My Mission

January 11, 2016

Last Sunday E Martinez was asked to give a talk, but we both
thought that his talk was next week. So this week he found out he was
speaking and pretty much gave his talk on the fly. He gave a good talk
though, he talked about the Book of Mormon and the role it's played in
his life. I was impressed how well he gave his talk on the fly. I
thought it was pretty funny that he's already had to do that a month
into his mission and I still haven't had to give a last minute talk.
President Soliai also spoke and I really liked what he had to say. He
talked a bit about the work in Brevard and gave a poem that I can
really relate to.

Father, where shall I work today? And my love flowed warm and free.
Then He pointed me out a tiny spot and said, "Tend that for me."
I answered quickly, "Oh no, not that! Why no one would ever see
No matter how well my work was done,
Not that little place for me."
And the words He spoke, they were not stern
"Ah, little one, search that heart of thine;
Nazareth was a little place,
And so was Galilee."

We did a lot of trying to find more people to teach. I took E
Martinez for his first time really tracting this week. We've gone to
knock on a few doors here and there, but it was his first time just
going up and down a street knocking on all the doors. It went alright
for tracting, an old lady told us how much she appreciated us
spreading the word and how nice we looked, but she wasn't interested
in talking with us because she said we're going to the same place
anyways. E Martinez was so surprised that she would say that to us
even though she's not a member. I told him that happens all the time
in he south, lots of people love us, they just don't think they need
what we have to offer.
There's a couple who we've been working with, J and T.
J is a member and T isn't yet, but they came last week and
stayed 1 hour and they came again this week and stayed 2 hours and
they plan to stay all 3 hours next week and come to church
consistently after that. The coolest thing with them is that one of
them is always pushing the other one along. Last week J got
T to come to church and was able to get her to agree to coming
every Sunday and this week J wanted to bail out after the first
hour, but T drug him to class and made him stick to the plan of
staying for 2 hours. Most of the time with people in situations like
theirs I've seen that one spouse will be trying and the other will
either not be trying or be antagonistic about it. I really like how
they both pick up each other's slack and work to do what they need to.

Love y'all,

Elder Jared Petersen