September 14, 2015

Exchanges for Days!

This week was so freaking busy....haha, but busy is good. We had a super fun time too!

So we had district meeting which happened to turn out really well. I gave a formation on sacrificing our time and will each day to God, so basically being consecrated. And then we went on exchanges with the Elders in Colmar. I was with Elder Karl, a guy in my group. It was cool going on exchanges with him because first of all, we are homies and second of all, we were in the same MTC district and here we are dying together in the same district! We had a ton of fun and saw some cool miracles. :)

While on our exchange, we took the car and went by this referral that we received. Well the dude wasn't interested so we started porting and the first door we knocked on let us in! It was this old lady that was super believing. We were able to talk to her about the plan of Salvation because her husband just barely died. She really like us but said she wasn't really interested and that she was too old for all that stuff but she made it clear that she prays everyday! And we made it clear that we will try passing by another time!

Later on that night we ate at a nice restaurant, just us four! :D

The next day we did another exchange with the second companionship of Elders in Strasbourg. We had a busy day up there and it was fun as well but I literally had the worst sleep I have had in my whole entire life! They live right by this church that would ring it's massive church bell every fifteen minutes and to top it all off they live right above a bar where drunk people would be screaming all night long. So I would sleep for five minutes and get woken up by all that stuff. Haha-ah France, you got to love it sometimes. But overall I had a good time.

Right after that we came home and taught all of our Amis. The two that are getting baptized on the 26th of September are still a go so that is good.

Later on during the week we had stake conference in Nancy and that took up all of our weekend. We had to sleep over at Nancy and there was 12 Elders in the apartment....haha. We all fit in and had a good "bros' night."

But that's about it. This next week we will be having zone conference in Paris on the 17th. It will be my last zone conference...where I will be giving my dying testimony with the others in my group. The time has come. :'(

Have a great week guys! Love ya!

Elder Evan Peterson

1.  Me in Strasbourg at night.
2. Us havin' a party at the restaurant. Left to right - Elder Schow (Elder Karl's Blue), Elder Cisneros (my comp), me, and Elder Karl.

September 7th, 2015

The Green Machine

The last week 1 that I will ever have has ended...pretty weird. But so far I am loving it! It is super tiny but really beautiful. It is surrounded by mountains (they are really hills but they like to call them mountains so I will go with it). And we have a super super bright green car! I like to call it the "Green Machine." Some call it the "little green apple," "the green hornet," "the green lantern," etc...haha. Everyone knows when the missionaries are in town because it is the only car that is so freaking green!

But anyways...We had a great week. We have been teaching our amis and visiting the members here. We actually have two Amis with a baptismal date for the 26th of September. They are an old French couple but they are super cool! Their names are Pierre and Ghislane. Ghislane has a smoking problem that she is trying to get rid of but the both of them truly believe that this is the restored church of Jesus Christ on the earth. So it is cool to see that!

We have been seeing the members too. There are about 15 to 20 members here. I really like branches though. I have been in branches pretty much my whole entire mission so I really enjoy it.

We have a Romanian family that we are teaching and this week we went to go teach them. They don't really speak any French but their oldest son translates for us. We had a really cool moment with them while we were teaching. They told us that a lot of people told them that they shouldn't be meeting with us because the Mormon religion is a sect and all that normal stuff people say when they don't really actually know who we truly are. Anyways....We were able to clear that stuff up and then the father asked me a question. He said, "Do you truly believe in God for yourself or do you believe because others told you to?" I then was able to give my whole testimony about how I came to know God and by the end the father smiled and said a loud "Amen!" Haha.  We invited them to truly study the Book of Mormon and pray about it and they said yes so we will see what happens! :)

That is pretty much what happened this week. I will keep you updated what happens here for the little time I have left on my mission. It is going to be an adventure though! :)

Love ya guys!

Elder Evan Peterson

1. The "Green Machine" and yours truly.
2. St.Dié at its finest.
3. My comp, Elder Cisneros and I. He is from Mexico! Jaja

August 31, 2015


St. Dié to Die

Well...Transfer news is here and the unexpected has happened. I am leaving Angers for my last transfer! I will be going to St. Dié, the smallest city in the mission, as District Leader! So I will be going to St. Dié to die!  Haha! I never knew that I would be doing a one an done in my mission but here we are! I am pretty sad to leave Angers though. I was so sure that I was going to stay here for the rest of my mission. But I am pretty excited to go to St. Dié!  It is going to be a new adventure right before I leave the mission field.

But let me tell you about these past couple of weeks. We had a really great couple of weeks! Sadly we weren't able to really see our Amis but we were able to find some new ones. We were able to see our Chinese ami, Li! He is doing super well! We actually were able to fix a baptismal date with him for the 27th of September. It was a really cool rdv. We just asked him how he felt about baptism and he said that he could be baptized in a month. So he pretty much just fixed it all by himself...haha. :)

We found a really cool black family that we will be seeing this week and we found this super cool black dude named Alberto. He contacted us on the tram a couple of days ago and we told him who we were. By the end of our conversation, we got his phone number and he told us that he would come to our church in a couple of weeks. Then he actually showed up this Sunday! He really loved church and by the end of it he wanted to pay tithing....haha. Pretty bizarre but cool. So he payed tithing and we will be seeing him this week. We had some pretty cool miracles happen these past weeks. :)

Other than that I just said goodbye to everyone. I bore my testimony during church and I was on the verge of tears but, luckily, I pulled through without shedding a single one. We were able to see the Traore family on Sunday night and by the end of our visit when I told Muhammed (their 10yr old boy) that I was going to leave he just started bawling. It was really sad to know that I won't see them anymore but it was nice to know that the gospel has touched their lives. I am really going to miss this place. I have seen God's hand in the work everyday while being here. He truly does love the people of France. Evan though I didn't see a baptism here I saw so many miracles here and I will be forever grateful for hem and how they changed me. Sharing the Gospel truly has changed me and I am sad that my time is almost up but I am looking forward to spending the rest of my time in St. Dié. :)

Have a great week guys! Love ya!
Elder Peterson

Me and the Traore family

Me and Samuel Regnier, a young adult from the ward that is going to be a missionary in Orem.