The Longest Day

Dear Family,

I finally managed to attach pictures this week. But it took up quite a chunk of my time so I will be brief.

This past week I went to the island of Brava again. It is still a really cool island. However, I went with the Elder that was doing contacts all day. Unlike in more urban areas, doing contacts in Brava isn´t just going door to door. It´s like an adventure through Middle Earth trying to find the elves. Only instead of elves we found a lot of old Cape Verdeian women who were strong Nazarenes. But we did walk along cobblestone paths through trees and up mountains and stuff. It rained a little while we were there but that didn´t impede in our work. Also we passed by a house with a monkey, so I attached a picture of that. I also attached a picture of the view of Fogo from Brava. It´s really cool. Seeing Fogo at night was even cooler. I could see my area, São Filipe, full of lights and other smaller patches of light from the other villages around Fogo.

Then when we got back to our area I had another really long day that went like this. We´d go to our appointment and they wouldn´t be there. So we´d wait 15 or so minutes to see if they´d show up. They didn´t. Then we´d go to Plan B and wait for a little, but they wouldn´t be there or show up while we were there. Then we´d go do contacts. We had 2 lessons the entire day. I figure that´s probably what a mission in the states is like. It was long and frustrating.

On saturday we were supposed to have our correlation, but our new Branch Mission Leader had only been called the week before and I suppose no one talked to him about when our correlation was. So we just ended up going to the Branch Council the next day.

I still play the piano in church every Sunday. I have improved a little but not much, because I don´t have any time to practice. Just a few minutes before church on Sunday. Fortunately I have a Simplified Hymnbook which helps with some hymns, but it doesn´t have all of them. Blah.

The other pictures I attached are of me being black because of the black sand beach we played soccer on a few weeks ago, the really long sandwhich I ate at the last Zone Leaders´ Council, and our last Zone Conference.

Thanks for the news from Dad, Bonnie, and Grant. Getting emails rocks.

Elder Peterson

Halfway Point

Of the transfer. Gotcha!

Dear Family,

I´ve decided to adopt the attitude of my last companion, Elder Tom, and say that I´ve got 2 years left in my mission until the last month. I figure that will help me keep things in perspective. I mean, really this isn´t my time anyways so what does it matter how much I´ve passed or got left?

This week we had Zone Conference. And I forgot to bring my notebook to share with you what I learned. But we did have Elder Schutze, a German Area Seventy, there. He was really good. I also took the opportunity to practice some german. It was rough, especialy considering that I haven´t spoken or studied german for a year and a half. And I was never that good to begin with. And every time I tried to say something the Portuguese word came to mind instead of the german one. My mind was like, ''well, it´s not english so it must be right.'' wrong. But that was fun. I was surprised at how much I still understood. That´s good. Hey, i´m a poet and I didn´t even realize it.

I´m currently reading through the old testament and I saw a trend in the books of kings. As a preface to this thought I just want to explain that my Mission President told us in a special leadership training to study in the book of mormon the effects of righteous and wicked leaders on the people. As I was reading in 1st and 2nd Kings, I saw that relationship very clearly. How the king could bring about so much righteousness or wickedness and prosperity or devastation. Sadly, the wicked kings greatly outnumbered the righteous ones. But it makes one think, one kind of impact will I make?

I did have a division this past week as well. I worked with Elder Nyagwambo. He´s from Zimbabwe. His portuguese is so-so, but he´s still in his first transfer so that´s understandable. I remember well how that was. However, being from Africa even though he has learned english from childhood, it´s still a little difficult to understand. It´s just not the same English that we speak. The division went well though. It was a little difficult to include him in the lessons since every time it came for him to teach he´d teach very little then clam up. I tried to help him to just speak and trust in the Spirit and the Gift of Tongues and he started to loosen up a little the next day. Consequently, his speaking and teaching improved. See what a little trust and the promises of the Lord can do? Miracles I tell you.

The Lord is our master. His will be done. I know Christ lives. Let us all follow His example.

~Elder Peterson

p.s. still no pictures. :(

A Picture is Worth a Thousand Words

So I better write a lot.

Dear Family,

this computer is being stupid and not letting me upload pictures. So I´ll keep trying and hope that I get a thumb drive in a package to send pictures home in it.

This week has been full of good hard work. We had a division with one of the Assistants on Tuesday and Wednesday. Tuesday he basically watched us teach, on Tuesday night he gave us some ideas for things to work on, Wednesday morning he gave us some trainings, and wednesday afternoon he observed us as we applied what we had learned. That was a pretty good experience. But we didn´t leave anywhere this week, and we didn´t have any big meetings or anything disrupt our work, so for the first time in a while we had a solid week to get out there and spread the word. Which we did with a vengeance.

Unfortunately, because we did a lot of solid work and didn´t have crazy things happen, there isn´t much to write about. But next week is zone conference. I´ll try to make my next letter interesting.

~Elder Peterson

And Then There Were 4

Dear Family,

Last monday I got a call from President Neves regarding some housing changes in my area. Before, the sisters lived with the missionary couple, we lived in our own house and another companionship lived up in their own house. Well, a different couple came and found their own house and the house the sisters were in was too big for one companionship. Also, President decided to close the other Elders´ house. So my companion and I moved with the other 2 Elders into the big house and the sisters moved into my old house. Which was sad because I liked that house. So I got the call on Monday, made arrangements that night (which was pretty stressfull), then moved on Tuesday.

But this house is pretty cool as well. First of all, it´s really big. But it´s on the first floor so it doesn´t have as good a view. But it´s got a lot more and better eating and cooking utensils which is sweet. And living with 4 elders in a house is a pretty neat experience so far. It´s different, but still good.

Friday morning Elder Silva and I went to Praia for the Zone Leaders´ counsel. That was really good. We discussed challenges in the mission and talked about how to resolve them. President Neves talked a bit about giving and receiving correction followed by some correction for us and our zones. And then on Saturday morning we got back in Fogo, just in time to clean up a little bit and go watch conference.

Watching General Conference was a big deal because they had never watched Conference in Fogo before. But they had gotten a projector and we set it up and got some other key items together and managed to watch every session of conference. So yesterday we had regular church because they hadn´t planned on conference either, then lunch. Then in the afternoon we ran a Conference Marathon, 6 hours straight of good ol´ Conference goodness. We watched the priesthood session in between sunday sessions because that was transmitted last night at 11 our time. Now I can add that to the list of marathons I have watched, including starwars and Lord of the rings.

And then, due to the fact that we had elders come in from other areas to watch conference and the new housing situation, we had 8 elders (including us) in our house last night. It was nuts.

My lip is almost completely healed, just a little scabbing is left.

And this morning we played soccer on the black sand beach. When we got done, my arms and legs were completely covered in sand because I had been goalie. I joked that I was now Cape Verdeian. I´m out of time now, but I´ll try to send pictures of that next week.

Thomas S. Monson is God´s prophet. The Quorum of the Twelve Apostles are prophets, seers, and revelators. The words we heard in Conference were inspired by God and His Holy Spirit, and as we apply what we heard in our lives, we will be blessed.

~Elder Peterson