Mother's Day 2016

Hey there family and Friends,

Skyping yesterday was great! i got to talk and to see my family just about 3 weeks before i come home. It was great to see them all happy and healthy. But this email is for my Mom.

Im so grateful to my father in heaven that i was put into this wonderful family and to have the great Mother that i have today. I would not be the man i am today if it werent for her pushing me to become better and i most certainly wouldnt be serving and honorable fulltime mission if it wasnt for her. 

I owe everything i have to that beautiful women. And everything i am today is because of her influence that she has on me!!

I love you Mom.

Love Elder Petersens

June 3 @ 10:30am

Well Family and Friends,

   This will be one of the last times i write all of you. The title of this letter states the date and time that i will arrive in the airport! I'm not sure what to think! haha

   This week went really well! it rained once and its been freezing cold ever since! But its a nice change from the normal 100 degree temperature and 100& humidity. I like it a lot.

   Elder Starks and i have been running across a lot of really great people! We recently put a baptismal date with a 13 year old kid named Alexis. He is a really cool kid and he has come to church twice already! He seams to really wants to get baptized but it might be a struggle because his dad is a less active member who doesn't want anything to do with the church and because he is under age he might run into to trouble getting his dad to give him permission. Cross your fingers.

   Elder Starks and I are doing everything we can to help this ward grow and we are seeing a lot of success. I really cant complain one bit. I'm loving the area, My companion and the people here in Piquete Cue.

   I love you all so much! hope you have a great week!

All I could do was shake her hand, I'm a idiot!

The most embarrassing thing just happened to me! so Elder Petersen is sitting in a cyber writing his humble letter to his family, while 7 college students (women) walk in and sit down next to me! One of them asks to get my number and i told her no! hahaha she asks me my name and i shake her hand! hahhahaha I'm such an Idiot! i think I'm going to leave early because they just asked me to take a selfie with them! Therefore this is going to be short email because i need to leave before it gets more weird!

love you guys!!!!

elder Petersen!!!

**That's it!  That's all we got this week!  

The start of the Finish...

Family and Friends,

As you can probably guess by the title today is the first day of the last change in my mission. My time here in Paraguay is coming to an end. Even though i never thought it would. haha The time as passed by very quickly but i sure am glad that i have had this chance to serve the Lord here is Paraguay.

This will be a shorter letter just because there isnt a whole ton to write about this week. But i sure do love you guys and i pray and hope that you all have a fantastic week.

Love Elder Petersen

Baptism of Osmar

Hey Family and Friends,

Let me just start out by letting you all know how much i love you guys. Thanks for all of your support here in the mission. I sure needed it. Jaja

Elder Starks and I had a baptism this Saturday and It was perfect. Osmar Delpuerto was baptized this Saturday and he invited about 30 people to attend, 8 of which being new investigators. Things are going great here in my area. All of the work that i have put into the beautiful country are finally paying off! 

We have an investigator that asked us what he needs to do to serve a mission. I cant wait for him to become a member of this church and serve a mission and grow up a little bit just like i had the opportunity to do. He is a great kid! his name is Matias Ramirez. He is 17 years old and he is one of the most prepared people for baptism that I have ever met! I cant wait to help him leave on a mission. If he goes on a mission it will be the second convert of mine that I helped get of a mission. Now that's not to brag, I know that I was put in their lives because the Lord wanted me to be there, sometimes I'm still not sure why it was me! 

Its hard to realize that i only have about a month and a half left here in Paraguay. I wish i could just take these people back with me! If you want to learn to love someone really quickly, lose yourself serving them. I love this people. I cant express the way i feel about them now being in there presence for about 2 years now. Some of them have come to be some of my best friends and it will be very hard to leave them behind. Jajaja i knew this day would come i just didn't think it would come so soon and be this hard.

Well I've got about 7 weeks left so i guess I've got to enjoy it while I have them.  

I love you all so much and i thank you again for all of your support and love.

have a great week!

General Conference

Hello family and Friends,

This week topped off a great month. Lots of Lots of good things are coming our way here in Piquete Cuè and i have a feeling that the month of April is going to be at least 4 times better. I cant wait. I don't have a whole lot of time today but I love you all and I'll write more this next week. 

I love you all!!

Elder Petersen

Chat time:

How is everything?

Everything is doing really well here. My companion is doing well also. He is picking up on the Spanish thing. But there is still a lot to teach him.

What was your best experience this week?  

Probably General Conference!! for sure!! its better than Christmas here in the mission!

We are going to have a baptisms or two in the upcoming weeks. That will be great.

That is awesome!  Tell me about them.  Their story.

Well one of them is named Osmar. Her is 10 years old and his family is less active but we found him and he would like to be baptized. The other one is Matias, he is 17 years old and his girlfriend is a member of a nearby ward. He has come to church 4 times and he wants to serve a mission. We told him that he would need to be baptized before he can go on a mission and he said he would have no problem with it. He will be baptized on the 16 of this month.

Oh, I sent your final box!  I hope you like it : ) 

You have never sent a box that i have not loved! so for all of the previous and the one future box, Thank you so much.

I'm glad.  Unless you tell me specific things, I just kinda guess at what you might need or use.  I sent some CTR rings for you to give the kids, and I actually found them in Spanish.  Did you ever think that I would tell you I sent you LAST box?  I didn't!  

I keep telling people that the first 3 months were SO LONG AND HORRIBLE but the middle went so fast.  Now the last 3 months are DRAGGING ALONG!  Probably not for you, but for us...

Jajaja Its cruising by for me! ive got less than two months left and i think that it will go by really fast becasue there are lots of things to do here so ill be pretty busy. But i never thought that i would get to this point in the mission. I never thought that it would come to an end. But sure enough, just like everyone said, it came and went super fast.

How are you feeling about that?  Are you ready to be wrapping things up or not?  Some missionaries are ready to roll when the time comes and others really don't want to leave.  I can tell you that your family is ready!  We want you to finish strong but when that day comes, we're ready.  I hope you are too.  

Hahaha yup! I'm getting to that point!! I am getting to that point where i feel like i have done all that was asked of me and more and its time for me to go. Haha its hitting me but I'm still kicking!!

No good deed...

Hey Family and Friends,

This week went very well. We are working hard to reach our goals and it looks to me like we are on the right track to getting them. We have several people getting ready to make covenants with God and they will all will be baptized this next month. Matias, Osmar, Alex and Vivian are all progressing very nicely and also all went to church yesterday so Elder Starks and I will be seeing some baptisms here soon.

Along with all of the good progress we have also had a lot of really good food. Being Semana Santa, Everyone cooks tons of food and they invite us to eat it with them. One day we had a double lunch and it just about killed my companion eating so much food. 

We also had a lesson with the nicest chiken you have ever met. hahah youll see in the fotos below.

Honestly other than that there is not a whole lot going on. Oh the weather has been great. and we also had the chance to go and do service for a member family in our area. We dug a whole so that they could bury their trash. jajaj but we hit a water line while doing it. So what was supposed to be a 30 minute project turned into a 2 hour project. jajaja just my luck.

Well thats it for this week. Have a good one.

Love Elder Petersen