Letter # 52

Hello Mum and family,

It sounds like it has been a really busy week and from the sounds of it I think summer break is going on at the moment.  I hope that you all feel lucky because the British kids don't get out of school until next week and they don't have as long of a break as you guys do.  You are so blessed to live in the land of the free.  It was good to hear from all of you and to hear that everyone is having a great time and is getting their Vitamin C and D as they are spending time in the sun.  I wouldn't want you all to get sick because there is no sun out.  You know how worried I get about you guys and your health.  If there is anything I can do for you to keep you healthy and not depressed from the lack of sunshine just let me know.  Maybe I can send you some vitamins or something.

Well as you all know I am training a new missionary and it is a lot of fun.  My companion is Elder Fullmer and he is from Boise Idaho.  He is a great guy and we are having a lot of fun together.  I am really trying to work him hard and we are having a lot of great experiences together.  We are working really hard to get a baptism this next transfer.  We don't know who it is going to be but I believe that if we work hard and are obedient then we will be able to make it. 
We actually had a great experience this last week.  The best part about being a trainer and a senior companion is you get to be in charge in a way.  So we did a lot of finding this past week.  We have been trying to talk to a ton of people and I have been helping Elder Fullmer get used to it and become a great finder because he has a lot ahead of him the rest of his mission.  So we were finding in the castle park area and we weren't having too much success.  We had talked to some cool people but they weren't interested in the message that we was sharing.  Well there was this one guy that we stopped and it turns out that he is from Romania.  Just so you know there are a lot of Romanians and Polish people in England.  Not that that really matters.  Anyway we had nice chat with him and we tried getting some contact information but he has a Romanian phone number which obviously doesn't work over here and he wasn't too keen on giving us his address like most people are.  So he said that we could just meet him in the park if we ever see him.  Well as you probably know that's one of the worst things to hear as a missionary because that means that you might not see them.  That was on Thursday. On Friday we were walking from a member’s home and I just thought maybe we should do a little bit of finding.  Because "It's fun to find all the time" so we went to the park to find.  As we were walking along the path I noticed someone sitting on a bench that kind of looked familiar and as we got closer we noticed it was A****, the Romanian.  So we stopped to chat with him.  He invited us to sit next to him and we just got to know him a little better.  Then it got to a point where it was silent for just a couple of seconds and he said " you can ask me anything you want"  And just like that we started asking him about what his views were on different parts of the gospel.  Then right then and there we taught him the Restoration and gave him a Book of Mormon and invited him to pray and read it.  It was a great experience and we are hoping to see him again this next week to hopefully teach him more.  He has a crazy work schedule so we don't know when but hopefully it's soon.

It sounds like you had a great time going to Shelly Idaho and listening to Elder Leal.  I am glad that you were able to go support him.  I am sure that he gave a great talk and that his family is great.  There were a lot of great missionaries that went home in the same group as Elder Leal and I am going to miss a lot of them.  It was such a great group of missionaries.  


Well my experience  was a great experience but that took up a lot of time so I don't want to take up any more of your precious time where you could be outside getting your vitamins so you are not depressed.  Everything is going great for me over here in sunny old England so don't worry about me at all.
Before I go I would like to share a quote with you all.  The talks were amazing on Sunday (probably because I was one of the speakers haha) but one of the ladies that spoke said a quote that I really liked.  I can't remember who it was from but here it is.
“When we hold on to bad feelings about someone it's like drinking poison and expecting the other person to die."

I thought that was an interesting quote.  Her topic was on forgiving and why it is so important to forgive others. When we fail to forgive someone and we have bad feelings about someone really the only person we are hurting is ourselves.  We need to recognize that we are all human and we all make mistakes.  We are here to learn and to grow.  It would be easy for us to all get along with perfect people, but we are placed on this earth to get along with imperfect people and that's what it's all about.  We need to help each other to make it to live with our Heavenly Father again.  I will just leave you with a few points that can help you become more forgiving.
1. Pray to be humble
2. Express Gratitude
3. Be patient
4. Cast your burdens on the Lord
Well I hope that you all have a great week this week and remember to take you vitamins.
Love,
Elder Peterson
(Best looking missionary in the field) 

By the way Malteaser aren't the best I don't think.
Another candy bar you could try is called a "Double Decker" Mum might not like it because it's kind of hard and chewy but I am sure someone there will like it.  I also like the Galaxy chocolate bars a lot.
I thought I picked a great spiritual thought because mum is going to need to forgive me.  My camera is broken so I can't take photos of my beautiful face. I dropped it but there is nothing wrong that you can see so it has to be something in the inside of the camera.  It just won't turn on or do anything.  I am sure you want photos but I don't know what you want me to do.  You will have to let me know sometime.  You can take your time though because it's probably not that important.