I've realized that Chex mix is a weakness of mine.

Oh my goodness it sounds like it's gonna be a pretty dang interesting week for you! Good luck!

I appreciate the news updates! Super exciting for Taylor, and I'm extremely jealous of the Chex Mix. I've realized that Chex mix is a weakness of mine. I can't buy it too often from the store because I know I'll eat it in about 2 days, and that's just kind of a waste of money :/.

Okay I'm just going to go ahead an answer the questions! So service! There's this really cool service project that we've been going to this transfer, that's called the Crisis Center. It's basically a homeless shelter, and it's just really great to help out there. We've been doing a lot of stuff, from making peanut butter and jelly sandwiches to mowing their lawn, to cleaning out some rooms, and it's really great. The person who works the most with us is "Mama D", who is this awesome, extremely sassy black lady. She's basically the best part of service. 

And we have been having some pretty great weather lately. The only thing is, I kind of want it to rain more! It has rained a bit, but it always seems like it rains for like 5 minutes and then stops. I'm kind of missing the consistency of Oregon rain :).

This week was pretty good for us! It started out pretty slow, but we've seen a lot of good things the rest of the week. 

On Saturday, we found our first new investigator of the transfer (that's not a great thing for the rest of the transfer, but it was pretty exciting), he's a cool guy! He's 18, and it seems like his family just moved from Mexico, but I can't really tell. Hopefully we'll be able to see him a lot more. 

Another pretty cool thing was on Wednesday, we got to go out on splits with the ward leadership, and a bunch of people from the stake leadership, to go visit less active members. I went with the Ward YM president, and the Stake YM president and one of his counselors, and that was a pretty cool experience. I had a really cool experience at the very end, as well, when there was some like review going on with the Stake and the ward. The Stake YM president gave some advice to our YM president, and I could really just feel that it was revelation. It was really cool to get that sort of testimony that the YM president really was called by God, and that he did have that authority.

Apart from that, it was a pretty normal week. Visited quite a few less-active families, had a member take us out to get Pho, which was great, and yeah.

I'm really looking forward to General Conference! While emailing, I was listening to President Uchtdorf's Talk from Womens' conference, and that was pretty rad. Everyone should listen to/watch it because it's great.

Anyways, It's been pretty great here, and I hope everyone has a great week. I'll be praying for you!

 

Love,

Peter 

This week was kind of slow again

Hey!

It sounds like it's been a pretty entertaining week.

I'm pretty glad that I get to serve a mission too! It's pretty great. 

This week was kind of slow again--we had like 12 appointments cancel! But there were some pretty cool things too! We got to go to the temple, which was pretty awesome! Deseret Book is right next to the temple, so we went there as well. I got a book that they give in the MTC for missionaries who are learning Portuguese! So maybe I'll figure out how to speak a little bit of that by the time I'm home! That'd be pretty cool. 

We also had a pretty cool zone meeting, where we were trained about a couple of awesome things. One particularly interesting thing was we had one training about like family history work, but the main thing was to help us understand what is the spirit of Elijah. So they had us all tell stories in groups about our families. Then our zone leader asked us how we felt while we were sharing that. I guess those feelings of like happiness and love are like the spirit of Elijah! Who knew?

So aside from all that, we've been mostly working with less-actives and members, and trying to find more investigators, because we don't really have any right now. So we were actually able to get in contact with a lot of less-actives that it seems like haven't been taught or contacted in a really long time, so that was pretty cool (those were some of the appointments that cancelled, though, which was less happy...). Anyways, this week we're going to be doing more finding, and it's going to be great.

It's been a little bit of a slow week for us, but we've been working hard, and so hopefully things will pick up this week. Kind of fun story: We had dinner yesterday at probably the biggest, nicest house that I've been to since February, with the family in the ward that's probably the most well-off. Where do they get their money, you might ask? Well, he owns a Landscaping company. This is where sterotypes come from!

I hope things are all going great for you all. It was a kind of uneventful week for us this week, so sorry I'm not writing a super ton. But it's great to be here in Aurora. I really do love it.

Love,

Peter

I get to see Aurora every day

Hey!

Well first of all I'll tell you that there aren't really going to be any pictures today. Sorry. I've temporarily misplaced the cable that connects the camera to the computer. But don't worry! I'll find it soon and then send you some pictures probably!

I'm curious about how the sister missionaries are doing the whole facebook thing. That's completely not a thing in our mission. I actually kind of hope it never becomes a thing, at least while I'm here. I think that'd be kind of weird. But maybe it'd be great, I don't know.

I hope everything's going good, and that people are getting adjusted to being back in school again. For us, this has been a pretty good week. Better than last week, at least. Things are going pretty well. It is a bit of a task to get used to the new area, but it's good. I think the biggest things that's harder is just going from an area where there was quite a bit of work going on to an area where there isn't a ton of stuff, and having to work on getting that I guess "picked up".

As I was talking about last week, we're trying to help the members to strengthen their conversion, and it's been going pretty well. Something pretty cool happened with one family--We were kind of demonstrating the way it works to study Preach My Gospel, and this guy just was pretty stoked about it. He was like, yeah, this is way better than just reading it. He said he was actually learning stuff! So that's good! I think when we just read through the scriptures, it's nice and all, we can feel the spirit, but when we really study a topic or something, we can be taught by the spirit, which is what it's really all about.

We've also been able to find some less-actives that have been kind of out of the picture for a while, so that was good. We were finally able to talk to this one guy who's been working on getting back to activity for a long time, and he came to church this Sunday! I don't necessarily think that it was because of us, he's got a lot of like personal willpower as well, but it was really cool to see his desire to act on the things he believes.

It was a bit harder with investigators this week, though. The investigator family that probably had the most potential dropped us this week via text, which kind of sucked. But we've been doing a lot of finding work, which was good! And we'll be doing a lot more this week. Yay!

Well, I'm sorry you guys didn't get to see the Aurora. If it's any consolation, I get to see Aurora every day :). Beyond bad jokes, I'm very jealous of the hiking and camping trips and stuff. I guess it's only when you're not even allowed to go camping, and there's almost nowhere to hike that you realize how much you like doing that sort of thing.

One pretty cool thing also: So this Saturday, we had something pretty cool called "Mission Tour", which is a thing that happens every year, where a general authority comes to kind of inspect the mission, and to train us. So Elder Lawrence of the 2nd Quorum of the Seventy came this year, and it was pretty cool. He gave a 2-hour training about how important it is to be obedient (One thing from that training was that serving a mission is really a Launchpad for the rest of your adult life. In the LDS culture, the mission really is the beginning of adulthood, and the kind of missionary you are will have a pretty strong influence on the rest of your life.), and that was pretty good. Another pretty dang awesome thing was that his wife also gave a talk, and it was awesome. She's been a seminary teacher all  her life (apparently she was the first woman to graduate from the religious studies program at BYU?), and so she gave a talk about the House of Israel, the Gathering of Israel, and how that applies to our work as missionaries. There were some pretty interesting, kind of deep-doctrine stuff going on there. Pretty cool.

Btw you should check out this talk, it's pretty great! It's by Elder Bruce C. Hafen, and it's about facing ambiguity, and it's great. http://speeches.byu.edu/index.php?act=viewitem&id=651

So anyways that was the week, it was pretty cool.

I hope everyone at home has a great week!

 

Love,

Peter

I got over myself, thank goodness.

Hey!

Wow, this is super weird that it's the second time on my mission that everyone's going back to school. I mean, the last time was like only 2 weeks in, but it's still weird.

Okay don't worry, even if I was kind of really sad to leave the last ward, I'm doing great. I got over myself, thank goodness. My new ward is pretty cool too. There are a lot of really cool people. There hasn't been a ton of work going on here, investigator-wise, but we're going to really try to help pick that up this transfer. But the members and less-actives are really cool! I'm excited to work here.

Thanks for all the news. I'm still disappointed that my brother didn't wait for me to finish his eagle project, but I think I'll get over it. I have actually played pandemic! One of my companions owned it, so we played it a couple of times when we were together. I'm looking forward to seeing the lego movie.

So yeah, things have actually been going pretty great. We've been getting to know the area. We're kind of trying to get to know it together. Long story there, but my companion doesn't know the area too well either. Last transfer he was sick for two weeks, and then had to work two areas when one of the elders in the ward had to go home early for school. So it's been a little crazy, neither of us knows the area very well. But things have been going good. We've been getting to know the members, and the less-actives, and some of the investigators, although there aren't too many of those.

An idea that we've been trying to work with is to help the members learn how to use Preach My Gospel. I've been realizing lately how cool it is! If you know how to use it, it can help you learn how to study, learn how to follow the spirit, learn the basic doctrines of the gospel, learn about the Book of Mormon, learn how to become like Christ, etc etc. So it's pretty great, you all should probably read it too.

I heard Stanford's off to a pretty good start, although I did hear they did not exactly win against USC, which is sad. You'll have to keep me updated with the NCAA! Actually you probably won't have to. The family that we live with has a 13-year-old son who is absolutely obsessed with football, so he should be able to keep me informed. But know that I'm rooting Stanford on from here in Colorado!

So but anyways things are going good. The missionaries in the ward are pretty great and fun to be with, and the members are awesome too. I went on exchanges on Saturday (I think that's the quickest into the transfer I've ever gone on exchanges), and that was cool. I actually taught this one really cool investigator who I'd taught on exchanges also in my previous ward, but who'd moved to this ward, so that was kind of cool.

Love,Peter

This is going to be awesome too.

Hi everyone!

It's a little weird, but I got transferred! I don't really understand why, but after just 6 weeks in the ward, I got transferred right across the street to the other Spanish ward. It was really crazy. I know when I first found out about it, I was just super sad. I just felt like there was so much more I could do there, and that I didn't understand why I was leaving, and that I loved the people in that area so much. But I know that it'll be okay, and that things will all turn out. I really do hope I can come back to that area someday, though. It was awesome. But this is going to be awesome, too.

I guess it's a lot easier to predict when someone is going to be transferred than when they aren't. Usually, if you've been there for 3 or more transfers, you'd get transferred (which is why it's a little weird that I, not my companion, got transferred). It's actually interesting, if you don't get along with a companion, it's actually more likely that you'll stay with him until you get along than that you'd be immediately transferred away from him.

I am still driving, thank goodness. Our car was in the shop until this morning, so we had to bike yesterday evening, but now we're good.

This ward is much smaller. As opposed to the other ward, which covers 4 stakes, D3 (as we call it :)), only covers one, the Aurora Stake. I think there's actually more members in this ward. And there's 4 sets of missionaries here, just like in the other two Spanish wards.

So my former companion is still in that same area, for his 4th transfer, and his 4th companion. It's pretty crazy. I've met my new companion before, and he's a pretty great guy. So he was in the same zone as me for a couple of transfers. He was actually in the ward where I was trained! it's gonna be a great transfer, and we're going to do a lot of work!

But uh to answer your question, the work is going well in my former ward! Probably the most exciting thing is this one investigator that we're working with has just continued to be awesome. I think I told you about her last time. Her husband is a member, but she isn't. But she's been doing great. It really seems like she's just doing everything she can to find out if the Church is true. She even came to a baptismal service on Saturday, and it seemed like she really liked it. So hopefully my companion will tell me if and when she gets baptized. So, some really cool things going on.

So also though I guess I can describe where I used to live, and then where I actually do live right now. So we did live in a pretty suburban little development of like I don't really know maybe you'd call them condos? They were little houses that were being rented, I don't know what you'd call that. But anyway that was where I was living. Now I'm living in another members' home, also in a fairly suburban area. It's pretty nice, we've got quite a bit of space to move around and stuff.

And we didn't really do anything for Labor Day. The ward had a barbeque, but by that time we were already transferring and stuff. We did play some basketball with some members of the new ward, though, which was more fun than I was expecting it to be.

But anyway, that was basically what happened, it's really crazy. I love you all, I hope things go well this week, with everyone starting school!

I'm sorry I can't write a ton, because it is a Tuesday, and we kind of do have to to work, but I want you to know I love you a lot!

Love,

Peter

I know that's true, 100%.

Hey Everyone!

Well it sounds like it's been a really busy week. I guess that's good? It's been a pretty busy week for us too, which is great. It's always good to be busy (well, not always, but at least here on a mission, it's a good thing.). As one of the less-active members from Monte Vista would always say, if you aren't busy, that's when you start getting in trouble.

You know, seasons actually don't affect the work as much as you might think. It's really been basically the same throughout all the seasons, as far as I can tell. I guess the only thing that I might say is different is that when it's below zero outside it's quite a bit harder to get up the motivation to go knock doors :).

Sorry, I don't have any pictures of me and my companion to give! Sorry! But I'll see what I can do for next Monday (by which time one of us might be gone, transfers!) This transfer has just blazed by, it's insane. You can definitely tell that he's from England from his accent. I wouldn't say it's hard to understand or anything, but it's distinctive. He has only ever lived in England, yes, although I think he's visited here once or twice before. There aren't really any prairie dogs here, although I would say we're still in the suburbs. But it's a lot less like rural here than up in Thornton. Like in Thornton there were actually some farms about like 20 minutes away from our house. But here it's mostly just a bunch of houses.

So for the week report thingy:

It was a really good week this week, actually. We taught a lot of people, we had dinner with members every day (I had pupusas for the first time ever, that was cool), people are actually progressing, and things are just pretty cool.

Probably the top highlights of the week:

-So there's this one family where the Dad is a less-active member, and the wife isn't a member. We've been trying to teach them, but they've been dropping appointments and just generally not seeming super promising. But this week they kept two appointments we had with them (these were apparently the first two appointments they'd ever kept while my companion had been there, and he's been here for 4 months), both of them came to church, she read from the Book of Mormon, and maybe best of all, they invited us over for dinner next week :)! The wife, who isn't a member, really seems to want to learn more. And it's also been really cool to see her husband be really encouraging and supportive, he's been a real help in our lessons.

-So and then this one happened just last night. So two transfers ago, my companion and his companion at the time were teaching this one family (It's a pretty bizarre family situation, I'm probably not going to go into it). But then the daughter (not really, we'll just say that), who was the one who was the most interested, and who'd read from the Book of Mormon and felt like it was true, went on a three month vacation to Mexico to see her (real) parents, who are hardcore Catholics. So she got back like a week ago, and we finally got to teach her last night. I guess while she was there, she had some good experiences with the Catholic church, and is now like super confused because she's had spiritual experiences with both churches! So what does she do now? Well, during the whole lesson we really just talked about the holy ghost, and how God is really the only one who can tell us what is true. So we're going by today to drop off a copy of the Book of Mormon (she lost hers), and she's going to read it and figure things out, and it's going to be great. 

Throughout the whole lesson I kind of really just wanted to talk about how okay here are somethings that the Catholic church believes, do you believe that (like the whole till death do you part thing, or the whole changing the 10 commandments thing), but I knew that that really wouldn't help anything at all. We can talk about doctrine forever, but until people find out for themselves, it won't help. So that was a pretty great experience, anyways.

Lots of other cool stuff in the week. We got to go to the temple, which was great as always, we were able to take our ward mission leader out with us for like all of sunday, which was pretty awesome. Our WML is super cool. He got back from a mission in Utah about a year ago, and he's just so willing to help with anything.

I feel like I need to write something spiritual, because I really haven't like specifically done that in a while. Anyhow, I've been reading in Moses lately, and I was just thinking about a really cool doctrine in Chapter 1, v. 35. God's works are infinite, and we definitely can't imagine how many thing's he's created. But he knows everything, everyone, he's created perfectly. I know that's true, 100%.

I love you all, and I hope everything's going well. I'm asking everyone this, so hopefully someone tells me: how much time do you guys have until school starts again? Here it's been going on for like 3 weeks already, depending on the district.

 

Love,

Peter

For the first few months, it seemed like I was going to be on a mission forever

Heyyyyyyyyy Everyone!

Sounds like a good week!

Um, there aren't really any traditions related to being out for a year. Or really anything to call it. The day that you've been out for a year is called your "year mark". Really imaginative, huh? The only sort of tradition is that some people decide that it'd be a good idea to burn a shirt. But I'm thinking I'm probably not going to do that.
 
It does not seem like I've been out for that long. It's kind of crazy. I mean, when I think about it, I realize that it really has been a long time since I was in the MTC. But it's still kind of insane. Time goes by so dang quickly! It's pretty crazy--for the first few months, it seemed like I was going to be on a mission forever. but the time keeps passing, and now it's almost halfway over. It's honestly a little bit scary.

And I haven't really been keeping in touch with anyone. Our MTC district got kind of lame about that, but whatever. Actually though today some people emailed everyone about how it's crazy that we've been out for a year, so that's something.

I'm sorry if this isn't a super long email (as usual), I kind of have to get out quick so that we can go and get free haircuts :)

So anyway this week was pretty great! We've been doing a lot of work, and it's been cool.
So we've been doing service at this place called the Food Bank of the Rockies, it's pretty huge, you can probably find out more about it on the internets, but anyways this Tuesday we went there and they gave us this project where we were basically taping shut and stacking 30-pound boxes of food for low-income seniors. I never knew that stacking things could be so tiring, but that was probably the most physically demanding service project I've ever done, kinda crazy.

Another cool thing, so a couple of weeks ago, we were visiting an investigator, and her sister was there. The investigator herself isn't actually that interested, but her sister was! So but then we kind of forgot about her until this Friday, when we were able to actually teach her, and she seems super great. She's one of those people that wants to really know the truth, and I know she'll be able to find it!

Also, we had zone conference on Thursday. There were good things about it, it helped me think about how I talk to people, how I teach. That came from a training from the Assistants to the president. But far too much of the zone conference was taken up by talking about cars and housing. But that's okay! This week is going to be pretty great. We have a temple trip on Wednesday, which'll be awesome.

These past few weeks have gone by so fast. It's kind of ridiculous, and a little bit scary, honestly. The further I get in my mission, the faster time seems to go.

I love you all, and I hope you have a great week. Love,Peter