Sept 28, 2015 Letter from Marion, VA

I got E Langsmith this week. (From Alabama) I knew him in the beginning of my mission so it's cool to be his comp now. It's also cool to see how much we've both grown on our missions. I lost Elder Schultz this week, but he went to a better place. He's with Elder Titus now, they're both super tall and legit. Yesterday at church someone slipped 10 bucks into both me and Elder Langsmith's inside suit pockets. That was a great surprise. It was a great welcoming for Elder Langsmith to the branch. I'm also excited for conference, it's so cool that we get to hear from our Prophet and the leadership of the church this weekend. Sorry it's short this week, love y'all, Elder Jared Petersen

Favorites from my MOM letter:

"I'm excited for conference too! It seems like I get more excited for every general conference. I bore my testimony in church about how incredible it is that we have a prophet and we get to listen to him and the rest of the leadership of the church in conference. It's really such a great opportunity to find ways to become more committed to the gospel."

"So at church someone slipped 10 bucks into both me and E Langsmiths suits. We have no idea how, they got it in the inside pocket, so someone was really smooth. They pulled a fast one on the branch magician haha." (He loves doing magic tricks for the youth and investigators and even finds a way to tie it into the lessons. Funny kid!)

September 21, 2015 Marion, VA

(Highlights/favorite part from MOM)

This week I'm pretty proud to tell y'all about a prank I pulled on our mission president. We had dinner with a member on Friday and I did a couple magic tricks and related them to the gospel for the kids. One of the kids got really excited and asked his mom if he could show me his magic trick. I was ready to pretend to be entertained by his magic trick, but then he blew my mind. He had this white powder and he put a little of it into water and the water instantly turned to slush! It
was crazy! Then they offered me a small bag of the white powder!  We had a zone meeting the next day, and I plotted out how I was going to prank President with it. It was like mission
impossible.

First off, I had to figure out how I was going to avoid the consequences. I know that President always has a diet coke, so I stopped at a gas station on the way and got him a diet coke to replace
the one I was about to ruin. Second, I didn't want President to drink this powder stuff, because it can't be good for you, so I brought a pin and poke holes in his straw so it wouldn't work and when his straw wouldn't work he'd look in his drink to see what was up and then he'd see it's slush. The hard part was that I couldn't plan how to get his drink and put the stuff in it. So when we were in there before the meeting, President walked out for a minute and I made a beeline for his drink. I grabbed it and took it out of the room and put the stuff in it. It was like diffusing a bomb. I got it done pretty quick and on my way back into the room I saw President just down the hallway. I
went in one door and he went in another, so we were both in the room and I still had to get his drink back to it's original location. I was successful. I'm now considering a career in special forces. After I got his drink back I just had to sit back and watch and let the adrenaline wear off. There was about 10 seconds between when I put his drink back and when he went to take a drink, but luckily I was able to start videoing just in time. As soon as he figured out what was up he blamed the zone leaders for it, I didn't even take the fall for it.

But then I gave him his replacement diet coke and he knew it was me, but I totally could have gone unknown if I wanted to. We also had transfer calls, and I found out that Elder Schultz is
going to be leaving. We figured he would, but we were both hoping he might be able to stay. Transfer calls were really cool, we had stake conference just before them and President was there for it, so he had all the missionaries that were there sit in live for the transfer call.

My birthday was great, I got 55 emails on my birthday! It was fantastic. I really appreciated all the birthday wishes, and hearing from some people who I haven't heard from much. (If you feel guilty
when you read that, it's ok, just repent and change haha) All y'all made my birthday great though. We also had some awesome members feed us lunch and dinner. We had lunch at a Mexican restaurant, and the members told them it was my birthday so they sang happy birthday and
brought out a desert. Then our waitress fed me some of my desert while they sang happy birthday. It felt like breaking some kind of rule, I don't know if I should repent of that or not... It was a fun day though, we also found a new person to teach on my birthday. 

Zone meeting was really good, President showed us how much we've improved as a mission in the last year and it's phenomenal. In some categories we are leading the United States missions, which is pretty incredible to me. I also learned a lot from our meeting, President read from Luke chapter 5 to us, and explained it. The way he explains scriptures is incredible to me, every time I've put in the effort to try to listen and learn from him I have. He explained how in Luke 5, Simon Peter meets Jesus. Jesus was basically being chased by a crowd of people who wanted Him to teach them, and he got to a sea. There were a couple boats that had just came in after a long time of
unsuccessful fishing. Jesus walked onto one of these boats, it was Simon Peter's, and asked him to push the boat out a little. With the boat pushed out a little Jesus could see the whole crowd and he preached to them from the boat. After he preached he asked Simon Peter to push the boat out farther, presumably to fish, and Simon Peter was reluctant because he had been fishing likely his whole life and knew that it wasn't a good time to fish. He said that he'd do it nevertheless, or even though he wasn't fond of the idea, and when they put in the nets they were so full that the nets broke. This was a great blessing to Simon Peter. It was after they returned to shore that Jesus asked them to follow him and be fishers of men. President talked about how it was when their nets were full, that Christ asked them to leave the nets and follow him. He related that to us as missionaries, and it relates to anyone else also. He talked about how each of us missionaries left our lives when our nets were full. We all had so many blessings in our lives when we answered His
call to serve a mission. Most of us had a new freedom to do what we want, opportunities to pursue a career or go to college, friends, family, people who we loved. We had lots of material things, nice
beds, nice phones, cars, video games, and whatever other things we enjoyed. And it was at this time when we felt like we had it made that Jesus called us to be fishers of men. It was when our nets were full and we felt like we had it made that we were asked to leave it all and serve the Lord. We weren't forced into it, and it wasn't easy for any of us, but we had learned to trust God and we all loved him and wanted to share the things that he's blessed us with. It made me think of a
time when some one, who isn't a member of the church, told me that the best advertisement the church has is the missionary force. I think that's because the missionary program uses mostly 18 to 21 year olds to tell people about what they consider the most important thing in the world, and the program is successful. 

So it's been a good week. I'm not really looking forward to sending off Elder Schultz, we've had a great time together, but I'm sure I'll have a great time with my next comp too. I'll let youns know about him next week.
Love y'all,

Elder Jared Petersen

The "magicc slushy" stuff

Mission President Prank Video (hope it works)