Tuesday, April 30, 2019

What up everyone. Don't worry I didn't forget to email, they just moved our P-day to Tuesday because we went the temple today. The Temple was great, there was a special spirit in the La'ie temple and it has a lot unique architecture. We had a baptism this week, It was amazing. We baptized Sabura she's has a crazy conversion story and plans to write a book about growing up Muslim to converting to our church. At the end of the baptism she bore her testimony it's so great to hear the testimonies of the people you've helped come closer to Christ. 

Every other Tuesday we've been doing Basketball night with the Elders Quorum. We've been using it to get investigators to join us but only members have joined us. We're still not giving up on basketball night we'll get investigators to join us one day. 

Friday the senior couple organized a big family home evening event to have all the military families get together, have dinner, and make lei's. They planned for about 100 people joining but sadly only 20. I guess it was still a success, we had less active families join and a potential investigator. Never get too discouraged when something doesn't go the way you want it to, there's always something you can learn or maybe a little miracle can happen because of it. 

It was Sunday night the Visitor Center sisters reminded us of an Brittany and Jamie, a couple we've been teaching that have fallen through the cracks. We thought we would call them and try to revisit although they haven't answered their phone when we called them. We had an appointment that fell through so we had the idea that we would stop by and see this couple. Sure enough they were home and happy to see us. We talked for a while and found out they have been struggling with their faith. It was really a miracle we came when we did, they've been facing some trials in their life and need the help from the gospel to direct them back on track. Whenever you get a prompting to do something more than once, It's most likely the spirit and always follow those promptings.

That's been it this week for me. Hope everyone is doing well. Congrats Joe Graham on Washington Tacoma mission. You'll do amazing, just being out here for 2 months has taught me so much. Please everyone, do not spoil Avengers Endgame for me or other missionaries it's not cool. Hope everyone is doing great. I love and miss you all. Aloha.

Elder Peterson 

1. Sabura Baptism (I look like the biggest dork)

2. A picture of the La'ie temple

3. Me, Elder Pukahi in the middle (zone leader), Elder Hutchins (my companion)

4. Zone at the temple

5. Our district Brown in the middle, Clawson to his right, Fatiau the far right

April 23, 2019

Hey what up everyone. Everything is going great in Hawaii. After transfers most of our zone changed so me and my comp helped take missionaries to the airport so that was super fun. One of the people we are teaching baptism is this Saturday! We've trying to finish teaching her all the lesson to prepare her to get dunked. Most of the week been pretty normal. teaching the normal peeps helping them too get closer to baptism, Sabura is just closer.

The lady last week that stopped wanted us to teach her kids lesson was this week. Her kids ages are 8,6, and 3. We taught our usual restoration lesson while the 6 and 3 year old were running around but the 8 year old Azriella sat down the whole time listened to what we taught her. We invited them to church but the mom said she was super busy and couldn't make it, I was shocked that Azriella wanted to come to church. Even with her willingness they didn't make but we'll find a way to get Azriella to come. 

Last Sunday at church we spotted a man  with regular clothes sitting in sacrament. We thought that he was someone investigating our church. Turns out he's a member that used to be homeless and bought an apartment here in Wahiawa. We went over to his apartment this week to have a short message with him. He struggles speaking It can be hard at times to understand what he's saying. We walked in had a prayer with Easter Sunday we decided we'll have a lesson on Jesus. The first question we asked him was what he knows about Jesus. We didn't realize the can of worms we opened He talked about Jesus, then stared talking about Adam and Eve, then he started talking about the war in heaven and made a few comments that don't quite have any scriptures backing them. For instance he said satan had a kingdom on the side in heaven he was working on, that was his first sin. Then he started talking about some life stories I don't wanna repeat, then some other Bible stories I couldn't understand. What went from a planned half an hour visit went to about 2 hours long. That was fun.

Easter Sunday was great. Me and Elder Hutchins spoke in our 1st ward sacrament. The stake counselor invited us over dinner, this was my first big polynesian dinner. It felt like I finished dinner 10 pounds heavier. They great people they are, had an easter egg hunt for us, their daughter and her husband which were probably 5 years older than us. Lucky duck I was, I found the golden egg it had 5 bucks in it. You can say I'm living the good life.

Before I started writing this email we went on a hike to Kainna point. It's the only approved beach were we can go on the sand. Wait you can go to the Beach? Well only rock beaches, this one makes the exception because its sand then rocky at the shore so its approved. The sand felt great, the water felt great. Ahh just kidding, you know I'm obedient and didn't go into the water. Everyone left super sunburnt so that's going to be fun for me.

Hope everyone is doing great, I love and miss you all

Elder Peterson

Pics of the hike. We're not allowed to post pics of us in our P-day clothes so..... Guess you'll see the rest of the pics in 2 years. 

Gmail is dumb so I have to send the rest in this email.

1. Me and Troy who I talked about in the email

2. A lizard I took a picture of

3. Easter egg hunt (probably seen it on Facebook if your friends with me)

April 15, 2019 - First Baptism

It's been a great week here in Wahiawa. Things are really starting to pop off, a lot of our solid people are getting close to baptism. We have transfers coming up and of course me and my companion are staying but half our zone is getting transferred. I feel bad for my zone leader, he's going to be in this zone for another transfer he's been in this zone 6 months already. 
Tuesday nothing really happened just knocked on a few doors and had a good lesson with Sabura a solid investigator. She's flying through the lesson's trying to learn everything. Wednesday we cleaned out the members nasty car again. The same car as last week. This time we finished cleaning his car, now he's trying to sell it. Anyone in Hawaii don't buy an older Corolla, the smell alone will kill you. 
We've been teaching this investigator the senior missionaries next to us found. She's planning on moving to North Carolina this May.  We invited her to pray and ask if she should get baptized in Hawaii or North Carolina. She called the senior missionaries the day after she said she's probably going to get baptized here in Hawaii!!! Sorry MTC district sister's we love you but she's ours. 
Thursday was good. We taught a investigator named Kalani when the missionaries first found him he was this stoner teenage kid they shared a short message about the Book of Mormon. To the missionaries surprise he said he would read it. Kalani was one of those kids and after teaching him he said he wants to stop smoking but his friends keep tempting him. We are trying really hard to find a fellowshipper for him that will be his friends and help him make right choices. 
Saturday was amazing we had Jay an investigator we've been teaching for a few months get baptized! If your friends with me on Facebook you've probably seen the pictures. The spirit was so strong during the baptism. His wife told us the next day that while driving home Jay kept on missing turns he kept on say that he felt so happy and peaceful he didn't care he missed the turns. It was good Jay was happy because I'm pretty sure his wife wasn't as happy (missing all those turns). 
Waialua invited us to their baptism so just before we left we stopped at a 7 eleven and got bible bashed by some stranger that walked up to us. To top it off he gave us like a small comic book about some missionaries getting told their church is wrong so that was fun. We went to Waialua baptism and it was a 180 from Jay's baptism. I felt bad cause 3/4 of the people their were the missionaries in our zone and a few of her friends. During the baptism when the missionaries were giving talks she kept on making comments the whole time and the rest of us were trying so hard not to laugh from her comments. Sunday was awesome as well. For people that don't know, after you baptize a convert you don't confirm them after they've been baptized, you confirm on the next day. We confirmed Jay a member right and as we finished Jay was almost in tears. You could tell that he really felt the Holy Ghost. 
During our finding time we talked to this catholic family and had a great conversation with them. What stood out to me the most is when I bore my testimony about the Book of Mormon, I've said this same testimony a lot but what touched me is he said that he could tell that what I said was from my heart. It taught me a lesson, it doesn't matter if you say same thing to everybody as long as it's true and from the heart. People will feel it and the spirit will make it known unto them. That was it for this week. I swear my mass emails are getting longer and longer. Hope everybody is doing great at home or on their mission. I love and miss you all.

Elder Peterson

aka Slim Pete

April 8, 2019

Hope everyone is doing well. Sorry if I don't back to emailing everyone I usually try to answer everyone's questions in my mass emails but me and my district try to cram in some time to email. 

We've been having some miracles happen here. Their one member family with two kids that haven't been baptized. Their mom wants them to decide for themselves if they want to get baptized or not, so the missionaries have been teaching them for multiple years. Just this Friday night we got a text message saying that the two kids are ready to be baptized. It was just this exciting experience seeing these kids being taught for so long and now seeing them ready to make covenants with God. The other miracle is of a woman that decided to attend our church one. She's a single mom that converted from Islam to Christianity and has been looking for a good church to join. She's been having experiences in her life that led her to our church and the members welcomed her and referred her. We only had one lesson with her which went super good she's is so interested, she watched general conference with a member family. towards the end of conference we got a message from the member family that she wants to set a date for baptism and she's begun writing a book about her journey from Islam to joining our church. Without the Spirit guiding us and helping these people there's no way this could of happened on our own. 

 As for the rest the other stuff that happened. Thursday we helped an older man clean out his car. This older man has had back and neck problems and couldn't do it on his own so of course us being missionaries we were willing to help. Not going to lie it was good helping him out but his car was disgusting. Words of advice to missionaries, and future missionaries When your doing service to clean something, expect the worse. Friday we had another opportunity to service this time to help someone we are teaching to paint his apartment. Who knew all these years of helping my mom paint would come in handy. Well it would have came in handy but he insisted that he should be the only one painting so me and my companion Elder Hutchins just sat back talked story with him. As he was painting the ceiling he had a big drop of paint fall right into his eye, at first we felt sorry for him but when we left the service I don't know why but we couldn't stop laughing about it.

We also have a baptism this coming Saturday that we're excited for. 

And of course the big event this week was General Conference! With all the rumors floating around we were expecting changes to the mission length and heard all kinds of stuff, as we all know now none of it was true. Next time I hear rumors I'm just going to tune it out cause everything people have said didn't happen. This conference was amazing I hope everyone had the opportunity to watch it. I had two favorite talks first was Elder Holland's talk on the sacrament, and the other was President Nelson's talk on Repentance. If you haven't watched it I highly encourage everyone you, this conference has helped answer my questions and I know that I can answer your questions too.

Hope everyone had a great conference week I love and miss you all

Elder Peterson

April 1, 2019

Wuss poppin yall? This week has been great! We've been walking around a few ghetto streets during our finding time and have been getting a lot of success. We've talked to some pretty scary looking dudes that have been very open to talking about the gospel. It's crazy you can't judge someone by their looks. 

On Friday, I had my first Zone Conference. It was super good. President talked about building our testimonies and how true conversion will help people come unto Christ. I was thinking it was just going to be our zone, but when I got there I realized it was all the missionaries on the north east side of the island. To top it off we were an hour and a half late because for whatever reason it was at 12 on the calendar, when it really was at 8. Props to Elder Pukahi for calling us. To make things even better, we were in such a rush, I grabbed my regular black slacks and was all ready to go when I remembered I needed my suit coat. So as we are driving to La'ie, I realized I have black slacks on and a gray suit coat. I looked like I was heading to the country club. Other than our late arrival and my goofy outfit, It was a spiritual experience.

On Saturday we went with one of our investigators to the visitor's center! It's was most of our first time being at the La'ie temple. It was such a good experience and even our investigator could feel the spirit on the temple grounds. 

I would tell everyone more but I need to get going. I love and miss you all. Some advice for the missionaries in the field right now. Make sure the people with baptism dates are getting baptized in the ward they live in. It's a mess when you realize they've been going to the wrong ward, nothing to do with me or my companion.

I hope everyone has a great rest of the week and ALOOOOHA

P.S. my phone decided it can't charge so expect double the picture next week.