which I think is a good thing, probably

First of all, sorry for being pretty late with this--when we first went to email the library's internet was down, so we went and did our other p-day stuff before coming here. But here I am! Still safe and sound!

To answer the questions you had: No, I did not know that Aurora's been in the news lately. What happened? Now that we're living on our own, we get a lot less news...

I have gotten to know or at least be pretty aware of some of the investigators in other missionaries' areas, for a couple reasons. First of all, I try to say hi to the ones that come to church, so there's that. Also, one of the things I try to do as a district leader is that I try to get to know what sort of things the missionaries in my district are doing, including the people they're teaching. So that's cool.

There are no longer ten missionaries in the ward. There are only eight now, both of the trios got taken down do regular 2-person companionships.

And the apartment's pretty great. The shower isn't great, but aside from that it's pretty cool, especially because we live a lot closer to most of the work in our area now.

For us this was a pretty good week, although things are still going pretty dang slow investigator-wise, which is rough. The last few weeks we've only taught one investigator the entire week. I don't even really know what our problem is. I guess we're just going through a slower time. We're still working hard though, and the one investigator that we are teaching regularly is really awesome, so that's fun. And we're doing a lot of less-active work (last week we taught 11 lessons to less-actives and recent converts, which is a lot.) And things are going pretty good with them! We had two less-active families at church yesterday, which was really exciting, and we were able to get in touch with and teach a few less-actives that we hadn't had any contact with ever before, which was cool.

We also had interviews this week, and it's always kinda cool to talk to President Mendenhall, although we didn't have a ton to talk about (which I think is a good thing, probably).

That's about it, basically. Sorry for being not super exciting this week :/

Love,

Peter! (was that exciting?)

We got to learn a lot!

Happy Martin Luther King Day yesterday to you too!

Anyways this week was pretty good! In some ways! We were able to continue to teach this great investigator that we found a couple of weeks ago. When we went over this week she gave us hot chocolate and that was awesome, even though it wasn't that cold. And it hasn't really been at all cold lately, which has been pretty ridiculous. Like it's hit 60 a few times last week, and it's January. What the heck.

And we also had a few less active members come to church on Sunday, which was really cool! So that part was good.

Aside from that, it was kind of slow, honestly. But that's okay! We got to learn a lot! Of patience! 

And there were some other cool things. Our recent convert is doing awesome. She's super great and continues to progress in the church. And this week is gonna be great.

RIght after I send you this, we're going to go and have a lady from the Monte Vista Ward help us learn how to do family history work, and that'll be great, and we have interviews with President Mendenhall this week too, which should be fun.

Cool that you're reading the goal-setting chapter of Preach My Gospel. It's a pretty good chapter. I guess I hadn't really thought much about its application outside of actual missionary work. What were some of the insights you guys had about that?

Yes, it's kind of bizarre how used to wal mart I am now. Honestly though it's not that different from target, at least in the way the store is. I'm sure the new missionary from our ward will get used to it eventually too :). 

I hope everything is great at home!

Love,
Peter

We have a dishwasher! Crazy!

Well it sounds like a pretty crazy week.

You have to tell me about the new board game. Okay guys check it out: for p-day today we're getting together with the whole zone and we're going to play board and card games including turns out some other elder's family plays "the name game" as well, so we're gonna play that and it's gonna be awesome.

I'm glad there's good football news in Oregon (going to the national championship), because people are generally pretty upset here. We were tracting during the game yesterday, and we could literally get no one to listen to us. So that was fun.

 

So anyways, this week went really well for us. My companion's a really great guy; we're getting along really well. He's really driven to like do the best he can, but he doesn't take himself seriously at all, so it's pretty great. So we're enjoying this companionship. 

The new apartment's actually pretty nice. We have a dishwasher! Crazy! Even the members that we used to live with didn't have a dishwasher, so it's exciting. And it's a lot closer to a lot of the work we have. We are still working in the same part of the ward, just a new living situation.

But yeah, a lot of really great things happened this week. We were able to meet with quite a few of the investigators we hadn't been able to see in a while, which was cool. This one lady is super awesome. We just tracted into her, but she has some member relatives that she really admires, and wants to find out more. We had a lesson with her this week with a member couple that went really well--they were able to testify of how much the gospel had blessed their family, and she actually came to church on Sunday, and seemed to enjoy it! So that was really cool. She's like half Peruvian and half Panamanian (which is cool--I'm trying to make a list of someone I know from every single Spanish-speaking country, and I hadn't met anyone from Panama yet :))

And then of course, it was really cool that Elder Bednar came! That was really awesome. There were like 300 missionaries there--everyone from our mission and then a lot from the Colorado Denver South Mission, and Elder Bednar was just so awesome. Beyond anything he taught us, I think the coolest thing about the event was just the amazing example he is. He's really humble, loving, and just radiates priesthood power. He would have individual missionaries stand up and make comments, and then he'd ask an extremely good question like immediately, which I don't know if you've tried to do that, is really really hard. So basically Elder Bednar's just amazing. And he's really funny, too. Pretty dang great. And then after the conference, our ward mission leader took us out to get pupusas, which was awesome. So basically things were just pretty great this week.

I hope everything's going great with you guys! Have a great week! I love you tons!

Love,

Peter

Some people are starting to make a lot of progress, which is neat.

Hey!

I guess I can imagine how excited everyone there in Portland is about the Ducks, that must be really annoying or something. And okay question: what was everyone's favorite part of Disneyland? that picture with Elsa and Ana probably, am I right?

So just to let everyone know about the whole like transfers thing, I am staying here; my companion moved out this morning, and he's headed up to the northern ward I served in previously. He's gonna be companions with one of my favorite companions so they'll do great. My new companion is pretty cool! He came out at the same time as my last companion, so he just finished his training as well. He's from St. George, and actually something really cool is that he knows my cousins! He was in the same trek family as one of them, and was in the same grade as the other, so that's kinda sweet.

This week was a pretty good end to the transfer, although a little bit hectic. We had to move on Friday, because the family that we were living with has some more family moving in and there isn't gonna be room for us. So we literally spent all day Friday moving. We finished moving everything into the new apartment at 8:59. We have to be in at 9:00 unless we're teaching someone, so we hurried and knocked our neighbor's door and talked to him so we could do at least a little bit of missionary work that day.

Aside from that, it was a pretty good week. We were able to teach a lot of less-actives, especially, which was cool. Some people who have been really less active are starting to make a lot of progress, which is neat. Investigator-wise, people are being really flaky lately, which is frustrating a little bit. I think it was frustrating my companion especially, so he might be a little glad to be somewhere else.

Also, it's been really cold. It's annoying. On Tuesday it got down to -10. It was so cold! Luckily we were able to spend most of the time indoors teaching and doing service. We did have a little tracting, but it was a miracle, the first door we knocked in the -2 degree weather let us in! That was pretty nice.

So anyways what I'm really super excited about today is that Elder Bednar is coming to talk to us in person in like four days! I'm really excited about that, it's gonna be really great. We're fasting as a mission to prepare for it.

Thanks so much for everything! I don't know our address right now so probably it'd be good to just send anything to the mission office.

I love you all! Have a great week!

 

Love,

Peter

Once you get working, things get easier.

Well as I've told everyone else so far it was really great to talk to you all on Christmas as well. That was a lot of fun. And yeah the family that we went with are really great. Don't worry, we thanked them a lot.

Yes I really actually do like the mango chili lollipops. They're really good okay. Don't doubt it. You just have to try them a bunch of times and then you start liking them. 

Re:scrabble, maybe it was that um some people actually like scrabble okay? It wasn't even me that suggested we play scrabble okay?

And tracting is okay. I have had a lot of interesting experiences. Pretty nuts. You don't get those experiences any other way, really.

This week was pretty great for a few reasons! First of all, obviously it was kind of Christmas or something like that. We had a lot of great things go on. On Christmas Eve we had a really great Dinner with members, then we went and hung out with the other missionaries (that was the scrabble), and then on Christmas, we started out the day opening presents, studying, and watching church Christmas movies. Then we had a really great lunch with all the missionaries in the ward and our ward mission leader--posole. Really good. Then we went and watched like the second half of Frozen, chatted with you guys, went to dinner, watched How to Train your Dragon 2 (really good, that was a lot of fun), and then I kind of watched the first half of Frozen on our tiny little portable dvd player. So anyways that was a really fun day. Maybe not a ton of missionary work, but it was fun. 

And then the rest of the week happened. We were able to do a lot of work, mostly with less-actives. We had quite a few appointments fall through, which was not very fun. But we were able to make the most of it, and it was good. One of the less-actives we've been working with actually came to church on Sunday, and he seemed to really like it, so that was really cool.

 

It's been a pretty tiring week, but one thing that I've definitely learned has been that if I just get up and get to work, I get more energy. It's a big temptation to not work hard, when things are not looking so encouraging. But once you get working, things get easier. As soon as we take that step of faith, Heavenly Father blesses us. That's something we're trying to get a lot of our less-actives to realize.

Happy New Year! We're probably not going to do much--we have to be home by 6 on new years' eve, and then on new years' day we have a huge mission-wide meeting that's gonna take up most of the day. We can do that sort of thing because our mission is tiny! Yay!

Anyways, I'm sorry I don't have a like ton to tell you, I did kind of just talk to you recently. I love you a lot!

 

Love,

Peter

Merry Merry Christmas!

Merry Merry Christmas! It's the most wonderful time of the year or something like that.

It sounds like everyone in Oregon's had a great pre-Christmas week. That's a whole heck of a lot of concerts to go to, though. I'm jealous of course. Not many concert opportunities on the mission.

I'm happy it never gets down to -20 here in Colorado.

I think I can probably best tell you how the week went by telling you that I learned this week that Ibuprofen and Tylenol are wonderful, and that Robitussin tastes really nasty. Kinda got sick this week for a while, it kinda really sucked. Had to stay in on Thursday and Friday with what we're pretty sure is the flu. But we're getting better, so we're really hoping to be better by Christmas. But even though there were some not super happy things like being sick, the week was still good. 

We were able to find a new family of investigators, just by tracting (People are just letting us in left and right nowadays, I think it's the Christmas spirit or something like that.), and we were able to visit a couple of less-actives who really needed it.

We also had a pretty fun little event on Thursday that we were well enough to go to--we did a Christmas devotional, which was basically a mini zone conference. Plus all of the zones put on Christmas skits (ours was a like mission 12 days of Christmas) and we got free food. What could be better? 

PLUS they had a missionary choir that I sang in and that was really fun. Spanish wards honestly don't sing too well, so it was really cool to sing with a lot of people who can actually sing pretty well. So that was pretty fun I'd say.

I'm really looking forward to Christmas, let me tell you. We've got some pretty cool plans--we're going to have dinner and lunch with all of the missionaries in the ward, and visit a couple of members, and of course... SKYPE HOME YAY. 

Christmas is just really great, everyone. It's a really awesome time to just remember all the things Christ did for us. I hope you all know that I know he really is our Savior. That's why I'm here in Denver, and not at home for Christmas.

I love you all a ton.

 

Peter

"I'm happier"

Dear everyone,

First of all, pretty funny that you got to help out with the zone conference lunch. It's weird how things are so similar everywhere in the church. I kind of thought that was just a Colorado thing to have zone conference lunch provided by the stake, but yeah that's totally a thing we do here too. We also always sing to the sisters that made and served the lunch. Our song is just straight up the "Army of Helaman" without any changed lyrics except that at the end after the "to bring the world his truth" we say "and thank you for the food." So anyway we're basically pretty cool I think is how that works.

This week was pretty great for us. The biggest, most awesome thing, was that our investigator was baptized and confirmed! It was really, really awesome. There was kind of a little bit of stress leading up to it, not being able to find the baptismal clothing, and some other craziness, but as soon as the baptismal service started, it was just great. The first counselor in the bishopric did the actual baptism, and our bishop confirmed her yesterday, so that was pretty cool. I got to give a talk about the gift of the Holy Ghost at the actual baptism--I think that was the first time I've actually given a written talk in Spanish here. I mean, I've borne my testimony plenty of times, and done some other like impromptu stuff, but in terms of a talk talk, that was the first time. The whole time the Spirit was just super strong. It was really just amazing to see how much she's changed, how much she wants to do the right thing. As we've been teaching her, she's been talking about how much different she feels than before. And then after she was baptized, we were just telling her how happy we were for her, and she just told us "I'm happier." And you know that just felt so awesome. It really is an amazing experience to see someone change so much. We talked to her yesterday after she received the Holy Ghost, and she just told us that she felt so good. Leading up to her baptism she was feeling kind of nervous, but she said that she just felt completely calm and great. So basically I just can't come up with enough ways of saying that it is just completely great to be a missionary.

Another pretty cool experience came from a girl we've been helping to reactivate. Basically she's gone from completely not active when we got here to completely active now. I've mentioned her before, because she's really cool basically. Something really awesome is that most of her family is either less-active or nonmembers, it's just her and her mom that are going to church right now. Her Mom told us that her Dad is like really not friendly towards the church, and actually tried to get her to stop going to church. But apparently her reaction to that was a "He[ck] no!" So basically when I heard that I laughed a lot and fist-bumped her :).

 

And then after the baptismal service we had the ward Christmas party which was pretty good too. Had some weird dessert thing where you basically just make a really crispy (not burnt, not sure exactly how that works) tortilla, and then completely cover it in cinnamon sugar. That was really good. And of course, lately we've been singing a lot of Christmas carols at basically any meeting we go to ever. So that's a lot of fun.

Things are going great. We're finally being able to get into the Christmas spirit now that it's finally started to snow and it's gotten below 40 degrees outside. I hope everything's going well with you all. I don't have details about Christmas calls/skyping yet, but I'll obviously make sure to make that happen next Monday.

 

Love you all!

Peter

 

P.s. I don't have the classic "in baptismal clothing" picture because things were a little crazy, but here's a picture we took during the ward Christmas party.