My Mission

December 28, 2016

I can't believe Christmas has already come and gone! It was a really
fun week though. We had Christmas zone training meeting. We got some
news that I'm not too excited about, I'm not going to lie, but I'm
sure it'll help us as a mission. We aren't going to be having transfer
meetings any more. The way transfers will work now is on Tuesday you
get a phone call saying if you're going and where and who with, and on
Wednesday you leave. I guess it's the way the did it a long time ago,
like in Joseph Smith's time. It doesn't give us very much time to say
bye to people and to pack, but it's supposed to help us be more
effective with our time so it will help us more in sharing the gospel.
We also played dodgeball at the meeting, which was a lot of fun, and
we got to watch Big Hero 6.
On Christmas we got to skype our families! That was a lot of fun,
E Martinez had his first skype call and I had my last so we had
both ends of the spectrum. We went over to the Andersen's for
Christmas and to Skype and they're a great family. They've got 4 boys,
so there's never a dull moment. They all got remote controlled cars,
which is pretty much my favorite kind of toy, so it was fun to see
them having so much fun with them. They also took us to a lights show
that was really cool. They've got like a track laid out that you drive
on and tons of Christmas lights to look at. The first half the lights
are like funny little light up cartoons that move, and the second half
the lights go to Christmas music.
There's a family who we visit pretty often, there's one member and the
rest of them aren't members but they're Christian. We saw them a
couple times this week and they've always been friendly towards us,
but when it came to differences in beliefs the grandpa would always
tell us that he believes differently than us and that's just the way
it is and he'd usually talk about some of the things he's heard about
our beliefs that he doesn't agree with so much. He's not antagonistic
about it, he just wants to draw a line and make sure we don't cross
it. This week he acted a little differently though, we showed them A
Savior Is Born and he loved it. He told us how some people say we
believe in a different Jesus, and that through talking to us he's
found that simply isn't true. He also said that when it comes down to
it he feels that we have more beliefs in common than we have
differences. It was so cool to see how he's come to view the church
differently and even though he still does believe differently he
respects us and I'm sure he'd stand up for us. One of my favorite
things I've seen on my mission is when someone who isn't a member of
the church has enough respect for us to defend the church. I'm really
hoping that somewhere down the road he'll soften up towards the church
enough to be taught and baptized.
I gave a talk on Sunday. In a small branch like this everyone talks
pretty often, so the missionaries talk a lot. My talk was on service
and I talked a lot about how the greatest service you can do for
someone is to share your testimony of the gospel with them. Afterwards
everyone told me I did well. One lady told me that she was going to
share some of the things that I said with some of her friends. I told
her that is the best thing she could do with it.
Hope y'all have a Happy New Year!
Love y'all,

Elder Jared Petersen