Challenges

Of course in the last couple minutes of writing my email, I delete everything that I had just written! Well I will try and re-type everything back but in a much shorter condensed way! We had a good week! A couple weeks ago we went out and played some basketball with some youth after an appointment had fallen through! So yeah, there we were out playing in our proselyting clothes and we had a pretty good time! We got the youths contact information and we are looking forward to meeting up with them again to be able to share the gospel with them! We have some sweet investigators at the moment who we are working with! One of them being a guy named Pascal! Maybe I have told you a little bit about him but if not, Pascal is a very sincere person! There is just one challenge, that is getting him to find the will power to read in the Book of Mormon and to come to Church! That is one of our main focuses right now is getting him to come to church and to read! He always asks us super awesome questions but then when it comes down to keeping engagements, we see some struggles! My companion went and saw him this past week with a member while I was on a trade-off and I was proud of my companion because he went and had a great lesson with Pascal and the member was also very impressed with how the lesson went! We are working with two sisters at this moment and one of them ended up coming to Church this past Sunday and that was a great blessing! We are still working on getting a good amount of investigators and it is still an ongoing process! It is a process that never stops! :) Constantly looking for new people to teach! The Lord has been blessing us through our efforts and we still need to do a lot more focusing on finding through our members! Things are going good I just wanted to share something small that I've been learning in my studies! For a portion of my mission, I had the idea that God doesn't need us to be God but what I've learned is that that is not entirely true and this is why: We are God's children, one of the reason that he is a God in the first place is because of all of his creations! I read in 3 Nephi 19:29 and I learned that as God needed his son, the Son needs us. "that I may be glorified in the" The father was glorified in the son and the son is glorified in us, all of those who take upon us his name and live faithfully to his gospel! We are to let our light shine before men, that light being the light of Christ! I thought that was pretty cool! I love you all and have a fantastic week! :)

Tiny Garage

Doing some missionary work with Elder Belnaps recent convert!

Playing Soccer on the Beach

Returning Home With Honor

RETURNING HOME WITH HONOR

FROM THE BARBADOS BRIDGETOWN MISSION

Name: Elder Dustin Peterson

Mission Start-End Date: Aug 2013 - Aug 2015

My mission email: dustin.peterson@myldsmail.net

My home email: ramesh25peterson@gmail.com

My Baptisms:Valerie Califf, Clarison St. Hilaire, Isabelle Gamiette, Jean-Claude Canfrin, Micheal Desplan, Jean Dorlus, Lucienne Desfontaines, Maryse Doulmeaux, Vestrice Family: Sylvin, Viviane, and Eve, Wisnel Pierre-Louis, Wilta Succeus

My Testimony: I know that God lives. I know that he is our father and that he loves each and everyone of us. I know that he sent his son, to be able to break the bands of death so that we could return to live in his presence. I know that Christ suffered all manner of affliction, pain, sorrow, and heartbreak and because he suffered all of that, he knows how to succor each and every one of us. I have a strong testimony of the healing powers of the Atonement and the power that Christ has to succor each and everone of us personally! He knows our deepest desires and he has the power to change those desires if they are not in harmony with his gospel. I know that if we will just allow his Atonement to take affect in our hearts, that those unrighteous desires will become righteous desires. I have felt the holes in my heart be filled with healing power. My desires have been changed to those that seek to do that which is good and righteous. I have a strong testimony of the Book of Mormon. I know that it truly is another testament of Jesus Christ. The Lord has used the Book of Mormon to comfort me time and time again. It is an inspired writing that was translated by the Prophet Joseph Smith! A work that could not have been done by a man and man alone. The Church is true, it just is so true. It is Christ's true church here upon the Earth to help each and everyone one of us to live according to the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Christ it the head of this church and his Prophets have truly been lead by his power! I know that we have living Apostles and Prophets today and I will sustain them for the rest of my life. They are men called of God and they hold the authority to lead this church! I have found comfort in the words that have been spoken by these holy men. Christ lives! This is his work and it will go forth! The mission has been amazing and it has been ordained of God! I love the Lord! He has changed me, a gift that could not be bought, nor found here on this Earth! The Atonement truly took place and it is taking place in many of us today!

Advice to a new Missionary: If I could give any advice to a new missionary that would be to just enjoy and love life as a missionary. Be submissive the the Lord's will and life will be much more enjoyable for him/her. The “best two years” go by quickly so there is no reason to spend the time not enjoying it! Be willing to do what the Lord asks, be positive, and live the mission life to its fullest. Plant the seeds of faith in your heart as Alma says in Alma 32:28. Let the seeds be planted, don't reject them. Be obedient!

How I changed during my mission: I've changed in the sense where I have truly come to know of my purpose here on the Earth. Before my mission I never really understood the doctrines of the gospel nor did I have a personal testimony of the Gospel. Thanks to the testimony that I have acquired, I have been able to truly understand and feel the purpose of this life. With knowing that, I have lost interest in many things that I had before and I've started to gain an eye single to the glory of God. The Lord has truly shaped me into a better person. I have a true desire to do that which is good and not that which is evil. A change that only could have been wrought through the cleansing power of the Atonement. I have come to truly love the gospel and I find so much peace knowing that I have a savior!

What caused me to change? As with my Advice to a new mission, being willing and planting the seeds of faith in my heart is what really pushed me to change. Seeing and feeling those seeds grow in my heart and in my spirit pushed me to be more and more of a disciple of Christ. As I saw the fruits that came from these gospel seeds, I couldn't help but know that this is the right path and that I must continually seek to push a long and hold to the rod. My Savior's love shines like the sun with perfect light and I knew that he wanted me to become his disciple. Knowing that he truly suffered for me has pushed me to want to change, to bring fourth his holy work! It has been a changing power that has been indescribable but so real and it could not have happened through any other way! I have truly been desiring true conversion throughout my mission. The Book of Mormon has been key to my conversion. Time and time again the Lord has lead, guided, comforted, taught me in every single way possible!

One of the spiritual experiences of my mission: We were teaching an investigator who had been a really powerful investigator from the beginning. We knew that she had problems with the law of Chastity and we knew that it wasn't going to be a simple task because her boyfriend lived with her. Well we decided it was time to teach the Law of Chastity and as we taught the spirit was so strong and it was testifying of the importance of the Law of Chastity. As my companion and I truly followed the Spirit and let the Spirit speak through us, her concerns and questions were answered. At the end of the lesson, we engaged her to keep the Law of Chastity and she told us that she was going to keep it, no matter how hard it would be. We saw her a couple days after and we followed up. She told us, “It isn't a problem anymore.”! A couple nights previous, she had a family talk and she let her family know that she was going to keep the Law of Chastity and her boyfriend left. That is the cause and effect of the Atonement in someones life and I truly felt God's love for her, one of his children. I felt his love for me! She is now a member of the church and she has been faithful to her callings and responsibilities in the church ever since!

The most difficult challenge of my mission: Waking up at six thirty... no that isn't true! I would say that the most difficult challenge of my mission was letting myself become submissive to the Lord's will. Day by day, I gained more and more confidence in the Lord and his wisdom and slowly I have been overcoming my natural man! There has been so many times when I have been just so prideful to accept the Lord's will and the blessings stopped and I could tell the difference. It has been a very steady process for me all throughout my mission and it will definitely continue after my mission. Overcoming myself has been the most difficult challenge. Seeing people reject the truth has been challenge for me as well. My mission has been a challenge that has truly changed my life. Letting the Lord mold me has been what has changed me and has been the challenge.

Suggestions for improving the mission: I really don't have any big suggestions for improving the mission, it definitely has been the best mission in the world. I believe that the mission split will solve a lot of the challenges. Being around the mission president and his wife more often was something that I always desired to have so that would be my only suggestion is that we want to see the mission president and his wife more often. 

Start Date Area Companion(s)

1 Jul 2015 Trinité Rowley, Ty (JC)

15 May 2015 Trinité Rowley, Ty (JC)

3 Apr 2015 Fort de France Belnap, Andrew G. (ZL1)

8 Jan 2015 Fort de France Lewis, Jake E. (ZL1)

17 Oct 2014 Lamentin Johnston, Daniel F. (ZL2)

26 Jul 2014 Lamentin Christensen, Payton J. (ZL1)

18 Jun 2014 Basse-Terre Capesterre Ehlert, Taylor M. (JC)

21 Mar 2014 Basse-Terre Capesterre Savage, Ryland J. (SC)

26 Dec 2013 Abymes Gosier Galati, Russell P. (SC)

3 Oct 2013 Abymes Gosier Pratt, Grayson A. (TR)

Martinique

From Sister Janice Herrington

Here's Martinique and the stalwart missionaries there which includes your son! I went with Sisters Munafo and Covey to a teaching appointment and then they introduced me to "un floupe". Ask your missionary what that is! (French side)

Emails! I had a tea party for the 4th of July!

Here we are again, sending emails and what not! The weeks have been starting to feel like days and the days just feel like really long hour blocks! It is a really weird feeling! Things are going great though, the Lord is hastening his work as we always say! The mission has been split and I'm no longer a missionary of the West Indies Mission but a missionary of the Barbados, Bridgetown Mission! President Mehr is now home probably riding his Honda Gold Wing all over the place (he always talked about rides on his Honda Gold Wing). I would always tell him that my dad and I were going to go on a ride with him on our Harleys, he always got a chuckle out of that! :) We now have the new mission president, President Herrington and we are looking forward to meeting him tomorrow! He is coming to have a meeting with us as with every other island, he is doing a tour of the mission! He speaks French as well so we are hoping to see him a little more often that how often we could see President Mehr! We will miss him and his wife as there were such powerful examples for us! So things have been changing I guess we could say!

So this past week was a pretty good one and definitely an interesting one! Things are going good for us, we are working hard and trying to keep our pace on the incline instead of the decline. I haven't been finding it a challenge to stay focused or anything like that. The challenges I've been having lately is staying diligent when things fall through and still working hard. And also having patience towards my weaknesses! I've been learning a lot working in this area of the Lord's vineyard and the Lord have been teaching me very valuable lessons. Patience being one of them. :) We just started teaching a young man who we were blessed to have been able to set a baptismal date with and we are going to work hard with him to make sure that he makes it to his date. He just started a summer job working the weekends so that is a biggest immediate challenge. There is another girl that we have been teaching, her name is Vanessa, and she has a challenge getting to church as well. So we have some work to do in that area! We found a couple new people that are great potential investigators! We had a lesson with a lady whose name is Shanna and she understood the Restoration so well! It was incredible! She was explaining everything to her boyfriend so that was pretty cool! We are just trucking a long! I had a cool experience with the fast yesterday as I finished fasting by reading Helaman 3:35 and I came across the last line which says "sanctification because of their yeilding their hearts unto God". So I thought about that for a little while and Doctrine & Covenants 4:2 came to my mind. "Oh ye that embark in the service of God, see that ye serve him with all your heart, mind, might and strength that ye may stand blameless before God at the last day". It is evident to me that I must put all I have on the altar of God and just go to work and the Lord with bless me! It was pretty great!

I just received a tie from the Weese family, Thank you very much for your love and support! :) Thank you for the emails and prayers! I pray that the Lord will bless you with a great week! :) I love you all! Elder Packer will be missed! Have a great week! Elder Peterson

Sounds like it's getting hot in Utah!

Well there went another week and it sure did fly by! I'm never really sure where to begin these letters! Maybe I will start off by saying that I'm still alive and I'm not sure if it is as hot here as it is there! The way I'm hearing about it, it sounds like an oven! :) One of the blessings of serving in the West Indies is that now I will be adjusted to the heat! That is until my first winter! Well happy fourth of July to all! I can assure you all that we will be singing the National Anthem here on martinique! :) If we could play with fireworks, I'd probably go buy some ;) Oh well though, eat some good food for me! We had a pretty sweet experience this past week with our planning and we saw the blessings of planning by the spirit! One night we got in for our nightly planning and we started planning.

We had some set appointments during the day so we planned those in and we were working on setting our back-up plans when a couple of names came to mind. There was this lady that we had met a week earlier and it was clear that we needed to stop by her house. We didn't really think about it much because we had a set appointment and she was just the back-up plan. Well turns out that the fixed appointment fell through and we were left to our back up plan so we went to this lady's home and she opened up and let us in and she was having some issues in her family that day. It was a miracle the lord led us to her house because we not only taught her but she had us follow her to her daughters house where we met her and her boyfreind, who we ended up teaching! Then we went back a couple days later and guess what, we met 2 more people who we have now started teaching! The Lord truly did lead us in that one! Goodness, we would have never found all these people if it wasn't for that simple effective planning! It was a huge blessing to us! We were also blessed to set a baptismal date with another one of our investigators who told us that she is sure that this message is true but she has not yet been to church so we are going to keep working with her! President and Sister Mehr have pretty much finished their mission and it is going to be different with out them but it has been a huge blessing to have them around! I sure have learned a lot for them! We are excited for the mission split! I'm not sure it will change a whole lot for me personally but we will see what happens! That is about all for this week! I love you all! Have a fantastic week and happy fourth of July! :) AAAMMMERRICA! love elder peterson

From Elder Ehlert

Helping someone move

Elder Ehlert and Elder Peterson with President Bonbon Again. Good Reunion

Miracles

This week was a great one! The work here in Trinité is coming along and like you told me in my interview, it is about being persistent! I'm definitely realizing that and the Lord has been supporting me in my afflictions as I have been praying and supplicating him! The other day as we were blitzing our area, the zone leaders were with us and we split up and went finding in some specific places. Well as we were doing this blitz we had a pretty sweet miracle! As we were about to leave after spending about an hour and a half working in an apartment building we decided to pick one more door to contact and the spirit lead us right to the door and it ended up being a family that received us! What I found impressive was the fact that everyone was doing something when we got there but when we sat down they all gathered around the table and listened to what we had to share! The spirit was strong! We went back this weekend to see them and we had a member with us which was a blessing! They kept their engagement to read in the Book of Mormon and we had a good lesson even though there were a bunch of little kids running around screaming. The Lord has been blessing us families lately and that has been a tender mercy! There is another lady that we just started teaching that has two daughters that haven't been baptized! It is no wonder that we were lead to their house! Blessings and miracles are all around and we just have to be able to recognize them! A gift of the spirit I would say! We also went and played basketball with some youth in our area the other day and we met a really inspiring person. It was a teenage boy who has been in a wheelchair all his life but I will tell you what, that didn't stop him from playing basketball like a champ! The wheel chair was definitely not a limiter for him, he knew that he could set the bar for himself! He was so happy and truly loving life and it was truly inspiring to watch him play basketball! He even played 3 vs 3 with us! There are some truly amazing people out there! But yeah, those are just some of the blessing of this last week! We know that many more are in the making!

Happy late fathers day to all of them dads! I'm a pretty forgetful person! You're awesome dad! :) I sure do love you! And my two amazing grandpas! Happy birthday to Shauna this week! :) I sure do love you all! Have a fantastic week! You're in my thoughts and prayers! Elder Peterson

a Gecko

 BBQ for p-day with a member

District Hike