Before anything, God wants you to believe on His word

Heyyyy!

Again, it's a little bit late, but I think that's okay. It sounds like you've had a pretty dang great week. I'm a little bit jealous of your trip, but it's fun here, too :). Thanks for the updates, too. That's some pretty exciting missionary and other things news.

I guess the first thing I'll do is to answer some questions! That might be fun!

-The transfer meeting, which we somewhat sacrilegiously call "Transfer Doctrine", is by zone. Each individual zone meets up and finds out what's going down.

-We have not been specifically told how we're meeting our new mission president. What President Toombs mentioned is that there'll be a sort of a "meet the mission" thing soon after he comes, where a couple zones at a time will come and meet President Mendenhall.

-My shoes are doing pretty okay. I haven't been like polishing them as much as I should (i.e. not at all), so they look a little worn, but they're holding up fine.

-And it's been getting dark a bit before nine lately--it's always dark when we get home at night.

-And yeah, people are interested in the world cup. Like everyone.

Well, this week was pretty great! We did some tracting, found a new investigator (Who we may have to turn over to the english elders, she's white but speaks spanish, and her husband speaks spanish, we're not really sure what to do with her right now. But she's cool!), and saw some pretty cool things happen. This is probably going to be pretty brief, because I have like not a ton to share, but here are the highlights, probably:

1. We taught the guy who's been coming to church a lot, twice this week. The first time, we taught, with a bit of apprehension, the Word of Wisdom. He actually accepted it really well. He says he still has a bit of desire to go out drinking and stuff, but he is going to try it. He believes Josephs Smith was a prophet, so he's going to give it a shot, which is just so awesome. The second time, we basically just read Alma 32 with him and his brother. Preach My Gospel recommends occasionally just having a time to read the Book of Mormon with investigators. I haven't ever really done that much, but it was really cool. Reading it in Spanish, both my companion and I noticed something we hadn't really noticed before, but which was awesome. In verse 22 it tells us that God "desireth, in the first place, that ye should believe, yea, even on his word." In spanish, it says that he "desea, ante de todo, que creais", which translates more directly to something like "Before anything, God wants you to believe on His word". That was pretty powerful. It kind of hit me that that really is what God wants for us--to believe, to have the faith to act on His word.

2. So we had an appointment with an investigator that I think I told you about last week--she's got a son who's a recent convert in the YSA branch. Anyways, she kind of cancelled on us, which made me kind of feel like maybe she didn't really want to meet with us, which was a little sad. But that idea turns out to be completely wrong! We were sitting in Sacrament Meeting (we were actually in the foyer, because that's where Bishop wants us apparently, to like make sure kids don't escape), and she totally came! She showed up with about 30 minutes left in Sacrament Meeting, said she really enjoyed it, and asked us whether we could come over this week! So I'm really excited about her, if you can't tell. She has a lot of desire to know the truth, I think.

3. So if you remember that, near christmas, we had a devotional and we got to see that again! He came and delivered the same devotional at our ward building, with translation, so we invited everyone we could to come and see it. Some people we've been working with totally came, and it was pretty cool. Also us missionaries in the ward sang a special musical number during the fireside, which was pretty rad.

I did have a pretty great birthday, although not probably celebrated in the usual manner--we did weekly planning, taught a new investigator, had some really good dinner, so that was great, and then came back and taught our top progressing investigator.

I definitely agree with what you said about coming to see people less as just people, but as children of God. I'm definitely getting to that point, although I'm sure I still have a long way to go before I see people the way God sees them. 

So that was basically my week! It was pretty great. I love you all, and I'm so happy you're doing well. 

Love,

Peter

A pink van in Denver?

Heyyyyy!

So first of all, I'm sorry I'm a little late with this, there were tons of people at the library when we first showed up, so we did some shopping first.

Also, of course it rained on the last day of school, I'm pretty sure that happened a couple of years ago too. Fun!

I'm a little bit weirded out that I'm turning 19, as well. Now I'm a real missionary :).

In any case, we had a pretty great week this week! It's pretty great serving with my new companion here-- it's true, we do have some things in common. Kind of a lot, which is cool. That definitely means we have more to talk about, which can sometimes be a problem, like during companionship study :). 

But it's great! I think a side effect of me and and my past companion being together for so long was that we maybe fell into some habits that weren't the most productive. We weren't doing anything that was bad, but we maybe did some things that were just "how we did things", that maybe weren't as productive and effective as we could be. So having a whole new companion gives a bit of an opportunity to start over, come up with new ideas and work hard.
 
We seem to be getting along pretty dang well, which is pretty great. I've never had a companion that I didn't like serving with, but it's nice when you have a lot to talk about in down time and stuff. 


Some cool highlights from this week:
-We had Stake Conference, which was pretty great. We went to the adult (actually they made it 12 and older) session on Saturday night, and then the general session Sunday Morning, which was pretty cool. They had the missionaries doing the translating mostly, so my companion did some of that, although I wasn't confident in my language skills to do on-the-fly translation. Next time! Also, our mission president came and spoke at the Saturday evening one, I think that was his last Stake Conference!

-Our top progressing investigator came to Stake Conference! He showed up like an hour late, but he was there, which was super exciting!  He had said he would be coming, even though it was stake conference, and it would be a half-hour drive, crazy. But 10:00 rolled around, and there was no sign of him, so we kind of gave up. But then at like 10:30, half an hour into stake conference, we got a text saying that he was on the way! And he showed up for like the last half of the meeting, which was really awesome. He's super committed, I'm really excited for him. He still has the problem where he can't come to sacrament meeting, but we talked about it with him, and he has some ideas for fixing that, and so do we. He really has the desire to come to Christ. I can see him being baptized really soon, which is just awesome. 

-We contacted this referral we got from a member who's at like BYU right now. We were supposed to go for the tracting approach, and when we did, she basically asked us if we were from the church, and told us that she wanted to be baptized. If we didn't already know that from the text, I think that would have been the craziest door ever to knock. We're going to be back! Apparently her husband is less than enthusiastic about the church, but we'll help him with that :).

-So we contacted this former investigator last like Thursday, and set up an appointment. We've contacted her before, and she's bailed, which is sad. But this time, she totally kept her appointment, so we taught her, and she really seemed to get it! She said she really wanted to read the Book of Mormon, and that if she found out it was true, she'd be baptized. So that was pretty great! She even said the closing prayer, which like is very rare for investigators to do, at least in my experience.

So basically we had a great week. I'm glad you're all doing great, and I hope you have a great week!

Love,
Peter

Voodoo Doughnuts outside of Oregon

Heyyyy! 

So, to just get all the important news out of the way that I'm sure you're all dying to know, yes, transfers did affect me. So, I am still in the same ward, but my companion is no longer here. He was transferred down to the south of the mission. They're trying to start a Spanish group there, so he'll be working on that. 

I have a new companion from near Chicago, Illinois. He's been out about three months longer than I have, and he's been serving in Spanish for most of his mission. Most recently he was in the Spanish ward that covers like Denver proper. After being together for about 24 hours now, he seems like a pretty cool guy, it should be a great transfer.

And with transfers, yeah, there really isn't alone time at all. The only alone time we get is in the bathroom :). But when we're at home we can sort of make "alone time" if it's crazy. I'm not sure whether it's technically allowed to be in different rooms in the apartment, but that happens occasionally.

It sounds like you guys have been having a pretty dang busy week yourselves. Church things sounds like they went well, or as well as can be expected. I hope the funeral went well.

So anyways this week was pretty alright. There were, again, some really cool things that happened, and some not so cool things that also happened. 

Cool thing #1: So we probably had one of the most fun P-days I've had on my mission so far on Monday. We went to the Denver Museum of Nature and Science, which is basically the Denver equivalent of OMSI, because it was their "free day" on Monday. I guess once a year there's free admission for the day. The only downside was that there was a special exhibit going on there, about the Maya, that we really wanted to go to, but that part wasn't actually included in the free day thing. Sad.

But it was still a really cool museum, lots of interesting things. There was one exhibit about mummies that was cool, one about outer space, and other cool stuff. There were also a lot of like dioramas of different animals and their habitats, which there aren't a lot of at OMSI, because I guess the nature part isn't as big of an emphasis there. 

And then, to make it even way better, on the way home, we stopped by the one Voodoo Doughnuts outside of Oregon (I know, I had no idea it existed either), and got donuts, so that was pretty awesome, I've gotta say.

We also had mission conference, which was pretty dang awesome. It was from 9-12 on Wednesday, and then afterwards President Toombs gave us two hours of approved just hanging out and mingling, so that was pretty fun, just I guess catching up with old friends and stuff. It's kind of crazy that President Toombs is leaving so soon, though! His last day is June 30th, only like 20 days from today. I'll miss him a lot, but I'm sure President Mendenhall will be pretty great as well.

In terms of teaching lessons, though, it was a little bit harder of a week. We weren't able to teach either of the investigators who are progressing, because they were really busy with moving. But we have appointments set with them for this week, so that should be great!

It's interesting, this is the first time I've actually stayed in an area while my companion left. I'm a little bit scared, but I'm pretty sure it shouldn't be a big problem, as long as I do the right thing, work hard, and trust in Heavenly Father. I'll let you know how it goes next Monday! :).

I hope everything is good with you guys. Thanks for the pictures. I love you so much.

Peter

Extreme alert!

Hey everyone who might read this!

Okay yeah it is pretty insane that it's June already. 2014 is going by way too fast. I'm scared :). 

It sounds like school is wrapping up well, although it's kind of insane that people are graduating and stuff. I guess I feel like people shouldn't be allowed to continue to progress through time while I'm gone. It's not fair! :).

To answer questions:

First and most importantly, I don't think I said no candy, just not an excessive amount, although I could be wrong, and I don't feel like checking. Basically the reason for this is that I have noticed that I am gaining weight here in this Spanish ward, because they feed us tons and I am no longer biking everywhere. So well I guess send as much candy as you want.

Allergies have been starting to hit, and they are just as unpleasant as in Oregon. I've been taking zyrtec, which hopefully is abating the symptoms and everything, but we'll see.

And yeah, we have headphones at the library. Even though they're banned by the missionary handbook, I've decided that they've been implicitly approved because I see leaders wearing them all the time.

So I don't know that I remember being able to hit low notes well after shouting and killing my voice, but I do know it's generally easier to sing lower after/while I'm sick. Dunno why, maybe the internet has the answers.

And I guess I wouldn't say I have a favorite part of a lesson to teach. They're all great! Maybe I'll think about that more this week, and then get back to you later. Actually I have an answer right now. Atonement. It's just really the most important thing we can bear testimony of, and it really is just great.

And we don't really plan who's going to share what, which is probably something we can improve on.

So anyways, this week was pretty good for us. The investigator we've been focusing the most on is still coming to church (This was his third sunday in a row here, which is really exciting), and he's actually started reading from the Book of Mormon, which is something he's struggled with in the past because he's a bit of a slow reader. The only issue is that his work still makes it so he can't come to Sacrament Meeting, and he can't really change his work schedule because everyone at his work has to come in at the same time, and his coworkers like where it's at right now, I guess. We'll see what we can do--we taught about the sacrament, and it seems like he understands why it's important, so we'll try to make sure he can attend some Sacrament Meeting.

His brother (the less-active guy) is also progressing really well--he's a really fast learner, and it seems like he really has a desire to come back to full activity in the church. It was kind of funny--he stayed for Sacrament Meeting, and it was Fast and Testimony Meeting. When we asked him how he liked it, he said that it was nice, although "there were a lot of kids". Which is totally true, this time probably >75% of the testimonies came from primary-age kids. I always take out my little pocket notebook to keep track of funny things kids say during testimony meeting, here's a little sample:

- I know that God is true

- I know that Jesus Christ made the scriptures

- One kid just stood up there and said a prayer.

But it was great and all. I've definitely gotten a stronger testimony of fasting here on my mission.

That's basically the coolest stuff that's happened this week. We're still doing service at that quilting place, and at the thrift store. It's going to be a pretty crazy week this week--we're having a mission-wide conference Wednesday morning, which'll be the last time President Toombs will speak to us as a group, kind of crazy. 

We're painting a member's house on Thursday, which'll probably take quite a while, and then on Saturday we find out who's going where, because transfers are a week from today! Things are going fast, it's kind of crazy.

I hope everything's good with you guys. I love you a ton!

Love,

Peter

Also, sorry for not sending many photos, but here's one: it was a pretty interesting text to get--I didn't see it until like an hour later, so we didn't really follow the instructions.

We're definitely going to help them with that!

Hey!

So yeah there was Memorial Day and we didn't email, and today they're giving us an hour to email, so um I guess I apologize in advance to anyone who doesn't receive an email from me, kind of pressed for time. 

I'm glad you guys had a good week, I'm extremely jealous of the Ashland trip, but I think I'll probably get over it.

The only thing that was slightly different about Memorial Day was that we got together with some people from a service project in my companion's previous area and played softball, which was really fun--I'd forgotten how long it'd been since I played any form of baseball, but it was great. 

There weren't any Memorial Day-themed things in church. 

We get to go to the temple once a month (every third Wednesday). 

And I don't really have any special birthday requests. Probably the only request would be that I get not too much candy/stuff like that :). I can't really think of anything that I'm like needing that would be approved :). Probably just music, I guess. And yes, it does freak me out that I'm turning nineteen. I'm hopeful that this will make it so people have less of a reaction when I tell them how old I am.

So this was a really pretty good week for us! We've been working a lot with the investigator that I've been telling you about, and he actually was able to make it to church again this Sunday, for Sacrament Meeting as well! It was because his work was off this weekend for Memorial Day, but we're hoping we can help him continue to come. 

With another part-member family we're working with (who are actually relatives of his), one of them, the 10-year-old kid, came to church as well. When we visited that family that same day, we actually were able to find out what was stopping the rest of them from coming to church, which was really good. Apparently the few times that they have gone to church, they've found it really boring, because they didn't really understand what was going on. So that was really good to find out, and we're definitely going to help them with that! 

Another cool thing was that we got to go on exchanges on Thursday, which is always really nice--I went to the other elders' area, and it was pretty great--it's kind of a cool thing to "shake things up" to like see how other missionaries do things.

I'm sorry I don't really have much time to share like tons of other stuff, but it's been a really good week, and it's going to be a good week this week!

I love you a lot, I hope you have a great week, and that things go well with everything.

Love,

Peter

We have an incredible message

Hey!

It sounds like it was a pretty good week for you guys. And the news about all the people going on missions and coming back from missions is pretty crazy.

To answer questions:

I know President Toombs doesn't have time to attend every baptism, but I think he does try to attend some of them--at the baptism down in Denver that I got to go to a few weeks back, he was there.

And okay, I'll include some pictures. FINE!

So for us this was a pretty great week! We had some really cool things happen, and things are going well here. So on Wednesday, we had zone conference, which was really cool, as always. One of the most interesting things that president talked about was families. He talked about how a lot of times, we sort of just breeze over the importance of families when we're talking to people. But for a lot of people, probably most people, families are the most important thing in their lives. And we have an incredible message, that families are divine, that we can strengthen our families immensely through the gospel of Jesus Christ, and that we can be with our families literally forever. We also talked a lot about how we need to really listen to people when we're teaching them--not just be thinking about the next thing that we're going to say, but be listening to what people tell us, and also what the spirit tells us. I think that probably applies for every human interaction we have in this life, not just in teaching people as missionaries.

The other really cool thing that's been happening is that one of our investigators has been doing really well in terms of progressing, and actually came to church this Sunday! He's really awesome--he really has a desire to learn more about the gospel, and to act. He has a lot of family members who are active in the church, and they all live really close to him (like, the same trailer park close), so there's a lot of support there, too. His brother is also a less-active member, and he came to church as well. It's been a really great experience teaching them. I've definitely seen them change, even just in these past few weeks that we've been teaching them. The only problem is that the guy who isn't a member yet does work on Sundays--he can come to the first two hours of church, but has to leave before sacrament meeting starts, which is a little frustrating. But it'll work out!

Things are going really well here, and it sounds like you guys are doing great too. I love you a lot! And here are some pictures!

1. May 12

2. A member gave us some flowers, I don't remember exactly why. "Everything I touch is ruined!"

I love you guys a lot!

Peter

And it's still snowing.

Hello again! Long time no see, huh?

In all seriousness, it was great to see you guys yesterday--it's really cool that they give us the chance to do that, even if it is only twice a year. It's kind of a weird tradition if you think about it, but it's still pretty cool.

To answer the questions that did not get asked yesterday: 

Usually people do do things for their birthday, for example on my companion's birthday last month, a family had a little surprise birthday party for him, which was nice. It's pretty hard to keep birthdays under wraps, because everyones' birthdays are published in the newsletter that goes out every once in a while.

And yeah, actually I have been trying to keep a mission journal fairly regularly. I did a good job at the MTC, but then I was slacking pretty hardcore in the english wards. When I got here, I kind of recommitted to journal writing, and I've been writing in it (almost) every day since then. I mostly just write the mundane things that happen every day--what we did, who we taught, that sort of thing. I should include spiritual experiences too, but sometimes I honestly kind of forget.

It sounds like you guys had a pretty great week. Our week was pretty alright too, especially Sunday, for obvious reasons :). Aside from the call home, There were some other good things about this week. It was a little slower (actually a lot slower) with investigator lessons--it was really hard to contact some people, one family actually had their house flood, so they didn't want us to be in the mess, even though we would have been fine with it, so it was generally a little slower. 

But we did have the opportunity to teach a lot more less-active members than lately, so it's definitely true that every cloud has a silver lining, as the cliche has it. 

Also, our one lesson with an investigator was pretty great. You remember the guy who gave us jarritos last week? So we taught him again this week, and he's super cool. He says that he really wants to keep learning--he says he just really gets a good feeling about what we're teaching. The only problem is that he works during sacrament meeting on Sunday, so hopefully he'll be able to change his schedule to be able to keep that commandment. His less-active brother is doing really well too. He has a lot of questions and some doubts, but he said that this gospel is helping him feel closer to God. He's been reading, and really sincerely praying, which is so wonderful. All that's left is for him to come to church!

It's pretty crazy how fast time passes here. I definitely agree that time passes much slower when you're less busy. When we're working hard and have the spirit, it seems like time just flies by. And it's definitely true that things go faster the more you're used to the situation you're in.

It's interesting, because I actually do pray in English relatively often--usually whenever we pray as a companionship we pray in english. But my personal prayers are usually in spanish, as are any prayers as a group, or with people we're teaching. But yeah, it's kind of weird. Me and my companion speak mostly Spanglish--probably 75% english, with some spanish phrases thrown in.

In general, things are going really well. We're teaching, we're finding more people to teach, and I feel like I'm learning more every day about the gospel and how I can improve myself as a missionary. I'm glad you guys are doing well. I love you guys a lot. I can't wait to see you guys again in 7 months :).

And it's still snowing.

Love,

Peter