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.

August 17, 2015

BE TRUE. BE YOU.

Well...this week has been super weird. I am not sure how but it just flew by so freaking fast. But it was a pretty good week with some ups and downs. I have been out for so long I think I have gotten used to it by now. But let's start off with what happened this week...

We had a Family Home Evening with the Cheve family and the Traore family! It was super fun and super cool. We talked about eternal families and how that is their goal after their baptism. After the spiritual thought and the food the Cheve family gave us a little musical presentation and then everybody started singing. It was a really spiritual moment. :)

Sadly, later on this week we found out some bad news about the Traore family. We found out that they won't be able to get baptized on the 22nd of August because, apparently, their Muslim family found out that they were going to get baptized and they weren't so happy with that. So the Traore's are in a little bit of a predicament and, and so far, the baptismal date is dropped. We told them that sometimes we just need to do what God wants us to do no matter our circumstances and the consequences. They said they will pray and ask God what they should do.

Honestly, I am not too surprised about the whole experience. I kind of figured that something like this would happen and it is just up to them to overcome this trial and do what is best in God's eyes. We will still be teaching them though so that is still good. :)

This week we have been all over the place. We went on exchanges on Thursday in Paris with the Assistants, then we ate Chipotle (which was so dang good) in Paris, then we woke up at 4 am the next day to catch our train to go to Rennes for our Zone Conference, then interviews with President Babin. They interviews went over so we missed our train to go back so then we had to sleep over at Nantes...haha. We finally got back home Saturday morning.

The Zone Conference was really good. The main theme was about the Gospel of Jesus Christ and how it is so important to explain that to our amis. Then at the end of the Zone Conference, Elder Madsen and I were able to give a training about how we should be ourselves and use the divine talents that God has given us to help others around us come unto Christ. The title of the training was "BE TRUE. BE YOU." That's why I used that as the title for the blog this week. It went really well. Sometimes as missionaries, we have a hard time on being ourselves and we often judge ourselves or others too harshly. So we talked a lot about that and how it is important to become what God wants you to become. It went really well. :) At first we did a little talent show which was super fun and then we finished it off strong with the spirit. :)

Well...That is about it for now!  I hope you have a great week! May God bless you!

Love ya! Bisous!

Elder Evan Peterson

Here are some pics:

1. Muhammad is jamming out on the guitar
2. A panoramic view of "La Defense" in Paris where we ate Chipotle. 

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