Letter #10

Hello hello hello!

It's actually kind of cold and overcast today! So, like what a warm day in Missouri might be this time of year :P This week has been alright. We saw a few people multiple times, so it's not like we actually saw that many people. We also spent a lot of time knocking doors, which is really hard to do for more than an hour at a time. But, we have a couple new people to teach. Zack is a 20 year old guy who's dating a girl in the ward. He came to church last week and really liked it. He had a lot of questions about it when we talked to him and he is genuinely interested in learning more. We're also teaching a lady named Christie who was dating a less active member of the ward. They recently broke up and he doesn't want anything to do with the church, but she wants to stop smoking and drinking. And since we told her we could help her do that through helping her come closer to Christ, she seems really interested in learning more. We had previously shared the Restoration and the Book of Mormon with her, but we're going to be meeting with her regularly now.

Well, it's Thanksgiving week! I can't believe it. I hardly feels like it should be the holidays already. It's too warm here for turkey and stuffing and pie! It also sneaks up on you when you don't have a break from school to look forward to. So, for missionaries, Thanksgiving is a normal work day for us. We are eating dinner at a member's house, but it pretty much has to be like a normal dinner appointment. Except the people that are feeding us is the family that introduced us to Zack so we can stay longer to teach him a lesson. But the rest of the day pretty much will be like a normal missionary day. I guess President wants us to focus on recent converts and less actives.

We had Zone Conference this last week. Wow, what an amazing day! I learned so many wonderful things about how to improve myself, especially as a teacher. One of the things President focused on was how to become a Christ-like teacher. So we studied the instances in the New Testament where Christ himself taught someone one-on-one. Every single time, he goes straight into teaching the gospel and teaches from the scriptures directly to the needs of the person. He doesn't really ever spend time with small talk. So that's something I've really been working on since then and it's been neat to see how effective it is. When you can help people see how the gospel relates to them, then you have something in common with them. And since our purpose is to bring others to Christ, what more do we have to have in common than the gospel?

Well, we have the car this week, so we should be able to get a lot more done as far as teaching lessons goes. Bikes are alright, and I really don't mind them here because there are virtually no hills to speak of, but they are so slow and we spend half our day just getting places. But yeah, this week should be really great. Elder Willard and I have been working on getting better at a lot of things so we can work as effectively as we can. On Saturday we were headed to a lunch appointment and we were running a little late. We passed a lady on the sidewalk, and I thought that maybe we should stop and talk to her. As soon as we passed her, Elder Willard turned to me and said he felt like we needed to talk to her. I told him I did too, and then I had the thought to turn around and go back. But because we were running late we just kept riding. Both of us really regretted passing her by, so we decided that from then on we wouldn't not talk to anyone. Well, we're getting better at talking to everyone, and we met a lady after visiting Christie that was very nice and willing to let us come back and talk to her and her husband.

I'm so glad I made the decision to come on a mission and serve the Lord for two years. It is the best thing I could ever do for my life, and it's the best thing ANY young person could do for their life. It's so amazing to see the changes that come about in people's lives as they come to know their Savior better and come to trust in Him. I love this gospel so much, and I know it's true. 

Have a wonderful week!

Elder Petersen