Don't Judge a "book" by its cover! 12.12.16

This is from my last area Mariano Acosta, it is Morena and Juan. Juan is a member  and Morena is going to get baptized.  She is 12 Years old!

This is the Flores family alsofrom Mariano. Our last night there they floured us... A lot of missionaries have ended their missions there recently so they started a tradition in doing that and they did it to us as well... 

Happy Monday everyone! Hope you all had a great weekend and are getting as excited as I am for Christmas! Only 13 more days!! Keep "lighting the world" and remembering why we celebrate this time of year!

This week was a really good week with lots of special experiences! This Wednesday we had to travel to Ramos to the mission office for a meeting we had and we were there all day. On our way back we were waiting for the train and we were hot and tired and just ready to get home take our suits off and work in our new area! While we are waiting for the train an older man was staring at us and wouldn´t stop looking at us. I looked over to my companion and asked him what the guys deal was. Before we know it he came over and started talking to us. The first thing he did was thank us for our work and for dedicating time as young people to help other people believe in Jesus Christ. After this I felt really bad. We continued to talk to him but we was partially deaf so we had to write down all our questions and everything we wanted to ask him down in our agendas and then he would answer. He was a very special man and it was one of the most humbling experiences I have had in my mission. We ended up letting three trains pass by just to be able to talk to this man and help him learn a little bit more about Jesus Christ. The cool part was that he knew by memory about half of the bible! I learned a really big lesson from this experience! The gospel of Jesus Christ is for EVERYONE! Men ,women, old, young, black, white, rich or poor, Jesus Christ suffered for each and everyone of us. It is our responsibility to use this soecial gift He has given us! Many times we forget that the atonement doesn´t only clean usfrom our sins, but it also helps us to do hard things. We can do hard things! As we rely on the Lord and put our faith in Him, we are able to accomplish anything! I hope you can all remember that always and put it in practice in your lives! I am very grateful for this humbling experience that the Lord gave me because it was a special moment an dlesson that I really needed! 

I hope you all have a wonderful week and enjoy this special time of year!

Love,

Elder Petersen 

More Changes 12.5.16

Happy December to all! I hope everyone has put up the Christmas tree and all the other decorations and started listening to Christmas Music, we sure have! 

 This week was one of the best weeks of my mission! We worked super hard and our hardwork paid off! Something we are focusing on right now in the mission is working with the members and we had lots of success doing that this week! Elder Ortolano and I are super excited because we are going to be able to do that even better this new transfer. This week we had a meeting with President Robertson and our stake president and it went really well! President Fernandez wants to help and has always loved doing visits with the missionaries but for the past year and a half ever since the zone leaders were taken out of his ward he hasn´t worked with them as much as he would like. President Robertson was happy to hear about all the things the stake of Marcos Paz is doing to help the missionary work and granted President Fernandez wish; We will now be working in Arco Iris! I didn´t think I would be getting a new area so soon, but I am very excited for the new oportunities that will come in Arco Iris! The good thing about only being in an area for two weeks is that it isn´t as hard to say goodbye to the people. Although I will miss the many great members and people I got to know here in Mariano Acosta, I am very excited to be in Arco Iris. On Saturday when President let us know what would be happening I went to my new area to be able to get to know the people a little and I loved it! It is similar to where I am now but there was just something special that I am super excited to figure out what it is! 

 Yesterday the stake of Marcos Paz had their stake conference and it was super good! We made plans with 12 investigators to go and were super excited to have them all there! The plans didn´t turn out as we had hoped and only one was able to make it.. Although it was kind of discouraging, I know next week will be better and that the two new missionaries in this area will have all of them and more in church next week! I would like to share a story that was shared in the stake conference with you all. President and Hermana Robertson were driving down the streets of Brazil in the poring rain when they passed a bus stop where a young mother was waiting for the bus with her little child in her arms. They passed the women and then Hermana Robertson asked if President had seen the woman on the side of the road. He replied that he had seen her and that he felt very bad for her. She then told President how she had a strong desire to tell her that she is loved by her Father in Heaven and that He has a plan for her and her young family. They decided to turn around but when they had gotten back to where she was standing before, she was gone. For 25 years this experience haunted the both of them and how they missed the oportunity to share the gospel with this woman. Years later a similar experience happened in Peru. They passed a man on the side of the road crying. This time without hesitation they speedily returned to talk to this man. He had reently been robbed of all the items he was selling on the side of the road and the money he had. The Robertson´s were able to help him buy some new items to sell but more importantly testify of the Savior and His love for each and every one of us. We can learn a lot from this experience of the Robertson´s. I hope that we can all quicly recognize the promptings of the spirit, not hesitate and speedily act on these things. This week I invite you all to do this. I invite you to make goals on what you can do to better recognize the influence of the Holy Ghost in your lives. I know you will be blessed as you do this and will be able to receive even more of these promptings! 

 I love each and every one of you and am so grateful for your examples. I hope you all have a wonderful week! Talk to you soon! 

Elder Petersen

X ichigan Week 11.28.16

Family and friends,

 I hope you all enjoyed your thanksgiving week with your families and your week off school as well. For us Buckeye fans it was a very important week! Just in case you didn´t watch the game or hear about it, WE WON! Hope you are all praying that we make it in to the playoff like I am.

 Anyways, enough about sports! This week was a pretty crazy week but a really great one as well! I did more divisions this week than I had done in the past past three transfers in Santos Lugares! They all went really well and I was able to learn a lot! All the traveling did kill me though! On Tuesday I did divisions with a missionary from Ohio and it was lots of fun! He is pretty new still but I was impressed with his progression! We were able to find a new family to teach that is super awesome! I even gave him my Ohio State tie, a tie that I have been waiting to gift for a while now! He loved it and was very grateful! The next day we had divisions with the assistants and I was able to learn a lot! I am very grateful for the leaders the Lord gives us to help us progress and become better and more like our Savior every day. I know that all the leaders we have are called of God and I invite you all to come up with ways of how you can better follow the counsel of our leaders. The next day I traveled two hours in bus to do a baptismal interview for a little 9 year old girl who got baptized this Saturday! The drive reminded me a lot of idaho and made me realize how much I do love Idaho. Make the most of all the pretty views and amazing things you have there! he next day I came back to my area and was finally able to be with my companion Elder Ortolano for a day! We had an amazing day and put 5 baptismal dates for the month of December! We have lots of people to be able to meet our goal of baptizing every week this month but we don´t have anyone for this week! We have lots of people with all the lessons and enough times at church to be able to get baptized this week and we have planned to visit them tonight to help them understand the importance of baptism and how it will change their lives! This past weekend we had a baptism of a woman named Laura who is super awesome! The missionaries have taught her for a long time because her brother is in the bishopric of our ward and her husbands sister and familyare also members. They recently got married and she was able to get baptized this Saturday and it was very special! This week is very crucial for our investigators and they have to go to church this week to be able to reach the dates they have for their baptisms. This week is also stake conference which we are super excited about and know we will see lots of blessings for this special event! Please keep all the investigators in your prayers this week so they can al make it to church and their baptismal dates! I also invite you all to watch the church´s new Christmas video (Light the World) and look at the calender and make goals to try and do as many things as possible to help do your part in "lighting the world" this Christmas! I know you will feel more of the Christmas spirit as you do this and will enjoy this special time of the year a lot more as you use it to remember Christ and try to do what He did! 

 I hope you all have an amazing week and enjoy the new video! Thanks for all your thoughts and prayers, they are felt! 

Love,

Elder Petersen

Eduardo and Yessica´s sealing!

#NOV94 10.31.16

Well this was one of the best weeks of my mission! I am so grateful for the opportunity I have to be a representative of Jesus Christ and be here in Argentina! At the beginning of this week I met my new companion, Elder Tanner, and we got right to work! He is from Utah and is super great! He came with great desires to serve others and already speaks really well! This week we received the goals for baptisms and confirmations for November and December and they are higher than they ever have been, 94 in November and 376 in  December! 94 is because we are 94 companionships in the mission and the goals is that every companionship can baptize this month! 376 is 94 times 4 for 4 weeks in December. We are going to baptize every week in December every companionship! I was a little surprised when I heard these goals but I am so excited! I know that through faith and hard work we can accomplish anything! The Lord does not give us anything that we cannot do! We are going to need your prayers to help us meet this goal.

We have already seen lots of miracles this week as we have been trying to find people to teach and prepare for baptism in November and December, I will share a few.. Michael our investigator that we have been working with for quite a while now went to church with us yesterday like he always does. On our way to church I asked him if he has thought about his baptism recently and he said "yes, I actually wanted to talk about that. I want to get baptized!" We were so happy for him and his decision and he is going to get baptized the 19th! Cristian Gomez made it to church on time yesterday with his family yesterday and they are getting closer and closer to being able to get married and then he will get baptized! Yesterday we were walking down the street after a lesson and we saw two women working on their little garden outside their house and we stopped to help and talk to them. We did a contact and basically just started teaching them. They paid attention and really enjoyed the lesson and were very grateful for the Book of Mormon we gave them! After the lesson they told us that they are never outside but they felt like they needed to be for some reason. It was a great blessing to be able to find that family that is very special! They have a little girl who is 4 who fell out of the second story window of their house when she was two and nothing happened to her! I know that she was protected by our loving Heavenly Father and that He has a special plan for her and her family and for all of us! I love being a missionary and meeting amazing people like this! 

Have an amazing week and please pray for our mission goal so that we can find people to teach and baptize! Love and miss you all so much! 

Elder Petersen

Transfers 10-24-16

Family and friends,

 How is everyone doing? I hope everyone had a great week and is doing well! This week was a great week for me and we ended the transfer really well! We worked super hard this last week and saw lots of blessings! With having to work in the both areas we lost a lot of time in traveling because the area is huge but we were able to focus on our investigators that are progressing the most. We focused a lot on a new investigator that we found. Her name is Lourdes and she is super awesome! She has had a pretty difficult life with lots of challenges but is really trying to change her life and focus on the good things and especially her faith in Jesus Christ. She has been reading and praying and came to church yesterday and is really progressing! She has a baptismal date for the 19th of November and we are super excited to see her continue progress! The bad thing is that she is in the other Elders area and we are going back to four missionaries tomorrow! We got the calls last night and I am staying here in Santos Lugares and I will be training again! I definitely didn´t see that one coming, especially with only three new elders coming to the mission but the Lord needs me to learn something and that is why He called me to train. I know that He qualifies those He calls and that I will be given His help and guidance as I train. 

 This week for a family home evening we watched the movie about President Monson "On the Lord´s Errand" and I loved it! If you haven´t seen it I encourage you all to see it because I learned a lot! It helped strengthen my testimony that prophets are called of God and prepared by Him to lead each and every one of us! I love his example of always following the promptings of the holy ghost and that is something I have learned a lot in the mission! Never hessitate on acting on the promptings or feelings you receive from the holy ghost and I promise you that you will never be led astray! I love you all so much and am very grateful for your examples! Have a great week and make sure you all follow the promptings you receive from the holy ghost! 

Love,

Elder Petersen

Dia de la madre flash! Oct. 17,2016

Hello family and friends! How is everyone doing? I hope everything is going well and you are enjoying the fall weather! It is heating up here and the humidity is killing us as missionaries with our shirts and ties but that doesn´t hold us back at all! 

This week was a crazy but really great week! It started off with a flash. Tuesday night at 10:00 we received a call from the assistants telling us that Elder Meneses would be heading to Moreno the next day! We both didn´t know what to think and were really shocked, especially after the great week we had together last week. He was super sad to leave his first area and it was hard to see him go but I am excited to see his progression and know that he will be a great missionary! Our last week together I think I finally learned what the Lord wanted me to learn from him and when i had finally learned it He sent Elder Meneses to where he needs to be right now and that was another testimony builder for me! Now I am in another trio... I think there is a rule in the Argentina Buenos Aires West Mission that if there is a trio in the mission Elder Petersen has to be a part of it! haha No, it actually isn´t too bad and the two Elders that I am with right now are both great and really fun to be with! We had a great week and worked really hard! 

This week we were trying to find a less active to help him we were walking through the street and a bunch of kids started saying stuff to us so we stopped and talked to them. We knew they wouldn´t want anything so we told them about the soccer field we have behind the church and invited them to play when they want and they started talking about how bad they would beat us and one even said he would dance with the ball around us. You all know me and can probably guess that we played a little game right there to show them that the "yankees" can play soccer too! We played three on three in the street to five and had a great time! People came out of their houses to watch their kids play and everyone was laughing and having a good time. Although we lost (only by one!), we had a good time and found some new people to teach out of it! You never know what things can bring opportunities to teach the gospel so always be ready to share your testimonies! 

Right now we are working with quite a few new investigators that we have found helping them progress. The investigator we have that is closest to baptism right now is Cristian Gomez. His family are all members and he is finally realizing that it is something he needs and wants to do! We are working on getting him and his wife married so he can get baptized and we are super excited for them and especially him! Speaking of marraige I ran into Eduardo and Yessica this week (a convert from my very first area) and they are doing great! They are getting sealed in the temple in just one month from today and their story is going to be in the December Liahona!! I am so very grateful for all the amazing people I have gotten to know here In Argentina and know that I was called here for many reasons! 

I love and miss you all so much and hope everything is going well! A big shout out to all the moms with it being mothers day here in Argentina (the only country that doesn´t have it in may)! Especially to my mom who is so amazing! Thank you for everything especially your great example of love and service! Have a wonderful week and talk to you soon! 

 

Love,

Elder Petersen