Letter #44

Dear family and friends,

 

What an interesting week it's been! First off, I found out that I am the new district leader. It's a big responsibility, but I'm enjoying it and not feeling too much extra stress so far, which is good. I'm over 6 elders, including Elder Barry, and 2 sisters.

 

The other fun thing that happened this week was...get ready for this...my toilet backing up into my shower. SO glad we have two bathrooms in our apartment! It happened at night when the maintenance guy wasn't available, so we had to wait until the morning when we could go down to the main office and report the problem.

 

Pauline's baptism is this Friday!!! And we got permission from President Cusick to have it at the beach, and we've been asked to witness so we get to go in the water :D I will be sending pictures next week for sure!

 

It was an overall slow week. No one seemed to be available and appointments were falling through left and right. But, there needs to be opposition in all things, and even as disappointing as some of the things that happened this week were, we still had a great week and are happy with our efforts to preach the gospel.

 

Elder Barry and I were both asked to speak in sacrament meeting yesterday. Guess they couldn't find anyone else to do it :P But it was a really great experience. We were given Lev 26:2-4 as our topic. I talked about reverence and walking the the ways of the Lord. I used Elder Hales's most recent General Conference talk, Standing Strong in Holy Places, as one of my main resources. He talks about putting on the armour of God, and how it's a gift given to us as we are obedient and walk in His paths. After church, one of the kids in the ward got baptized. It was a beautiful service, and there was a great turn out from the ward. We even had a few less-actives and recent converts there. It's great to have them there because it often brings back in them some of the things they felt when they were baptized and what is really important in this life.

 

I think that's just about it for this week. Thank you all for the love and support you give. Have a great week!

Elder Petersen