A lot of faith, and desire to do the right thing

Hey Mom! And everyone else who might read anything I send!

It sounds like things went really well in Utah, so that's good. Everyone's been reporting on the candy that they got, so at least that part seems like it was successful.

So to give you a little bit more info about the new area and things, it's going pretty great down here. There are a lot of really great people that we've been visiting, and it's just pretty cool. 

The Details:

I'm actually living in a members' home, which is pretty weird after living in an apartment for the last 6 months. We have a basement, and it's just generally cool. I think I like living in an apartment slightly better, just because there's a bit more freedom, but this is cool too.

We're in a car, still. All of the Spanish areas have a car, so that's an upside of serving Spanish-speaking.

My companion is from about 30 minutes from London. Not sure what other details you'd want. He's pretty cool. Sadly, he does not speak Spanish with an English accent :-) and he's been out for about 8 months. We're actually "co-senior" companions. So there isn't anyone looking down on anyone else :).

We're teaching quite a few people, which is pretty great. There's a lot of Less-Active work here, so that seems to be the main focus, although we are teaching some investigators as well. There's this one family that we've taught twice so far, who are really awesome. They're a young couple. They have a lot of faith, and desire to do the right thing.

The Ward is pretty cool, too. It's pretty different from my past Ward--it's quite a bit smaller, but it's still great. The Bishop gave a talk yesterday that was pretty intense, about just a bunch of things that we need to do. I think that was one of the first times I've ever seen a bishop give a talk in Sacrament meeting--weird.

We've been doing quite a bit of service, too, which was cool. We helped two families to move, and another member to help clean up her basement.

In general, things are going well. It's always a little tricky to move into a new area, but I'm trying my hardest to do the best I can to figure everything out as quick as I can.

I'm about 15 minutes or so from the church building. And there are 8 missionaries serving in the ward, 4 elders and 4 sisters, just like in my last ward. I would say about 150 people are in the ward? Although I'm not exactly sure.

And I forget if I told you this, but I'm driving! It's like the first time in 11 months I've driven for more than a day at a time! Craaaaaazy :).

Sorry, not too much more. I'm glad everything's going well for you guys. I love you a lot!

Love,

Peter

You'll never know until you give it a shot!

Hey! It's me, Peter/Elder Bryan!

Okay, first and foremost: I did in fact get transferred. It's kind of really bizarre. I've been in my area for so long I kind of assumed I was just never going to leave. But I'm now here in another Spanish Ward. My new companion is a pretty cool guy, and he's from England, so he's got an accent, so he has to be awesome, right? It should be a pretty great transfer.

The other thing I'm sure you may have been wondering about: the guy we've been teaching was baptized on Friday, and confirmed in church on Sunday. That was really exciting. He was starting to doubt himself, but I think midway through the week that he really did know that everything was true, and that he wanted to change his life. So it took a little bit of time, but he made that decision, and that was awesome.

So honestly, that was a pretty good part of our week, helping him be prepared to be baptized. We tried to visit him almost every day, and Friday was basically spent weekly planning, and preparing for the baptism, and that's it. It was really cool.

Another cool thing is that there's this investigator, a 16-year-old kid, who is super awesome. He's come to church the last couple of weeks, and is doing really well. One kind of cool thing: We had really only been teachign him, although he lives with his family. We also taught his Mom, finally, this week, and it turns out she's really receptive and interested in the church as well! So never just assume that someone won't be interested in the gospel. You'll never know until you give it a shot!

One final cool thing: We've also been working with the guy who got baptized brother a lot lately, and he's doing awesome. He was less-active a couple of months ago, and this week he came with us to a lesson, and really liked it, and wants to come again! I'm really hoping he decides to go on a mission (he's 19). He's a really cool guy.

So, all in all, it was a really great week. This week's going to be pretty awesome too, if I have anything to do with it.

I hope you all have fun in Utah! Take lots of pictures with family, and send them to me! Also please say hi to everyone for me, make sure they know I love them.

Love,

Peter

Pictures!

This is a legit quilt that my companion and I made. It was super cool, let me tell you.

We did actually climb a mountain!

Hey!

I'm glad things have been going pretty well for you guys. I'm glad the father and son campout happened! I hope there was sufficient junk food :).

If you maybe want to get some answers to some of those questions, here they are!

We did actually climb a mountain, and it was awesome. We did not actually make it to the top, because we didn't have a ton of time, and as is normal, we were of differing athletic abilities (we went with the whole district, meaning all eight of the missionaries in the ward.) We tried to climb a little bit of this mountain called "crescent mountain", and it was pretty cool. There wasn't actually a trail, so we just kind of went for it, and that was fun. Yeah, P-day doesn't start until 10. We do studies until then.

I'd basically say that my mission covers the Denver metro area, excluding: Littleton, Highlands Ranch, and Lakewood.

The question about when someone is ready for baptism is a really interesting one. Really, it all comes down to a scripture: D&C 20:37, which describes the requirements for being baptized. When someone has demonstrated that they have faith in the restored gospel and have repented of their sins as evidenced by their actions, then they're ready!

With hiking and some other great things, this week was pretty great for us. Some highlights:

Someone we've been teaching is on track to be baptized this Saturday, which is really, really exciting. He was interviewed on Friday, and it was announced at church on Sunday. He's getting a little bit of cold feet right now, but we're pretty sure he'll get over it. It's really amazing to see how he's changed. He really does want to change his life, and follow the gospel of Christ. We're planning on visiting him every single day this week, to just help him stay committed, and to keep him on track, which will be great.

Free Slurpee Day!

Another pretty awesome thing that happened this week happened on Wednesday. One member family in our area is related to a former investigator that my companion taught when he was back here about a year ago. We asked them if they could invite her over so we could teach her again. They did, and we did. And when we taught her, she was totally legit! She was talking about how she was listening to a conference talk by President Monson, and how she knew everything was true. So we invited her to be baptized, and she accepted, which was just super exciting.

Another investigator we've been teaching was able to come to church on Sunday, which was awesome. He's 16, so we went with him to Young Mens', which was kind of weird. I hope he wasn't scared off by how disorganized it was :).

Another cool thing was a service project we did on Saturday morning. It's this yearly activity at this state park nearby. We were basically in charge of moving a bunch of scraps of an invasive species (Russian Olive, a kind of tree) over to a wood chipper. We got free t-shirts, which was awesome!

Things are going pretty awesomely. This week should be pretty great. We have a temple trip, and hopefully a baptism. Also, kind of crazy, we have transfers this next Monday. I'm a little worried that I might get moved, because I have been here for a while. Hopefully, my companion and I will be able to stay together for another transfer, but "I'll go where [He] want[s] me to go".

Thinking about Dad's lesson Sunday, I always try to think of taking His name upon me as essentially always living by the old adage of "What would Jesus do?". I figure that if we're taking His name upon us, we're trying as hard as we can to be his representatives, to live the way He would live, speak the way He would speak, act the way He would act.

Love,

Peter

We're going to go climb a mountain!

Hey! 

Thanks so much for the email and the news and everything yeah. Happy 4th of July!

I'm really sorry, but this is going to be pretty short, sadly, and I probably won't be able to email like anyone else. This is the reason! We're going to go climb a mountain, and we're trying to get there as early as possible! Don't worry, I'll send you pictures next Monday. It's gonna be awesome.

Anyhow, to answer your questions: The meet the new mission president thing was pretty great! It was just our zone, and it was pretty cool. President Mendenhall is pretty awesome. He's a lot different from President Toombs, but he's pretty cool. He's a lot more like jokey, as far as I can tell.

And yes, I have been taking more pictures than I've been sending you guys. I think that's mostly because some of the pictures are kind of stupid. I'll show you some when I get home, probably.

Also, thank you for the pictures and stories, it looks like it's been an adventurous week for you guys.

For us, this was a pretty good week! We had a fun 4th of July (This is how it went: we did our weekly planning session, went to a ward party for the 4th of July, went to dinner with one of our investigator's Grandma which was pretty sweet, and then went home and played games like bananagrams for three hours.)

Aside from the 4th of July, there were some other things that were pretty dang cool. One of of investigators is still on track to be baptized, and he's super cool. We taught him about tithing on Saturday, and he was basically like "That seems fair", which was like way more than I expected, which was awesome. Also, he's finally got his work schedule worked out so he can come to Sacrament Meeting, so he's really on the way! The only thing is we're not exactly sure how much he's living the word of wisdom, so we need to make sure that's worked out before we get too much further. 

Another pretty awesome thing: we got to teach this referral, and she is pretty dang awesome. She actually basically referred herself, and her story is pretty awesome. Basically, she investigated the church a while ago, like 14 years ago, and actually went to church for a long time back then, but was never baptized. Well, she stopped, because I think she got too busy, and then moved, so she lost contact with missionaries. But she works cleaning houses, and one day she was cleaning the house of a member of the church, and saw a Book of Mormon. She remembered the good feelings she got when she read it a while ago, and asked the member if she had one in Spanish. She didn't, so she got in touch with us, and we came over and gave her one! It was pretty awesome. She's super cool too, like she wants to feed us. In fact, we have dinner with her today, which should be really cool.

So those are basically the highlights of the week. Things are generally going pretty swell! It's pretty great working with my companion, and we're excited to see how President Mendenhall does things.

I'm sorry I can't write a ton more, but know that I love all of you. Thanks so much for everything!

Love,

Peter 

Look for something called a "Boli"

Hey!

Thanks for the news, it sounds like it's been a pretty relaxing week, which is pretty swell.

To answer the question about the world cup, basically everyone we talk to has been keeping up with it a little, at least. We were all a little depressed that Mexico lost. People still like came to church, but I did notice that most people showed up a little later than usual. The game started a few hours before church, so that might have had something to do with it.

And I'm thinking that the 4th of July is going to be pretty boring for us. The ward will have a party, and we'll try to be there for at least a bit of it. Aside from that, we've been asked to be in our apartments after 6:00 that day, so should be a pretty boring night.

Basically the biggest thing that's been happening lately is that President and Sister Toombs went home on Saturday. That was basically the weirdest thing ever. Like in the history of the world. It's always bizarre when missionaries go home, but President Toombs was always kind of a constant in the like sea of change, and now he isn't here. We'll be meeting President Mendenhall on Wednesday, and I'm sure he's amazing too, but for now it's still kind of freaky. 

Aside from that little bit of craziness, this week has been pretty great. We got to do like a lot of service--on Tuesday we helped a family to move, and also helped a family to basically remodel their house, tearing up carpet and stuff. Both of them gave us these awesome popsicle things that are basically the Mexican version of the Otter Pop, if you ever find the time to go to a Mexican place, look for something called a "Boli", they're basically the best. 

We also did some teaching, which is always great. We are still keeping on teaching the guy we've been working with, and he is just awesome. He's been keeping the Word of Wisdom, still wants to be baptized, and it's just great. As it stands, he'll be baptized on July 19th, which is 2 days before transfers. Super exciting! 

We also taught that one lady who came to church a couple of weeks back. She's pretty great--the wonderful thing about her is how open she is with us. She told us exactly what would be holding her back from joining the church (she doesn't want to stop worshiping the Virgin of Guadalupe), but that she really does want to be able to resolve that concern and find out what God wants for her.

Other interesting things that happened, we had our last time to say goodbye to President and Sister Toombs on Tuesday--they came to our ward building and took pictures with everyone individually (and that was a lot of missionaries, like half of the mission was there), so that was really nice. 

And then I went on exchanges on Saturday with our new district leader, who was actually in my district back when I was in the Greenwood Village ward. He's pretty cool, so that was a pretty fun day.

One other interesting thing that's new, and I'm wondering if the missionaries in your ward are doing: we no longer are passing around a dinner calendar--we ourselves are just going around, asking people to feed us. We're focusing on families we would like to visit, and it seems to be going pretty well so far. This is the first week we've tried it, and we have dinners lined up already for 6/7 days, which is pretty rad.

Well, I think that's all. Here's some pictures, too, though:

Me and President Toombs

Me and Sister Toombs

Me blowing birthday bubbles, I feel very manly.

Love,

Peter

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