April 6 - 27th 2015 Conference & More in Maryville

Letter April 6, 2015

Conference this week was fantastic! I love conference! My favorite talk was Elder Hollands, he is also probably my favorite speaker. He told a story about two brothers who decided to climb a canyon on their own with no climbing gear. They neared the top and found a ledge that they could not climb, and at that point they could not go back down. The older brother hoisted the younger over the ledge to safety, but after he did there was no way up for him. He decided that his only hope was to leap for the ledge and hope he caught it. He told his brother to go find a branch large enough to hold him, and when he figured his brother was far enough off that he wouldn't witness him falling to his death if he missed the jump he said a prayer and jumped. He surprisingly made it to the ledge and got his hands over it, but quickly discovered that there was nothing to hold on to. Just as he started to slide back down to certain death, he felt two hands tightly grasp his. His younger brother had anticipated his brothers foolish plan and waited so that he would be there to help him. I liked how in the story he told the Brother was right there to catch him, even though he didn't think he would be. I think that's a great way to look at our relationship with Christ. He will always be there, right when we need him. We may not think that he'll be there, but he will. We just need to turn to him and ask him for help. I also liked how in the story, if the brother hadn't been there to catch him, he would have certainly fallen to his death. It's a perfect demonstration of how much we really need Christ. The only thing I can't understand is that even though we are all in this situation, some of us will reject Christ and will pull away from him. If we need him in our lives so badly, why would we do that? Why do we think that we can do it on our own? We're all guilty of it.

We also had our transfer calls this week, Elder Johns will be transferred out of Maryville and I'll be getting a new companion. I'll have more about that next week.

Love y'all,

Elder Jared Petersen

(For more information about Conference visit lds.org and search General Conference)

April 13, 2015 Letter

We had transfers this week, and I got Elder D Smith! We were companions in the MTC so it's exciting that we get to serve together now. He told me that he can tell I've picked up some southern accent haha. Elder Johns asked me before transfers where I thought he would go and on a whim I told him Watauga ward. And now that's where he is! 

I've had a pretty good week, before transfers me and Elder Johns just went to people who he wanted to say bye to, so it was sorta uneventful, but good. Me and Elder Smith have had some good times already. The other day we found a guy who was atheist/agnostic and we talked to him for quite a while. He had a hard time with the concept of faith, because he felt faith was just an absence of reason. We explained a bit about faith to him, part of what we explained was that we simply can't comprehend everything as we are now, so that's where faith comes in. It's like if you go to the doctor and he tells you what's wrong with you and that you need surgery and you let him preform the surgery. You don't have a perfect understanding of what's wrong, if he's right, or if he can fix the problem, but you'll still let him perform the operation. Usually you'll also have him explain what's wrong, how he's going to fix it and any other details that you need to know in order to make your decision to let him do the surgery. That's like learning about the gospel. When you're listening to what the doctor says you're deciding whether or not you believe him and it's no different when you learn about the gospel. When you learn about the gospel and feel the spirit, that's how you'll know that it's true and you shouldn't let anything else convince you of it. By the end of our conversation we gave him a Book of Mormon and he agreed to read it without bias and to pay attention to how he feels when he reads it. It was awesome and I'm looking forward to seeing what his experience is. 

Love y'all,

Elder Jared Petersen

E. Smith, Tristan, and E. Petersen

Letter April 20, 2015

We've had a pretty great week this week. I think the highlight was this guy named Jack. He's an older guy who we tracted into. He welcomed us in and told us all about his son who died in Iraq. We also tried to slip in as much about the gospel as we could and at the end we gave him a Book of Mormon and invited him to church. He also told us all about how much he admired us and how we were such great young men to be doing what we do. We called him Sunday morning and reminded him about church and he came! It was exciting because it's so hard to get most people to come to church. He was late, but he went to Elders Quorum and he said he enjoyed it. He also came with us to dinner at a members house and we had a good lesson with him there. He said that he believes everything that we tell him and he told the members about how great we were. The only concern that he had was that he wanted to read the Book of Mormon and get it into his head! It was so cool how much he wanted to know about it for himself. That's really the best way to know about the Book of Mormon, and we really helped him understand that he should only believe it if God tells him that it's true.

Love y'all,

Elder Jared Petersen

Letter April 27, 2015

This week has been pretty good, we've stayed pretty busy and we've got a lot done. Jack is one of our investigators, he's an older guy, and he came to church yesterday which was awesome! All we have to do is call him in the morning to help him wake up and he'll come to church. Church was pretty good, Jack had some good questions that we were able to answer later in the day when we went over to his house to teach him. We taught him the Plan of Salvation and it was pretty much the same as every lesson we teach him. We tell him all about it and he believes everything that we tell him. He said that he's learned more in the last 2 weeks of meeting with us than he has in his whole 66 years of life. He also was telling the member who we took with us all about how we were the best young men he's ever met and just talking us up like crazy. It's pretty cool to see that he thinks so much of us, but the best thing is seeing him learn more about the gospel and be humble enough to listen to us and want to learn. 

Love y'all,

Eder Jared Petersen

Letters March 23 & 30th 2015 - Maryville

Letter March 23, 2015

This week has been a good week, I'm on the downhill slide now, but it doesn't feel that way. The whole concept of time is just skewed for me now haha.

On Tuesday we helped someone move. At the end of my mission I'll have probably moved over a hundred people. It's all fun though, I actually enjoy moving people. We also gave a lady in the ward a blessing, she's been real depressed and stuff and we've been able to help her feel better. It's interesting to me how quickly people start feeling better when we talk to them about the gospel. You can literally watch the hope come into their eyes if you pay attention. 

On Wednesday we visited a retired preacher who knows the Bible inside and out. We learned a bit from him. It was cool to notice how the spirit tells you what's true and what's not, but I've found it to be really hard to notice. We also met a family who is less active and from Idaho! The wife is actually from Kuna, and I know their cousins. That was pretty cool.

On Thursday we did splits with the Ward Council. It was cool to talk with them and get to know some ward members better. I went with the dad of the young man who we took out and he told me about how his son talked and talked and talked about it and really liked it. I was so glad to hear that.

On Friday We had zone training, it was so good! There was a big focus on working with members and planning. We are getting Ipads in May, and everyone's excited about that but President told us "The Ipads aren't the silver bullet. The members are." I really liked how he pointed that out and I think there's a ton of untapped potential in the members of our church. We all need to just learn to do missionary work, and when members can do missionary work the results will be phenomenal. 

On Saturday we took another young man out. The two that we took out this week are brothers. We had a good time with him and hopefully he enjoyed it as much as his brother. After we dropped him off we did a lot of tracting. It wasn't bad, one guy was willing to talk to us, but we almost got into a bible bash. I've gotten really good at avoiding bible bashing but it was hard to avoid it with him. His beef was Revelations 22:19. We explained to him how it was only pertaining to the book of Revelations because the bible wasn't compiled at the time. It was actually compiled about 500 years later. Another lady opened the door, kindly said she wasn't interested and we kept going. She then came back out and told us to knock on her basement door and teach her sons. We taught them a super solid lesson and they both really felt the spirit. We asked them to pray at the end and without us even asking them to they were asking God if it was all true and asking him to show them the truth. I was so excited for them.

On Sunday an investigator who we haven't been able to contact in forever just showed up to church. We were so surprised. The family who we had dinner with that night also came and just invited him to join us all for dinner! They're a great family. He came over to their house and we had some great conversation about the gospel. He really wants to do the right things which is awesome.

Love youns,

Elder Jared Petersen

Letter from March 30, 2015

This week has been fun, the transfer is getting close to the end which is weird. It seems like I haven't been here long at all. I still like it here though.

On Tuesday we were able to go out with the Bishop here and get to know him a bit and also talk to a few people. We had a good time with him and he told us some helpful things about the ward, so it was really good. He also told us that he wants to try to go out with us weekly, which will be awesome.

On Wednesday we did some service for our Ward Mission Leader. He had some yard work that he needed done and me and Elder Johns got it all done really quick. It was fun to do some yard work for them, I kinda missed doing service during the winter.

On Thursday we did quite a bit of planning. I've learned a lot about how helpful planning is. A lot of people will just go out with no idea of what to do, and it just doesn't work out. We also took one of our young men out, it's been fun to get them involved. They've never gone out with the missionaries before and it's been good for them to get an idea of what it's like. 

On Friday we had district meeting, it was pretty good. Half of our district is in another ward, so we only get to see them at district meetings. They're all a lot of fun though, we have a pretty great district. We also had a ward social which was good, I'm starting to really like the ward here.

On Saturday we helped move a few people. The other missionaries in our ward also baptized one of their investigators, he's a really good guy. President Griffin came to the baptism and it's always a good time when we get to see President Griffin. 

On Sunday we had church and the missionaries taught priesthood lessons about family mission plans. It was pretty good, I think the biggest thing that stops people from doing missionary work is that they just don't know what to do. It's interesting to try to see their perspective. For me missionary work is almost all I know how to do now, it's weird, but for them it's the opposite. We kept telling them to just ask the missionaries about how they can share the gospel, because you can't just give a general 'This is what works and this is what doesn't.' That also shows how individual the gospel is. The gospel works differently for everyone, and we all have to figure out how the gospel should work in our lives.

Love youns,

Elder Jared Petersen

HUMP WEEK - 1 year mark

March 16, 2015 HUMP DAY WEEK

I hit 1 year this week! It's super crazy to me that I've already been out that long! It was a good time for me to look at how much my mission has meant for me so far and it's worth more than anything in the world to me. I wouldn't trade my mission for anything. I've had quite a few struggles in my mission already, but I've had a lot of help to stay happy and to keep going. It's also been so cool to see the influence of the gospel on people. The change that you see in people when they learn about the gospel and feel the spirit is incredible. I also got an email from one of my friends this week who I haven't talked to in forever and he told me that he just got baptized!! That was so exciting for me!

On Tuesday we went to lunch with a family friend of Elder Johns who lives in the stake here. We had a really good lunch with them, one of them is a kid who is getting close to going on his mission and he was talking about some of his hesitations for going on a mission. A lot of his reasons were the same as how I felt and we were able to talk to him about it and help him understand what a mission is like a little better. That evening we went on a visit with a member to a less active family who was interesting. One older guy was absolutely wasted, and was asking our member what to do about his liver failing (The member is a doctor) And the member was like, "Well, you need to quit drinking to get any better." It was pretty funny, and led to a conversation about the Word of Wisdom. It was interesting to me because they really understood the reasoning behind most of the Word of Wisdom, but they still didn't believe in it. It got me to thinking about why we can't have coffee and tea, which is a big concern here. So I realized that alcohol and tobacco can be easily explained and you don't have to have much faith to believe that you shouldn't drink them. You can't show proof of coffee and tea being bad for you though, so to believe that you're not supposed to drink them requires more faith and it helps you grow stronger spiritually. I've also found that people who believe that God doesn't want them to drink or smoke usually drink and smoke. But when someone believes that God doesn't want them to drink coffee or tea those people don't drink coffee, tea, alcohol, or use tobacco. So you can see how there is more power when you have to use faith.

On Wednesday we had an organizing day mostly. We got a lot of stuff organized in our area so that we can do things more effectively. We also had correlation which was pretty good. Our ward mission leader really wants to do a lot in this ward, which is great.

On Thursday it was my year mark! We did a lot of tracting, in the morning we found a few people outside and talked to them. Then we went out with a member to visit a less active and after our visit the member took us surprise grocery shopping and bought us food for dinner!! He's so legit! We also gave a non member lady a blessing and she felt the spirit so strong that she wants to be baptized! she lives in the other missionaries area though, so they're going to teach her. 

On Friday we drove all the way to Sevierville for district meeting. It was fun, but it took a ton of time. That evening we also visited a less active family with our ward mission leader and that was fun. The guy works at a place that makes sharpies so he gave us some, and he also wants to have us over for dinner soon.

On Saturday we did quite a bit of looking for less actives and tracting. It was pretty good we were able to teach someone. Then our dinner was really fun, the members who had us over are hilarious, so we were laughing the whole time. 

On Sunday we went to church as usual and it was pretty good. A lot was focused on Christs life and we had lots of good discussion about him. After church we went out to home teach with some members and had a good time with that. It's always a good time when you can go do something with a member, even if nothing works out.

Love y'all,

Elder Jared Petersen

 His Maryville hat.

He buys one for each area he is in.

 My "selfie" for sending a tie :)

Makes a Mom happy!

Very common in the South

Maryville March 2, 2015

He is so excited that after 9 month on a bike.... he gets to drive a car


"So I got transferred to Maryville, which is just South of Knoxville. I'm also driving a car, so that's super nice! I also am in the nicest apartment in the mission according to President Griffin. It's such a nice place. I'm with Elder Johns, he's from Florida. I like it here, but I do miss Chatt. There aren't many black people here and I learned that I came to like black people. They're just so funny and loud.

At transfer meeting I was the last one to be announced where I was going and when Pres said I was in a car I ran and hugged Elder Johns. Then he said I was driver and I was like, "President, what do I do with it??" haha It's been so long since I drove, but I got the hang of it again. I even got some snow to drive on my first night driving. 

I'm short on time, but things are great.

Love y'all,

Elder Jared Petersen"

Feb 23, 2015 See ya later Nooga!

He's leaving Chattanooga.


So I found out I'm going to be transferred. I'm definitely going to miss Chatt, but I am excited to be somewhere new. A little something to top off the transfer, Elder Titus and his new companion will be getting a car, and I am at risk of going to another bike area! There are not many bike areas left in the mission though, so my chances are pretty good of getting a car.

On Wednesday everything fell through, we had a couple appointments and stuff, but none of it worked. Luckily though we had some surprises, one of them being a member surprised us by taking us out to dinner. I was so happy about that.

On Thursday it was so cold! We did a bit of tracting and luckily we got into a house pretty quick. A real nice lady let us in, she was super pregnant, and we found out real quick that she knew a bit about the church already. (You never know right away if that's good or bad) Apparently her ex-husband was an RM and her now boyfriend is possibly a super less active member. She was really nice and told us that she want's to cook for us. I'll miss out on it though.

On Friday we had a team up with someone in YSA who is going to Idaho for his mission tomorrow! We also got some snow in the evening. We witnessed firsthand how badly southerners drive in snow. If you don't have anywhere to be it's hilarious. There was a great big dodge 3500 truck that was going through an intersection at about 3 miles an hour because he was scared of sliding. Me and Elder Titus also had a snowball fight.

On Saturday we got transfer calls and I found out that I'm leaving. The Sisters area is also being overtaken by the Elders. Another YSA had us over for breakfast too which was great. We also had dinner with our new Branch Mission Leader.

On Sunday I said goodbye to a lot of people. I hate goodbyes. We also had dinner with our Branch President which was great! They're a really fun family. And his little girl gave me some stickers to put on the back of my nametag! So I finally have some!

I'll let you know where I'm at next week, and if I get lucky enough to be in a car.

Love y'all,

Elder Jared Petersen

Lila - gave him stickers

I guess it is cool to collect stickers on the back of your nametag

February 18, 2015

Chattanooga  2-18-15

On Tuesday we spent almost our entire day doing service. We painted a members house. It took a lot longer than we anticipated and the member only asked the missionaries to help paint. We were able to get a lot done and we did a good job, but it helped me really appreciate organized service projects. A problem that I've seen a lot of people have is that they don't know how to do much on their own. A lot of people are very dependent, and it kinda kills me to see people who don't know how to stand on their own. That evening we had our missionary open house and the only person who came for it was our ride. It was still a good day, but it was a learning day.

On Wednesday we had our lunch at Sister Bridgette's which was good. Then we went out with a member to try to visit some people, but no one was home. 

On Thursday I hit 11 months in the mission. That was weird, I can only imagine what next month will feel like. We visited a member and I learned a bit about the importance of disciplining kids. In Southern terms, some kids just need a whoopin. We were also able to go home teaching with a member and had a good time.

On Friday we had our Zone Training meeting and how we need to focus on a mission on specifically bringing souls unto Christ. We also learned how the Book of Mormon is the tool for gathering the house of Israel. Then we had an exchange and I showed Elder Zuniga around Chatt.

On Saturday we did some service for a member who recently had his leg amputated. I was glad we could help him. Then in the evening we helped Brother Zhang get his house ready to move out. He was our Branch Mission leader and he moved back to Australia on Monday. He's an awesome guy. 

On Sunday we had church and we talked about a new Branch Mission Leader. I'm glad the missionaries are being involved with deciding on one. We had dinner at our YSA Branch mission leaders house and it was really good.

On Monday we had some bad weather and it was a little nerve racking for everyone since we all had to travel to Farragut for Elder Christofferson the next day.

On Tuesday we met with Elder Christofferson, it was really good, but he got there 2 hours late. He only had time for a Q&A session, but I learned a lot.

Love y'all,

Elder Jared Petersen

February 2, 2015

Letter from Feb 2, 2015

I had a slight fear after last week that this week would be slower, but the work shows no signs of slowing down, it's great!

On Tuesday we had a team up and dinner. Before dinner we visited Sister Maddox finally. She'd been pretty busy and we'd had a hard time figuring out when we could meet with her, but it finally happened. While we were talking to her we were explaining some stuff about baptism and she turns to me and she's like "You know I already know all of this." I can't remember specifically what she said after that but she was basically telling me that I know she's ready and we've just got to get things going. She still does have a little ways to go, but she's so close and she's going to do so great. After that we had dinner with the member and another team up with him after dinner. We saw a less active lady who is so nice! We talked to her about the Plan of Salvation and she was able to answer some pretty hard questions right. It was awesome, her only hold back is that she doesn't realize just how much she knows yet.

We also contacted a referral after Sister Bridgette's. She said she's looking for a church and was super willing to learn, but didn't have time to talk to us right then, so we'll see her again this Wednesday. 

On Thursday we had District Meeting. We had a training on how to teach the Principal that God is our Loving Heavenly Father. At first I was like "Ha, I know this." Then I realized that there are so many things that we don't teach enough in that 1 principal because we assume that when people say they know God and that he loves them then they really do, when in reality they only partially do because they don't know there's more. It was slightly humbling and very enlightening. We tried to visit a less active after that and I felt like we should do 3 up 3 down. We usually aren't as good about that as we need to be, but we did and we got a new investigator from it. It was this guy who talked about how he saw so many problems in other churches and we taught him the restoration and he listened well through it and asked some good questions. We gave him a Book of Mormon and he said he'll read it and have lots of questions for us next time. I'm so excited for our next appointment with him. I also got a letter in the mail saying that a lady named Melinda in Grove Park got baptized!! It was so cool, because I was the very first missionary to meet with her! She was a referral and when we contacted her I was on splits with a member, so for the first lesson I was the only missionary. Not that the other missionaries didn't do much, but it was cool that someone I contacted joined the church. Her husband and son are on their way as well.

On Saturday we had a lesson with one of our investigators, where we taught the Plan of Salvation (The Plan of Salvation is my favorite, so I think that's why I'm getting so many opportunities to teach it) She didn't know much about the Plan of Salvation, but she really liked it and she made the comment at one point that she's glad her dad will have another chance to accept it. It was so cool to see the hope that the Plan of Salvation brought to her. 

On Sunday we had church. It was good. There's not much that changes from week to week at church. haha After church though we had dinner at our YSA branch mission leaders house and we had an amazing meal! It was so good! My favorite was the sweet potatoes and the regular potatoes. I think I like potatoes more now that I did even back home! After dinner we drove by the Chickamauga Battlefield. It was really cool, I love all the connections to the civil war down here.

Love y'all,

Elder Jared Petersen