2015!

Christmas is such a great time! And on top of that I got some crazy weird rash all over my body for like two days but I'm pretty sure it is gone now so all is well there! We have had two sick missionaries in our district so we were doing some small little trade-offs for most of the week and we were able to work out some great stuff! Christmas was great and it was so much fun to be able to see you all! :) Sounds like it was a great Christmas back home and I sure hope the snow keeps coming for you! Christmas Eve we went to the Constant family's house and they were so generous to make us diner and to spend the evening with us! President Constant is our Branch President so it was great to be able to spend a little bit of time with him as well! Christmas morning we woke up and got ready for the day and then went and spent some time with the Jazzon family! They actually have 2 missionaries out right now who are in Canada so they were pretty excited to get their phone calls in with them as well! It has been pretty great to be able to share the true message of Christmas. It is something I took for granted before, but now I realize that the ultimate gift of Christmas is Christ. The Gift he gave us is Infinite and so real! It is crazy to think that Christmas has already come and gone again and now it is almost 2015!

We have been blessed recently with some pretty cool contacts that have been surprising us with how interested they are in the Book of Mormon. I may or may not have already told this story but we found a Cuban lady who has been asking us some super sweet questions about God and religion! We have seen her a couple times now but it has been pretty hard to find her when she is available! We have two baptismal dates for the moment and we are looking to have a lot more to increase the chance of more baptisms! We have one investigator that we have been working with lately who is giving us a real hard time! He has been studying with another religion for the past ten years and they have had a pretty big impact on the way he thinks and sees the Bible. The most recent discussion we had was about how God continues to give revelation to his children and how miracles do exist still! He wasn't having it and he said he is going to find the scriptures for us this next time to prove his point! I was getting a pretty good kick out of the whole thing! :)

We have a lot of work ahead of us and I'm looking forward to this upcoming week and all the things we will be able to accomplish with the help of the Lord! I love being here and being able to have everyday in front of me so that I can change and become the person that I'm supposed to be!

Happy new year to you all and don't stay up to late! ;) I will be sound asleep by the time midnight rolls around! I love you all and it was great to see you this past week! :) I have an amazing family! And Amazing Friends! Have a great week and you will be in my prayers and thoughts! Thanks for all that you do!

Love Elder Peterson!

Skype with Elder Peterson

Christmas

Dear family, well we have a lot going on today and the guy at the email place didn't show up until way late so now we are running behind. Since I will be seeing you this week, I'm not to worried about the short email! We had a good week, a busy one but definitely a good one! We actually went to re-contact this guy that we talked to a way long time ago and we gave him a book of Mormon. Well we decided to go back and he had read up until Mosiah 7! It was incredible! Also Lucienne, the Recent convert has read the whole book of Mormon once and is now going to have it finished again before the new year! She absolutely loves that book! It was pretty funny because she was telling us a little bit about her conversion and she was explaining that how when she got 3 nephi she felt like she needed to color in every page because she loved it so much! The book of Mormon is a very powerful book! Christmas time is great! It is especially great to be out doing the Lords work! I have loved helping people grow closer to Christ! The ultimate Gift! I hope that we all do our very best to understand this gift and apply it in our lives! I wish everyone a very merry Christmas and a happy new year! I hope some snow will come for you soon! :) I could send some sunshine if you would like that :) I can't wait to see you all and be able to share some stories with you! Truly seek the gift this christmas, it has changed my life and I'm forever grateful for that! 10 Et voici, il naîtra de Marie, à Jérusalem, qui est le pays de nos ancêtres; elle-même sera vierge, vase précieux et élu, qui sera couverte de l’ombre du Saint-Esprit et concevra par son pouvoir, et enfantera un Fils, oui, le Fils de Dieu. 11 Et il ira, subissant des souffrances, et des afflictions, et des tentations de toute espèce; et cela, afin que s’accomplisse la parole qui dit qu’il prendra sur lui les souffrances et les maladies de son peuple.12 Et il prendra sur lui la mort, afin de détacher les liens de la mort qui lient son peuple; et il prendra sur lui ses infirmités, afin que ses entrailles soient remplies de miséricorde, selon la chair, afin qu’il sache, selon la chair, comment secourir son peuple selon ses infirmités. Alma 7:10-12. It is in French but you can look it up :) some of my favorite verses! I love you all and merry merry christmas! Thank you for all the love and support! And lanise, those nut balls were gone with in the first day! oh my goodness, so good! Thank you for the Christmas package with everything inside! The activity has been pretty fun for my companion and I! Also the lights that you sent blew out the first day haha :) to much power here! Thank you family for money and letters and everything! I'm so grateful for you all! I have been blessed, truly! Love Elder Peterson!

New Missions

From President Mehr:

Dear Elders and Sisters,
I have been authorized to announce by the First Presidency that as of July 1, 2015 the West Indies Mission will be split. The new missions will be named Trinidad Port of Spain Mission and the Barbados Bridgetown Mission.

The Trinidad Mission will consist of Trinidad, Suriname, Guyana and the ABC islands off the coast of Venezuela.

The Barbados Mission will consist of the Islands north of Trinidad already in the mission including French Guiana that is part of the Guadeloupe District.

I will received from the missionary department further instruction on what to do to prepare for these changes and I will let you know as soon as I do.

Well that is the big news for today! How crazy is that? I will be here for one transfer after the mission has been split and that is going to be super crazy! It will be weird for the missionaries that go home right after the split because they will be going hime through Barbados! President Mehr was joking around with me in my interview say that when he flies home he will probably be on the plane with all the missionaries that are going home and that they will all be trunky together! :) So basically I will be in the Barbados mission now! Also I will be skyping at 4:00pm our time so that will be 1:00pm your time! We had a pretty busy week getting zone conference and all of that fun stuff ready! We did a lot of driving due to the fact that we have the van so we had to go do a bunch of airport runs! We even got to drive President to the car rental place after his plane had been delayed 2 hours! He is pretty funny after his bed time, but I think we all are :) I will tell you what, when 10 roles around at night, everything shuts off and I'm ready to pass out! But anyways, zone conference was great! It is fun to have the missionaries from martinique and st. marteen fly in and be reunited! During conference we talked about real growth which is baptism, retention and reactivation and how we can obtain real growth. President mehr shared a story of a contracter that cut corners while he was building someones home and then when he realized that the owner was being so forgiving, he started adding in bonus into the house. Well at the end of the whole thing, when the owner and the contracter took a walk through the house, the owner was so impressed that he gave the keys to the house to the contracter and said thank you for building your own mansion! How related is that to missionary work and serving in God's work. We all need to realize that we are building our own mansions and one day the keys will be handed off to us! I really enjoyed the story that he shared because it made me really get a look on how we must take our time in building our mansions! It was a great zone conference and we had our district conference as well which was for all the members. Basically stake conference! Francoise hasn't been coming to the church for the past little while so we are pretty disappointed about that and it just makes us see how the gap between righteous and evil is getting bigger and bigger! We see that all of the place. We have been teaching some people that are our age and it is so challenging to teach them! The views of the world are destroying the rising generations! It is so sad! We have a great week ahead of us and we are going to go out there and do some work! We are so excited to go out and truly share the spirit of Christmas! There is a great joy in serving others and it brings so much happiness to my heart! Mosiah 2:17! I love you all so very much and I hope you have a great week! Enjoy the christmas season and I invite you all to find opportunities around you to serve those and share the gift of Christmas which is Christ! :) I'm excited to hear the miracles! You're in my prayers and thoughts! :) Love elder Peterson

Elder Pratt, my trainer

The pictures are of President Mehr getting shots

Christmas Time

Dear family!

Wow, another zone conference right around the corner! And Christmas coming right up! I really do love this time of year and it is super sweet to see houses in the Caribbean covered in Christmas lights! The only thing that is different is that there is no snow but oh well! It has been pretty sweet for us to share the "He is the Gift" video with others and we have enjoyed taking part in sharing the true message of Christmas! What a blessing it is to go out and to testify to others of Christ and his divine mission! We actually shared the video with a less active kid the other night and it was super sweet! Usually that family never opens the door up to us but this night we were blessed to have been able to share a small thought about Jesus Christ! During sacrament meeting, I opened up my scriptures to 3 Nephi 18 and it was a great experience for me to reflect on what Christ did for us all and what he has done for me personally in my life! I have truly received a witness of him and his divine mission like I said! The Spirit of Christmas is definitely something we should have all throughout our lives because it will only bless us and especially the lives of others! I love my Savior and I'm so thankful for the opportunity I have to be a missionary teaching and testifying to others about him!! This a shorter letter and I'm sorry for that but I want you all to know that I love you and more importantly, God loves you and he has blessed us with a great opportunity to have the restored Gospel and to be able to share it! Have a fantastic week! :) I send my love and prayers! P.S we had a super busy week past week with becoming legal in France but all is good! :) Love Elder Peterson!

Think about Christ

Well, here I am again, emailing in the apple store! I'm not complaining though because these MacBooks are pretty dang nice! :) This past week was a pretty challenging one for us, we didn't have any investigators at church and that was pretty sad for me! Also we have been trying to get some missionaries legalized and we are having an interesting time with that! This upcoming week we have a lot of work to do, especially with getting all of this business that isn't missionary work out of the way! It is the start of a new transfer as well so things are going to be great, be able to start over fresh again! We have some pretty big changes in our zone and we are also opening up a new area so that will be pretty cool!

So, our progressing investigators aren't really progressing right now so we have a lot of work to do this week and especially a lot of prayer and fasting! Francoise has slowed down quite a bit for the moment and we are just so devastated because she was right there and about to make a decision that was going to bless her life forever! We are looking to do a lot of finding this week! We have been blessed with some sweet contacts from members that we haven't really had the chance to start teaching yet but we are starting that this week! Something pretty cool that we had go one this past week was actually Sunday night! Elder Gamiette, the old mission president and now a 70 held a fireside at his house and had us invite our investigators to come! It was sweet, and we talked about the ultimate gift, which is Christ! He shared some mormon messages about the subject and it was super cool! It makes me wish we had Ipads to go out and share those messages with others! ;) one day maybe! I've been learning a lot about planning lately and how that has such an important impact on what we do, especially with our obedience to God! We must plan to be obedient and then obedience will come that much easier to us! It is time for me to go out and do some work this week! :) I love the Christmas season, and it is some much greater to always be thinking of Christ, not just during Christmas! I send my love and prayers! Also much appreciation for the wonderful family and friends that I have supporting me a long the way! I have felt that love and support so thank you! I sure do love the Gospel and I'm thankful for the testimony that I have been gaining a long the way!

Have a great week and think about Christ! :) I love you all! Welcome home Elder Kay!! Love Elder Peterson!

The Prince Family

 Just cutting some grass

Thanksgiving!

Dear Family and Friends! Happy thanksgiving to everyone! It is really weird to think that I year ago I was in the same place celebrating thanksgiving! But this thanksgiving was a lot better because the Richmonds, our senior couple, prepared the food and not the missionaries! :) It was great, it had been so long since I had Turkey and there was even Dr. pepper so I was happy! It is really great to sit back and be thankful for all the things that I have! The Lord has truly blessed me with an amazing family and with amazing Friends all around me! I'm so thankful for my experiences and the trials that I have had in my life! I'm also so thankful for this Gospel and the wonderful change that it has brought into my life! It has been a blessing for me to be on a mission and do the Lords work! I love it more and more every day! There is a great feeling and satisfation in serving and I'm so so thankful for the opportunity that I have to be here! I love the Gospel and I love thanking God for the blessings that I have in my life! We all need to have a spirit of thankfulness in our every day lives! I love my family so much!

We had a pretty busy week as I was trying to become a legal citizen and get my legalization process taken care of! I will tell you what, it is like sitting in the Drivers license division for about 3 hours! But I got to get some good reading in the Book of Mormon done! There was a guy sitting in there with a Miami Heat hat on and I went and sat by him and asked him if he liked basketball and he said no not really and then I asked him about his hat and I don't think he even know who the miami heat are! It was pretty funny! People do that a lot here!

We have had some slow times with Francoise the past couple weeks! It is so sad to see people get so close to entering in by the way and then they choose otherwise! I have seen it so much in my mission! Just as soon as people get close, satan comes in and works to his best to bring them off the path! Narrow is the gate right!? We haven't lost faith for her and we know she will be baptized! It is just a matter of time! The other day during companionship study we learned how we can help the local church leaders go out and reactivate less actives! We read in Alma 17:31-33 and it is really cool to see how Ammon went out and had a lively attitude toward watching over the herds of the King! We will be working on applying this with the leaders here and we pray that we will see success!

I hope everyone has an absolutely fantastic week! Make sure to thank your heavenly father for your blessings! :) Have a great thanksgiving and I love you all so so much!! :) Love Elder Peterson!

Washing the Van

 Letter from Grandma I finally recieved

 Thanksgiving

Ma chère famille

Hello family and Friends! Well I don't have a lot of time because I spent a lot of my time sending pictures so I hope you enjoy those! I will tell you what though, I don't enjoy sitting in airports all day long! We had quite the experience getting to Trinidad! So our plane left Tuesday from Guadeloupe at 6:55 am and we made it to Martinique right around 8 am. We were supposed to leave Martinique at about 10 or a 11 am to make it to a flight from barbados to trinidad at around 1 pm! Well when we got to Martinique (we as in all the French side missionaries which makes 10 of us) the plane was delayed and we didn't end up leaving till about 1 pm and by the time we got to barbados our plane had already left and the next flight wasn't until 8:55 that night. I didn't get into bed till about 1 in the morning and then we woke up at 6 to walk to the mission home! :) It was a fun experience! Trinidad was amazing and we had such an amazing time all learning and being inspired by the spirit! It was so great and I was definitely sad to leave the next day but I was pumped to go out and apply all the things that we learning in the Leadership conference! Now I just hope that Elder Johnston and I can relay the message with as much power! :) We talked about a lot of things in our conference, from effective branch councils to teaching skills and then at the very end we had a giant testimony meeting where everyone bore their testimonies! It was such a great experience for me and I'm thankful for the opportunity that I had to go there and learn! I was inspired to work so much harder and to continue letting the gospel change my life! There is so much to say about it but not enought time, I'm sorry! 

Francoise and Noemi weren't at church on Sunday so we will be setting a new baptismal date with them this coming week! We don't doubt that they will be baptized! It is just a matter of time! There have been some members that have been giving us some sweet referrals and we will start working closely with them this coming week! We are truly being blessed! I'm pretty sure I always say that but it is true! :)

My companion is awesome! He has been such a great friend and he is so kind hearted! He makes me laugh all the time too and I enjoy that haha! He has been out on his mission for 2 transfers longer than I and he is from arkansas!

I have to go though but I send my love to you all and I hope everyone has a fantastic week!! Thank you for all the love and prayers!

Love Elder Peterson! Read the Book of Mormon, it is sweet! :)

Elder Johnston and I

Ford mustang

Martinique airport and walking out to the plane

AMERICA IN BARBADOS!

Elder Belnap and I

again walking in the rain

Taking off shoes to go into the mission home

and another mission friend!

Elder Hatch and I

In Trinidad

, they gave us rain ponchos

also walking out to the plane in the rain

In Trinidad

Banane pesée. The Police got us. Just kidding, that is Luciennes daughter and she is a police officer!

Mission Leadership Conference November 2014