Abs of Steel

Dear Family,

My new companion has introduced me to the P90x ab destroyer workout. It hurts.

I enjoyed hearing about everyones halloween and lives for the past week. I want to see pictures of Emily´s cake because it sounds amazing. Christian and Josh, I want you both to approach Mom in school in sight of your friends and give her a hug and a kiss on the cheek. It´s the least you could do. After all, she did bring you into this life.

Happy Birthday Mom!

Elder Brown and I have been pushing the envelope. It´s hard but I can already see the results. We´ve set goals for personal and companionship growth as well as helping the branch here improve. Right now the branch is doing well, but we want to help them help us. So the goal is to teach them how to teach, how to integrate investigators, less active members and recent converts. Then they can give us references and stuff. Which will help because currently our pool of investigators is disappearing.

It´s always sad when an investigator drops you. During the course of our work we find and teach people. If they don´t do anything, we will drop them. But it´s frustrating when an investigator is progressing or responding positively and then for one reason or another, they don´t want to talk to us anymore. We found out the other day that one of our investigators doesn´t even believe in God. Then the next visit he told us he didn´t want to talk to us anymore. The worst part about it is that he seems so unhappy with life and I know that if he were to accept the Gospel he could find so much happiness.

We´re still working hard. The other Elders in our apartment put a dead fish in our room because of an incident with some of those plant things that stick to your pants when you walk through them. It smelled really bad. They had planned to do more, but we nipped that idea in the bud. Pranks are truly not appropriate in the mission field.

Well, keep writing.

Elder Peterson

Living Out of a Carry On

Dear Family,

In case you didn´t get it from the title of this email, I traveled quite a bit this week. It was cool but we didn´t get much opportunity to work in our own area. We were supposed to go to the Volcano on Monday, but our flight that was supposed to be on Tuesday got moved to Monday. So that ruined that Zone Activity. And we spent our P-day in Praia. Did I mention that that day was also All Saints Day, which happens to be a national holiday here? That meant that all of the grocery stores were closed. That was a pain trying to find food. So we ended up staying in the Zone Leaders apartment which is directly adjacent to another apartment of Elders one of which is Elder Brown, my MTC companion. So that was fun.

Tuesday we did a little division, Elder Silva went with the Zone Leaders and I went with Elder Brown and his companion to teach in the morning. In the afternoon we had our Zone Leaders´ Council. We went back to Fogo on Wednesday morning and went straight to Mosteiros for a Baptism Interview. Because there isn´t a hiace back to São Filipe in the afternoon we stayed there the night on another mini-division. Thursday was a normal workday but friday we walked a lot and worked little. On Saturday we went to Patim in the morning for another baptism interview, but we got a car out there late. Then one of their investigators didn´t show up so we lost time waiting for him. That afternoon we waited for him to show up in São Filipe but he was late so we lost more time with that. Needless to say we didn´t get much work done on Saturday.

But, on Saturday we did learn about transfers. And guess what, I´m serving with Elder Brown again. Woot! He came here to Fogo today and we´ll be serving together again about the same time of year that we entered into the MTC. And if we stay together one more we will have passed through the MTC together and then served during that same time of year the next year in the field. Needless to say, I´m super pumped for this transfer.

Love ya,

Elder Peterson

Happy Halloween!

Dear Family,

I´m not sure if you knew it but yesterday was Halloween. If I wasn´t American I wouldn´t have had any idea. They don´t celebrate Halloween here. It was sad. Although Elder Silva and I did trade our nametags. It wasn´t the most creative costume, but when you are in this line of work you really don´t have that many options. But it was interesting how many people noticed and how many didn´t. Heh.

Also, Happy Birthday America! One year older and wiser too. Or at least that´s what they say.

Today I was supposed to climb the volcano again. But we learned on Saturday that we have our Zone Leaders´ Council tomorrow. Talk about short notice. I don´t know if we would have even found out except Elder Silva and I were doing our weekly planning and remembered that the past 2 months the Council had been in the first week of the month. So we called the assistants to verify and they were like, "oh yea, the Zone Leaders´ Council is on Tuesday and you guys are flying on Monday." So that shot our Zone Activity to bits. Which stinks because next week is transfers. But we´re going to try and get something worked out. Maybe have 2 zone activities next transfer. Hmm....

On Friday I was sick. Being sick on the mission is not a fun experience. I guess I should say I have been sick since Friday, but I was only down on Friday. We managed to get a member to stay home with me and another to walk with Elder Silva so we didn´t lose that days work. But staying home isn´t fun. It was weird though because sitting/laying down I felt pretty good. It was only when I got up and started doing things that it really hit me. So I´d feel bad just laying in bed because I´d feel fine and then I´d get up and start cleaning or something and I´d have to lay down again. Headache, stomache pains, sore throat to the max, it was unpleasant. And since then I have had a bad cough and sore throat. But I don´t know where to find cough syrup or cough drops. I guess I could try a pharmacy... it´s not like they have gas stations here.

Oh yea, and I´m actually in Praia right now. We flew in this morning. I´ve flown more on my mission than my entire life before. Go figure. But I will be spending my P-day in Praia which is pretty chill I guess. Although we didn´t have a chance to clean our apartment before we left. I hope the other Elders do a good job. Also I heard that the house we are staying in the next few days hasn´t had water all transfer. Not a good sign. But I will be staying with Elder Brown, one of my MTC comps so that´s cool.

On Wednesday I went on a division to Patim. It was a pretty good division. The members in that area are really nice though. They always send the missionaries away with food, be it corn on the cob or little watermelons or whatever. Speaking of, that was the first watermelon I´d had since I got here. It was super small and still green, but it was still good.

Well, that´s all folks.

Elder Peterson.

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