April 6, 2015

MY GOD'S NOT DEAD. (ROARING LIKE A LION)

General Conference was soooo dang good! It literally feels like a second Christmas. 

This week was so good for us and Angers! We have still been teaching Cesaire and Jean-Yves. Cesaire is still hard to teach now because of basketball and they are in the playoffs right now, but as soon as he finishes we are totally baptizing him. We will have to push the baptismal date though because we just haven't had anytime to see him. He told us he even knows it is true. He just has a lot of things going on with him.

Let me tell you about Jean-Yves though..haha. So last week on Sunday he received the "Principles of the Gospel" book and then he called us during the week and said that he read the whole book and that he had a lot of questions for us! haha So we go and meet him at the church and then he just starts off giving us his opinions about us and our beliefs. We then went on to explain to him that all of what we believe is in the Bible and that it comes through modern revelation. Then we just testified hard core about the only way he is going to find out if it is true is through reading the Book of Mormon and praying about it. It feels so good to testify of the things that are so simple but they make a great difference in all or our live. We only have to have a desire to know if the Church is true and then ask God and he will give us a response. And it is good to know that the formula always works! JeanYves is a super cool guy and he definitely keeps his engagements and I can tell that he really wants to know if the Church of Jesus Christ has been restored again on this earth.  So he is going to read the Book of Mormon and pray about it. :)

We have been doing a lot of service this week and we helped our old mission president's son move to his new house. That was fun and then afterwards we ate at our old mission president's house! It was cool to see Sister Poznanski! President Poznanski wasn't there because he is in Utah but I already saw him during my time here. It is pretty weird to see them as normal people now....haha

We saw a lot of cool miracles this week. I don't really have a specific one to tell but this week we have been focusing on praying more often and we saw some cool stuff with that. It was so amazing to see that after each prayer we said, we would find someone. Prayer really does work. It really puts us in the right mood and makes us prepared to be instruments in God's hands.

And guess what else happened this week!? We saw some lions! That is why I put in the weird title and it is a cool song too. 

Well that's about it. Zone Conference is this Wednesday so Elder Bailey and I are going to prepare for that. Love you all! Have a great week!!! Hakuna Mutata!

Elder Peterson

March 30, 2015

This week was so good, full of miracles but weird at the same time. 

We taught Cesaire one time this week. He has a baptismal date but has been really busy with bball which is a bummer. Pretty much this whole week we didn't see any of our other amis but we were able to find other people and teach them.

We did exchanges this week and I stayed in Angers with a new baby bleu. I was his first exchange. His name is Elder Young. We had a cool time and we taught this guy that Elder Bailey and I found our first week together. His name is Jean-Yves and he is cool. He is a middle-aged man and catholic. He was such a serious guy but super believing. I asked him what his last name was and he just said, "It's not important."...haha He didn't really talk and isn't too open but he really liked to learn about the Restoration. The lesson went really well and the spirit was there. The bleu was on fire too! He recited the whole first vision to Jean-Yves and the kid has only been out for 2 weeks. So that was a cool miracle. At the end of the rendez-vous I asked him if he can come to church and he said no. I asked him why and he said, "It's not important" again...haha. But after a little bit he asked me what time it started and then I asked him again if he was going to come and he said yes...haha :) And....guess what?? He came!!! He really liked it this Sunday! We are going to see him again later on this week! :D

Oh, the coolest thing happened this week too! So during the week, Elder Bailey and I got a call from this Tahitian member in Rennes and he told us that he has a friend (Temanue) in Angers that is interested to talk to us. The member in Rennes fixed a rendez-vous with him and he came to pick us up. We got to Temanue's house and when we went in they had BARBEQUE going for us!!! :D  IT WAS SOOOO GOOD. We talked to him about the priesthood and he told us that when he visited the Church with his friend in Rennes, he felt the spirit after he left the church. He is super believing and such an 
islander, just so happy and nice. But anyways, we talked about how the church was restored and then we gave him a blessing because he is having a hard time with his schooling. After the blessing he said his heart felt weird and good...haha. So cool!!! 

Another cool miracle this week was on Sunday. We went porting and we decided to go to a member's and pray with them and then go porting in their neighborhood. When we did the member's told us to go down after and visit their friends who lived down the street.  So we went down and then right when we get to their door we contacted this Asian guy. He said that he wanted to know more about Jesus Christ and why he is so important. We testified about Jesus Christ and fixed another rendez-vous with him. Sadly the member's friends weren't too interested but it was super cool to know that God puts his elect in our paths. :D

Anyways...That is pretty much about it. I love you and I hope you have a great week!!!

Au revoir!!
Elder Evan Peterson

March 23, 2015

THE DANGERS ZONE

Well, I am officially in my new area, The Dangers Zone...full of dangers and adventures, and LOVING IT!!!  This place is really good and my comp is a cool dude. His name is Elder Bailey. There are 3 companionships in Angers too. 2 companionships of Elders and 1 of Sisters. There is a ward here too and it is really big, so that is a big change for me since I've only served in small branches...haha.

Well....

This whole week we really have been soooo busy.

So first off, we have been teaching our amis and one of them is a guy named Cesaire. He is 17 and he plays basketball for a team in Angers. He is from Congo and he plays some dang good bball. He even has a baptismal date for the 12th of April. Cesaire is progressing well and is looking forward to his baptism. We had a FHE with him at a member's house and that was really good. Later on during the week we watched the Restoration with him and that rendez-vous was really powerful. The spirit was there and he said he knows the gospel is true. The only thing that would stop him from getting baptized is playing basketball on Sundays, but we're working on that with him.

We also met with this cool lady named Laura. She is really believing and we just talked about our message and how it is there to add things to people's lives. She really liked us and she is even friends with one the members here so that was fun teaching with her friend.

On Friday Elder Bailey and I went to mission council. It was really cool to see how things work and to just talk about the work with all the leaders and Mission President. The goal for the mission this time is to have each companionship find at least 3 new amis each week. When we arrived home after a long day in Paris, we planned and came up with some good goals for the Zone so that we might accomplish what the Lord wants us to do. Since the Church is really focusing on Easter and the "Because He Lives" message, we made our goals according to that and then we presented our Zone goals to the District Leaders so that they could give it to all the missionaries in the Zone. I am really excited for all this to come together.

Other than that we have been doing a lot of service and just teaching so it is really great!

I will let you know more next time because right now I am really hungry....:)

Love you all! Have a great week! :D

Elder Evan Peterson

Here are some pics:

1. Everyone in the apartment, from left to right: Elder Allen, Me, my comp and Elder Hogenson.

2. Me in the Bourges Cathedrale

3. Us cooking us some grub