Memorial Day 2016

Family and friends,

  I hope you are all enjoying your Memorial Day weekend and your last few days off of school for this year! Although I was sick for a lot it, I had another great week here in Argentina! 

  Right now we do not have many investigators in our area and we are focusing on finding new people to teach. We have found a couple really great people so far and know that we will only continue to find people that the Lord has prepared for us to teach. One of these new investigators was a miracle! One day he just came to the offices and rang the doorbell. We went out and talked to him and got to know him a little bit. We invited him to a family home evening that we were having later that day. We forgot to get a number or his address and so when he didn´t come we kind of forgot about it until the next Friday when he showed up to the family home evening! He showed up about an hour early but luckily we were there and were able to teach him. He stayed for the family home evening and really enjoyed it! We got his phone number and address this time to be able to visit him in his house but with me being sick we weren´t able to visit him. We tried calling him and contacting him but weren´t able to get a hold of him. Friday night came around again for the family home evening and I was in divisions in Haedo but Elder Enriquez and our District Leader Elder Kikuchi went to his house to get him to come. He wasn´t there but they were able to talk to and get to know his mom who is very nice and set up a time to come back. By the time they had gotten back to the church for the activity, Oscar (the boy) was already there! He had another good time and really likes learning more about the gospel! This is just one of the many examples of miracles from working in the offices! Although we don´t get much time or as much time as the other missionaries to proselyte, we are definitely blessed for our work we do here. 

  Like I said earlier, this week I went on divisions in Haedo with Elder Mattinson and we had some really neat experiences! Right now something we are focusing on in the mission is the baptismal invitation and how to explain baptism. We have been focusing a lot on teaching the actual lessons with the guides we have received and with that we haven´t been explaining baptism as well as we could have been. The assistants gave a great workshop on baptism and it really helped me a lot! I was able to put it to use in a lesson we had in Haedo. The Elders there have a baptism this coming Saturday with a women named Maria who is really awesome! We went to visit her and her family on the division. She lives with her brother, daughter, and two grandsons. One of the grandsons, Gaston, who is 10 also really wants to get baptized and is ready to but his mom would not let him. The Elders have wanted to teach his mom for months now but have never been able to, she never wanted to listen. Elder Mattinson and I were lucky and caught her on a good day. When we first sat down and were getting to know each other she left to go buy some things really fast bust came back after 15-20 minutes when we were talking about Maria´s baptism for the coming Saturday. She was about to leave the room again when we asked if she would sit down with us for a few minutes as we finish up the lesson. She reluctantly agreed and joined in our conversation about baptism. At first she didn´t say too much and just was there. Once we started asking her some questions she opened up a little more which helped us a lot! She explained why she didn´t want her son to get baptized and we told her that we respected her decision and then explained baptism in a simple way so that she could understand why we need to get baptized, the difference between baptism in our church and others, and the blessings of baptism. She really felt the spirit and had a change of heart. After months of avoiding listening to the missionaries, she accepted a baptismal date for the end of June! It was such a neat experience for us and an experience that helped me realize a few very important things. 1. As we follow our leaders and their counsel we will be blessed. 2. We need to be patient and loving with everyone because the Lord is always preparing His children and everything will work out in His way and in His time. 3. We are all given different talents and abilities for many different reasons and we need to use the special gifts to help others. I know that we will be able to have more experiences like this in my area as we continue to find the people who have been prepared to hear our message. 

  I hope you all know how much I love being a missionary and how much I am enjoying Argentina and the people here! This is definitely an once-in-a-lifetime opportunity and I am trying my best to make the most of it because it is going by way too fast! Enjoy the rest of your long weekend and your day off today and have a great week! Love you all!

Elder Petersen