A Missionary's Work: Food MMM!

Cleaning the church in a wrestling stance.

11/28/2016

Hey everyone,

So last week, with the want of new food, we made a lot of experimental food. I made no-bake cookies without the "proper ingredients". I used Energen powder instead of cocoa, brown and white sugar, peanut butter, milk and butter and oats. This is all without measurements, the "just eye it" method, which I like anyway. I brought them to a surprise birthday party for an awesome mom of 5. They're not mayaman (rich) by any means - as in, the kids saved up their money for a while to buy spaghetti for a nice dinner, and the dad bought a cake which is "Wow, a cake, you shouldn't have" here. Cake is really special here and usually only wealthy people buy cake. They actually really loved the cookies too and asked for my recipe. Ha! She was so surprised that she even cried.

Anyway, how is fall? We wouldn't know cause it's the same temperature year round, or hotter. The language is coming along too. I'm at the point I can understand pretty much everything but speaking is something else, though I have spurts of correct and incorrect grammar.

So, something I love to do when we teach is share life experiences, and I might be young, but there are a lot of life experiences that apply to Christ's teachings. I can see how people cherish a story of experience or even an example than someone telling them something. Probably because people like to apply pinciples to themselves, and an example of a principle is easier to apply to life, especially when someone has been through it. So maybe if you want to help somebody, share an experience or example and be a good example, and then the rest is up to them.

Well, see ya'll next week.
P.S. - It's wrestling season, yessss!

Extra Pictures

A Missionary's Work: Craziness In Our Zone

11/21/2016

So in our zone this week, we had an activity where we were separated in our districts (4 districts make a zone and 4-6 missionary companionships are in a district). Then we would pick out of a bag a paper with some kind of talent and we would choose someone out of our district to compete against others chosen to compete from their districts. It was a blast and afterward, we had a budal fight (not actually a fight). You have banana leaves places out (as sort of place mats), then lots of rice and chicken and if you want soy sauce with other ingredients. Sobrung masarap! (delicious) It was also somebody's b-day so we got a sort of cake and sang happy birthday Filipino style.


The next day we had companion exchanges with the zone leaders and I met a lot of people in their area. We stayed the night there so we could go to zone conference the next day. Which is pretty much a giant devotional, with lunch and meeting the other missionaries from the other zones (our zone conference in 3 zones).

I also miss Mexican food a lot lately, I don't know why; I still love Filipino food though! I have also been on a chief cooking roll as in I printed a lot of recipes and am starting to collect ingredients for them! Especially things that they don't know about here like no-bake cookies.

Anyway, lately I have been thinking about the Gospel of Jesus Christ and families. As I've read and searched and prayed, I found that besides the Atonement being central to God's plan for us and Jesus' gospel, families are very central too! Literally almost everything can be linked to families or supports the central unit of families. It just shows to me, how important the family is to God and Jesus Christ! So when you think of your relationships with your family, are they good thoughts? or loving thoughts? If not, how can we change that so that there is peace and love again? Because family is always going to be there. Just remember how important family is, then show how important they are to you.

Well, see you all (in email) next Monday!
Love you all, have a family centered week!

Elder Peterson

A Missionary's Work: Accomplishments

11/14/2016

So this week was good though we were, as we call it "punted" a lot. Which just means we walked a whole lot more than we got to teach people. So, if any of you come here to the Philippines, you have to go to a very common restaurant here called Mang Inasal. It's pretty much a main dish of chicken and unlimited rice. That's how I can tell I'm turning to Filipino, I ate 6 cups of rice (that's a loooot!). My kasama and I also got colds (sipon) and it really sucks to walk over 9 miles a day and be burning up then also have a cold, but it's finally going away I think.

Another popular snack here is ice candy. To make, simply mix any drink flavor in water and freeze. It's pretty good actually and we made a lot. Also, I am glad I bought a safety picture card because I allowed one of the kids here to take a picture and moments later, all my pics were deleted, frustrating and relieving. Anyway, we have an awesome/super fidgety investigator, his name is Aaron, he's 9. He loves to be distracted with anything other than what you want, but he's great because even when something doesn't seem to get through, it does! He actually ahs read some of the Book of Mormon and he likes to ask questions and we love to answer. His family is awesome too, they like to feed us and I have had some interesting food there like budal - thin of rice going bad then put it on rice, it kind of reminds me of mangoo (a Dominican Republic dish made of plantains, not to be mixed up with Mango).

I also have been thinking of how when something seems easier, then all of a sudden it's harder...why? Well, I think it's because we progress. When we progress, we need to do something harder to keep on progressing. So as soon as we feel like, "wow, I was doing so good, now I'm not, Why?", it's because we hit the "next level"/ So as long as we don't get too discouraged and give up, we can keep imporivng until one day we will look back and say, "Wow, I'm glad I went thorugh that crappy time because now I'm so much of a better person, or better at this". Honestly, that's how a lot of us progress and a lot of us give up too, when all we needed to do was "hold out a little longer or suck it up a little longer". So see every challenge as your next level to master and grow in, because we can learn in all hard things, be we need to choose to.

Well, here are some pics and I'll see you all next week!

Love you all,
Elder Peterson

A Missionary's Work: Halloween

11/7/2016

Hey everyone! So we had Halloween this past Tuesday. I wish we could have been more involved, but the mission president gave us a 6pm curfew because of the mass drinking that goes on, but for Halloween here everyone gets together as a family and even friends. Instead of trick-or-treating, they go to family members graves, set up some chairs and tables and feast. Ya, it's way more a family holiday than anything else, but it's also a day off of work so toward the end (late night) people like to party hard.

So our area here is considered the scariest area in this zone, though everyone here respects us. Just to be safe, and I just wanted to make something, as we visited a member in his welding shop, I made some ghetto brass knuckles ha. My companion and I always wake up early to go jogging or workout or play bball, it's fun and good for us. The jogs are the best because of all the beauty here and I get to see so many new things, it's great! There's a park here where they do Zumba from 5-7am crazy!

Since we've been here in our apartment, our attic is so noisy. Lots of puttering of little feet. We figured it was some cats, but couldn't find any hole outside so we went up there. We found some rats and a tiny chair (oo creepy ha). So we put some rat poison up there, hopefully that works. I also tried to cut my own hair for the first time...  horrible haircut:1   me:0 ... but I will get better with practice. Also, for language study, I'm learning a children's song and whenever I sing it people seem to just love that I'm learning it.

So the spiritual thought. We have this short clip called, The Will of God, and it's about a bush. The gardener trims it drastically and it says to the gardener, "Why did you cut me down, I was making so much progress? Why did you do this to me?" The gardener says "well little bush, I'm the gardener here and I know what I want you to be." Later the bush grows and now bears fruit, and thanks the gardener for "loving him enough to hurt him." I like this video a lot because I think of God's plan that he has for us. He loves us and even when we have trials, and we think "God, why did you do this to me?" God has a plan for each of us, he sees who we can become, from an iron rod going through the heat and beatings from the iron worker, only to end up as an iron rose. Even if we can't see who we can be, or maybe much less than we can be, God sees it and will help us get there, through trials, hardships, learning experiences, or any other thing that can help us change to become as God wants us to be. "Thank you Mr. Gardener for loving me enough to hurt me", watch this 3 min video it's so great!

https://www.lds.org/media-library/video/2012-01-014-the-will-of-god?lang=eng

Love you all,
Seeya next Monday!

Elder Peterson