Behold, God is my salvation; I will trust, and not be afraid: for the Lord JEHOVAH is my strength and my song; he also is become my salvation. Therefore with joy shall ye draw water out of the wells of salvation.
-Isaiah 12 2-3

Monday, October 29, 2012

10-29-12

October 29, 2012 "You are to speak English too?" "Why yes, I am to speak English too!" Hey there everyone! :) Hey, guess what? There's a baptism this Saturday! The nine year old is getting baptized on Saturday, and it's pretty dang cool. Her family has been coming back out of inactivity and thanks to a little lesson about Lehi's dream and some bananas, she understood more about baptism and is up for being baptized on Saturday! Pretty cool, huh? I think the most fun times I've had on my mission have been the times when I've taught little kids. For example, I like to draw pictures during lessons to show gospel points, and there's the usual one you can do for the Gospel of Jesus Christ in using a ladder for each of the 5 points. I taught that yesterday during Gospel Principles class, but it's so much more fun to do it with kids since they get to draw themselves and you go step by step. I don't think I described that well, but drawing pictures with kids and talking about Christ is a lot more fun then drawing pictures and teaching adults. Ah well, they're both good in the end anyways. This past week has been an interesting one for sure. When I was back in Saratov there was a young woman who got baptized by went less active awhile ago and just overall rejected religion. Eversince I came here we've been trying to meet with her, but it's never really worked out since meeting with the missionaries got dropped to the bottom of her todo list. Well, this past Monday I got a call from her saying "Hey Elder Peterson, guess what?" "What?" "I know that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is true!" Woah snap, right?! Cool! Turns out she was walking around one day and saw a book shop and just had a feeling to go in and check it out. Having gone inand checked it out, she found a book called "Disscussions with God" and had a feeling to buy it. she didn't know why in the world she should buy it because she didn't really believe in God anymore anyways, but she did and began to read it and felt the Spirit as she did. Come to find out that the book was written by a member of the Church, she felt once more that the Church was true and remembered the many things that God had done for her in her life. Yay forre-conversion! I like little cool experiences like that. A lot of focus is missionary work goes into the fact that you need to feel the Spirit and you need to get revelation and help from God to really be able to do the work right. Big questions arise really in thinking "well, just how much is God going to guide me and how much of it is left for me to just do? Is God going to tell me to turn to the left and this cross section, or will he left me choose for myself? Does it matter?" This past week especially has been cool for me because I put a lot of focus in trying to recognize the Spirit and using it to direct me in the work. In the end, I don't really have all the answers. There've been times when I've really felt that I've needed to turn left as opposed to right on the street, and times when I know that God wants me to use my good judgement to know where to turn. But the thing you can always rely on when it comes to God, is knowing that he will solidify your faith in Christ and knowledge of His Gospel. That's the wonderful thing about reading scriptures, praying, going to Church and just doing good things in general: you feel the Spirit. You feel good, you feel light inside, and you feel like you have a clearer mind than before. It's nice. Anyways, just thought I'd share that. Sean asked me to talk about weird Russian stuff and what I do during P-days, which made me realize a couple of things: first, weird Russian things aren't weird to me anymore and second, I have pretty boring P-days. Something I talked about a lot at the begginning of my mission was how everything is in bag. Bag milk, bag jam, bag mayo, bag ketchup, bag caramel. It's all bagged, not cartoned. Bag jam is super delicious by the way. Russia has things like jam and juice down to a beautiful science. Not only is there Raspberry jam, but there's apple cinnamon jam and ginger orange jam and red/black currant jam. Same thing with the juices. Want peach juice? Be my guest! Want pineapple strawberry deliciousness in liquid form? Go to! I love the food here, except for holodets of course (quick reminder, that's russian meat jello. Gross!). As for my P-days, I remembered just how dirt tired I was my first two cycles this past week as Elder Treter began passing out sleeping on every single bus ride. He's pretty tired, and I guess I am too, but the whole tiredness thing stopped mattering quite a few months ago :D. So, on P-days when we're not buying coats and new boots (I bought some new boots, by the way, the american ones didn't quite cut it for a few reasons) and buying delcious bag jam, Elder Treter and I either make brownies or cookies and take a hour or 2 long nap. We'll be having a culture night soon though, which is a lot cooler than P-days, and we'll be watching -get this- West Side Story...in Russian! In Russia! Cool, huh? More news as that comes up. Dang, this was a long e-mail today. I'll let it end for now then, gotta go soon. Thanks a bunch for the e-mails and the news on all the family! Mary is going on a mission, huh? I totally called that (with the exception, of course, that she didn't get married or somethin). That's great to hear about Uncle Brian too! Lots of cool stuff going on :) Anyways, thanks again for everything you do, especially my super cool family! You're the best, and I love you lots. Have a great week now, alright? :) With love, always -- Elder Peterson

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