Elder Peterson: Called To Serve : Week 76: General Conference Weekend

Hey!

Well, as you know I’m staying on the Indian reservation for a fourth transfer! Elder Detlor and his trainee Elder Hallstrum are the new Elders in our district. They are awesome missionaries and really hard workers. I was so impressed when they reported the events of their first week to me. They never slowed down. They just jumped right in and started working on their first day. My district is full of studs!

This week we tried to find new people by tracting and visiting member/non-member referrals. We found several potential investigators! Hopefully they won’t lose interest and quickly become solid investigators.

Unfortunately, the snow came once again. -__- It snowed three whole inches the other day! I thought we were done with the snow but I guess not. I’ll just have to embrace it since it’s my last winter out here. Hopefully spring is just around the corner for us!

We had a crazy experience this week! We were in our apartment going over our plans and making sure we had everything we needed to teach our lesson at our next appointment. Then out of nowhere we started hearing loud noises and someone started screaming. Then three police cars pulled into our drive way! Sadly, this happens quite frequently around here, at least once a week. Our neighbor was having another episode. This person is bi-polar so their emotions change frequently. One minute they’re happy and the next minute they are furious. During the incident I called President Francis to seek his council on what we should do. (I wanted to make sure we would be safe.) He said to be careful and make sure we weren’t ever alone. I hope this situation doesn’t continue. It’s a sad thing to watch happen over and over again.

As you know, it was general conference weekend and as expected, it was a wonderful conference! I really liked Elder Renlund’s talk about being entitled to the Lord’s grace. Here are a few of my notes I took while he spoke…

The closer we are to Jesus Christ the more we are grateful for his grace and his suffering.

We shouldn’t ever feel entitled to His grace.

We should always have humility and a desire to repent.

If we do feel entitlement then we can easily become rebellious and distant from God.

Be worthy to take the sacrament.

Helaman 5:12

Be grateful for your life even when it doesn’t seem fair.

No matter where you stand in your relationship with Him, draw nearer to God through prayer.

I also really enjoyed was Elder Holland’s talk on how much our Heavenly Father loves us. I love the principle of truth he shared with us about how our Heavenly Father loves us with all of his might, mind and strength! He will never give up on us. I also love what he said about the adversary. He said that Satan uses very intelligent tactics to make us all think that we are failures. He can easily change our attitude and makes us feel miserable. That is why it is so important to have a solid testimony of how much our Heavenly Father loves us! Then Satan’s tricky tactics won’t work on us so easily.

I can’t believe I only have on more general conference session left on my mission! Time is going by way too fast.

Only five more weeks until I get to Skype with you guys!!! I can’t wait to discuss my career plans, schooling and callings with all of you!

We will be spending our p-day play Risk, basketball and hacky sack. When we are finished we’ll be attending a funeral for Chief Eagle. He wasn’t all there mentally but I know because of the Savior’s atonement, our bodies will be restored back to their perfect form. No one will have any mental or physical illness. It’s such a neat blessing.

Well I love and miss you all very much! I hope you're having a great week and not a crazy one like me. :) I am forever strong in the gospel and I have build my foundation upon Christ. My testimony will never be shaken nor can anyone take it away from me. I am so grateful for mom and dad for teaching me this gospel.

Love you!

Elder Peterson