August 10, 2015

"Don't touch the Butt" (Boat)

Hey guys!

Well...this week we went to La Rochelle on exchanges and there were a ton of boats. So I thought a lot about "Finding Nemo" while I was over there. 

We worked a lot with the Elders down there and it was really good. Hard work really does pay off.  There is a ton of tourists down in La Rochelle. It was pretty crazy because the city is relatively small!

This week was pretty good though. Sadly almost all of our amis were out of town. The Traore Family wasn't able to get baptized because the mom's mom got sick and went to the hospital so she made plans to go fly to Mali to see her. But it turns out that she wasn't able to go visit her because she didn't have enough money to fly down there. We were able to see them again and fix another baptismal date for the 22nd of August. They are doing really well though and they came to church! :)

Guess what? I got my itinerary for my flight home this week. That was a surprise, a really weird surprise.  Usually people don't get those until 3 weeks before they get home but I guess they decided to give it to me now...haha. I was kind of mad about it this week, but everything is fine now. That just means I need to work harder.

We were able to find two cool people this week. One of them was this young 17 yr old kid...Brandon, and an African guy...Joan. We met Brandon on exchanges and he said he really wants to know if God was there and so we gave him a tour of our church. He really liked it and he said he was super grateful to come to the church. The other dude we found was super legit. He is super believing and knows the Bible really well but was not agreeing with us. The cool thing about this guy was that he knew that God could answer him if he studied and asked if God really did restore his church. So we are going to teach him this week and he said he will try the experience. ;)

Other than that we have just been preparing for our Zone Conference that we will be having on the 14th! It should be fun! :) Love ya all! Have a great week!

Elder Evan Peterson

Me with the boats:

Elder Madsen and I with the Cheve family eating some pizza!

July 27, 2015

A Christlike Transfer

Hey guys! Well...this week I received a new comp, went up to Paris, and I got sick. It was fun, tiring but fun!

My comp is Elder Madsen! He is a cool dude and we are getting along really well. So during transfers, we went up to Paris and then we came back and that is when the sickness started to attack me. Then the next day we had mission council and I was so out of it. I was coughing and sneezing. It wasn't a pleasant experience but the mission council was good. They talked a lot about being diligent and being converted to the gospel and how those are the only ways that we can convert others. So this transfer we all are going to work on helping our missionaries to become converted and then helping others. It reminds me of the quote..."You can't convert someone above your own conversion."  Something like that...haha.

We made some plans for the Zone this week as well. We are planning to make this transfer a "Christlike" transfer, where the Spirit will be there so strongly everyday! We are planning on doing a service activity with all of the zone too so we are going to plan that more out as the week goes on.

Other than that we have just been teaching the Traores and all of the other old companionship's amis. Two of them are super cool. There is Li, who is Chinese, and Esperant, who is from the Ivory Coast. They are super cool and super legit! They both want to get baptized too! So we will see what happens!!! :D

Oh yeah! This week was Elder Madsen's Bday so we went out to eat some Asian food! I will send you some pics later! :D

Well...I am super tired and we still have a lot of stuff to do today but that is about it!!!

:D Talk to ya next week! Love ya!!!!

Elder Evan Peterson

July 20, 2015

WHAT JUST HAPPENED?....

Hey guys!!!

Well...transfers just happened...and I found myself to be the only Elder that is staying in Angers. The other 3 are leaving. Elder Bailey is going to Paris to finish his mission in only 3 weeks. The other elder companionship in Angers had to be closed down because we don't have enough missionaries. So it was pretty sad finding that out.

This week was pretty good though! We prepared a lot for the Fireside. It turned out to be really good!!! :) Super scary at first though...haha. We invited all of our amis and at least 15 of them said that they were coming but only 2 of them showed up. With the other companionships' amis we had a total of 5 amis at the Fireside. Then President and Soeur Babin showed up and some members came too. It wasn't at all as I had expected and at first I was a little discouraged but it became such a great Fireside. At first Elder Bailey and I shared a short message explaining the Restoration and then President and Soeur Babin started to answer questions. The spirit was so strong in there and people asked really good questions. By the end of it, I came out with a knowledge that: 1) Agency can sometimes be annoying and 2) God always does his work in his ways and that it always works out.  Even if there was just one person that showed up it still would have been great.

Other than that this week has really been us helping the Traore family (the Muslim family) for their baptism. It is really a miracle every time we go over there because they just get so excited about the Gospel and what it brings in their lives. We teach simple and that has reminded us how great and simple the Gospel is. This past week we taught them the Restoration and we watched the Restoration video and they loved it!   We asked their son Mohammed what he felt and he said, "I felt a lot." The whole family loves it. It is a great testimony builder. :)

Well...sorry this week is so short. We have to go. Love ya guys!!! See you next week!!! :D

Love,
Elder Evan Peterson

July 13, 2015

Three Secrets to Missionary Work...Members, Members and Members.

Hello everybody! It has been a long time. I am sorry I haven't given you any updates on the last couple of weeks. We have just been super busy on Pdays recently.

Today marks my 3 month mark until I go home and I just got my departure papers from the mission office. That really freaked me out, but I still have time! It is pretty weird finding out that my friends are coming back home from their missions and that others are getting married...haha.

Anyways..here's what happened these past couple of weeks!!!

So...first huge news. These past couple of weeks, us (the missionaries in Angers) and the ward, have been coming up with a missionary fireside. It is this Friday and President Babin, our mission president, is going to come down and address the members and all of their friends and our amis as well. It is going to be a question and response fireside where all of our amis and the friends of the members can ask questions about the church, missionaries, our doctrine, etc. It is going to be soo cool and we have been visiting a ton of members for it too! So far there has been a lot of members that have invited friends so I think it is going to be amazing! :D That is why I put the tile as "Three Secrets to Missionary Work...Members, Member, and Members."  It is soooo true. :) I am so excited for it!!!

I have to tell you about this super cool family we met too! So a couple of weeks ago Elder Bailey and I were waiting for a rendezvous outside of the Church, when out of the blue this African family shows up and says to us, "Hey are you guys pastors?" We told them no and they started to leave but then we quickly said, "But we are missionaries though." The family then asked us if we could go to their house and cast out some bad spirits and we said that we are here to share a message about Jesus Christ and that our message will help them with all of that. Funny thing too is that they were going to pay us to come over and pray with them....hahaha. Don't worry, we didn't take their money. Later on that week we visited them and it turns out that they are Muslims but they are so ready and willing to accept the Gospel. We have been teaching the whole family for the past couple of weeks: the mom, dad, and their 10 yr old son. They have accepted the Gospel and Jesus Christ so willingly and they have been seeing the blessings that come from it. So this past week we invited them to be baptized and they all said YES!!! SO COOL!!! We were so happy. That just goes to show you that anybody can be ready and that God prepares all of His children, whether they be of a different color or in a different religion. There is always someone ready for the Gospel. 

Well...that is pretty much the super big news! I am loving this place!!! :D God is really hastening his work and I am so grateful to be a part of it. I am really going to miss it when I leave, but I still have time to continue and work hard. :)

Hope you all have a great week!!! Love ya!!!

Elder Evan Peterson

Here's some pics:

1. Us eating some "Paul." Good pastry shop.
2. My cheesy face while eating Paul.  Haha..don't worry, that is hot chocolate not coffee.
3. Cool bush sculpture bird thingy.
4. Me at the Castle in Angers.

June 22, 2015

I GUESS IT FINALLY HAPPENED...AND GOLDEN STATE WON!!!

Well we finally got the ipads this past week! WHAO....haha!!! It has been really fun and it really changes up missionary work. At first Elder Bailey and I just felt so guilty for using something besides a computer everyday of the week, so that took some time to get used to.

We actually went to mission council and they gave them to us. And by "us" I mean only the Zone Leaders and the Sister Training Leaders!  I guess that is just one of the blessing of being a Zone Leader. :) All the other missionaries are going to get them soon though. We are just going to be the guinea pigs for the mission for now.

Here's how the past couple of weeks went...

We have been going through a finding cycle. Some of our amis dropped us or they just haven't been able to meet with us. We have been finding a lot of cool people though! We still have our regular amis, Jean-Yves and Isidore. They are still hanging in there.

We found this super cool buy named Phillip! We were with a member one night, coming back from a lesson when we decided that we were going to go porting near his house. He dropped us off near his house and we prayed and started to knock on doors. Then a couple of doors down we came across Phillip. He is a cool middle-aged French guy. When we knocked he said that he was really trying to find out who God was and if he was really believing in God so he let us in and we taught the Restoration. He loved it and he is willing to give it a try to find out if God really did restore His church on the earth. That was super cool.

Here is another awesome thing that happened this week. A couple of weeks ago a member, who is in this walking club in Angers, was walking with his walking club mates. One of the people asked him stuff about the church because she knew he was a member and he shared somethings about the church before. He was able to share some stuff but after that he wasn't able to invite her to meet the missionaries because they didn't have time. Then one day we decided to pray to know where to go porting and we felt that we should go around this walking club member's neighborhood. We did and we found the lady that asked him questions about the church! We were able to fix a rendez-vous with her. On top of that her husband wanted to know more as well! That goes to show you that sharing the gospel really does help and that even though you don't get the chance to have people meet the missionaries and come to church, God will always make sure there is a chance for those people you shared the gospel with.

Other than that we went on exchanges down in St. Nazaire and that pretty fun! :) And I have just been super excited that the Warriors won against the Cavaliers! If Kobe isn't going to win this year then LeBron isn't going to win either. haha

Anyways....

I hope you guys had a great week! Have a great one!

Love ya!
Elder Evan Peterson
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Here are some pics of me and old comp who is now serving in Angers and the other of me by the beach in my exchange in St. Nazaire!

June 8, 2015

TRANSFER 14!  AM I GETTING OLD??

Well another transfer has finished. It is literally flying by so freaking quickly. So now I am in Transfer 14. Oh well...I still have time....Time to go even harder. :D

This is going to be my 3rd transfer with Elder Bailey so this should be a blast! We are going to see a lot of cool things this transfer! :) Here's how our week was...

So on Monday we saw a cool miracle. While Elder Bailey and I were porting down this road we ended up knocking on this family's house. The father answered the door and he said they were eating and weren't interested so we continued on our way and we knocked on some more doors. Then 10 minutes later out of the blue, the father came walking down the street and whistled to us, so we walked over to him.  He said that he wanted us to come into his house and teach his children about our conviction and why we were out here doing what we are doing. We definitely didn't refuse such an offer and so we went into his house and we pretty much taught the whole family about our message. It was such a cool miracle! Sadly at the end the dad wasn't interested but we were able to give a Book of Mormon to his wife so hopefully one day they will want to see us again. :D

Overall this week has been a little strange because we haven't been able to see a lot of our amis such as Isidore and Cesaire. Jean-Yves is doing really well. He is a funny guy. We have been teaching Christianne and Jean-Bernard as well. Jean-Bernard has heard a lot of the false images of the church here and he doesn't want to meet with us anymore but Christianne is really cool! They really like their Evangelical church, but Christianne is praying and reading the Book of Mormon and waiting for a response.  She has been telling us about some dreams that she has had and they totally go with the Plan of Salvation. She was like, "I had a dream that before this life I was somewhere else and everybody was there and it was so peaceful." Then we were like, "Just wait and see until we teach you the Plan of Salvation!"  So we taught her it and she really believes that we lived with God. We are going to see some cool things with them! :)

This week I went on an exchange with Elder Young in the Zone. I went to Nantes and worked with him. We had a dang good time. During our exchange we had like 2 members, one lady that just moved to France from Brazil and a less active from the USA that moved to France 10 yrs ago that wanted to come back to church. That was pretty cool. It was so random too! They just saw us and started talking to us.

While I was there we went to a less-active member that is suffering from a sickness and we gave her a blessing with the Soeur missionaries. The lady said the blessing worked and she felt a lot better than before, both physically and spiritually. I love blessings. They bring in the spirit so much! :)

Later on that day there was like this massive bike parade so everybody was riding around on their bikes and Elder Young and I got stuck in the middle of it and we literally couldn't cross the street for like 10 minutes because there were that many bikes. And all of this was going on with super loud music blasting in our ears.  

All in all it was a great exchange.

Until next week, love you all!!

Elder Evan Peterson

June 1, 2015

SO BUSY....SO TIRED....SO STUFFED...

This week has been super super busy with rdvs, lessons, and eating at members houses, as you can tell from the title! Here's what went down this week...

Pretty much all of our amis are doing really well. Isidore is doing good but we just have to teach him slowly so that he understands. Jean-Yves is doing really well too. He is coming to church every week now. We are just waiting until he gets an answer about the Book of Mormon. We were able to fix another date for Cesaire for July 5th. Hopefully that can hold through. We have this other ami named Daniel. He is a boyfriend of a member here and he has been coming to church for the past month, so we have been teaching him. This week we all went to a member's house and had Family Home Evening with the members, Daniel and his girlfriend. It was pretty legit. :)

This whole week has been full of miracles. On Pday a young member, Charles, invited his friend to play basketball with the missionaries and other members. It was super fun and at the end we were able to teach the member's friend about the Book of Mormon. The kid really liked playing basketball with us and he really liked the Book of Mormon. Charles is going to invite his friend to take the missionary lessons soon so hopefully that goes well! :)

Lots of cool things have been going down here. A lot of amis are coming to church now. All of the companionships in Angers have been working together and finding people. I will share with you some cool experiences about the work that has been going on...So one day Elder Bailey and I contacted this lady on the street and she was so legit. At first she seemed weird because she said she was a medium but we were able to fix a rdv with her and pass her over to the sisters. And now this lady has been coming to church and has a baptismal date. Apparently she has been living like all of the commandments her whole life so she is pretty golden. The other Elders in Angers were able to find this cool family that lives in our sector and we have been teaching them a lot recently. We teach the mom, Christianne and her boyfriend, Jean Bernard. They are Evangelical but they are wanting to find out if God has restored his church on the earth. We've been seeing a lot of cool miracles lately. I wish I could tell you all of them but there's not enough time.

We have been eating a lot at members' houses. We went to two members houses this past Sunday and the first member fed us 2 appetizers, 2 main meals, and 2 desserts....haha. We were so stuffed when we got to the other member's house. Also Thomas, a member/returned missionary took us out to eat at a Chinese buffet because it was Elder Hogenson's bday. It is going to be hard to keep myself in shape...

Well that is pretty much about it. Hope you all had a good week! Love ya!!!

Elder Evan Peterson