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

Lift up your head and be of good cheer

Thank you so much for the news and updates on things going on at home. It sounds like a lot of really great things are going on, in addition to that whole Christmas thing.

We actually have been having a great week. This ward, and my companion, are awesome, and I'm really enjoying serving here. The majority, or at least half, of the work that we did last week, in terms of teaching, has been with members, just sharing Christmas thoughts with them and encouraging them to share the testimony of Christ that they have. We've also been visiting a few other people, though, including a couple of really awesome families who don't attend regularly, and one or two recent converts. One of those recent converts has actually invited us to his house for Christmas, so we'll probably be skyping there, from his Xbox, which could be cool.

There's also a couple that we actually taught twice this week, and they are seriously the most awesome people ever. The first time we met with them, only he was able to make it. So, we shared the Plan of Salvation with him, using this little visual aid thing that my companion has. Then, we asked him if he could take it home and share the Plan with his girlfriend, and he agreed. Then, just yesterday, we met with them again, and she had the whole thing completely down! They are really open to the gospel, and just really want to learn more.

This coming week should be pretty great. Monday, we're allowed to watch a movie off of a list that President Toombs made (which list is actually pretty sweet, if a bit short--it includes stuff like Toy Story 3, The Princess Bride, Remember the Titans, A Christmas Story, and some more. It'll be awesome.).

Then on Christmas I'll be able to Skype with you guys, which will be great! (Caveat emptor, though, we're only allowed ~40 minutes.) We'll also be going Christmas caroling as a zone on Christmas, which will be super fun.

So, things have been going pretty great. All is well in Zion, I suppose.

This is a message I've been sharing recently about Christmas. Sometimes, when we think about Christmas, even after we've gotten over the whole Santa, Christmas tree, presents, thing, and focus on Christ, we find ourselves really only focusing on the nativity. We'll read Luke 2, we'll talk about the wise men, we'll remember Joseph, Mary, and Jesus. Sometimes, though, we forget that thousands of miles away, there was another Christmas story going on among the Nephites and Lamanites that we can read in the Book of Mormon. 

It had been five years since Samuel prophesied that there'd be a night without darkness, and the people who didn't believe him had set a day where they would kill everyone who did believe. (This always seemed a little extreme to me, but oh well.). So the night before that was going to happen, the prophet Nephi prayed to God. He "cried mightily to his God in behalf of his people." The response that Christ gives him is one of my favorite passages of scripture ever. He tells Nephi: "Lift up your head and be of good cheer; for behold, the time is at hand, and on this night shall the sign be given, and on the morrow come I into the world." 

I think that we can use the same advice now, even though we don't have people trying to kill us because we believe in Christ. We can always "Lift up [our] heads and be of good cheer," because of Christ. Because of his birth, because of his life, because of his death, we can be happy. We can be completely clean. We can live with our Heavenly Father and with our families forever.

I love you, and I'm super excited to talk to you guys on Wednesday.

Love,

Peter

Apparently there will be skits involved...

Hey, so I'm obviously sorry I wasn't able to email yesterday at the usual time. Transfers were that day, and things were a little bit crazy. To just give you the update that I'm sure you're dying to hear (where I am, who I'm with), I have a new companion who's from San Antonio, Texas; he has been out on his mission for 16 months, and is Spanish speaking. We should be able to at least practice the espanyol with each other. I was actually moved, which was a little bit surprising, but is I'm sure what Heavenly Father had planned for me. I'm now in another English-speaking ward, which is kind of towards the south of the mission, and closer to Denver proper than I was. Yesterday we were able to meet with the ward mission leader, and he seems really awesome. I'm really looking forward to serving in this ward.

We are close to the temple. We have the opportunity to go once a month, on the third Wednesday of the month (although we won't be going tomorrow, due to the whole Christmas devotional thing.) It'll be nice not having to get up at 4:00 in the morning to get there, though (we only go to the early-morning sessions, so that's a party.)

There are five missionaries in the ward, us two, and a trio of sisters. My companion has been here for one transfer and things are looking up! We had a really amazing lesson with one of their investigators last night, and he seems super receptive. So things are going good.

I'm sure I'll be going to Spanish eventually. We had interviews with President Toombs a while ago, and I asked him about that. He said that usually, Spanish Missionaries will serve two or three transfers in English areas, so I'm assuming that after I serve here for a transfer or two, I'll be finally going Spanish. We'll see, though. I'll go where you want me to go, right?

The weather is a little bit crazy--honestly it's too warm :), but I guess I probably shouldn't complain too much. 

We will be having a Christmas thing tomorrow. I'm not exactly sure what it'll entail (although apparently there will be skits involved, because the zone is practicing one today at 2:00), but it'll be from like 9:00 to 2:00, so that should be good. I'll probably get to see some of the people that I haven't seen in a while, as well as some people I just left, so that should be awesome.

Hooray for the Christmas Tree! It's always exciting to have that up, and I'm sure you guys will have fun decorating that. In my past area, we were able to help a couple of members decorate their trees, so we did get the chance to do that, even though we aren't (well, I guess I'm not) able to be home for Christmas.

Okay, weekly report time:

It was a weird week. There was a lot of stuff we had to get done to get my companion ready to go home--he had to pack, he had his exit interview on Saturday, and we also had to say good-bye to a lot of people, so that made it a little bit difficult to get the like normal "missionary work" done. It was alright, though. 

One cool thing, though, did end up happening with regard to "the work". So, the members we were living with have a grandson living with them, who hasn't attended church much. We've gotten to know him pretty well over the past many weeks, and he seems to like us quite a bit. So, we had a family home evening with them on Monday night, and he participated and everything. Then, he actually ended up coming to church this Sunday, which was super awesome. He's a great guy, and I hope that the new missionaries who come keep working with him.

Saturday (when we found out information about transfers), was pretty weird. I was really surprised to be transferred, and honestly a little bit scared. However, since getting here, I know that everything's gonna be awesome. I'm going to work hard, do the right thing, and it'll be good.

(On his way home to Hillsboro, Peter's companion stopped by our place to hand-deliver news.) I'm glad he was able to make it over to you guys. It was actually his idea to do that, so you can thank him, I guess. I hope that was cool. He's a good guy, so I'm glad he stopped by.

OH! Another important thing! It turns out that we will be able to Skype with you guys on Christmas! I'm not exactly sure what changed, but I guess it was approved. So, you'll have to tell me how I can get ahold of you guys. If you can set up the whole Skype thing, that'd be pretty awesome.

Okay, I think that's all. I love you guys.

Peter

Angels from on high?

Thanks so much for all the news from home. It sounds like things are going pretty well, and that you guys are enjoying the whole Christmas season thing :). I'm remembering the last time we had one of those Sacrament Meetings--I remember it was really cool to just know that just because people aren't necessarily coming to church, it doesn't mean they don't have a great testimony. Also, hooray for Stanford!

This week has been pretty great. We were able to see a couple that we haven't been able to get in with for a while. Actually, it was awesome, because we were on splits, and the member I was on splits with knew the couple pretty well. We were also able to see the investigator that's planning to get baptized the end of the month. Even more exciting about her, she came to church yesterday, which was super awesome. One of the talks in Sacrament Meeting was by a young woman who's about her daughter's age, and she seemed really impressed by that, which was cool. 

We've been suffering through the cold weather, which hasn't actually been too terrible (actually, it has been pretty bad), and I also really enjoyed the First Presidency Christmas Devotional.

We have been able to get a lot of rides, and when we aren't able to, we generally just walk. My companion's bike has been pretty messed up for a while--his back tire has really just been going flat every hour or so, and we can't find a hole in the tube, so we basically have shrugged our shoulders and walked. In any case, my companion actually sent his bike home last Saturday (since he's going home in a week), so even if it did work, that wouldn't be much of an option. It has been pretty cool, but we've been dealing with it--staying just really bundled up, and getting rides.

To answer your question about the cardigan, it's actually a super awesome story: Okay, so I think I mentioned in an email to my grandparents that I was really wanting to buy a scarf sometime soon (which I did, and it's awesome). I guess they decided that even though I was going to get one of my own, they wanted to help me out by giving me one they didn't need anymore. Well, anyways they found one of their old scarves, and sent it to me, which was cool, it's a really nice scarf. I guess, though, while they were looking for the scarf, they found the cardigan that's in the picture. From the fact that it fits me, you can guess that it doesn't fit Granddad anymore, so they decided to send it to me. It's a really nice cardigan, and I'm really grateful for it. However, the most amazing part about the story is this: the cardigan is 50 years old. Apparently Grandmother gave Granddad it as a gift the very first year they were married. So needless to say, I'm going to take really good care of it.

Okay, here's a pretty hilarious story: okay, so my other grandparents sent me a Thanksgiving box, with a lot of caramel corn (a reference to a Charlie Brown Thanksgiving?), chocolate, etc. In addition, they sent a can (well, more of a tub) of powdered "Gourmet Creamy potato soup mix". So, we never really got around to making said soup, and I decided to save it for a cold day. So, I think this Wednesday, it was very cold, and to make things even better, my companion was sick, so we didn't get out till about 4:45. Anyways, I decided it'd be a good idea to make the soup. So, I got out a pot, boiled some water, and even cut up some carrots and a little bit of turkey (leftover cold cuts :)). And then, I opened the can of soup. Inside, I find: Cookies. Grandma had needed a package for the cookies, and decided to use the soup can. And I'd never opened the can to check that it was in reality soup. So, we had to like throw away the cut carrots and stuff, dump out the water, and we ended up having scrambled eggs for lunch. So that made me feel dumb, but I'm sure It'll make me laugh in the future. It'll be a good anecdote.

Good luck staying warm in the cold Oregon weather--that sounds like it's colder that it'd been for a long while. Also, keep me updated on the Sing-off, I didn't even know that they'd be having another season!
 
Thanks so much for the prayers for my personal warmth :).

Have a great week. I love you, and miss you all. Merry Christmas!

Love,
Peter