hi it's me again.
your emails are great! man dad that guy was so huge! (Mark Eaton) you looked tiny next to him. i know that is how i look to these asians. here in singapore i sometimes see tall white guys. i do a double take ya know, and i just stare at them. i'm just thinking what a freak he's so tall. then as we get closer together i realize that i am taller than them! ha ha so i must look even more huge than that freaky white guy. sometimes i like it sometimes it is annoying :). the other day on the train there was a ton of filipino ladies and one was standing near me and the rest were laughing so hard ha ha they were almost crying. one lady was trying to take a picture of her friend next to me all sneaky like. they were talking in tagalog so i couldn't understand, but they were definately talking about me. this is a daily occurence. more so in malaysia though. i can't believe you are writing a book. that is so cool. i would love to read it. i can imagine it would be great. how long do you think it would take to write it? how could you get it published? would you have to sell a lot of copies before you made any money? is there any chance of losing money? interesting. i'm jealous that mollie got to do baptisms at the st george temple. i've always wanted to go in there. your trip sounded fun. it sounds like dad has had a pretty random sleep pattern for the last week. ha ha nothing's changed. yeah i figured out my password. thanks for that number. i was looking at something on weber state's page. president clark says we can so i wanted to see what my next classes needed to be.
well this past week has actually been going really well. again we had ton of investigators at church. we were in the double digits. that is so sweet. it is always awesome when random members just bring their friends to church. it makes our lives so much simpler. i wanted to tell you about a cool new investigator we met only a few days ago. i wish i had my journal then i could copy what i wrote that day. i'll see if i can remember all the details. well we are still getting a lot of dinner appointments from the expat ward. every now and then it pays off because after us constantly asking for a referral they eventually have one. monday night we had a dinner appointment with the clayton's. they are a young family. he is the elder's quorum president and they have 3 kids under 6. she told us that her neighbor was asking a lot about our church. sister clayton told her that we actually go around and explain our beliefs to people. so she immediately wanted to meet us. her name is deborah. she is from the US she has 3 boys aged 10 12 and 14. she is divorced and will move back to america soon because it's too expensive here without a working husband. we talked with here before during and after dinner for about 2 hours and 15 minutes. she just had a lot to say. basically she has been moving around the world on expat assignments so she has consequently learned about a lot of different religions. she has taken her favorite things from each sect and that is what makes up her core beliefs and standards. all she really wants is for her boys to grow up as righteous young men. they are the most well behaved and polite young men ever. every standard that we told her about, she already tries to teach her boys. everything doctrinally we said, she agreed with and liked. every belief she told us, we agreed with. after her world wide search of happiness she almost ended up with the same teachings as us but not compiled into one religion. of course the story of joseph smith was new and the book of mormon and the restoration of the priesthood, but she thought it made sense. she asked a ton of questions mostly aimed at helping her boys like how do you overcome worldly temtations, how do you avoid drugs in today's society, how could you not drink, how can you know this is true, how do you deal with tough times or rejection, is it worth it, is being in this bubble going to hurt you when you get thrusted back into the real world, are you more prepared to be an adult, what stops you from succumbing to temptation when you are all alone in malaysia. she asked so many things i can't remember them all. and we and the claytons had great answers for every question. we could have talked to her all night. there was never a lull in the conversation, she just wanted to hear more. before we could invite her, she asked if she could come to church with her boys on sunday. we were like yeah! she said is there a limit to how many times i can come to church? ha no! she was really good and i just hope she follows the spirit as she learns because she is definately ready to recieve these things. what impressed me most was her love for her boys. all she wants is for them to be successful in this crazy world. she wants them to be safe, to have some sort of foundation to rely upon. i couldn't help but think how grateful i am for a mom and dad that just want the same thing for me. i am so blessed to be raised in such an environment instead of having to find one. i guess maybe even then the credit should go to your parents. tell grandma and grandpa teuscher how glad i am that they taught you those things mom. they probably don't realize what impact they had many years down the road on me. i didn't realize how nice i had it until i go out into the world and see broken or struggling families. if they embrace the gospel then most everything works itself out. it is so cool.
one more random thought. i see tons of people zipping down the roads through the traffic on their motorcycles and scooters. i had a flashback. i remember when one night mom helped me with my motorcycle. i really wanted to ride it right after i got it but the blinkers and the brake light didn't work. so me and mom took off all of the covers and tried to find where the problem was. we found some wires that weren't connected so well. it was getting late and so i thought that i wouldn't get it fixed in time to ride it the next day. but mom just suggested that we go to the store then. so we went back and forth a few times to the auto store down by smiths. it was a school night and the store was almost closing by the last time we went there. but we eventually got it and we were quite excited to see that our electical work paid off. the lights all worked. ha ha i don't know why i remembered it but thanks mom. that was a lot of fun. it was pretty nice of you to stop what you were doing that night and help me.
alright i'm making a request. i need pictures! i'm not comparing, but elder thomas gets a lot of pictures. maybe his family has more to take pictures of. but just send me a few pictures a week. that would be so cool. he gets a few pages of printed pictures in the mail like once weekly, but email also can. i just want to see what you guys look like.
k well that's all i've got today. have a good week. say hi to everyone. say hi to uncle clark's family. they sent me a nice card. i love you all.
elder petersen
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