Time To Do Some Work

That was a challenging week for us. We had a lot of really great lessons set up throughout our week and a good portion of them fell through. We had a lot of member lessons planned as well but we didn't have a lot of success in that area. I believe that the challenges that we faced last week have really inspired us to do a lot greater things this upcoming week. The past couple days I have just been reflected on the past couple months and where my desires have been. They haven't entirely been focused towards baptism. So I have been meditating for awhile now on what I need to change so that we can start baptizing and leading our zone by our examples. I think I'm going through about the same stage as the one Alma went through when he went to Ammonihah (Alma 8:9-16). I know that there is success awaiting us here and we are going to go out and work all the day long, working and wasting out our lives in the service of the Lord!

So we are going through a phase of finding those who are going to become progressing investigators and those who will progress towards baptism. We had some great lessons this past week. A couple of them with one of our Investigators whose name is Martine! Martine is a pretty sweet lady, at the start of almost all of our lessons that we have with her, she comes at us with a question or a concern that she would like to argue but not long into the lesson, her heart becomes softened and she listens closely as the spirit touches her heart! She has some basic concerns but right now we are working on helping her gain a testimony of these things! We have invited her to be baptized but have not been able to set a baptismal date.

Another one of our investigators is a lady from Ukraine and speaks French as a second language, her first language is Russian. She is pretty hard to understand but the Lord has been blessing us and we have been able to have some great lessons with her! She told us that she loves the Book of Mormon and that she really feels great when she reads it so now we are focusing on helping her realize that that is the spirit testifying to her that it is true! We have many potential investigators as of right now but we have a lot of hard work to do to help them become worthy candidates of baptism!

A quick funny story, Elder Lewis and I were walking (we are in a walking area) along the other day and off to our right was this 8ft tall cement wall we tall tall grass growing over the top of it. We didn't think to much of it until this guy on a scooter pulls up to the curb, parks his scooter, says hello to us and then jumps up over the wall without saying a word. It was so funny, we had no idea what was going on. We also played basketball with a guy on the boardwalk and ending up teaching a lesson with him! That was pretty sweet!

I love you all so so much! Have a fantastic week and love Elder Peterson!

Elder Pape's Birthday

From Brother and Sister Turner:
Elder Pape's Birthday and S'mores! First let me say that you will not find the following things in Martinique: White marshmallows, graham crackers, or Hershey bars! We brought all of these back from St Lucia for the missionaries in Martinique and the perfect time to have them was to celebrate Elder Pape's birthday. We had to use little tea lights for the flame. You learn to make do with what you have!

Elder's Lewis and Peterson

There is a special cake that is eaten in the Christmas season and January. It has a little figurine based on the nativity baked inside. The person who gets the figurine gets the crown! Elder Pape got it!

Elder Sejournet has only been in the mission field for 10 days! He is from Tahiti and speaks a little English.

Elder's Savard, Roberts, Pape, Lewis, Peterson, Galati and Sejournet

Sisters Riley and Tenney (and me with my hands in an awkward position. I look like a bunny. Sorry) Anyway, They enjoyed the S'mores, too!

New Island

From Sister Turner,
We are loving having him here! He and Elder Lewis are great ZL's!

Big City

Wow, Fort de France is massive! That was probably one of the first things that I noticed! A lot bigger city than anything on Guadeloupe and it blows my mind! Anyways, it has been a great start to a new transfer and we have been working hard so far! I sure do love Elder Lewis and I'm excited to be with him! I will tell you what, Fort de France is like a maze of roads and it is going to be pretty interesting for me to get used to this place but with the Lord's help, it will come. Supposedly the good portion of the members live in our area and I'm looking forward to working with them! The Branch seems really self-sufficient here so that is really great!

We have had some really interesting lessons to start off the transfer. Two of them being almost completely the same. So, we had two investigators who we had given the Book of Mormon and their big problem you could say, was that they had the Bible and that they didn't need more! One of these investigators has been struggling to stop smoking for a good while and he asked the missionaries for some help! We gave him the Book of Mormon and invited him to read. One morning we went over to see him and he told us that he read the book and that after words he didn't have any desire to smoke. Then he told us that he was giving us back the book, because he only wanted the bible. What? It amazes me that people can receive a testimony of something and they can look right past it. We also had an experience about the same with another man. His spiritual witness wasn't as strong but he knew the Book of Mormon was true, yet he told us that he didn't want to see us anymore. It has been pretty sad for us to see this happen but we know the seeds have been planted and we have learned from these situations! I have truly seen God's love for his children when they choose not to heed his counsel.

As we have been making our standards higher for finding new investigators and how we find contacts, we have been finding sweet people that give us appointments and that actually keep their commitments. Desire changes everything! It has been pretty great! But anyways, off to another week and we are going to see miracles!

We had a member tell us a proverb in creole the other night and it was super funny because we didn't understand anything that he was telling us but in the meantime he was wrapping a blanket around his head and putting the Book of Mormon on his head talking about how that would get heavy to carry after a long time! It was so so funny and I wish I had my camera!

I send my love and prayers! I hope everyone is doing fantastic and I think about you all lots! May the Lord bless you! With much love, Elder Peterson!

View From Balcony

January 2015 Guadeloupe, Martinique and St. Maarten Zone Conference