MLC

Wow, Mission Leadership conference was amazing and such a blessing for me! I feel honored to be entrusted with the leadership calling in this mission! I felt that the Lord wanted me to this MLC for some reason and when I got there and started hearing from my leaders, I knew very quickly that the messages had been prepared by the spirit and that I had a lot to learn! There is a familiar spirit always when we as children of God gather around to discuss the same goal in helping the Father obtain his goal, that being one of immortality and eternal life of all men! I once had an ecclesiastical leader write me a note talking about riding dirt bikes, since that is one of my passions, and I remember him saying that missionary work is incredibly greater than a nice long ride, him being someone who enjoys riding dirt bikes as well. I always pondered on that throughout my mission and truly reflected on that statement. How could going out, knocking on doors, not being able to speak French, walking under the hot sun, and other things be more fun than riding a dirt bike? I would ask myself that often. As I have grown closer to my Savior and felt the spirit of this work, a spirit that is quite indescribable, I have truly grasped the purpose of me being here. I can no say that this is the best work that I have ever done and ever will do. I know missionaries say that often but I add my testimony that this isn't, in my eyes, "work", it is a great joy and undertaking that the Lord has allowed me to begin. To truly see his hand manifested in my life through this work. At our training I really loved how much we talked about the Doctrine of important principles like the Sabbath day and taking the sacrament, the oath and covenant of the Priesthood, the Atonement of Jesus Christ, Branch council, and Spiritual gifts. One thing that I loved most is how great of a responsibility we have to be doing this work! The Sacrament, one of the most important hours that we can truly use to have a personal interview with the Lord and to seek his guidance and forgiveness!

That isn't even a small portion of that which was discussed these past couple days but I can say that it was amazing and that the spirit was so so strong! I love the Lord! I love you all so very much and have a great week! Congrats to Tyler and his engagement! Super cool stuff! love you all love Elder Peterson

 Trinidad! 

The wonderful Mehrs

French leaders!

Elder Christensen right before going home!

In the mission home for MLC

These are two pictures of when we all got to the west indies! The one is in the Airport, that being the whole group of missionaries that came in that day! The other is our MTC group of french missionaries all together! Two very great memories for me!

Conference in Trinidad

From Brother and Sister Turner:

Look who we saw today! We took Elders Peterson and Belnap to the airport and found some other wonderful missionaries as well! We haven't seen Elders Johnston, Bodily and Fraley for a very long time. All of these wonderful missionaries are on their way to Trinidad for a conference.

AP's Visit

From Brother and Sister Turner:

The AP's came to our island for a visit. We had lunch and then a meeting. We have great missionaries!


Back row: Sister and Elder Turner, Elders Sejournet, Hatch Larsen, Wade, Ehlert, and Peterson. Front row: Elders Rowley and Sejournet, Sisters Riley and Munafo, Elders Gardiner and Belnap

Interesting Week

That was an interesting week! All started out well Monday with buses that were going, allowing us to get where we needed to go and then Tuesday morning, unexpectedly the buses went on strike! So yeah we went the whole week without buses and we sure did walk a lot! We actually walked about 14 miles in one day! Yeah I'm actually pretty proud of that because I've never walked that far in my life! It's a pretty darn good thing though that the buses have started functioning again, we are blessed with that! The strikes that they do here make our days pretty interesting but we manage to make the best of it! We were blessed to have enough energy to be able to walk every day as well and that was definitely a blessing for us!

A few things have changed this past week concerning some of the investigators that we have been teaching. There was a couple investigators that we had drop lessons with because they weren't willing to act, therefore causing them to not receive the answers to their questions and thus not being progressing investigators! There were a few other investigators that we have been seeing often but this past week we struggled to see some of our more progressing investigators! We found a lot of new people as we were out walking around and that was definitely another blessing! I guess you could say this past week, we focused a lot on visiting members and addressing their needs! We are working with one family on creating a family missionary plan and we have recently started teaching the wife of a member! The member has always desired to have his family join the church so we are working on guiding him to realize his desires! The members here on Martinique are incredible and I really do love them! They are all so smart and so lively that it is just a blast to spend time with them! They have so much potential and we are going to help them realize that! We had some sweet lessons talking with members on how they can really get things going here! We are looking forward to the miracles!

The Vestrice family, wow, they are doing so great and they are just being prepared by the hand of the Lord to join the church and to build his kingdom here on the Earth! This past week we saw them pretty often as we are getting very close to their baptismal date! We taught them the Word of Wisdom and we had an amazing experience with the Light of Christ! Towards the beginning of our lesson, a member (Fr. Maugran), asked them what things they thought that would not be good for the body. They named; alcohol, coffee, drugs, Tabaco and once they had made it there, they couldn't think of anything else. As we waited silently, out of nowhere, The ten year old daughter says, "Tea"! A ten year old girl who lives in a culture where almost anything is acceptable says tea! That right there just tells us that the light of Christ truly is there and that it teaches all mankind that which is good and that which is evil so that we may judge that which is right! Tonight we are going to their house to have a family home evening and we are really looking forward to that!

Elder Belnap and I are really working hard to find those who the Lord has prepared and we are also working hard to build up the church here and the work is just so much fun and we love it! We sure do have fun while we are at it and it has been a blast! :) Elder Belnap is a great missionary and I'm already learning lots from him! We are going to go out and get it done this week!

I love you all so very much! Have a fantastic week! :) Love Elder Peterson

Elder Lewis and Elder Peterson... two great friends!!

P Day

From Brother and Sister Turner:

Today they were supposed to play some sports in the field near our apartment and then come for breakfast so we could get to know all of our new missionaries. Well, it rained. A lot! So they just came to our house and we had a good visit.

Elders Gardiner and Sejournet playing some chess.

Keeping warm and looking at pictures on the camera.

I like missionaries with dish pan hands!

My dish washers! Elders Peterson and Wade

Sisters Munafo and Riley got cold! Yes! I got all the way down to 75!

Yay... I'm an old man!

I'm sure you probably get tired of me saying this but weeks are starting to feel like days! I feel like I was just sitting here at this computer emailing! Wow, time goes by super quick! We had a sweet week and it was full of blessings! As it has been transfer week, I have received Elder Belnap and Elder Lewis is off to Guadeloupe! I sure have loved being with Elder Lewis, he has been a great example to me as he has always been so sincere with everyone, especially towards our Father in Heaven! I have learned a lot from him, as I have with all of my companions and that has been a blessing! I'm pumped to be with Elder Belnap now as he was one of the missionaries in my MTC district! We don't have to get passed that awkward stage ;)! No but we have really hit the ground running and we are getting straight to business, no wasting the Lord's time as we know how valuable it is! We are really going to be focusing on obtaining really growth in our area and in our zone this upcoming transfer! And we have been talking often of ideas on what we would like to do to realize this desire!

Alright, miracle for the week: So Monday, we were just in our apartment preparing for the evening and studying when we received a phone call from Mr. Vestrice. He had a couple questions for us so I said alright. He continued on asking if we had the Restoration video and if he could watch it and if we could come over that evening to teach him and his family. We agreed to be there. The next comment/question is what got us the most, he says, "I have the intentions of being baptized!" I didn't really know what to say to him on the phone like that but I was so thankful and just filled with joy! We went over that night and fixed a baptismal date for May 2nd for the whole family! We are so excited and pumped! That family is incredible and is also already doing missionary work, sharing the Book of Mormon with everyone! We truly have been blessed! They watched conference and their comment was, "WOW!" They loved it and it is just another testimony that God truly calls prophets and Apostles in our days! We had another investigator who watched conference and was very impressed and really enjoyed the messages! He even took notes! We were blessed to have set another baptismal date with a new investigator that we have started teaching recently! Elder Belnap has been teaching me a lot so far and I'm looking forward to this upcoming transfer and the success that we are bound to see! Life is great!

My Birthday was great, I did nothing but go out and work and I didn't even really think about it being my birthday, it was a neat experience for me! I thank everyone for the birthday wishes and for all of the love and support! :) It is well needed! I send my prayers and love! Have a great week to you all!

Love Elder Peterson

 Eve made Elder Lewis and I birthday signs.

 A member who is sweet!

Conference is Sweet

I'm just going to start off by saying that General Conference was amazing! It is so refreshing to be able to hear the words of Prophets, Apostles and other leader of the Church! The words and messages were so inspiring and uplifting. It was a huge testimony builder for me that those men and women are called of God, that they truly are his mouth pieces and that this is really his restored church on the Earth! I perceived all of the messages as my instruction for the next 6 months and I'm not to sure what I'll be doing with my playstation ;) It has been a blessing to see my desires change throughout my mission. I really don't have much desire anymore to play video games or waste my time doing things that are not worth my time. Now that is easier said than done but I'm going to put myself to work to apply these teachings in my life! A lot of all the messages basically just told me that I need to leave behind all things that don't help me get closer to God and to salvation! They laid it down and it was a blessing, the spirit taught me many things! One of my favorite talks was by Elder Dale G. Renlund and I really liked how he talked about the Atonement. The story he shared really touched my heart when the man said, "twas I, but twis not I." I found that to be so powerful as the Atonement can help us change, help us be forgiven and to be able to realize that we have changed! I sure do love the Gospel so much! My testimony truly has been strengthened over the past couple days. I truly do realize now the importance of being sincere and humble in the search for truth! I can promise anyone that if they search sincerely and diligently the truth and a testimony that God is there, that Jesus is the Christ, that the Holy Ghost truly testifies of all truth, they will gain a testimony. It has happened to me and it can happen to anyone!

The week was great as we worked hard to keep things going! The Vestrice family was not able to come to conference but managed to watch it from their home. The father called us this morning and he told us that he watched it and these are his words, "I'm very happy!" He said that he could tell that these men and women had been called by God to do his holy work! We will be going to see them tonight and we will see what comes of it! :) We had this awesome lesson on Saturday night between sessions with a man named Gérôme. It was an incredible lesson as we followed the spirit in addressing his needs and questions. We have been having a challenge getting him to come to church and we really wanted him to be able to come to conference to see the Prophets and Apostles but we wanted the member to invite him. It seemed as if an empty hope because we didn't tell the member before hand that we wanted him to invite our investigator. Well as we were sitting there praying for a miracle, he extended a personal invitation to our investigator to come and it was so cool! He didn't end up coming to church but he watched conference from his computer so that was a blessing! The spirit was so powerful! I love being on a mission so much!

Thank you for all the birthday wishes and all of the love and support! 21 yrs old! Super weird stuff! I still feel like 16 yrs old! I send all my love and prayers! I pray that everyone will be able to put the teaching of General Conference into practice into their lives! And With many, I can testify that their life will only improve as they grow closer to God! :) Late happy easter! Love Elder Peterson!