10-year old son, her Boyfriend, and the the Mom's 16-year-old sister. They're awesome, and we can't wait to see them again.

It is pretty cool what can happen when we're just confident enough to talk. That's one thing that I'm really trying to improve on, is just getting over the fear of talking to people, especially in Spanish. I feel like once I can get comfortable just talking to people, I'll be a much more effective missionary. 

It's kind of crazy that this is the last week of the transfer, that it's possible that one of us could be gone next Monday. We'll see what happens! This transfer went by really quickly, actually. It seems like the further I get in my mission, the faster time seems to go by. Kinda bizarre!

Here's some pictures!

-So for district meeting we were asked to wear polka dots, but I didn't have any polka-dot ties, so I cut out some sticky notes. Yeah.

- Oh, the joys of apartment living! Seriously, it just randomly died under my bed. We don't know why or how, it just was there, dead one day.

Love,

Peter

If you can't stand temperatures below 20, I would recommend never living in Colorado.

Hey!

This week was pretty great, we've been doing a lot of good work, and it seems like these past few weeks have really just flown by.

So the biggest crazy thing this week was that we found quite a few new investigators, like 10, all of who were families that we'd run into earlier, and were following up with this week.

With one of the families, we had one of the craziest lessons I've been in. This was the family that came to church last week, who we met when we were looking for a less-active member. So, we had a really good plan for this family--we were really excited for them. We had another family in the ward all set up to come with us. So, that night, we went with the members to the investigators' house, and proceeded to teach a 2.5 hour lesson, all about the restoration. So, it turns out that the Dad had studied with a different church for a long time, like 4 years, and although he didn't join their church, it left a lot of leftover concerns, and a little bit of distrust for organized religion. 

We also met a couple of other families, including one kind of bizarre situation: Both the Mom and Dad were raised by Grandparents who were members, and apparently grew up thinking that they were church members, but weren't baptized for whatever reason. Their kids, though, are baptized, and their daughters are semi-active members of the local English ward. The parents go to church a couple times a year, and they have a Book of Mormon, but they don't know when the last time they read it was. Hopefully we'll be able to help them realize the blessings of being a member of the church for reals.

It sounds like the concert was pretty great, I wish I could have been there! Trinity Cathedral is so awesome. If you liked "Aurora," I would recommend (although probably you've already heard it) "On the Transmigration of Souls" by John Adams (The guys who wrote Nixon in China, not the founding father :)). It's his tribute to the 9/11 victims, and it's pretty dang awesome.

On Saturday, I went on exchanges with a missionary who was actually in the Mexico City MTC with me, although not in my district.

I feel like one big thing I'll be bringing back from my mission is a real appreciation for the fact that in Oregon, it rarely if ever gets below 30 :). If you can't stand temperatures below 20, I would recommend never living in Colorado.

Anyways, it was a pretty great week. I got the valentines' day package on saturday, and amazingly, the toblerone is still here. I'm trying to pace myself :).

Thank you all  for everything. I love you all!

Peter

Here are some pictures, too:

My companion & I at the Temple.

I'm confused why they had to ship all those "components" of the foam basketball to Mexico to be made.

March paper monster, pretty cool.