Letter #55

Dear family and friends,

Well, the Acostas are getting baptized! At least the mom, Felicity, is. Mario, the dad, told us last night that he will be at church next week and he will have made his decision by then. It was so awesome last night to have that discussion with them. Felicity has been coming to church for a while now and has made several friends. She hasn't had very many positive experiences lately with her other church. We taught them about baptism and those covenants and the gift of the Holy Ghost last night. And after a long talk about the Book of Mormon and how she likes church and Elder Putnam and I sharing experiences about how the church and the priesthood has blessed our lives and how it will bless their family (I shared a story about how I wasn't sure if I was ready to leave home and go to college when I did), she finally said, "Well, I'm ready to go to college." And we just sat there for a couple minutes in silence, Elder Putnam and I wondering if we really heard what we thought we did. And so I asked her what she meant. And she went on about how she's ready to make this church her home and she knows it's the place that God wants her. And then she accepted the invitation to be baptized on Dec 14th! Such a good end to the week!

I think that's pretty much all I have to say. We've been working with them for so long. It was a great lesson to me in patience and relying on the Lord's time.

Actually, I just remembered one other thing. We started teaching Kathy this week. Her niece used to be a member of this ward and referred us to her. Kathy is later in her years and has been to a lot of churches. But she's never found the one where she could find her niche and call home. After meeting with her earlier this week, we set up a time to come back and invited her to church. She accepted. Well, she called the day of our appointment and said she was sick. Past experience has taught me that we just lost her. Well, not so much. She called us Sunday morning about 45 min before church started and asked if it was too late for her to come. She has poor vision and can't drive, but a couple of phone calls and we had a ride for her. We talked with her after church and she was beaming from ear to ear! She was so excited that she made it and is eager to have us over this week to teach her more.

We also started teaching Richard this week. He's met with missionaries before and been going to church a lot for many years. He came up to us last week and told us he's ready to get baptized. We are seeing him again tomorrow.

So, this week has been wonderful. Definitely feel overwhelmed at times with my many responsibilities as a missionary. But I find great strength as I study the words found in the scriptures and the words of our living prophets. I love my Savior; this truly is His work.

Love you all so much
Elder Petersen