Service, teaching and chess

Thanks so much for all the news and love. It's great to hear about everything going on at home. I'm glad to hear that the sisters in the Philippines are fine--I had heard that all the missionaries had been found safe and sound, so that's good to hear. It's also good to hear that I'll be back in time for the new Star Wars movie :P.

It is a little weird how many people you guys peripherally know in Colorado. We had dinner with the family that my companion knows pretty well on Thursday night, and I assume that they're who the photos you got originated from. It was pretty crazy, I guess they know a guy in our Oregon ward really well, so we talked about that a little. Kinda bizarre.


We were not involved with the carving of the pumpkins--those were actually the Sisters' handiwork. If I remember correctly, we went to their house to talk to the member they live with, and we happened to get there just as they were getting back from somewhere (Okay, I probably don't remember this correctly.) Anyhow, the sisters showed up as we were messing with their pumpkins, and took the picture that I assume you have.

Every week I send a letter to the Mission President and this is basically an expanded version of the letter I sent:

This week was certainly interesting--with some great parts and some not so great parts. 

We had Zone conference on Thursday, and it was awesome--I really enjoyed the trainings we got from the President, Assistants, and others, and the role plays that we got to do (one was role-playing street contacting, and how we could really do a street contact talking about any principle of the gospel. The one where we were asked to do a street contact about the law of chastity was particularly fun.) I feel like I learned a lot. 

Apart from Zone Conference, the week was pretty good. We got to do service at a couple of different places, and to visit a couple of families who haven't been attending church regularly. With one of those families, we committed them to study the scriptures a lot more than they had been, and they seemed really excited about that, so that was good. 

On Friday evening, though, my companion started feeling pretty terrible, and continued feeling sick through Sunday--we weren't really sure what it was, partly because the symptoms kind of kept changing. So, we stayed in on Saturday and Sunday, although we were able to get to Ward Council and Church on Sunday, which was good. 

He's feeling better now, though, so hopefully we'll be able to do a lot more work this week.

Things have been generally going pretty well. Thanks for all the news and the love that you've been sending me. I love you so much.

Love,
Peter

And follow-up questions:

Okay, it's true, the pumpkins were really impressive. I think they did use stencils, though, so eh. 

When you're sick, you usually call the Mission President's wife, especially if you feel like you'll need medical attention, or if you have to stay inside. If you're homebound, there's a variety of things you could do. I read from the missionary library some, played chess with my companion a lot--he was in his bed, but I guess was really wanting to play chess.

Okay, chess has been fun, but we've been playing a little too much. It has been a lot more competitive--my companion won almost every game on Saturday and Sunday, even with him being sick.

Zone conference was from 9:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m, so pretty long.

Oh, and:
My companion (going home next month) has been trying really hard not to get trunky, and he's doing pretty well, as far as I can tell. Sometimes it does get a little weird, but most of the time we do pretty darn well.

The guys at the bike shop are getting to know us pretty well

Hey!

Okay, again I'm emailing on a Tuesday, because yesterday was Veteran's Day, and again, the libraries were closed. I'm glad to hear about all the things going on. I had forgotten that Kylie and Rebecca were there in the Phillipines--must be a pretty crazy start to their missions. Hopefully they'll be safe, and will be able to help out the people there. I'll be praying for them and also for Spencer.

This week was an odd week. We honestly didn't get to do a ton of teaching, because of a variety of causes:

A) We got to do some good service at the food bank (the stake had had a food drive, so we were able to help unload the half-ton of food that was sent to the food bank.) Service takes up time, though, so that took away from like teaching time.

B) Stake Conference and Transfer meeting, but honestly that didn't take up too much time.

C) This was the big thing: We had tons of bike troubles. We both got flat tires on P-day, which we had to take some time patching up (hopefully we'll be getting new tubes today), and then on Thursday, someone clipped my companion's back brake cable. His front brake wasn't really working in the first place, so we had to leave the bikes at home and walk places, which was like the opposite of efficient. We also had to take some time to fix the cable. So that was an adventure. The guys at the bike shop are getting to know us pretty well.

So we didn't get too much teaching in, but we did get some, and it went pretty well, I thought.

We finally met with an investigator that we've been trying to get in touch with for a while. She seems really religious--she's like a Sunday School teacher at her current church. Right now her interest in the church seems mostly academic, but hopefully as she reads the Book of Mormon, she'll come to know how it can bless her. 

We also met with a couple who can't attend regularly because work conflicts with church right now. It was pretty lucky(?) that we stopped by when we did, because Brother was able to tell us that Sister was going to have surgery, and that we should drop by and help out with some things. So that was pretty cool.

Stake Conference was pretty cool. They were reorganizing the stake, actually splitting it, so there was a member of the first quorum of the Seventy, Elder Teh, there with us. We were invited to the Adult Session, which was pretty cool: it was all about missionary work, and how members and missionaries can help out, and rather than it being a lecture from Elder Teh, he basically just conducted a discussion with the members who were there. I would guess that your stake conference will be similar, at least the Adult session--it seemed like a thing they'll be doing worldwide.

Sounds like a lot of fun with the whole technology thing. Oh, speaking of technology, the rumor is that we'll be getting iPads in April, to replace the Area Books. The less-reliable part of the rumor is that the iPads will be individual, as in each missionary will be getting one, and that we'll be able to take them home after our missions. That'd be cool.

It is such a weird feeling (to be finishing my first transfer period). I can look back and think, yeah, that was six weeks, but it also feels like I just got here, and that I've been here forever.

I don't know if I ever sent you a picture of the missionaries in the ward, but one of the sisters in the trio here left. She's now in the Spanish ward that covers our stake.

You all should tell me things that I should get for you guys for Christmas, btw. Tell the kids to send me their lists, so that I can like make replicas out of old socks or something :)

Love,

Peter

Pretty swell

Hey guys!

Thanks for everything you sent: news, pictures (the stoplight looks great, the sweatshirt also :D), and the emails from cousins. I always really enjoy hearing about how things are all going, and it sounds like they're going pretty great.

This week was a kind of long week, but it had a lot of good things happen. I guess it just kind of seemed like things were going a little slower than they had been. We had a great start to the week--we met with the less-active lady and it seems like she's doing pretty well. Then, I think around like Thursday, it just started to seem like things just sort of slowed down. We did a lot of good things, like service, so I don't know, that's just kind of how it felt.

Halloween was pretty great--We played Apples to Apples and Ticket to Ride (which I won, btw. It was great.). 

At district meeting, in addition to having candy sharing, we also all dressed up in costumes and took pictures--I'll attach the not-so-great one that I took.

The baptism was awesome. It started out a little weird, because a different ward had apparently scheduled to have their baptism at the same time as ours, but we worked it out. Everything went smoothly, and it was great. I felt the spirit really strongly, and things just seemed great. 

Awesome thing: the boy who got baptized Saturday bore his testimony in fast & testimony meeting yesterday. It was great.

Questions answered:

- With Daylight Savings, we did get an extra hour of sleep. It was great, although I did still end up getting up at 5:30 (which felt like 6:30). Stupid circadian rhythms or whatever.

- The family we had dinner with the day before Halloween gave us some candy, and we did have a little candy-sharing thing at district meeting. I would bet that Matthew got more, though :).

- As far as I can tell, there isn't a visitor's center at the Denver Colorado Temple, or anywhere in the mission. I assume we could take investigators to the actual Temple Grounds for a like tour, but I think that'd require like extensive permission-getting.

- At the Food Bank, we're doing a variety of things. We're painting, scraping crap off the walls so they can be painted, etc. On Friday, we ripped up a carpet, which was very difficult--it'd been there for like years, and the people who installed it used a ton of glue. So yeah, that gave me a blister, which was annoying. All is good though.

- The standards of excellence are like goals that our mission president sets for the key indicators, which, if you don't know what those are either, are the things that we're supposed to be focusing on: baptisms, lessons with a member present, referrals, new investigators, lessons with less-active members or recent converts.

Things are going pretty swell. I hope things go well at home. Good luck with everything that's going on.

I love you and miss you,
Peter