Caroling at the Hospital

Well hello there family!!                                                             Dec 29, 2014

First of all, it is nothing like Christmas down here in south America! if you are down here you know what I'm talking about (friends serving there)!! yeah some people have lights and maybe a Christmas tree but there are no presents, no reindeer, no Santa Claus and hardly any traditions, but there are a lot of good this about being in south America for the holidays, like all the Nativity sets, fireworks, danger, asado and mucho chancho (food)! One of the traditions that they do have is asado and chancho! pretty much everyone down here had a barbeque for Christmas, which i'm not opposed too!

For noche buena (Christmas Eve) we got permission to stay out until 11 whoa!! haha we spend most of the night at a members house eating all there food and playing with there kids! after that we spent the night at the other elders house playing Uno until 2 in the morning!! haha super fun

Local Catholic church

This week as a Zone, we went to sing Christmas songs in a hospital! it was really awesome to bring smiles to there faces! the last himno (hymn) we sang was to a mother who had just given birth that day and it reminded me of the birth of Jesus! it was a pretty great experience!!

Overall it was a good week for me in Villa Hayes! super hot and super sweaty but, hey que trabajar right?? 

i love you all so much and thank you for your support and prayers! keep it up, I'm gonna need it! haha 

love Elder Petersen

First Christmas in Paraguay!

This Christmas Eve was one to remember!  We got to Skype with our favorite missionary and what a perfect gift that was for a family who loves their son, brother and uncle.  We adore this kid.  Before we were able to Skype, we were emailing with each other (there was only one computer in the "cyber" that worked with Skype and his comp was first to call his family).  He said he was really nervous to Skype, "because we were too cool for him"!!  What?  Are you kidding me?  It is YOU who is too cool for us : )  haha!

It was such a joy to chat with him.  It was probably the best 40 minutes we've ever had as a family.  We laughed and cried and laughed some more.  We asked him to tell us, in Spanish, the day he came across the donkeys.  He spoke flawlessly!  It was amazing to witness.  We could tell that it was actually difficult for him to be speaking English because he'd hesitate a little while he thought of the right word to say.  He said he even dreams in Spanish now!  We asked if he had slept walked while he was there, and all he could say is, "my companions haven't said anything about that!"

Before he had to go, Dave asked him to bear his testimony.  It was honestly one of the most beautiful moments of my life.  His testimony is pure love.  Love for the people of Paraguay, love for family but mostly love of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.  He knows that families can be together forever, which is why he's there!!  He said that another missionary told him, "we leave our families for 2 years so that others can be with theirs for all eternity."  : )

What a great Christmas!!  The best I can remember!  We love this boy so much.

"Preaching" to the Donkeys

This week we find Elder Petersen Preaching the good word, to anyone who will listen...
That's it!  We get to Skype for Christmas in 2 days so his email was short...

Busted!

What it do family and friends??                                                     Dec 15, 2014

Well I’ve got a story to tell, like always!! haha this was is a good story to tell but it doesn’t have the best outcome! Here it goes! Well, as you know we had a baptism this past Saturday with Nilda which was great, we have also been talking to her daughter who is about 30 and we had set a date for her to be baptized on the 27 of deciembre (December) but we have ran into a slight problem!! She is going to jail for 3 years starting in enero (January). haha uh oh!!  well she had a little bit of a run in with the law when she decided it would be a good idea to steal about 66,000,000 Guarani’s (about 12,000$).  We only know this because she stole it from a lady in our branch and she told us that she would finally be being doing her time after 5 years of actually committing the crime! #paraguayanlegalsystemssuck so...needless to say, she will not be getting baptized this week . . . or for a while! But it’s okay she needs to make it right and be truly repentant! 

This week we also had 4 investigators in sacrament meeting, and if you´ve ever been a missionary or know how the mission works, you would know that it’s lucky to have just one at church! 

After church we had the opportunity to go burn some trash! haha really that’s how we do it down here in Paraguay. We went over to a member’s house to find that he needed some help and what better thing is there to do on Sunday then help??  As we were cleaning up trash with sticks we came across our little/really big friend (refer to photo) the one with the giant spider in it. haha luckily we were weren’t doing this by hand because we also found a little snake but it ran away before I could take a picypic! dane it!!

Everything is going great here in Paraguay. It’s super-hot and our house is more humid than Satan but I’m loving it!!  we are in the pursuit of a new house so hopefully we can find one that is a little less humid! 

I love you all so much, thank you for the support and love! I hope you have a good week without me! :,( haha jus kitten. I love you! chou chou

Love Elder Petersen

Seamstress Miracle

Dear Family and Friends,                                                                    Dec 8, 2014

This week was quite an interesting one! First of all we had changes this past Tuesday but pretty much no one changed in our zone but a couple people! So, I’m still in good old Villa Hayes with Elder Clark!

Okay, now for the fun part! This week we had our baptism! woo hoo but it was a struggle!  That’s kind of how all baptisms are here in Paraguay!! Baptisms never go as planned (shout out to elder Fielding)!! Well our investigator is a little bit larger than others so we didn’t have any baptismal clothes that would fit her! haha oops!! So, we went to a seamstress on Wednesday and asked if she could have a completely white, but not see through, over sized dress ready by Saturday!  I felt pretty bad putting that on her but there was honestly nothing else we could do! Well, somehow, she did it and we got it about an hour before the baptism! #straightupluck (blessed)

At the baptism, we waited for a presiding member of the branch to show up but nobody came for about an hour! We also had an investigator there to watch and she wasn’t too happy that she had to wait for an hour, but someone finally showed up and we started right away! Well I did the baptism and I was pretty nervous because she is a larger lady and she has really bad knees so she wouldn’t be able to help me out at all and bend her knees a little bit!  I was so nervous that before i started the prayer, I forgot to say her name! Luckily Elder Majia stopped me before I dunked her! So I started over and then it came time to actually do the baptism! Honestly I had been praying for the strength to be able to do the baptism and it was a lot easier than I had expected! I know someone was watching over me because she is not a small lady! Luckily I was able to do it okay and everything turned out to be great! 

After the baptism, she had the opportunity to bare her testimony! She started crying and thanking us or opening her heart! She knows that it was the spirit that truly opened her heart! She is honestly such a special lady and her example has got her daughter wanting to be baptized! So we have a date set for the 26 of December for her daughter to be baptized! : )

Things are going good her in Paraguay and we are starting to see the fruits of our labors! Keep working hard and I’ll do the same!! I love you all so very much! Have a good week!!

Love your favorite Elder!!...besides Elder Holland ; ) haha

Elder Petersen

Quote from Sis. (Hailey) Jones: Serving in the Philippines...

“On Friday we did community service at the house of a member in branch 2 (we're branch 1) We helped her move everything out of her small house and then moved a huge pile of dirt and rocks inside to make it higher up so that it doesn't flood. Only in the Philippines. Even though I see it literally every day, somehow I forgot how poor the people are here. There were a ton of us that showed up to help, and nanay had prepared lunch for us but she was expecting 4-6 missionaries, not 14. We felt super bad because it's considered really embarrassing if you have guests and you can't feed all of them. Somehow though we all ate and were filled:) The work was super hard but super fun. Good thing we helped out when we did too. I've learned on my mission that the best way to serve people is by sharing with them the restored gospel, but if we ignore their physical needs we've missed the whole point.” 

Jeffrey and I (mom) got to "chat" (email) for a little while and he talked about this very thing!  He has a real desire to serve the people of Paraguay, in what ever form that looks like.  Some feel it is better to study about serving, rather then actually doing it.  I told him of an experience that went something like this...

"Do you remember when we lived in Ashland and on Sunday morning, during conference, dad got a call from Keith Woodley?  He said that a mans trailer home was flooding and he needed help moving his stuff to higher ground.  Dad kind of grumbled and mentioned that he was watching conference, then Keith said “Well, we can sit and listen about how we are suppose to serve others, or we can go serve others!”  Needless to say, that was a one lesson, lesson!  It is always better to actually serve then it is to read about serving." 

Blessings and "Swimming"

Hello there Family and Friends,                                                                                      Dec 1, 2014

Well, I’m just going to get right to it.  This week was great, we had a lot of good things happen to us!  First things first, we are going to have a baptism this next Saturday!  wooo hooo!!  Super stoked!!  We met Nilda in church actually before we even had the chance to talk to her.  Then, as we met with her in the past several weeks we set a baptism date with her but she said that she wanted to wait and be baptized with her daughter who didn’t have the attendance yet, so we would have to wait for the 20 of December, but as we met with her last night, she said that she doesn’t want to wait, so long story short, we are going to baptize her this week!! : ) #truefaith  

The other day we were walking pretty far away to find a couple of investigators that we thought could progress, so we made the hike out there just to find that they weren’t home! : ( we tried to find people to teach but nothing was working!  So, in our last attempt to find a lesson we clapped at the house (Paraguayan version of knocking on the door) of a menos active (less active?), luckily she let us in and we talked or a while, then tears started rolling down her cheeks!  I wasn’t really sure why until she said that she was just feeling alone and she didn’t know why.  She said that her relationship was good with her family and her boyfriend but she still felt alone.  This was a testimony builder for me to know that God put us in that place for a reason!  We helped her realize that her relationship with the Savior was lacking!  It was such a great experience for me and hopefully for her as well!

This week we also had the opportunity to go swimming… kinda!  We were walking to a part of our area that is a little bit less developed than most, so the water from the rain storm we had last Tuesday hadn’t really dried up yet!! haha and the only way to get to this area was to wade through the really warm water! #Paraguayanbathtime 

We also got to help a family move a little bit and this spider was right next to my companions hand while we were moving a dresser!

Overall, it was a good week, we had some ups and downs but luckily more ups than downs!  I love you all and hope you have a great week!

PS: I’ll tell you the changes, if I got changed, next week!!

Love elder petersen