November 3rd 2014

Dear Family,

Man sounds chilly...  It's starting to cool down here too.  I bought a jacket the other day I can wear with my stuff so yeah!  I'm super excited for it to get cold finally.

This past week has been kinda meh.  Not sure what to say about it actually.  Nothing really interesting.  We have reactivated a family though which is nice but our investigators are just lazy and not very good.  We just try to go by whoever we can in the area.  I need confidence is really what it comes down to.  I need to have the confidence to do things.  I can communicate now what I need to say in Spanish and I understand just about everything when it comes to like conversation stuff but I am just not confident in myself.  Something I think I've always had a hard time with.  We eat dinner here at members homes a lot.  Just about every night.  I feel  bad for the members though because we come in a group of two companionship's and a lot of the times 2 times or more a week.  It seems a lot to put on them and I try to help them out but there's not much I can do.  There's a lot of ghetto sketchy apartments and houses.  It's pretty mixed up.  The apartments don't go too high though like 3rd floor is a typical height.  My companion is good.  He's been teaching me patience...  I'll just leave it at that.  He's also not the most obedient so I try to work on that.  I think that's how I'll improve is that with every companion I have whatever they have like wrong I guess with them I'll personally work on it to improve in myself.  It's like the talk from the last general conference from president Uchtdorf.  The 'Lord is it I' thing.  So whenever I think something like that I just think that thing and work on it.  Anyway we get along good.  I'm smart with my money so I'm super just fine with money.  I have extra stored up on the card.  Today I didn't even need to go shopping too so yeah I'm just fine with money.  On Sundays, we just do normal church stuff.  Nothing out of the ordinary.  They have sacrament meeting last here in the branch.  We go talk to people but I am really trying to get my companion to go knocking because it works, it's just dealing with rejection too.  When we knock on doors we contact in Spanish if they speak Spanish or have a picture of the virgin Mary or something.  If not then English but usually we can pick out the Spanish people.  I am going to start trying to speak in Spanish every day outside of the apartment or something like that.  

Anyway so this week the biggest coolest thing that happened was that I got a hat.  It's a straw hat though which is pretty cool.  We did service for this lady who is about 2000 years old and helped her move out of her house and she gave me the hat because I was wearing it.  It was super nice of her and I love the hat too. :)  So yeah that's about it for this week!  Sorry pretty boring but it's good.  I love my mission so much!  It's been a struggle a lot but I can tell that it's always worth it. 

Love you!  Have a good week!

October 27 2014

Dear Family,

So,my companion doesn't like riding his bike so we just walk everywhere. :)  I get along with him good though.  He's interesting.  He has to have noise going on all the time and it's usually him doing  something or saying something.  He's pretty funny though and we get along good.  If something is going on with him though you will know about it.  He told me a couple times today about this rash he thinks he's getting in his behind that I just don't really want to know but he says it all!  Running is good!  I like it a lot being able to run to the beach and everything.  I'm getting back into shape it feels like too because I can go a lot faster for a lot longer than I could when I first got here.  The weather is good.  It's like hot some days and a little chilly other days but it's staying around 80 degrees I'd say.  So still not really fall weather but we will see what the weather will be like normally here.  We don't actually have very many investigators.  Our area is struggling and we just walk all day trying to talk to and go by people but it's hard...  I've heard that we just stay in for Halloween when it gets night and like clean or something.  We'll see!  I'm almost done with Jesus the Christ so I'm expecting to just have a lot of reading to do there with that.  My apartment is about the same.  Super small.  But it has carpet which I like a lot more so I like it!  It's cozy.  And it has an air conditioner which is way nice because it gets toasty reeally fast when you use the oven or something. 

Well as far as stories from this past week, I don't have anything too interesting.  The biggest thing is that we had a Halloween party on Friday with the Rama and the English ward which was pretty fun!  We got to jump in the bouncy house for a bit. :)  Don't worry I had someone take pictures.  It was only me and my companion then Elder Campbell and an Elder called Elder Wolfenden.  He's from Sandy.  But yeah that was pretty cool!  Not really much else though as far as that stuff. 

We were walking one day and it was weird because everyone was like saying hi and stuff and so we were walking and this gay guy is walking the opposite way and I just kinda nodded at him and he gave me a high five as he came by and said in a very gay voice "What's up my hookah?"  I just kinda said hi but it was pretty interesting. :) 

It's been hard but honestly not the hardest thing I've ever done.  Now that I am doing it it's weird to think about...  But that one summer that I did the 1000 miles was harder than this in every way.  But yeah I'm doing good!

Well that's about it from this last week.  Hopefully I'll get some interesting things to say about Halloween. :)  Anyway have a good week!  Have fun with Halloween and everything!  Don't get too stressed out or anything!  I love you!

October 20 2014

Dear Family,

My new area is pretty cool!  It's pretty small and pretty ghetto but I love it here!  Honestly it makes me remember Maryland a lot!  Not sure why but it's just the feel of the place.  My companion is pretty cool!  He's super skinny and tall.  Like 6'3 and probably like 110.  We go running in the mornings to the beach which is about a mile away from where we live which is super cool and he doesn't like running so he bikes there.  He's pretty funny and nice but I think that he's not so excited to be with me because I'm not very funny and don't know how to be funny like that and yeah...  But oh well I guess!  The branch is pretty good!  I like it a lot!  Don't know much about it yet because instead of sacrament meeting we had a primary program with combined Spanish and English so that was actually really cool.  The first week in the transfer is always kinda goofy and weird and awkward trying to figure things out so I don't really know too much yet.  

I did get your package!  Thanks so much!  I was so happy when I opened it and found all that stuff especially the jam stuff.  And the lego. :)  Thanks so much for that!  It made my day for sure!  I'll try to send out a letter soon as I can with my other SD card.  

Thanks for the quote!  That's a really good one.  It's true!  It's way hard to remember that we have been given these trials to improve ourselves and we can't do that if we don't appreciate them and enjoy the moments we have!  

As far as this week, I don't really have anything else special to say.  Spanish is coming.  I can tell I'm getting it down slowly.  Going to try to do an all Spanish day tomorrow - me and Elder Taylor. Um... oh yesterday we went to eat dinner at a hermana's house and she told me I have a light in my eyes!  It was kinda cool to hear!  She told us about her conversion and baptism story basically and she had to go talk to President Tew and she said the same light was in his eyes so that made me feel really neat!  I'm glad I have that kinda light in my eyes!  I'm really trying to work on being brave with talking to people though...  I made it a goal yesterday that I'm going to say something every week in church to participate in the classes.  And I'm just trying to get Spanish down...  I probably won't get it down as good as I want to for a long time but at least I can kinda communicate-ish.  Well I can't think about anything else to really say at this point in time.  Just trying to learn the area and the people and stuff.    Anyway I love you!  Have a good week!  Hang in there!  

October 13 2014

Dear Family,


Phew so this week we got transfer facts.  You won't believe this.  So Elder Petersen got called to train again for another two transfers so I'm moving!  I was only here for 2 transfers which isn't too long.  Usually you can expect to get moved after 3 but I'm moving now!  I'm going to Long Beach south zone!  Don't know borders or anything yet but apparently my area will be the smallest area in the whole mission.  3 blocks.  And it's right next to the beach I hear so I'm really excited.  :)  My district leader there will be the same district leader I had for my first transfer and I'm going there with Elder Creasy so it's going to be way fun!  I'm super excited. :)  My new companion is Elder Taylor and it's going to be pretty sweet!  I leave early Tuesday morning and yeah!  Woo!

I'm glad everything is going pretty good at home!  Except for Jacob.  Too bad everyone is getting all sick and stuff.  

I am at the normal library.  It's not a county library so it's not closed today.  Which is good because I really like this library.  Strange to think I'll probably not come here again.  Can you email me a list of birthdays and stuff?  I can't remember all of them...  And I don't want to forget and someone gets sad.  

About this week, honestly everyone was just kinda dead from this transfer.  It's kinda interesting to see that people usually get energy in the beginning but it takes a bit to get going.  Then after a couple weeks they hit their groove and do good work.  Then it get's really hard to continue it out and finish it.  So this week was hard because everyone was just wiped out and just pushing through it.  However we did go see Meet the Mormons at zone conference on Friday!  It was pretty cool!  Have you guys seen it?  Definitely from a missionary point of view I loved it!  Since we were just kinda pushing through things, nothing too interesting happened other than transfers as far as I can tell.  Just a whole lot of crazy drama stuff that I'm glad I won't have to deal with anymore!  Anyway I'm way excited to go and get a change.  The new place I'm going to will be the Eximinol branch or something. it's something like that.  It's a branch though with 8 missionaries.  I'm super excited. :)  Apparently i'm close enough to the beach I can run alongside it.  We'll see though.  I can't touch the sand but there's apparently a trail I can go on.  I'll have to check it out!  

Anyway that's that week.  I love you!  Have a good week!  Thanks for everything!

New pictures!

October 6, 2014

Dear Family,

Hey! :)  I did see Brianna, Dad, Tori, Bro Jensen, and Morty. :)  It was so cool to see people again and weird at the same time.  It was so much fun and so spiritual to watch conference!  We had Pablo come to the priesthood session!  He loved it. :)  First time he's been to church.  And also Gary and Debbie came too and then later that night (yesterday) we all got together and talked and stuff.  It's been such a good couple days.  I loved the General Conference talks.  There were so many good ones and a lot of them were answers to my prayers and guidance for what I should do for the next six months.  I loved Jorg's talk as well!  The whole thing was just so awesome...  Jorg's may have been my favorite though.  We watched conference at the stake center which is the building I meet at for church.  It was super fun. :) 

I had a cool experience with my military plan and what I went through with that when I was a junior.  There's a 17 year old girl member here who really wants to do military and is planning on it but she didn't want to ask God or read her patriarchal blessing or anything so I went over and shared my experience and how there are other ways to joining the military than following whatever the recruiters say. But she was super appreciative of me coming over and sharing my experience with that and yeah!  Woo!  

I loved the pictures of the pumpkins!  :)  They look so fun and huge!  How did that even happen?  I don't even remember where they were growing...  That's so cool though.  I like the picture of Sam sitting on his pumpkin. 

That's so much fun with soccer. :)  Man I wish I could be there and play around with them.  I love playing soccer now with the other guys and I still got it. :)  I've made some pretty cool goals and stuff.  But there are way good people here too.  One of the guys plays professionally.  I feel pretty cool when I go up to him and am able to get the ball away from him and yeah! 

Things between the districts have kinda come at a standstill.  We're just waiting out the transfer I feel like.  Which we will find out about transfer stuff this week!  I will know by Saturday night what is going on with my new companion and stuff!  I'm pretty sure I'm getting a new companion so yeah!  Pretty crazy!  Stressful too though, but it's all good.  Elder Creasy actually isn't doing very good.  He asked us for a blessing the other day and I gave the actual blessing part not the sealing.  He's getting better though.  

Casper is the bird that bit my finger and I still talk to him sometimes. :)  I keep waiting for him to attack me in the middle of the night too...  

My bike is kinda funny.  It's pretty dead.  I'm just hoping I can make it last for another 20 months. I think I might be able to but we'll see.  I try to save the brake since I only have one which makes things kinda adventurous.  

Zone conference is Friday from 9 till 4:30.  

Oh also, I was told the other day by a member that when I speak Spanish I sound like I have a French accent. :)  Kinda fun but makes me wonder if my accent is that bad that it doesn't even sound like a bad English accent.

As far as success goes, this last week has been much better as the other weeks have been.  It's been a hard transfer with other people but a good one number wise and teaching wise.  Different experience.  We'll see what next transfer brings!  

Oh could you also send me dates of everyone's birthdays and important things like that?  I'm forgetting all sorts of things that have to do with time and I can't remember for the life of me what Dad's birthday is.  Weird how time gets so distorted here.  The weeks are blurring together and moving quickly.  But slowly.  It's strange.  

I don't really have anything to say about this last week though that I haven't said already so sorry! I love you guys!  I'll send another email if I think of anything interesting that happened this last week.  You all are awesome!  I miss you guys!  Have a great week and have fun!

September 29, 2014

Hey mom! :)  First off guess what?  I am on day 103 already.  Fun stuff! 

That's super cool about church!  It must have been super cool to see all that stuff and to watch the farewells.  I wish I could have gone but that's ok. I still feel bad about my farewell because it kinda sucked.  One thing I learned in the CCM was how to write talks though so yeah!  I haven't had the opportunity to speak yet in church but I feel like it's coming...  We'll see.  I'm going to be so nervous when it comes but it'll be alright.  As a missionary you actually have to memorize Doc and Cov 4 - at least here you do so that's pretty cool!  

I'm way excited for General conference!  I can't wait!  Is Dad singing in the Sunday afternoon session?  I'm going to be looking but it's alright if I don't see anyone. :)  It's still super cool.  Sounds like you've been super busy with your stuff you have going on...  Good luck this week!  Don't get too stressed out!  Do the boys soccer as much as I did?  What kinda things are they getting into?

Well this last week was a whole lot better.  Things have calmed down.  There are still issues but as a district we are all pretty much family.  Elder Creasy and I hung out all last night because he's pretty sick and can't work but we pull emergency exchanges all the time.  We are all basically family though!  It's actually really cool and fun!  I have learned a whole lot from these experiences.  It's crazy how much you can learn in even a week that it would have taken so long otherwise to learn.  Every week I work on a different Christlike attribute in PMG and every week it's so hard but I learn something cool and different that I didn't know before.  It's just so much fun to be out here. :)  

That sounds awesome with the garden stuff!  Man I miss how autumn is like in Utah.  Things are the same here year round so it's not so fun but that's ok.  The feeling is in the air for sure that summer's over.

This last week just felt weird.  Everyone felt it.  It was just goofy.  Not bad or good or anything but yeah.  We found an awesome family kinda thing.  They just moved into our area.  The mom is an active member but her kids aren't but one is super interested and curious.  Golden situation basically.  We haven't actually met the kid yet but we will tomorrow.  It's been way hard to teach and work this past week though with Elder Creasy.  I went out into his area with his companion a couple times to help them out and that's actually a lot of what we have been doing.  Helping out other elders.  

I haven't seen Aunt Louisa...  Hopefully before I leave!  Transfers are in 2 weeks.  I'm 85 percent sure that I'm staying though so that's good.  I like it here a lot! 

Thanks for everything!  I love you!  

So with staying in with Elder Creasy, they live in the same complex as another companionship.  They're English and one of them is from Micronesia.  He's basically one of my favorite people in the world.  He's about a transfer older than me so yeah but he's so cool!  Last night we didn't really have any food for dinner because I was with him in his appt but they brought us some leftovers from their dinner they had with a Tongan family. Now I haven't eaten like red meat or anything like that since I've been out here so we both went crazy and ate like pigs.  It was actually pretty funny but there came a point where we both were feeling kinda weird.  It's been so long that we were pretty sure our bodies were just going to reject the food.  But yeah. :)  Elder Creasy is so cool though!  One of the elders for sure I want to be companions with.  He's way nice and fun and stuff and super cool.  

We met this returned missionary from South Carolina the other day which was pretty cool.  We were just knocking doors and he answered and invited us in and just talked with us for a while.  he gave us some awesome reference papers and we made copies and yeah!  that was pretty fun to see someone like that.  he's been off for like 12 years and still single but yeah it was super fun!

My Spanish is coming along.  People here are way nice.  They keep encouraging me and helping me feel better about it so that's really good.  Hopefully it will get to the point where I will finally be comfortable in it.  I think I just need to talk in it more...  Maybe.

Guess what?  Remember what I used to do when I was younger?  I slept walked!  Guess what apparently I'm starting to do again!  I didn't know about this but I guess I do talk in my sleep too which is interesting hearing what I say in my sleep when I wake up Elder Petersen but the other night he said I got out of bed, walked over to his bed which is by the closet so he thought I was just going to the closet or something then I turned and started walking towards him.  He was so scared. :)  He said he doesn't get scared too often but he was terrified.  Then I turned and knelt down and said a prayer and then got up and went back into my bed.  So yeah interesting stuff with that!  He said if I slept walked again he's going to all out punch me though.  

Anyway that's from this last week!  I'll talk to you guys later!  Have a good week!

Love you!