Letter # 55

Hello Mum and Family,

I think that I will have to stop putting Mum at the top of my letters because Lyndsey keeps making fun of the things that I say.  To be honest I think that she is a little jealous because she isn't getting that much attention.  I think that when she gets her papers filled out soon and she gets called to somewhere in Russia then she will be excited to get all of the attention.  For now she will have to wait a year until that will start to happen. Haha

Well it was good to hear that you all have had a great week.  From all of the great letters it sounds like you had a lot of fun things going on and that you really enjoyed yourselves.  I am having a hard time trying to figure out how you got Lyndsey there though.  It seems like all of the other letters that you have sent saying that you went camping they say that Lyndsey stayed home like usual.  Maybe she is starting to become more sociable. Haha

Well this past week has been great for me.  I would have to say that there were a couple of highlights with my week.  The first was probably seeing J**** at church yesterday.  He really enjoyed coming and learning more.  We will be seeing him today in a couple of hours and I am way excited for that.  We are still going to try our hardest to get him baptized on the 22 of August, but with his work schedule we don't know if it's possible because we can't see him as often as we wanted too.  We are going to try our best and if we have to push it back then we will.  I am really enjoying teaching him though.

We didn't see D**** this past week, but we say D****. The lesson with Darren went quite well.  We taught him the restoration and he really enjoyed it.  Apparently he has always wanted to meet with the missionaries and to find out more about what we believe because he thinks that it would really help him he just didn't know when to do it.  I think that he knows that the gospel can really help him now he just needs to continue learning.  He is a great guy though and he fed us a meal after the lesson which was way cool of him.  I don't think that I would have refused some good food. Haha

My interview with President Leppard went really well this past week.  I really enjoyed speaking with him and his wife.  When I had my interview with President he didn't know that it was my year mark that day and when I told him he was pretty excited to talk to me about my mission and how much I have learned so far.  He had me imagine myself a year ago and when I walked into the room what I was like.  It was really interesting to think back and to actually remember what I was like and how much I had changed in just one year.   He then had me just imagine that in one year I will have learned and changed even more.  I can't believe how much the gospel has actually changed me as I have been learning and sharing it with others.  It is really cool to look back and see the hand of the Lord in my life.

Well it's my favorite time of the letter.  As I have been thinking about what I am going to leave with you guys this week I decided to use and analogy that I really liked and maybe it will help you. 

If you were to plant some sort of flower and obviously when you take care of it, it will look really lively, but if we neglect to take care of it then it will start to wilt and eventually it will die.  If we compare that with our bodies when we are hungry or thirsty we will go and get food or a drink.  The question is though when we compare it to our Spirit are we making sure that our Spirits aren't "wilting"?  We wouldn’t neglect to feed our physical body so why sometimes do we neglect to take care of our spiritual bodies?  One of my favorite things that President Leppard says is “Do the simple things well."  It is pretty simple for us to make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich when we are hungry.  Shouldn't it be easy to do the simple spiritual things like reading the scriptures daily, praying daily and attending church weekly?  All of these things are really pretty simple, yet sometimes we have a hard time doing them.  As we strive to do those things along with many other things that will help our spirits from "wilting" then over time our spirits will become something beautiful.  Just like when we take care of a flower over time it blossoms into a beautiful flower.  We just need to do those simple things and we need to do the best that we can.  ‘By small and simple things are great things brought to pass.’
Well thank you all for all of the great letters.  I hope that you have a great week.
Love, 
Elder Peterson
(The best looking missionary in the field)