The Tall Missionary

 

My title today requires a little backstory. Some of my friends from the xc team will remember this story. A couple years ago I helped run a little kids running camp with coach Jami. Somehow at the camp I became known as "tall guy" because that's what all the little kids would call me. I became quite popular not gonna brag. But then here on the mission we play volleyball with the youth every Saturday. Not very many youth have been coming but this past Saturday there was a ton of them there which was awesome! So of course I quickly became known as the "tall missionary" and everyone wanted me on their team. The entire time I was just getting flashbacks to those little kids calling me tall guy every time they called me tall missionary. So just a fun memory there! 

I realized that I haven't really talked very much in my past emails about the missionary work here in Texas. To be honest it is going very slow. Most everyone here is very nice and willing to talk to us, but none of them progress anywhere after that. Of course there are some people that know about the "mormon" church and want nothing to do with us and thats always interesting to come across. But there is one lady that we are consistently teaching and her name is Deborah. She was baptized the Saturday before I got here and we have been teaching her the follow up lessons after baptism. She is awesome!! She's got a very strong Texas accent which is fun but she is also earnestly seeking truth and asks lots of questions which is also building my testimony. So I guess keep praying that we can find someone new to start teaching! 

Happy Halloween!! Halloween was actually super fun on the mission. Last Tuesday we had our ward trunk or treat and chili cook off! Btw chili in Texas is amazing, authentic Texas chili has no beans or anything like that. It's literally just a bowl full of meat so its so good. I also am trying to remember all of our ward members names and the trunk or treat helped with that a lot. There was one family that brought some friends that aren't members of the church, and one of them was a woman that was originally from Angola! Angola is another country in Africa that also speaks Portuguese, so when I told her I was eventually going to Mozambique she got so excited! She talked to me a ton about Mozambique and basically said she wants to teach me Portuguese! So hopefully that friendship could lead into maybe a new investigator but we'll see. 

Happy Birthday Elder Stewart!

Actual Halloween was also really fun! It was also Elder Stewart's birthday who is a senior missionary in our district so it was fun to celebrate halloween and his birthday! He took us out to lunch at a pizza place where the slices were like twice as big as Costco pizza slices so they were HUGE and so good! We also went to his apartment at night since we were supposed to be inside at 6:30 and just celebrated his birthday with him. 

So I have to say I agree with Elder Lundberg right now. Normally I would not be listening to Christmas music or be in the Christmas spirit this early in the year, but I guess you could say things are different on the mission. I am very much in the Christmas mood already!! On Saturday we went back and served at the ladies of lake travis thrift store again, and all they had us do was set up Christmas trees!! I set up probably 16 Christmas trees while the old ladies were blasting Christmas music the whole time. It was a great time. 

Spiritual Thought:

The Book of Mormon is so amazingly awesome! Last week I was feeling like I didn't know the timeline of the book of mormon very well. I feel like I know all the stories but for some reason don't know exactly where they happen in the book of mormon, like what book and chapter specifically. So I ended up making a book of mormon map timeline that helped me so much! In doing that I realized how important it is to relate the scriptures to yourself. How many times do we read a chapter of scripture, get to the end, and realize that you were only half paying attention and didn't really get anything out of it! The scriptures, especially the book of mormon was written for US in these latter days! So many ancient prophets worked so hard for us to have them, and Joseph Smith sacrificed his life for them. So when we read it, read it with real intent, and wanting to relate it to your own life. I know you can receive guidance and feel gods love for you when you do because I have felt it myself! So I invite you all to not only read the book of mormon everyday, but read it with real intent!! 

Wow that was a long letter. If you don't read all of it at least read the spiritual thought, its the most important anyway!

I love hearing from everyone and hope you all have a great week! 💗

- Elder Peters