October 12, 2015

Hey Everyone! Wow well that flew by extremely fast for me this first transfer. Yeah it was quite possibly the hardest experience of my life and there were times that I felt alone and not able to talk to anyone because of the language barrier but Heavenly Father was always there for me no matter what level of faith I had. It is truly a blessing to have a Father in Heaven who will help you no matter what. Anyways here are some of the numbers and statistics for this first transfer. 300-Miles I have put on my shoes the past 6 weeks 50-Average number of tortillas I eat each week 4-Average number of firework shows each night You are probably all wondering about the religious statistics so Ill get to that now. Unfortunatly all of our baptism dates fell through this week. David is in a tough situation where his father has different ideas about the church. We have been teaching him over the phone the past week and he has been putting analysis of his favorite scriptures in our mail box each night when his Dad will let him out of the house. I pray and I know the Lord will find a way for him. The kids on the Street corner have been progressing very rapidly with the teachings. The parents are encouraging us to teach them so they will stay out of drugs and alchol here. The kids all love the teachings and it has been fun to come up with creative ideas for teaching them the principles of the góspel along with helping them to feel the spirit. We have found many more people to teach. One is Guadalupe, a man who has had a rough life in the past and has the strongest desire to change. He has asked for all the sunday school manuals to learn from and has been Reading those. His wife Lorenza is a member but hasnt been to church for years. Her mom died the day I left the MTC and in the funeral she had a feeling that she needed to return to church but she didnt know how to do so. We knocked on their door a week ago and they have been to every meeting and have been studying the book of Mormon religiously. They are honestly the nicest people I have ever met. Other that it continues to get hotter each and every day. Today I think it has been 95 degrees with humidity. I am still with Elder Lee and together we are working towards helping this área improve. We recieved an awesome comment from a sister in the Ward this week, she said that we have resurrected the spirit in the Ward and she knows the meaning of the church once again because of us. I have a challenge for all of you. Please go read Romans 1:16 and share your testimony with someone you feel needs it. I promise you that it will bring the happiest moment of your week for the both of you if you do and that person needs it just as much as you do. Thank you for all of your love and support! Elder Peterson --

October 5, 2015

Hello Everyone!! I am sorry for not being able to email you last week, honestly we have had to start scheduling appointments on P Day to be able to work our best and help people progress. I am also sorry if I cannot get back to your emails right away, I promise that I am trying my best and will get back to you as soon as I can! Anyways these past two weeks I can say that I have learned to be lost in the work. A great miracle happened last Tuesday, as I got on my knees Monday night I asked and prayed for help in simply understanding this language. On Tuesday as we went to our first teaching appointment I found that for the first time I was able to understand everything that I had never been able to understand before. As the day went on I found that I was continuing to understand everything as we were faced with difficult investegators. It was such a huge blessing as I was finally able to fully interact and learn to love the members and people here in Mexico. Some things that have happened in the last few weeks. Floricelli our teenage investegator has a ton of friends that all hang out on a street corner every night. We were late for her appointment one night and found her on this corner with about 10 kids. 2 were less active members and we began teaching all of them. To our great surprise the coming Sunday we found all 10 of these kids in Sacrament meeting and the Sunday School youth class had to teach in the chapel because it was so big. 3 new people Moses, Midium, and Melvin all have baptism dates with Floricelli now and we are super excited for all of them. David is progressing great! He attended all 5 sessions of conference with us yesterday and he loved it all and said that he had many questions answered! He is getting baptized next Saturday and has been at our door each night asking what else he needs to do to prepare for his date. Thomas is coming along slowly but surely, he has lots of questions and is a gruff older guy but we have faith that he will continue to grow in this. The best part of the week each week is the Ward Activities that we have each Friday. We usually have about 10 intestegators there each time and everyone loves it. This last activity was done by the relief socitey and there was tamales, oaxaca cheese, quesodillas and tons of other food. Unfortunatly I have somehow put on 10 pounds here and cant seem to work it off...I guess things really do change on missions! Also in these emails I am going to send my Ponderize scripture at the end for you all to go look up, this week it is Jacob 3:1!. Yes I got to watch conference and in English too!! Technology is great and it was a great blessing. My favorite talk was by Elder Bednar, it really hit home for me. THanks for all of your support!! Elder Peterson