Letter March 23, 2015
This week has been a good week, I'm on the downhill slide now, but it doesn't feel that way. The whole concept of time is just skewed for me now haha.
On Tuesday we helped someone move. At the end of my mission I'll have probably moved over a hundred people. It's all fun though, I actually enjoy moving people. We also gave a lady in the ward a blessing, she's been real depressed and stuff and we've been able to help her feel better. It's interesting to me how quickly people start feeling better when we talk to them about the gospel. You can literally watch the hope come into their eyes if you pay attention.
On Wednesday we visited a retired preacher who knows the Bible inside and out. We learned a bit from him. It was cool to notice how the spirit tells you what's true and what's not, but I've found it to be really hard to notice. We also met a family who is less active and from Idaho! The wife is actually from Kuna, and I know their cousins. That was pretty cool.
On Thursday we did splits with the Ward Council. It was cool to talk with them and get to know some ward members better. I went with the dad of the young man who we took out and he told me about how his son talked and talked and talked about it and really liked it. I was so glad to hear that.
On Friday We had zone training, it was so good! There was a big focus on working with members and planning. We are getting Ipads in May, and everyone's excited about that but President told us "The Ipads aren't the silver bullet. The members are." I really liked how he pointed that out and I think there's a ton of untapped potential in the members of our church. We all need to just learn to do missionary work, and when members can do missionary work the results will be phenomenal.
On Saturday we took another young man out. The two that we took out this week are brothers. We had a good time with him and hopefully he enjoyed it as much as his brother. After we dropped him off we did a lot of tracting. It wasn't bad, one guy was willing to talk to us, but we almost got into a bible bash. I've gotten really good at avoiding bible bashing but it was hard to avoid it with him. His beef was Revelations 22:19. We explained to him how it was only pertaining to the book of Revelations because the bible wasn't compiled at the time. It was actually compiled about 500 years later. Another lady opened the door, kindly said she wasn't interested and we kept going. She then came back out and told us to knock on her basement door and teach her sons. We taught them a super solid lesson and they both really felt the spirit. We asked them to pray at the end and without us even asking them to they were asking God if it was all true and asking him to show them the truth. I was so excited for them.
On Sunday an investigator who we haven't been able to contact in forever just showed up to church. We were so surprised. The family who we had dinner with that night also came and just invited him to join us all for dinner! They're a great family. He came over to their house and we had some great conversation about the gospel. He really wants to do the right things which is awesome.
Love youns,
Elder Jared Petersen
Letter from March 30, 2015
This week has been fun, the transfer is getting close to the end which is weird. It seems like I haven't been here long at all. I still like it here though.
On Tuesday we were able to go out with the Bishop here and get to know him a bit and also talk to a few people. We had a good time with him and he told us some helpful things about the ward, so it was really good. He also told us that he wants to try to go out with us weekly, which will be awesome.
On Wednesday we did some service for our Ward Mission Leader. He had some yard work that he needed done and me and Elder Johns got it all done really quick. It was fun to do some yard work for them, I kinda missed doing service during the winter.
On Thursday we did quite a bit of planning. I've learned a lot about how helpful planning is. A lot of people will just go out with no idea of what to do, and it just doesn't work out. We also took one of our young men out, it's been fun to get them involved. They've never gone out with the missionaries before and it's been good for them to get an idea of what it's like.
On Friday we had district meeting, it was pretty good. Half of our district is in another ward, so we only get to see them at district meetings. They're all a lot of fun though, we have a pretty great district. We also had a ward social which was good, I'm starting to really like the ward here.
On Saturday we helped move a few people. The other missionaries in our ward also baptized one of their investigators, he's a really good guy. President Griffin came to the baptism and it's always a good time when we get to see President Griffin.
On Sunday we had church and the missionaries taught priesthood lessons about family mission plans. It was pretty good, I think the biggest thing that stops people from doing missionary work is that they just don't know what to do. It's interesting to try to see their perspective. For me missionary work is almost all I know how to do now, it's weird, but for them it's the opposite. We kept telling them to just ask the missionaries about how they can share the gospel, because you can't just give a general 'This is what works and this is what doesn't.' That also shows how individual the gospel is. The gospel works differently for everyone, and we all have to figure out how the gospel should work in our lives.
Love youns,
Elder Jared Petersen
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