No transfer, Staying in Chattanooga

January 20, 2015

So we bought that fun camera that downloads to the internet. So I usually get pictures throughout the week. This was what I got this week. Awesome right? Looked like it needed stitches to me. I got the story a few days later...... Just for me

"This week was pretty great, and it didn't involve any stitches haha. In that picture of my leg I made sure that the cut looked a lot deeper than it was, it really just took a chunk off the top. I did it trying to jump onto the stage at the stake center. I got up, but my shoe didn't have enough grip on the bottom, so it slipped off and my shin hit the edge of the stage really hard. It hurt really bad, and still does hurt, but it's just bruised really bad, I think the bone is bruised, but the cut isn't bad."

I send him favorite parts of lessons from Sunday School and RS.... I love to hear his replies

"I like that thought of praying until you feel like it. Another thing I've experienced is praying when you don't really have a good attitude, and then paying attention to how your attitude changes as you pray. It's really cool to me how clearly you can tell the difference when you just pay attention to it."

Here is his letter:

So this week was fun, we got to meet most of the new missionaries in the zone, and there's a lot of them. E Zuniga (Zoo-knee-gah) is the only new one in our district. He's a really cool guy, from Mexico. He's learning English

On Tuesday we had the departing breakfast at S Bridgette's. All the missionaries who are leaving get to have breakfast with her. We joined because she's in our area. There were 18 missionaries there. It was really good.

On Wednesday it was transfers and we didn't get to go. It's always hard to not go to transfers. I've only missed 2 of them though so far. We also had our missionary open house Wednesday night, and that was really fun.

On Thursday we had District meeting, where we got to meet E Zuniga. He came out with E Titus. It was pretty good, we learned about teaching without rote presentation. I'd also hurt my leg last p day, I bruised it really bad, so all day I was limping around since it hurt. That was really fun. 

On Friday we did some tracting and the first guy we came across let us in and we taught him about the restoration. He had lots of interesting questions, and he already had a book of Mormon. He had just found it and picked it up. 

On Saturday we spent most of the day doing service. An older lady in the branch needed some like mesh stuff put up around her porch, so we did that for her. We also contacted a referral from a member and had a lesson with her. It was really good, she recognized that the Bible is imperfect and that there are lots of imperfect religions. We shared the restoration with her and she liked and agreed with it.

On Sunday we finally got a Branch Mission Leader in YSA! He's a really cool guy and he's excited to help us. Other than that we had a typical 9 hours of church day. 

On Monday we had p day and it was MLK day. People here actually celebrate MLK day, I think that's because there's a lot of black people. We even heard fireworks (or possibly gunshots but we are saying fireworks) at night. 

Love y'all,

Elder Jared Petersen

PS The temperature today is about 64 degrees, and it feels like May. I thought y'all might be interested to hear that while you have snow outside haha.

This picture was a few weeks old, but I like it =)

Happy New Year!

Jan 5, 2015

Happy 2015 y'all! So I realized the other day that I'll be spending all of 2015 on my mission, that was a crazy thought for me haha.

On Monday we had a team up with a recent convert in the YSA branch. We had plans all figured out and somehow, like most times we get a team up, all our plans bailed and we had nothing really to do. We stopped by a less active and found THE crazy cat lady. She had cat stuff everywhere and told us that she had 30 cats and she lived in a trailer. At the end of the evening we taught him the Gospel of Jesus Christ in the car in our parking lot and we told him a story that President had shared with us about how Alma was 'harrowed up by his many sins' and we each go through a similar process in repentance. When you Harrow ground it tears it up, like a rototiller, and that prepares the ground to be planted. We have a similar process in repentance, we are 'harrowed' by the memory of our sins, which prepares us to grow better. Then when the ground is ready (or when we have been humbled) the seeds are able to sprout (or we are able to start overcoming our sins). Up to this point it's all a good process, but something that Satan uses against us is he tells us that we need to 'harrow the ground again' or start feeling guilty for what we did, even though we've already started growing past it. When we do this we figuratively tear up all the sprouts, and literally go back and start the whole process of overcoming our sins over again. It helped him a lot because he said he is always really hard on himself about things he's done.

We taught Ceric and Camari and had a pretty good lesson with them. They're so great, I'm glad I get to help them. Then a couple who's visiting from a branch in Georgia had us over for dinner and they were great. They told us a lot of good information on how it was to visit our branch and also told us lots of funny stories.

Wednesday was fun, we had lunch at Sis Bridgette's and she had a couple visitors. We were able to teach one boy who was visiting her a bit about the restoration. We had the New Years party for YSA that night which was fun, and a girl who we had lunch with at Sis Bridgette's showed up to the party. She was interesting. E Titus also got a hair cut, and we found out that (in the most non racist way) white people shouldn't get their hair cut where black people do. White people and black people have very different hair and E Titus ended up with a very different hair cut than he was expecting. Unfortunately though he didn't get steps, or a flat top, or any other cool black people hair cuts.

We had District Meeting on Thursday which was good, it was focused on setting good goals and staying positive. Then that evening we were able to teach Sis Maddox some of the commandments. She was very open to all of them, and the only thing she even questioned was why we couldn't drink coffee and tea. So we explained to her that God created us and so he knows what's good for us better than science can figure out what's good for us and that he'll bless us for following what he asks especially when we don't know why, or don't even think it's that important. She agreed to pray about it and said that if she receives an answer that the commandments are from God that she'll follow them. That was so cool to hear!

Friday was so cold, we biked a bit in the morning and it rained and it was cold and kinda miserable. But that's missionary life haha. We had dinner at B Jahn's (pronounced yawn's) and B Amyx (pronounced a-mix) was there. (They're both white, mom) And B Amyx was telling us redneck stories. He told us how he didn't find Jeff Foxworthy to be that funny because when he tells jokes those jokes are his life story. For example, he has a joke that you may be a redneck if you mow your lawn and find more than 1 car. That's a story from his life, he's done that. We were dying laughing when he was telling us all about it.

Friday we did tons of tracting. We came across some interesting things/people though. We found the man who does everything, he had any kind of out door equipment you can imagine scattered around his house. Unfortunately he didn't have time to talk to us. I've also realized that people in the south are more busy than anyone in the world. I have no idea what they do, but they are ALWAYS doing something. It blows my mind how they are able to stay so busy.

Then church was church, we spent 11 hours in the church and had a couple fast and testimony meetings that were pretty good.

Love y'all,

Elder Jared Petersen

Chattanooga in December. 

"Oh what do you do in the summer..../ wintertime when all the grass is green?"

Jan 12, 2014

So we got transfer calls and I'm going to stay in Chatt with E Titus! So I've got another 6 weeks of biking! That's going to make 9 months straight of biking by the end of the transfer! It's hard, but on the plus side, I'm in really good shape haha. Our zone started a challenge of doing 100 push ups a day for the new year and I can knock it out in 2 sets of 50 pretty easily. I also realized I've finally developed the ability to do push ups 1 handed! haha The down side of that though is that recently, for some weird reason, I've started getting really bad headaches after about 15 push ups. I'll be fine though, so don't worry about me.

So now that I've got my bragging about push ups out of the way, I'll tell you about our week.

On Tuesday we were biking along, trying to see people and this ambulance passed us going the opposite direction as we were. Right as it was passing us it blew it's horn and it just about blew out our ear drums, I have no idea why you'd need a horn so loud. After a few more minutes of biking this charger comes up behind us and just flys by. He was doing at least 90, in a 30. The on ramp to the interstate was a bit ahead of us and he swerved around several cars at insane speeds and drifted around the corner to get on the on ramp. About 20 seconds later we heard some sirens behind us and 4 cop cars flew past us. I was a good citizen and pointed up the on ramp that the charger had taken. Then as we continue biking there was a flood of police cars that flew past us, there were at least 20 to 30 of them that flew past us. So basically we found ourselves in the middle of a high speed chase. It was insane! And we have absolutely no idea if the guy got away.. We also had a great lesson that night with a couple of recent coverts where we took a member and he taught them about how important it is to go to church. It was really great.

On Wednesday Pres Huff had us over for dinner and we had a study with him, it was really cool. 

On Thursday I gave a training in district meeting on learning by the Holy Ghost. It was good, but it took a long time. Then I went up to signal mountain on exchange with E Goldsberry. It was really fun.

On Friday we had pancakes at Brother Jahn's for dinner as usual.

On Saturday went to an appointment we'd set up with a media referral and he answered the door with a video camera in hand. He proceeded to record our entire lesson. I was worried about being the star of a "Missionaries get bible bashed" youtube video. It was actually rather terrifying. But it went well and he had a lot of hard questions that we answered pretty well.

On Sunday we had our regular long church meetings.

Love y'all,

Elder Jared Petersen

Excerpts from Mom letter:

 I'm sure Kali isn't excited to share the car, just remind her that I'm going on 9 months straight of only riding a bike... I don't think it's psychologically healthy to be on a bike that long, when we're riding in a car with a member and we start driving up a hill I seriously start getting anxious about if the car will be able to make it up the hill.

Speaking of that, I'll be in Chatt another transfer! Me and Elder Titus are staying together, I guess I didn't wear him out, so by the end of this next transfer I'll have spent 9 months straight just on a bike. I think that note from my elbow doctor where he said the only issue would be if I did a lot of biking either got totally ignored or somehow the wording changed to where it says that I should only be biking. My elbow is still fine though.

I asked Jared if he could meet anyone, besides Christ from the New Testament, who would he choose: 

I don't know that I could make an absolute decision on who I'd want to meet from the New Testament. I think I'd choose John though, because he's hilarious to read. Especially how he always gives himself great titles. Another one would be Paul, because he'd have a really awesome conversion story and a powerful testimony. Or Peter, because he seems the most easy to relate to, especially in the end of John when there's the 'Do you love me?' story.

Dec 29, 2014

Dec. 29, 2014

This week was GREAT!!! I got to skype home and see my family and Grandma and Grandpa Ames. That was definitely my favorite part.

On p day E Goldsberry and Sis Merrell (Pronounced Merl) ran into each other during basketball and Sis Merrell got a pretty bruised head and E Goldsberry's eyebrow got split open. They were both alright though.

On Christmas Eve we had the thought that tracting would be more effective, given that people should want to hear about Christ on Christmas. Apparently most every missionary learns the lesson that we did, and that was that people don't want to hear about Christ on Christmas. No one wanted to hear anything from us. To top that off, it started raining really hard. So we started to head to our lunch appointment and we had to go down this big hill to get there. I was flying down this hill in the pouring rain and then I started to come up on this stop sign and tried to stop. I slid from side to side, almost like snowboarding! My tires had absolutely no traction, and the road was coming to a T with a fairly busy road real quick. The only image that came to my mind was my blowing this stop sign and being wrecked by a truck or something. So I thought I was going to die. I blew through the stop sign, completely sideways, and then I kinda just plopped down and slid across most of the road. By some miracle, there was no cars. So I jumped up, probably faster than I went down, and we went on to our lunch. 

On Christmas we spent it with the Huffs. I skyped from there, which was great, and then we had Christmas dinner and played games and stuff. The Elders and the Sisters were both there, and we had a lot of fun. The Huffs daughter showed me her doll that she got for Christmas and I was like, "That's cool, so do the eyes close when you lay her down?" Apparently, that was like the perfect reaction because Sis Huff was pretty impressed about how I handled it haha, she thought it was pretty awesome haha. 

In district meeting we did a role play on teaching the saviors earthly ministry and the great apostasy like a story. It was really cool, it makes it a lot more interesting and it's a lot easier to keep peoples attention that way, so I liked it. Then we went out with Br Zhang, our branch mission leader, and all of our appointments fell through. So he was like "How about you guys go shopping in walmart with me and you can just talk to people. So we went and talked to some people in walmart. We didn't find anyone to teach, but we found a guy who said he didn't know if he believed in Jesus (a rare find in the south) and we put carts away for an old guy.

Love y'all,

Elder Jared Petersen

Christmas tie selfies =) ♥♥

Christmas in Chattanooga

MOM:Did you get your package yet?    
JARED: Yes... why did you put 'don't open until Christmas' on it??? That was just mean... It's just sitting under our tree taunting me now.

Patience isn't something that comes easily for Jared =)  He says that is one thing he is having to learn on his mission, because things don't always happen quickly or as fast as we want. I was just helping him out =).

We were able to skype with Elder Petersen on Christmas morning @ 10:00am. It was so good to see and talk to him! He has changed quite a bit. It is fun to see the maturity and spiritual growth. It is so visible. He is doing well and loving it! We took advantage of the opportunity and took a "family picture". 

"

" Just like Christmas morning at home..."

Pres Griffin gave everyone a mission sweatshirt.

His work, His way, by His power

December in Chattanooga

I've always felt like Tennessee would be a great place to be during Christmas. It probably has something to do with the Alabama Christmas Album. "Tender Tennessee Christmas" is one of my favorite, and was before Jared was called. It sings about how love circles around us like the gifts beneath our tree. It creates a magical picture of Christmas for me. I asked Jared to take some pictures during the Christmas season for me so I could see. It's beautiful.......  I think it just needs a little more (some) snow :)

Here's his weekly letter:

This week was really fun. We started it off with going to the hospital at about 11pm to give someone a blessing. He's a member of a nearby ward who is in a hospital close to us. It was good to be able to give him the blessing and we went by yesterday to bring him the sacrament and he was looking a lot better.

I fixed my crankshaft. The guy at the bike shop looked at my broken one and was like "Well if you're going to break something, break it right." It was torn up. But it's nice to have both pedals to bike with now.

Our most progressing investigator has been sick for a while, so we weren't able to meet with her this week, but we called her and checked up on how she's doing so at least we were able to show her that we care about her. 

We also set up a Christmas tree, and used ties as ornaments. It's also a little tall and doesn't have a tree stand so it stays standing because it's wedged between the ceiling and the floor. It's so ghetto, it's great. 

We had half mission conference, Elder Renlund came and talked to us. It was really good. My favorite part was President Griffin's talk though. You know you've got a great mission president when he gives a talk right after a seventy and you enjoy his more. He talked about a story of a young man he helped prepare for a mission when he was a stake president and after this young man did so much to prepare for his mission, President Griffin had to call him and tell him that both his parents had died in a car accident. He talked about Ether 12:27 and how sin is of Satan, but God is the one who gives us weakness. It was all really good. Elder Renlund also talked about how each missionary has a right and a responsibility to know that they are called to serve where they are based off of revelation and we need to seek that confirmation. 

Love y'all,

Elder Jared Petersen

His Christmas tie I sent him. You can't see it but it has sparkles **

I just love how I can browse his apartment and see some of the stuff :)

Transfers (Chattanooga)

Jared got to stay in Chattanooga, but he got a new companion E Titus. His mission President gave him a heads up of who it was going to be. He send him an email with the scripture 2 Corinthians 7:6. You will have to look it up if you are interested :)

Letter:

This week I got Elder Titus, He's from Ogden, Utah, he's about 6'4, he's way cool, and he was 'born' in Morristown, just like me! I actually knew him before I got him and he'd said that we'd be companions, so it's cool that it happened. This is his 2nd area, and he's been out 3 transfers or 4.5 months. Chatt is a big change from Morristown, but he's adapting well. We're going to have a great time together in Chatt.

There's a tradition here in Chatt that every missionary who is leaving can have breakfast at Sister Bridgette's the day before transfers. It was pretty fun, there were a lot of missionaries who got to go. That morning it was warm so we biked there without jackets. Then it rained and I learned a valuable lesson on the way home. Biking has also been an adventure because I jacked up my crankshaft so I pretty much bike everywhere with one foot. Elder Titus calls me Elder hop-a-long haha. 

Transfer meeting was really fun, we got up at 4 to make it there on time and didn't get home until 9:30. It was a long day. It's always fun to see the missionaries who I know though and talk to them. 

We tried to stop by a recent convert's house and found an eviction notice on the door and we had no idea where he'd be. We were freaking out because we don't really have any form of communicating with him other than stopping by his house. We were able to locate him though. 

We found out that WE GET TO WATCH FROZEN FOR CHRISTMAS ZONE CONFERENCE!!!!!! Sister Griffin talked President Griffin into it. She's the best! I'm super excited for it!

On Sunday we were at the church for 12.5 hours total. It was a long day at church, but it was good. We were able to give 2 blessings while at church and we also watched the Christmas devotional. It was so good, the Christmas season is the best.

Love y'all,

Elder Jared Petersen

 E Titus/ E Petersen

 Traveling to Transfer Meeting

E Petersen/E Houghton

I got the coolest letter this week from E Houghton. He wrote to tell me how good Jared is doing and what an impact he is having on the people he works with. Such a neat letter to receive!

He was one of Jared's trainers.

First 6 Weeks in Chatt Town

6th Week in Chattanooga: Thanksgiving Week highlights

Thanksgiving Week

I went on exchanges with E Goldsberry this week, he came to bike around Chatt town with me. It was really fun, we didn't really have anything set to do so we just started biking and talking to people as we went along. We ended up biking all the way to Georgia! We came across a guy who was really nice as we were going, he offered us to come inside his store and get a drink of water. Then he was out of water and he was like, "Is Mountain Dew ok?" So we got some Mountain Dew and talk to him quite a bit. He told us he really likes stories and stuff that different religions have, so we gave him a Book of Mormon and told him about it. He seemed really interested and told us to stop by whenever we were passing by.

We taught S Maddox the next day and she was having a hard time, so we offered to give her a blessing. It was super powerful, she felt the spirit and felt a lot better afterwards.

We learned about the He is The Gift Initiative and it is huge! I'm way excited for it, there's going to be a lot of good stuff coming from it.

For Thanksgiving we went to our YSA Branch Presidents house and ate with all the YSA's. It was really good. Then we went to Elder Tucker's Aunt Sherree's house and ate again, and that was really good too, but I didn't have much room to eat. Then we went to Sister Bridgette's (our Chattanooga Momma) and we got some left overs. It was all really fun! 

I got a flat tire in the ghetto, I ran over a shard of broken beer bottle, and then a member called us and was really sick. So we made a lot of phone calls and finally found some people who weren't out of town for Thanksgiving and got over to her house to give her a blessing. 

We got transfer calls and Elder Tucker will be leaving. A lot of Branch members are sad to see him go, but I think he's going to get another great area that he'll love so it'll all be for the best. I'm also excited to get another companion, especially since I have a pretty good idea of who I'll get and he's really cool.

We spent a whole entire day helping a family move, it was a lot of work, but they fed us so it was good. I also didn't get tired at all from moving them #bikeareaperks haha. They're also still in our area, so that's good too.

In church on Sunday I gave a talk on the general conference talk, Free Forever to Act for Themselves. It was good, even though I did a lot of winging it.

Love y'all,

Elder Jared Petersen

5th Week in Chattanooga: (highlights)

This week was pretty fun, but transfer news is Saturday and transfers are next Wednesday, so we're getting ready for some changes.

We had a lesson with one of our investigators who was a referral this week and it was great! We taught her a lot about the atonement and asked her to be baptized on January 3rd. 

In district meeting we had a role play that was using listening and questions to find investigators concerns. It was really good! It was cool to see how to use questions and listening to get so much farther in a lesson than you can by just teaching.

We had a turkey bowl with the branch this week, me and Elder Tucker went hard and killed our legs. Which was a bad idea because right after that we had to bike across town to Ceric and Camari's house because they both had speaking assignments in church. We helped them a lot and it was really good.

It was so great to see Ceric and Camari talk in church, it was really powerful and the spirit was strong. I was sitting by Ceric just before he had to go up and he was holding onto my arm and saying that he didn't want to go up. After he came back and sat down he said that he didn't cover what he'd written down and I told him that's how it's supposed to go.

I'll have transfer news for youns next week.

Love y'all,

Elder Jared Petersen

4th Week in Chattanooga: (highlights from letter)

So the highlight of this whole week has to be that Ceric, a 14 year old boy who has been being taught for a long time, got baptized by his older brother!

As soon as Ceric came up out of the water he jumped onto Camari and hugged him. It was so awesome! 

Another experience we had was a member, Sister Bennett (she's my super hero) gave us a referral. A little background on her, she gives hundreds of referrals to missionaries and she's only been a member for 2 years. We taught this lady who she referred with her and did kind of a restoration/Book of Mormon lesson. It was great! At the end we asked her if she'd get baptized if she came to know that what we said was true and she said yes. She was also really anxious to start reading the Book of Mormon, so much so that she couldn't seem to wait for us to leave so that she could start reading it! We're going to see her again tomorrow.

Love y'all,

Elder Jared Petersen

3rd Week in Chattanooga:

This week was pretty good, we've had Chick Fil A twice just this week, so I'm a happy camper!

We had a fun experience OYMing a girl this week (OYM means open your mouth and it's basically when missionaries talk to random people) We biked past her and Elder Tucker was like "I dare you to OYM her" so I took him up on it and we started talking to her and after we had asked her for her number and address we realized she probably thought we were trying to flirt with her #awkwardmissionarymoments haha but we're going to try to teach her.

We also had dinner with this family who recently came back into activity this week. We'd done some service for her last week and when we finished we played on a BMX bike they had, I showed off my skills of riding it backwards, and she took pictures and when we visited her she asked us if she could post the pictures on facebook, so if you come across them that's the story behind it haha. 

We had Zone Training meeting this week which was really good, my favorite part of it was our zone leaders training. They said that we are supposed to 'work effectively' and they emphasized that it didn't say work hard, because you can work hard and not get anything done. So I decided to try to focus my work on effectiveness, rather than just working hard.

We also had stake conference and our investigator, Ceric, was there for all of it. His older brother will be baptizing him this weekend, we're so excited for it! He is a great kid, and has more of a desire to do the right thing and more love for others than I've seen in anyone else his age.

At stake conference there was quite a few really good talks. One thing that President Griffin shared was a story where he learned that 'It's not all about you.' He explained that in the church we don't gain much from trying to get all we can out of it. When we decide that it's not all about us and turn our hearts to the Lord and our actions to our brothers and sisters, that's when we truly benefit. He also talked about how we, as missionaries, can't fulfill our calling without the members help. It's true worldwide, missionaries need members who are willing to do their own missionary work, because the work of salvation can't be hastened if members and missionaries don't work together. You may have noticed that I talked about this same thing last week, but that's because it's extremely important and it's an area where we all need improvement. 

Love Y'all,

Elder Jared Petersen

2nd Week letter from Chattanooga:

This week was fun, I've been feeling better and my sinus infection seems to be gone so that's good. We were doing service this week and while we were there we started talking to this guy about lots of gospel stuff and really getting into how it was important and he was agreeing with everything we told him. Then before we left he asked if The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints was seventh day Adventists (He asked because I had my hat on) And we were like "No no, have you ever heard of Mormons?" then he was like "What?? You guys aren't Mormon!! I don't like Mormons!!" But we were able to change his views about Mormons and it was really good. The next day we did more service and we ate with them after. It was a bad idea to eat, because there's this lady who feeds us every Wednesday and she piles the food high and expects us to eat it all. She's a super nice southern lady. So I ate as much as I possibly could, but I couldn't do it. Elder Tucker made me stop after I lost some of it. I was trying too hard to eat it all. After that we talked to this lady who was selling candied apples and we said something about how she might wonder why she should be interested in what we were telling her and she was like "Well, I am interested in it, otherwise I would've asked why I should be." It was really cool, we're going to try to teach her. We also helped another lady in the ward with some service, we cleaned up her whole garage and fixed her garage door opened and looked at her sink that had busted pipes and did a lot for them. They also had a BMX bike, so I got to show off my skills of riding a bike backwards haha. It was really good, we also talked to them about doing missionary work, it was good. We also shared a message in church yesterday about missionary work. We came across a talk by Elder Bednar that was in the May 2008 Ensign and in it he talks about how missionaries are full time teachers and members are full time finders. He also says in there that members should not be praying for missionaries to do their work by praying that missionaries will find people to teach. It's the responsibility of the members to lead the missionaries to the people who they know who need to hear about the gospel. It's something that is very overlooked by members and more members need to find people to be taught about the gospel.

Love y'all,

Elder Petersen

Here's E Tucker

He is from IF. 

We know his family. Brian worked with his family's

business when we were in SE Idaho.