Old Letters from Canute

so these letters are a bit jumbled, the file uploader on here is crap. So look at your own rate, all the stuff is here... just mixed up. I dont know why.

-gp

To All My Dear Fans

Dear Family,

Mom, I finally got the package of beans this past week. I haven´t opened it yet, but I´m planning on making (why don´t they sell them here? Why?) Tortillas this week and enjoying a meal of burritos this week. I can´t wait for that packaged sour cream stuff.

This past week was pretty chill for the most part, but yesterday was a whirlwind of movement. And stress. And stuff. I won´t go into all the teeny tiny details, but I´ll let you in on a few things. For example, we were in the office all day. Meaning we didn´t teach any lessons. Ugh. Because transfers came in so late last week we had to use our mission´s petty cash reserve to buy the plane tickets. (yes we are an island mission so every transfer includes buying plane tickets). So because we didn´t have any petty cash I ended up using the rest of my monthly missionary payment yesterday to pay for mission supplies. So I had to use my personal money to buy groceries today. Also one of our missionaries´ houses had water and power cut yesterday because we hadn´t been paying the bills. My first thought was, ´´there´s no way. We pay the bills every month on time.´´ We eventually figured out that we had been paying the bill for the missionarys´ landlord´s house and not our missionaries´ house. But he had also been paying. So the water/power company had been getting double paid. So we had to get all that mess figured out and get power and water restored to our missionaries. We also had to do all the missionaries´ monthly payments for June so that they will have money next week for food and stuff.

Ok, so that was all yesterday. We didn´t have a baptism last week nor will we have one this week, unfortunately. And it seems that most of the people we had thought were ready to get baptised in the next little bit aren´t. Or rather they don´t feel ready, which in context means they don´t want to make the changes they need to receive the promised blessings of the Lord. They´ve had the lessons, they´ve been to the activities, they´ve been to church; they just don´t want to change. Or they don´t recognize the importance of baptism. Either way, we´re still working and we´re going to be finding more people to work with. Hopefully we can find some of the ´elect´ who will accept the truth and make and keep the necessary commitments to receive their own personal salvation. We can´t force them, and we don´t want to. But if they don´t want it, we´ll find others who do. I think too many people just like to talk to us, which is good. But we´re not here just to be peoples friends.

Anyways, time seems to move faster every transfer. Hopefully it will slow down a little after I get out of the office. Right now it just seems that with all we´re doing, we don´t have time to do everything.

Well, I´m healthy. One of the missionaries here got a really bad bite but he´s doing well. They´re not sure what it was but it got really swollen and was all full of pus and got really bad after only a few days so he had to get surgery and antibiotics and all sorts of stuff. He´s recuperating in the mission home for now which whould be so boring. I would much rather be out working and doing stuff. Which is what I´m doing.

Loves to all. Keep writing.

~Elder Peterson

Teenage Mutant Ninja Elders

Dear Family,

Fighting the Foot is tiring work.

Actually, walking by foot is tiring. Especially when you do it a lot. Like we do. So transfers are Monday and I´m staying here for another transfer. That´s cool, I don´t mind.

We had another baptism this past week which was really cool. We´ve been teaching Solange, the person we baptised, for the past couple months. We had been teaching her sister, Isolinda, but she went to a different island for a while. So we kept teaching Solange and she got baptised. Woo! Isolinda has since returned and we´ve started teaching her again with high hopes of her accepting the gospel as well. Solange will be a great help with this. As far as the huge size of the pictures, I had changed the setting for some other pictures and had forgotten to switch back to normal picture size before the baptism.

Right now I´m here in the office using email on P-day. I´m also doing some office work on the side because we have some things that need to be done. Shreddderrrr!!! That´s one unfortunate thing about being a secretary. We should really stop coming in the office to use internet, because more often than not we get roped into doing something.

This past week, I´ve received many updates from many family members. Thanks all! It appears that life is still going onward. It tends to. Take advantange of the time you spend with the fam.

Well, I really can´t think of much else to say. I´ve been trying to reply individually to everyone that writes, so it feels like I´ve already said everything. Hmm.. Ok, well I´m stuck. Next week I´ll write notes or something so I have more to say. Also, feel free to give me ideas about what to write about.

Loves!

Elder Peterson

Oh, and I wrote the names of all the Elders characterized in the Ninja Turtles picture on the side. Elder Coleman, Elder Balls, Elder Wardell, Elder Shelhamer, Elder Costa, and Elder Peterson.

Well, Until Christmas...

Dear Family,

I hope you enjoyed hearing the sound of my voice last week, because you won´t be hearing it for another 7 months or so. Oh well, you still have my emails to look forward to.

Yea it was cool to talk with the fam.

Crazy huh? I´ve already been out for almost 6 months (only fall short a few days). It doesn´t seem like that long. In fact, the longer I´ve been out, the shorter it seems. I really need to focus heavy on making the most of my mission or, like it says in Preach My Gospel, I´m going to get to the end of my mission and find a lot of things unfinished and a lot of unused potential. I´m doing ok right now, but I need to pick it up. I´ve started to feel the plateau coming. But that´s in part due to my office work. I think that´s one thing the Lord is really trying to teach me right now is balance in your life between work (the office), church (proselyting), and play (P-day). Right now work is kind of dominating our schedule as problems and unexpected difficulties arise. I always feel bad when we miss an appointment (or several) because of work in the office. But our work is necessary for the rest of the mission to function I guess.

As far as work, it´s good to make money. Don´t spend it all, put some aside for the rainy day. That´s a principle I´ve put into practice here in the mission. A lot of Elders will spend all of their monthly allowance every month, and a lot of missionaries have problems with money. I´ve been saving about a 10th of my allowance monthly and putting it aside for those emergency purchases. For example, one Elder got a parking ticket while he was in the office. He had to take a loan from the mission to pay it and he had a chunk of his monthly payment taken each month to pay back the loan. I lost our phone a while back and so I had to pay for a new one. Fortunately, I had money put aside and I could pay for it then and not worry about it. Also a lot of times we have to buy things for our apartments, such as gas for the stove, that we can get reimbursed for. If you have a store, you can pay for it with that and not have to worry about getting your reimbursement right away instead of having to buy it and then not eating the next week while you wait for the reimbursement. The General Authorities have counceled us to be wise with our money. That is one principle that I have seen proved many times over, especially here as Financial Secretary of the mission.

Oh yea, last Saturday we had a super baptism. We had an investigator get baptised, the Assistants had one, the Sisters had one, and another companionship in another branch had one. I should be able to attach a few pictures.

The other pictures I attached were from a health fair that we held in our building before the baptism. We had tables set up and we had a missionary couple, our missionary nurse, and some members at different tables teaching other members and nonmembers about good health practices, how to deal with certain sicknesses such as fever or diarrea, and basic first aid. Elder Shelhamer and I had a table about the Word of Wisdom. Oh yea. Spreading the good word.

Transfers are next week. We still don´t know what´s going to happen, but it´s almost certain that Elder Balls, the General Secretary, will leave the office because he´s been here 4 transfers. His companion, Elder Coleman, will then train the next Elder. As for me and my house, who knows. Technically, my companion is trained so it´s possible that I could leave as well, but at the same time, i could end up staying another transfer.

Goodness gracious the mission field is awesome. I have learned so much. I actually have a greater desire to do things better. At college I would clean because we had cleaning checks and sometimes just because it was really really messy. Here, I clean because it´s just a better environment and I like having a clean apartment. (We´re supposed to have cleaning checks too, but for some reason we haven´t. Hmm... but i´m confident that if we ever did, we´d pass with flying colors.) Also with exercising, a lot of Elders will slack on exercises, but I find that when I exercise I feel better throughout the day and the week. There have been a few days that I´ve missed exercising due to office work that we had to do in the morning and I have felt the lack. I feel it when I´m doing good and when I´m doing the right things, and I feel it when I´m not. I think that´s a good sign that I´m a lot more spiritually sensitive than I´ve been before.

Ok well, I´m out of time. Thanks to all of you who wrote me. Guilt trip to all of you who didn´t.

Love you,

~Elder Peterson

Are You Ready For This?

Dear Family,

Ok, so Dad assured me that he will be able to get skype going. Since no one had any objections up to now, I believe the call will move forward as planned at 8:00 Cape Verde time, 4:00 Missouri time, 3:00 Utah time, 2:00 California time, and, according to Grant, 1:00 Alaska time. Dad will be calling me and setting up Conference call with all of yous. So be Prepaaaaaared!

Also, although today is my P-day, due to the nature of my special assignment as Financial Secretary I still have work to do. Dang. I very much dislike having to do work on my P-day. But I guess if it´s necessary, it has to be done. Man, I really wanted to chill, go to Plateau and browse the Chinese shops, write letters, draw on envelopes, color, fun stuff like that. Now that I think about it a coloring book would be really cool. Hmm...

Mom, thanks for the package. In the next one, could you see about sending some Rootbeer? they don´t have that here. It´s sad. If not, that´s cool, it´ll just be the first thing I´ll be looking for next time I step on American soil. Also, I´m looking for some simple (like suuuper simple, suuuuper fast) ways to prepare vegetables as little snacklet things? Because I want to eat healthy, but I don´t want to spend my whole lunch time cooking. Because of our modified schedule, we have 2 hours for lunch and don´t take a dinner. So most missionaries will eat something fast and simple in 15 or 20 minutes and take a nap for the rest of the time. I will do that sometimes, although in reality most of the time I will end up drawing during my lunch period. And vegetables are pretty cheap here. Every time we have a snack at Zone Conference or something that Sister Palmer, our mission nurse, fixes up it´s some vegetables and stuff which is always really good. It´s strange, but sweets are only desirable in small quantities. It just doesn´t appeal to me much. Now that doesn´t mean not to send them in packages. On the contrary, evey lb that is junk food is good.

So in my work I will sometimes go to different companies to pay bills, to get bills, and other such things. I have noticed that every company here has tons of shelves of paperwork. I guess they haven´t converted to electronic filing yet. In fact, TACV, the airplane company, sent us a fax with a bunch of tickets that we supposedly haven´t paid, so we have to go through all of our records to prove that we paid them. Things like this usually happen because of their weak filing. Man, they have computers, they just don´t use them much.

Also, we were getting eggs today while shopping, and I just thought about telling you about how they give you eggs. They take however many eggs you want and just put them in a plastic bag and give it to you. No carton or protective packaging at all. Elder Shelhamer got a bunch of eggs and when we got home, several were busted.

Heh, and often we´ll see a guy in a uniform in front of stores and banks and stuff. Private security here is pretty common, but it would be the most boring job ever. These guys literally just sit there all day. Nothing ever happens. And if something ever did happen, I don´t know what these guys would do. Oh well, at least it´s a job.

And sometimes working in the office feels like a job. Only you don´t get paid days off. But I trust that the Lord will bless me for my service here. That is worth more than any earthly pay.

Anyways, time´s up. Write me please! Tell my friends to write.

~Elder Peterson

Tarrafal

Dear Family,

Today is P-day and we had an office activity. This is my first activity here in the mission. Usually each zone will have a Zone Activity each transfer. My first transfer our Zone Leaders waited until the last minute to try to plan an activity so it didn´t happen. Then last transfer I was part of an emergency transfer so it didn´t happen last transfer either. So this is my first. It was pretty awesome.

We started early this morning. I woke up at about 5:30 so I could have time to shower and shave before we headed out. We caught a Hiace at around 6:45 and arrived in Tarrafal at around 8:15-ish. First thing we did was head out into the surf for a nice swim. Ok, that´s what we would all have liked to do, but we didn´t. We know and obey the mission rules. Man, I really wanted to go swimming though. I´m trying to send some pictures today, but I may not get them until next time. But when I do, you´ll see what I mean. This place is sweet.

The first beach was nice. The sand was fine, the water was nice and the locale was beautiful. The second beach was realy cool. First of all, the sand was black. Also, there were palm trees and mango trees around. It was really a tropical place. Not like the city of Praia. This looked like what you´d imagine an African Island to look like.

We also went through this old water pipe tunnel to try and find this other small more secret beach. Once we got through the tunnel, we saw that the descent would be a little more difficult than anticipated, so only Elder Wardell and I made the journey. It was a cool little beach. I also got some sea shells which I may send home. Yea, all of your friends will be jealous.

Then I had a mang fresh off the tree. It was delicious. Mangos are really good.

After all of this fun we had we needed to go back to Praia to actually prepare, hence Preparation day. When we started trying to find a Hiace to take us back, a bunch of hiace drivers started to fight over who should get to drive us. They were all arguing and trying to convince us to go in their hiace. But this is understandable because there were 8 of us, which is quite a few. That really helps to fill a hiace when you already have several people. Unfortunately the Hiace we chose didn´t give me any leg room, so it was a very uncomfortble 2 hour ride home.

Then we had to clean ourselves, then clean our house. Next we have to but food for next week and then we get to go teach. Woo!

Pictures:
The first is a picture I drew in the MTC of my MTC district and our teachers. I only just finished coloring it this past week.
The rest are pictures of Tarrafal and our adventures. I took many many more, but you´ll have to wait for me to send the thumb drive home to see all of them.

Also, mom, I got your package yesterday. It was awesome. Thanks.

Loves,

~Elder Peterson