hey guys
i almost thought you forgot about me ha ha. i figured it was a pretty busy week but i didn't realize it was that busy. it sounds fun though. i think you had a typo in your time dad. you said 1 hour and 10 min. 2 hours maybe? count me in for sure next year. i would love that. i can't believe jaynanne graduated!! that is nuts. did she enjoy the ceremony? i remember it was a lot of fun. no commitments really. just sit back and enjoy it. that is cool. hope she loved high school. you didn't say how the dvd turned out. you just said she did it. was it well received? that's sweet about helping the etheringtons. they should "consider themselves part of the family". name that musical. ha for the last two weeks we've been trying to stump each other with tunes. one day elder ngo was whistling some song and i told him to just try and stump me with any show tune. he hasn't been able to stump me yet but i got him. ha ha so be proud. i stumped a genious harvard student. ha ha josie sounds so funny. will she still be funny when i get back? will anything be the same when i get back?
well two things this week. last friday i ate raw fish. it was pretty good. here in the big city we have a lot of sweet oppurtunities to eat a lot. we decided to go to this place called kiseki's. it was a japanese buffet. so good. tons of food. i absolutely stuffed myself. i had a lot of sushi. it was better than expected. then they had a bunch of completely uncooked fish. i had salmon and tuna it wasn't the best but it did leave me wanting more. there was also a ton of prawn and rice and satay chicken and pork and drinks and an awesome dessert buffet. they randomly had delicious pizza and waffles and ice cream and cheese cake and fondu. needless to say it was... so so so delicious!
on sunday afternoon we got on a bus and headed up to KL. it was a 5+ hour bus ride. to pass time we mostly just slept. but they did play high school musical on a tv and over the speakers. oh man it was stuck in my head all day after that. so dumb. so catchy. then we got dropped off in the middle of KL by the twin towers, took some pictures, and then found the elders' house. it was a pretty fun day. monday morning we woke up bright and early. we headed off to a distant chapel by taxi. it was all missionaries from west malaysia and singapore and sabah. it was a pretty good reunion. 4 of my 6 companions were there and also both from the mtc. it was a lot of fun seeing everyone again. we all sat down and waited. at about 9:00 Elder Bednar came. oh man we had such a good meeting with him. i can't even adequately describe to you what happened. it was so good. he is such an inspired man. he told us something's prefaced by saying... do not tell anybody back home this because i don't want it blasted out all over the internet. ha ha so sorry. his biggest thing was teaching by the spirit and learning by the spirit. he was so bold and so blunt sometimes. he just told it like it was. it was funny. he is extremely serious but pretty witty. his wife is also really funny. also at the meeting was elder and sister pratt. the two days before this they were in indonesia creating the first ever stake. that is pretty sweet. so he just talked to us for a while about teaching and then kind of shifted to a question and answer period. there were some pretty good questions. a bunch from a funny elder about marraige. i asked him to tell us about recieving his call to apostleship. he told us about their weekly quorum meetings. i can't really remember any other questions. my biggest impression is just that he was such a good teacher. he had the spirit so strong. he really motivated me to convert the world. he told us his pet peeves about lazy missionaries and lazy return missionaries and about senior couples. he told us what we need to do. he is an apostle. he is different. he is set apart. it was a once in a lifetime opportunity to have that kind of small personal meeting. he talked about the future in malaysia. he prophecied that one day we would drive past this building and maybe it wouldn't be there or maybe it would be a restaraunt, but it definitely won't be church owned anymore, and we'd tell our wife and kids that there we met elder bednar and elder pratt. we would remember the small chapel and the small number of saints in malaysia and we'd see how miraculously the church had grown since then. i believe it. one day the church will be huge here. there will be multiple stakes and even a temple. i can't wait to come back and see it. and i'll think to myself that i was a small part of that growth. i might not have made a big difference but i did make a difference. it is so cool.
elder bednar left to go to a government meeting. for the rest of the day we had a combined zone conference. no offense to president clark because i absolutely love him but he was just not the same as elder bednar. ha ha he said so himself. he said it is not fair to have to try and be the follow up act to that. ha ha. but it was good. there is a group of about 20 elders going home in july. this will be their last zone conference. so at the end all of the elders with us that would be leaving bore their testimony. there was a lot and it went quite late but i wasn't antsy or hungry at all. the testimonies were so good. i actually cried during a few of them. i just reflected a lot on my own mission and how far i'd come and also on you guys. i wouldn't be here if it wasn't for you guys. even though i'm missing out on a lot of big stuff back home i hope my example is worth it. i just have something more important to be doing right now. i miss you guys though. and i love you. but i'd leave you another two years if i could have the same spiritual high i had that day again. it was so cool.
so that's the highlight. sorry i didn't give you more detail. you'd have to be there to understand. things are still going good here. i'm working hard and tired every single night. have a fun summer. don't be too bored. i love you. thanks for your emails and letters. bye
elder petersen
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