Letter #59

Dear family and friends,

I'm going to keep it short and sweet this week, not a lot to tell about, and not much time left to write anyways.

Everyone that we've been working with is doing awesome! We've seen some awesome miracles with people progressing in the gospel. There is so much power in prayer and the scriptures!

We had a mission-wide conference with Elder Kopischke of the Seventy on Saturday. It's always an awesome experience to have a General Authority of the Church speak. He talked about the higher law of obedience, not just being obedient to the rules and commandments, but being obedient to the promptings that come from the Holy Ghost. That's the hardest to do sometimes, because those promptings come in such a quiet, subtle way that it can be hard to distinguish between your own thoughts, which may or may not be such a good idea all the time, and the promptings of the Holy Ghost. So, like Nephi, you just go and do.

We also had a regional Stake Conference broadcast with Elder Nelson presiding. All the speakers talked a lot about the importance of obeying the commandments, the one most frequently mentioned to keep the Sabbath Day holy. It really is such an important commandment. When you don't observe the Sabbath, life just gets hectic and crazy and there's not enough time to do anything. But when your priorities are in order, and you keep this commandment, the Lord blesses you with the wisdom and ability to think clearly and make your way through life, much like He does when we pay our tithing. You want a happy life? Keep the commandments. They're not just God's laws. They're His instruction manual to us on how to navigate this life and make it back to His presence. The adversary is sly and cunning, but if we keep the commandments we can easily perceive when he's trying to lead us away.

Which leads me back to the scriptures and prayer. If we do those two things faithfully, everything else falls into line like it needs to. But be patient with yourself; you're not perfect yet. Just keep trying and doing what's right.

Love you all!

Elder Petersen