Week 70: 8 More Fast Sundays?!

Hey!

I wanted to begin with a little reminder of how much I love and appreciate you. I can’t wait to spend time with all of you as soon as I’m home! I’ve had some tough times throughout my mission but I think I’ve endured them well. I can’t wait to laugh and have fun with you guys. :)

It’s starting to warm up a bit over here in upstate New York. It’s been a pretty mild winter compared to last year. I’m very grateful! haha

Well, I officially only have 8 more fast Sundays left of my mission! I can’t believe it. The end is coming up quicker than I thought it would. Do you have any advice for the last 8 months of my mission? The only struggle I can see coming up is saying goodbye to President Francis in the summer. That will be so hard for me. It will definitely be a sad time.

This week was pretty okay. I’m still in the process of taking Elder Bates around to meet everyone. We’re trying to stay busy even though the snowy weather makes the work incredibly slow around here. We have been scheduling appointments throughout the week as well as volunteering at the Lakeshore hospital, so that has helped keep us busy. While we are at the hospital we try to lift people’s spirits by talking to them or even singing for them. Eventually we are hoping to build a good enough relationship with the staff to be able to spread the gospel even more.

My calling as a district leader is still going well. I’ve done a lot of trainings on how we can develop our faith while trying to make progress in our areas. I called President Francis again this week with my usual report and then asked for some advice as far as helping resolve some problems we are having throughout the district. He gave me the idea to share Jacob 5 with them. We decided to do another district training and I even got my zone leaders to commit to come down and help me out.  I have really come to love working with the zone leaders. I don’t know what I would do without them! The training I presented to them went pretty well. I think the training I will give to the district will end up being a recap of the things we have already gone over but I’m hoping to drive home the point of how important it is to find opportunities to serve while finding people to teach. I’m also hoping it will help us build unity throughout our district. Wish me luck!

I love and miss you all very much!

Elder Peterson