I Am Home - July 4, 2016

Happy 4th of July Everyone!! I hope that everyone had a great week and that you all have fun plans for today. We are getting ready to go to our BBQ with President Madsen as well as play a little bit of Football in honor of America and so I am super excited!! But this week was an awesome in the new area. Just like my title says, I feel like I am home now. I got to my new area and started seeing all that was there and found out that it is the agricultural part of Oaxaca. They farm a ton of Wheat and Corn, and also my favorite animal sheep. When I saw them I was ready to go heard them too but then I remembered that when I tried it the sheep always went running in a different direction so I decided that it was better that I left it to the sheep hearder. Anyways we have been able to meet a ton of people that are really prepared for us to teach. To come to a new area it was like everything started out new and I felt new. We went through this week and we focused on inviting people to be baptized throughout the week more than I have ever done it before. We tried to ask in each lesson and there were a lot of times where we were turned back and rejected. This last Friday we were able to have our Leadership Council with President Madsen. He told us that we needed to always be repenting and to teach with everything we have the principle of repentance. It is amazing the results that we were able to see. It reminded me a ton of the story of Alma in Alma 36, where he was completely against the church and everything that he had ever learned. It was to a point where he was fighting directly against his dad until he could experience the principle of repentance. When he repented he realized that others needed this too because there was not a greater light that could be found than was in repentance. We applied it and are seeing this light come into our work through teaching and applying to ourselves. This week I was also able to meet an amazing lady named Adalina. She is 65 years old and had her legs amputated 3 years ago. She is a firm member of the church and as we visited with her this week she told us of all of her friends that she wanted to share this light with. We asked for their address to go visit them and she said, No you dont need that because I am going to go with you!! It took more time to lift her in and out of the taxis and have to wheel her around but there was a greater spirit in everything we did because of her efforts. On Saturday she made us lunch and we ate with her. We had to help her make the food but she has taught me so much in how we always need to serve the Lord no matter what we go through, and that he is always there for us and we can recieve so much more for doing more. It has been the great blessing of my mission to be able to see this and I am so grateful for the opportuity to meet her. I hope that you all have a great 4th today and have a great week!! Elder Peterson