June 30, 2014

Hello everyone!!!

So this week has been really good! This whole week everybody is leaving on vacation which really stinks but the great thing is that we have been teaching Gregory, one of our amis, pretty much everyday!  He is progressing a lot!

So Gregory lives all alone and we are pretty much his only friends besides a retired Catholic priest called Pere Joseph who takes him out for coffee. Gregory is very timid and gets depressed a lot because he is all alone.  Gregory came to our Family Home Evening this Monday and he loved it. He said he feels really good at our Church.

We have to teach him very slow and testify to him a lot but he is praying every night and he says it helps him. I feel so bad for him because one time in a lesson he showed us that he cuts himself and that he is really depressed. I felt so much of God's love for him and how much God just wants him to be happy because that is what God wants for all of us.  Every time he sees us he is so happy. It is a great thing when we can make someone else's life better because when you do then it makes your life so much better too.

We taught the Plan of Salvation with Gregory and on Sunday he came to church as well!!  He says he is going to come to church every Sunday and to every Family Home Evening! He lives a long ways away too.  This Sunday we were able to fix a baptismal date with Gregory for the 2nd of August. I love Amiens a lot and I am so grateful to be able to see a lot of miracles here.

I also got a package from my dearest lovely sister, Marina, AKA Sister Peterson. That really made my week as well!! Thanks!!! LOVE YOU!!!

I hope you guys have a great week!

Love you all!!!

Elder Evan Peterson

Pics. 1. Me and the package that I got!
2. "Blue Whale, Persevere, Never say Give Up." Favorite Quote.  It is a pen that I got.

June 23, 2014

Hello EVERYBODY!!!

So this week has been the best week since I have been here in Amiens! We found 4 new amis! It was a great miracle.  Another thing that happened this week is that President and Soeur Poznanski are gone, but I will start talking about our week.

So the first part of this week was when we were contacting in centre ville. I contacted this lady and she said she was Catholic and she recognized us as being "Mormon" and not as "Johovah Witnesses" like everyone else thinks we are.  I asked if we could share our message with her.  She said yes and invited us to go get a coffee so we can sit down and talk. I said, "Sure, but we don't drink coffee though" (haha...she'll find out about that later). We taught the Restoration while I was drinking my Fanta, and Elder Willden his lemonade and she was drinking her coffee. She had a lot of questions but she said she wants to hear more and that she and her husband have been having a lot of doubts. She isn't a new ami yet but I just wanted to share that story because it is cool. 

Our amis are this one guy named Olivier which we actually taught him the first week of this transfer but haven't been able to get a hold of him until now. We will be seeing him next week.

The other one is a guy named Gregory. He lives all alone and he if a very very timid guy and all he talks about is how he wants a girlfriend and how he is depressed and he sometimes thinks about suicide. I am glad we could meet him so he can have some friends in his life.

The other two people are a young family that we met. The father's name is Pablo (he is from Spain) and his wife's name is Noelise.  She is from French Guiana). We had a great lesson with them about the Restoration and they are really involved with God and teaching their children to believe in God. I am so happy that we were able to find them because families are hard to find especially golden ones like this family.

Other than that, this week we had our last Zone Conference with the Poznanski's.  It is sad that they are leaving because they have done a lot for me, this mission and our Savior, but I am really exited to see President Babin and his wife!!!

So I hope you guys have had a great week! Have a great one this week too!

Love you guys!

Elder Peterson

Here are pics of me and my comp, Elder Willden and me with the Poznanski's.

June 16, 2014

Hey everybody!!! The theme of last week was "Cette semaine est notre semaine!" (This week is our week!) I probably annoyed my comp the whole week because I said that a lot. haha.

Well the beginning of last week was super hard. All of our appointments ended up not working out and we didn't find anybody. It was very discouraging and I remember just praying and praying. I still didn't give up on the fact that "this week is our week" though.

So on Friday me and my comp decided to do some late night contacting in centre ville (the middle of town) before we had to be back at 9pm.  So we did and we saw a great miracle. We found this guy named Feran. He speaks English and French and he is from Iraq. We taught him the restoration and he was very interested and we fixed an appointment to meet with him and his family. It felt so great to finally find someone because Elder Willden and I have been working really hard this transfer. It was so great to know that God is always there for you and will always be there to guide his elect unto him. I am just glad that I could find this nice young guy and his family.

So on Sunday night we taught Feran and his family. He is hte only one that speaks English and French so the language barrier is a little difficult but we showed the the Book of Mormon in Arabic online so that all of them could read it. They said they will so I am really excited to watch what will happen with them.

Another great blessing this week was that we were able to contact two of our potentials and we set up appointments with them and their families. I was thinking this week as well that the church mainly grows through families and how amazingly blessed we were to find a lot of young families here in Amiens. It was a really peaceful experience.

I just want to tell all of you that God is there. He hears our prayers and that if we have faith in him and do his will everything will work out for the better.

I hope that all of you have an amazing week! :)

I love you guys!!!

Elder Peterson

Mom's notes:  Elder Willden is from Charlotte, NC.  Soldes is getting ready to start soon.  This is one of two times during the year that stores can have sales so the missionaries usually save up to buy something during this time.  The other two missionaries in their apartment are Elder Oliverson and Elder Weston.  It rains a lot in France no matter what the season.  Transfers are on July 9th. 

June 9, 2014

Hello everyone!!!

So this week has been pretty good! On Tuesday we went into Paris for our district meeting.  It was really fun to see everybody and to eat some dang good food. Me and Willden made some great quiches! I am going to know how to make so many good stuff by the time I am finished with my mission. haha.

On Wednesday, we taught this one dude and showed him our church. I have to say it was a pretty hard lesson because this guy, which we met on the road, didn't seem that interested but we testified a lot and I know that he felt the spirit. I think we will be seeing him soon. This week all of our amis haven't had any time to meet with us but we set up a lot of lessons for next week so I'm excited for that! :)

We had stake conference this week and on Saturday we went up to Lille with all the members and all of the missionaries in the Lille stake.  It was really cool and it was great to see so many people from the Church. It really felt like a Utah ward because there was so many people.

One of our recent converts, Jennifer, had her birthday this week so me and Elder Willden, Elder Weston, and Elder Oliverson made a cake for her. Before she kept saying she was scared because we are men and men don't know how to make cake.  We definitely shower her though! She loved that gâteau!  Haha, Nigerians are so funny.

Well, that is it!!! We will talk with you next week!!! :))

Au revoir et soyez sage parce que Dieu vous aime! Et je vous aime aussi! N'oubliez-le pas!

Elder Evan Peterson

June 2, 2014

Bonjour à tous!!!


This week has been really good!!! First off, this week we had a branch BBQ that was sooo good. Sadly hot dogs and hamburgers aren't like the States.  I put this mustard on my hot dog and the mustard over here is super strong, so that cleared my head...haha.  We also played basketball and had a lot of fun.


We had a really good lesson with one of our amis, Evelyn. She wasn't progressing before but now she really is which is good. I have been really trying to get a hold of Aly but he just doesn't seem to care anymore. I will keep trying though.

So that week on Sunday night we were doing some porting and we saw such a great miracle. We knocked on the one guys house and we presented ourselves and then he let us in. We went in and he had a lot of questions about Jesus Christ and how he is important in our lives and about the Holy Ghost and how we can receive answers from it and about everything. He was really interested and we answered all of his questions. He said that he really wants to try and that we seem so much at peace and he wants that. His name is Olivier and he is in his 20's. It was such a good lesson and testimony builder. I love bearing my testimony and having the spirit touch people's hearts. I am just so glad we found someone so golden because I want this ville to be a really great one. Things are really looking up now and I am so grateful for that because I have been praying for it a lot.

Well this is my week! It has been really great! I hope you all have had a great week too! I love you all!!!

Go Lakers.

Elder Evan Peterson

May 26, 2014

Hello Everyone!  Well this is the start of Transfer Number 5!!! I am still staying in Amiens and will be getting a new comp! His name if Elder Willden.

This past week we have finally been able to get in contact with Aly but we still haven't been able to teach him more which really stinks. I know he will come around though. This week we have had two of our other amis show up at church, Evelyn and her son. They are from Ghana. There are a lot of English speaking people in our ward so all we do as missionaries is translate from French to English. It is really tiring sometimes but good experience.

Other than that I am look forward to have a great next transfer!!!  Have a great week guys!  I love you all!!! :)

Love,
Elder Peterson

Here is a pic of my new artwork for Transfer 5:

May 19, 2014


Bonjour mes cheres amis et ma famille!!!

This week has been pretty good!  Not anything super new though.  Sadly, we haven't been able to meet again with both of our amis yet, but we are praying a lot so that we can! Here is a pic of Amiens that I took from my apartment:

We had conference on Friday in Versailles and two area seventies came. It was a super cool conference and a lot of missionaries! We also had some pretty tasty subway...haha. After the conference we had a long time until our train arrived so we decided to go get some Chipotle! I never knew that they had that here!  It reminded me of the good 'ole United States. I still like Cafe Rio better though.  Here is a pic of me, Elder Smith (my comp), Elder Barr and Elder Oliverson (the other Elders).

The next day we had a stake activity with all the missionaries and the high priests in the Lille stake.  Each missionary paired up with a high priest and went to visit families.  We got lost trying to find this one place. When we finally arrived they weren't there. We had a train to catch at 6pm and it was already 5:30pm so we rushed back to the Lille Church and met the other Elders. We got in one member's car and headed for the Gare (train station). I'm not going to say that the member did speed or he didn't...haha. When we finally got there we missed our train by 2 minutes, so we had to stay at another missionaries apartment for the night. Eight elders in one apartment is pretty crazy...haha. We woke up nice and early the next day to catch another train so that we could make it on time to Church which we just barely did. :) Church here is from 9:30-12:30pm.

So that is all for this week!  We have transfers this next week but I'm going to stay in Amiens. Le vous aime!! Love you guys! Passez une bonne semaine! Have a great week!!! :)

Love,
Elder Peterson