Nov 16, 2015

Picture from Transfers

Letter:

Since we had stake conference last week I hadn't got to meet the
members here for almost 2 weeks! It was kinda strange to be in an area
where I don't know the members, it showed me more of how much the
members matter in an area. I felt like I was in some kind of limbo
almost, just lost between areas, because the members are really the
thing that makes me feel tied to an area.
I found out something really cool about the members here. We taught
the lesson in priesthood and it was about bringing the gospel to the
world. We asked how many of the brothers had served missions and not a
single one raised their hands. So we asked how many were converts and
almost every single man there was a convert. They're all older, so we
asked how many had grandkids who've served missions and quite a few of
them raised their hands. It was cool to me to be in a room full of
first generation Mormons, and to hear a bit about the kind of change
there has been in their family because of their conversion. Our lesson
was also really good, there was a lot of participation and I got some
insight into many of their lives. I was also really glad that I had
the opportunity my first time meeting them to teach a lesson and
hopefully gain some trust because of the lesson we taught.
We also met a family this week who is less active, and hasn't been
visited by missionaries since they've moved here years ago. Our whole
mission has been searching out a group of people who we call the
suspicious. They're the people who are on the rosters, but no one
knows them. So these people were in the suspicious category. They were
really nice, they let us right in and talked to us like they'd been
meeting with missionaries for years. We talked mostly about football,
if anyone is going to serve a mission in the south I'd encourage them
to get to know about football. There's a small college here, and a
high school. The high school mascot is the blue devils, and they got
turf recently. They wanted to get blue turf, but since the college
football team uses the high school football field they couldn't do it
because Boise State has patented the idea of a college with a blue
football field. I thought that was cool, this is the only place I've
heard people talk about the Smurf Turf with envy. I'm looking forward
to meeting with the family more, they have a lot of potential. They
have 2 sons who we didn't meet, but they're like 14 and 17. The mom
told us that she'd been teasing them about having the missionaries
come over to help them get ready to serve a mission. So we'll see how
that goes, I hope we can get them thinking about missions and maybe
they'll decide to serve.
Love y'all,

Elder Jared Petersen