New area, new companion!

Oct 27, 2014

First transfer:

You guys are going to laugh so hard at this one. Haha, well as you know, this week was changes but for our zone and our zone leaders like to have a little bit of fun.  so we all sat done and they went through and told each person, one by one, if they got changes and if so, where they were going.  There were a bunch of changes in our zone of Pedro Juan Caballero… a lot of people got called to train including my “papa”, Elder Fielding, but one change that through everyone for a loop, was mine!  I got called to go to Villa Hayes to finish the training of Elder Clark.  That very well blew my mind.  At first I thought that my zone leaders were just messin with me but they were completely serious, so now, I’m training Elder Clark in Villa Hayes, how crazy is that!!

A little bit about Villa Hayes,…

haha definitely didn’t mean to send that yet.

okay now...

A little bit about Villa Hayes,

Here, in the ugly town of Villa Hayes we have a lot of dirt.  There is only two paved roads in this town and all the rest are dirt and instead of sidewalks they have their gutter which in reality, is their sewer, so every house has a little wood bridge to get from the street to their house.  Also, here in Villa Hayes, we have a family of donkeys that roam the streets as well as the cows and horses.  We also have a friendly old man who sells Chipa out of the basket on his head.  Chipa is a Paraguayan staple food, all it is, is generally really dry cheese bread but they have found ways to make it more appealing, so they have different flavors including Jamon y Queso and Carne. But I think the best thing about Villa Hayes, that really makes it all worth it, is that there are firefly’s!! 

My first week in Villa Hayes went really well.  We had the baptism of Arturo which was fantastic, we went to a lot of members houses and I introduced myself, we also had a lot of people offer us food which is always awesome.  The people here are super duper nice and generous.  They’re a lot more humble than the people up in Pedro Juan.  I’m not quite sure why yet, but I love it.  I have a feeling I’m going to stay here a long time so I think I’ll get settled in.  Oh, it was about 105 degrees yesterday and super humid, not too fun but I’ll get over it.

Everything is just dandy here in Paraguay and I’m loving every minute of it.  Thank you for all of your support, I can really feel your love for me, even from way down here.

Love elder petersen

Zone Conference

With Elder Clark and Arturo

Shwarma and Spiders

Alrighty family and friends,

This is the last email I will send as a trainee!  #yes!  oh man im super excited to not have to rely on someone and change things up a little, but I'm also super nervous because most likely I will get a Latin companion, which will be tough.  The area I'm in right now is going to split so I might just stay here and just get a new companion, either way I'm gong to try and make the best of it.

A couple things happened this week that were pretty sweet.  The first really cool thing that happened was that we ate Shwuarma which, if you remember, is the food that Ironman suggests the Avengers eat after they win : ) except here its not called Shwuarma, its called Lomitos Arabe. Its really really good.  If you ever have the chance, I would suggest it.

Yesterday we went to our relief society presidents house to eat lunch and we were waiting on the couch while she was putting the finishing touches on our meal and right above us, was this spider.

After seeing this spider I kept a close eye out for others and i definitely found them. They were all over the place!  We are honestly sooo blessed to live in the great United States of America.

The work in our Rama (branch) is progressing which is awesome.  We had an investigator come to church with us for the first time in 3 months in the field.  We are also finding a lot of other good people to teach. hah just in time for changes right?? :(

The work is hard but rewarding. 

Love Elder Petersen

Catapillar War

Oct 13, 2014

Oh man, it’s crazy how fast the time flies.  I can’t believe that I’ve been in the mission for almost 4 months now. It seems like just yesterday I hopped on a plane to come here.  I’ve almost graduated training. YES!!

It’s crazy to think of all the things I’ve learned just in this short amount of time and every day seems to be faster than the last.

A couple of strange/cool things happened this week. I’ll start it out with and caterpillar fight. haha sounds funny doesn’t it??  So, during the day it gets super-duper hot and humid, so we usually stop by the church and grab some water but all around our church, there are thick, fat, juicy caterpillars.  My comp. Elder Fielding thought it would be funny to stick one on his shoe and then kick it at me and it worked. haha but I wasn’t having any of that’ so I picked the same one up and through it at him. Things came to pass and we had a caterpillar war. haha it was super-duper fun but the cool part was that they would stick to your shirt. Oh man, it was pretty funny (poor caterpillars)

The next strange thing that happened was on Sunday at church. We were sitting in class and I had my hand up on the chair next to me and sitting behind me was a little kid named Joel (about 4 or 5 years old) and for some strange reason, Joel started pulling out the hair on my knuckles. haha it was super weird at first but then it kinda started to feel good he did it for about 10 to 15 minutes until class ended.  I don’t know if he feels the same but I feel like we bonded.  Joel...what a boss!!

This week we also had the opportunity to go to one our colonies called Naranjahai.  We went out to visit some members and they served us lunch which was super nice but when she set the plate down in front of me she said "Now, this isn’t normal meat" haha  What kind of thing to say is that?? haha  Well, it turns out, it was cow liver and it also turns out that I . . . don’t like cow liver!! : (  Imagine that!!  

To get back to our house we have to take a collectivo (bus) so we waited for almost 4 hours for a bus to take us back home.  We sat and waited as two different buses passed by us.  I don’t know if they didn’t have room for us or they just don’t like Mormons (or Americans). 

Last night we received a call saying that we needed to go down to Asuncion to sign for migrations which stinks because our area is 8 hours away and we had to be there in the morning but today at the migrations office, one of the assistants and I contacted people while we were waiting.  We contacted and man from Sweden and a couple from Germany.  The man from Sweden was there to start a new life because he did "some bad things and needed to leave the country".  It kind of made me wonder but then the couple from Germany seamed really interested in what we were teaching them and took a pamphlet but they said they would only take our pamphlet if we took theirs so we said that’s fine and took their pamphlet…turns out that they were Jehovah’s witnesses. Bummer : )

Anyways, this week went really good, not so much in the way of working, but it went alright. We are going to have to drop some of our investigators this week because they are just wasting our time when we could be focusing on someone who can progress. I guess we will see how it goes. ;)

I love you all so much and wish the best for you.

Love Elder Petersen

Nicked by a Car!

Taking a break in Paraguay

Almost done training!

This week wasn’t too spectacular. We had some scary times, some fun times and some disappointing times too.

On Tuesday this week we were walking home from district meeting, and because there are no sidewalks here in Paraguay, we were walking on the street, all of a sudden this car comes flying down the hill that we have to walk up to get home. He was going about 40 miles per hour. Usually people just go around us and pretend like we were never there, but not this guy, this tool bag came right towards me. Luckily I noticed and took a very sharp side step and still got nicked by his side mirror. I don’t mean to exaggerate but I very easily could have been killed. Luckily (or divine intervention) I didn’t get hurt. 

Anyways, we had a really good investigator, or so we thought, that committed to coming to general conference however she didn’t show up. It was very upsetting but I couldn’t be too sad while listening to the prophets. I have never really paid any attention to general conference before and now knowing what I do now, I wish I would have. I don’t know about you guys but i felt like this general conference was absolutely amazing.

Well this week our ward mission leader told us that he won’t be coming to church anymore. it was kind of a blow to the kidney to think that his decisions aren’t only effecting himself. His son who is almost 8 isn’t coming either, but his wife who is our relief society president is still coming, which is great. Just remember that the choices you make, never effect only yourself. So i don’t know what’s going to happen in our branch right about now.

Even though things are falling apart in our branch right now, God will always find a way to move his work forward.

I love you all sooo much and can’t wait to see your beautiful faces again!!

love elder petersen

Dinner : )

Wildlife