A Missionary's Work: Loving Example

11/13/2017

Hey guys this week has been kinda crazy after transfers. After staying 7 months in my area, my companion left and I am here still with ... an American companion! After over a year I now have an American, it's kinda crazy and now my tagolog is going downhill (I gotta study again), and i'm the district leader which doesn't mean much except I'll be doing the serving and teaching for the five other elders in this district. I'm excited to really get to help these Elders love the Filipino people and serve them better. 

 

This week is still working through my head but it's been a fast good one. I want to let you guys know I love you guys and hope these letters help you out. Well before half of my old district got transferred my old district leader told me that being a district leader is the best because you get to love, serve, and help change other elders so they can help other people more. Well he's right! one thing that I've noticed so far in life is that the best way to help someone change is to love them. I've seen people change from really rebellious to wanting to help others as much as possible, simply from a good example and feeling the love of that person. If you really think about it, it's what Christ did for us. Just anything and everything out of pure love for us. He felt all of our sins and trials or hard times, then he loved the people even when he was being put to death. We're lucky to have such a great example who showed tons of love for us, now we just have to decide to change from that. It's how we can help others change and how we change still. 

 

My invitation for you guys is to be the good example and show that kind of love to others then watch them change. love ya'll and have a great week! 

-- 

Elder Peterson 

remember stay Pogi, smile on, and laugh a little!

A Missionary's Work: Fears Man

11/6/2017

This week was great we got to help some people sack their rice Palay and had a sweet baptism in the river instead of at the font at the church. 

 

I saw some people from my last area here and got to ride in the back of their truck to our appointment. It's cool here because you can just straight up hitchhike if you want and its all cool. Also I've been here for so long I pretty much know everyone so it's like asking a bunch of friends if I can get a quick ride down the road, haha! 

 

We've been working on overcoming fears this week and I promise it's hard but you change more and become so much better. My companion is shy in talking to people so we talk to as many people we can and it's helped him a ton. I remember one person who told me that's the point of life is to face fears. I don't agree on it's the point of life but it sure is important, because how do we become our better selves if we don't? I remember something that one of my coaches told me long ago, he said, " become comfortable with the uncomfortable. Because when changes come that are uncomfortable you're ready and can take it on." I agree wholeheartedly. We need to do things that are hard to become stronger, like muscle, if you work it out you'll get stronger, but if you don't it weakens. Let's try facing some fears and grow this week guys! I  know you can do it and you'll love yourself afterwards (1Nephi3:7), He doesn't give anything to us we can't do! Love you guys keep up the good work! 

-- 

Elder Peterson 

remember stay Pogi, smile on, and laugh a little!

 

A Missionary's Work: Frustration or Learning?

10/30/2017

Hey guys this week was fun, packed and great! 

We talked to so many people this week and are way ready for Nov 1. Nov 1st is like the day of the dead, but no costumes. So everyone's at the local cemetery (which is above ground, just a bunch concrete boxes with remains inside ha) and its way ok to just hang out on top of them or play poker, or even use the coffin as a table (kinda weird). But it's awesome and I would love to talk to them about family history and the plan of happiness. Then we also found some people to teach in a Kamalig or a rice storage facility that also has a bunch of pigs that are like the size of two or three people (man they're fat!). 

I also have the best mission shoes ever. I'm takin' them home cause they're sweet, which means next week I'm getting new shoes yay! 

The highlight this week was Tatay Pasito's baptism. He's just this really fit, little, 60 year old tatay who works in the bukid or farm and is super humble. One of our lessons was about how families can be together forever in God's plan of Happiness/salvation, which he just teared up. Because over his years he's lost three of six children and his wife while he's still trying to even provide for himself (he's very poor). I love that man a lot he's helped me see a lot of things better like how precious family really is and how to be more loving and humble, great guy! 

This week I remembered a huge thing I learned back when about frustration and learning. I will say I don't have the best "Cool head" sometimes, so when I get frustrated I hate it a lot. Someone taught me that When I am frustrated its impossible to learn, but if you let frustration go (or anger) you can learn and grow and progress. I learned this in the wrestling room too ha. When this one move that some guy from like Iowa or something kept doing and destroying me with, I just couldn't stop it! So afterwards, I practiced and practiced to defend it but just could not defend the stupid move, and my frustration showed. Coach then told me that if I actually wanted to be able to defend this move I would have to learn and that wouldn't work if I was angry. Well the awesome part is I can defend that move and I can use that in my life. Well we all have times that we feel as such, Angry, Frustrated, or sad, but those only stop our progress personally. So maybe we need to look a little bit bigger and look at how much we want to actually progress then decide if we'll let go of the bad and learn, or hold on and never get any better. It's all up to us. We our the deciders of our lives. 

Well, love you guys and hope you'll try this out this week, its my challenge.

-- 

Elder Peterson 

remember stay Pogi, smile on, and laugh a little!

A Missionary's Work: Peace be still

10/23/2017

Hey guys this week was a good fun one. I taught some of the guys to wrestle, had some good work out with my companion and went on a sweet hike! right on! Can't get enough of nature (or wrestling ha!). 

 

My companion is an awesome, lil' fun guy who just loves the mission so much and I'm excited to see how much he learns and grows here. By the way nobody has updated me on wrestling, please do ha! Anyway this week was full of changing our teaching and how to actually help people better, like really finding and meeting needs of people or as they say "The questions of the soul" and we have been doing as such. And I found that I've been kind of tense lately, so I'm working on loosening up and having some more fun; really enjoy the mission. So this week I've been thinking of a hymn where it says, "peace be still". It's a small saying but its a great one that I find helps us all. If we really think about our lives every day we get caught up on all kinds of things and distracted and busy. That's one thing I love in the Philippines, no matter how poor you are you are there having a good time with your family and friends. It's that they know how to put the right priorities first. So for me, a huge help is the simple words, "Peace be still," because of these words I can focus better on what matters best and most. 

Well, love you guys!

 

-- 

Elder Peterson 

remember stay Pogi, smile on, and laugh a little!

 

 

A Missionary's Work: A Bicycle (great song by Queen ha)

10/16/2017

This week was fun guys with a good amount of rain and a little bit of wind (I always find myself thinking about the Singing in the rain song haha). I also made a kite out of some plastic bags and bamboo and I can't wait to actually fly it ha! I also found out that ties have like a little bit of room inside that you can store stuff, so being me this is where I catch and hide lizards to freak out my companion and others, hahaha! (ya I don't know why bit they get freaked out by lizards, but I love them ha!). ​

 

But this past week was awesome. We got to watch the General conference (where leaders and apostles and a prophet get to speak to the world via satellite broadcast) and it was very revelation-filled and full of great talks. One thing that was said by Stephen W. Owens, then I applied it to faith. Faith is like a bike if we peddle we continue to progress and get to where we're going, but if we stop pedaling we'll eventually fall and stop our progress. When we define faith its belief and works, so its like working on the farm (bukid) if you believe your harvest will be amazing but don't work in the fields you'll maybe get to see a few grains of wheat but not a huge harvest.  So if we actually have faith in God and his plan for us it means we'll DO or act on our beliefs. Like the bike we'll progress and get to where God wants us to go. Like the hymn 270 "I'll go where you want me to go." If we act on our faith we'll go where he wants us to go and its for sure a better place than we can think of ha. 

 

Well just a little food for thought and if I were you guys look for the talk its better than my lame words haha! lova ya'll seeya next time !

General Conference: https://www.lds.org/general-conference?cp=eng-nz&lang=eng

-- 

Elder Peterson 

remember stay Pogi, smile on, and laugh a little!