Week 69: Happy Valentine's Day!

Hey!

First off, thank you so much for the Valentine’s Day packages! I absolutely loved it! The slim jims were so good, I started snacking on them as soon as I found them haha.

Well, I have officially been out in the field for 16 months! Can you believe it? I can’t believe my mission will be ending so soon. Time flies by so quickly. Speaking of, I’m going to be really sad to see President Francis leave us this summer. I’ll have to get his information so you guys can get a chance to meet him.

This week was pretty good. I’ve been taking Elder Bates around to meet our small teaching pool of non members, less actives and recent converts. He says he likes the area so far. I think it might take some more time for him to adjust a little more and then he will like it a lot more.

 My role in being a district leader is going well so far. I’ve been doing a lot of trainings on how we can develop faith and make progress in our areas. I called President Francis this week and asked him what I could do to help my district. He gave me the idea to speak to them about Jacob 5. I got our zone leaders to come down to help me enforce the training. I’ve really enjoyed working with them. They have helped us a lot with our branch as well.

Oh guess what? I received an email from Sister Merrill on our mission staff. Here’s a copy of the email…

Hi Elder Peterson,

Sister Watts, one of our Temple missionaries, says to say Hi! to you.  She read in a Christmas card from Marjory Peterson (your grandma) that you were serving here and she is a distant cousin.  Small world, isn’t it?  Have a great day!

Sister Merrill

Isn’t that cool?! I also found some Huffs in the branch and was wondering if any of our ancestors stayed behind in New York? Could we be related to them?

We had a cool experience last night! I felt prompted to go visit N. (our investigator from Brazil). As we rang the doorbell, her husband answered the door and said, “Thank goodness you guys are here! You came at the perfect time!” We later found out that N. was having a tough time because her brother had unexpectedly passed away. We were able to comfort her by testifying of the plan of salvation. It was a really neat experience because I testified that we were sent by God to comfort her in her time of need. I think N’s husband is still in shock from our perfect timing haha. I hope this experience will really get them interested in hearing more about the gospel.

It was a pretty good week! :)

I love and miss you,

Elder Peterson