Wednesday, June 1, 2011

Baptisms are Hard to come By


what's up!!
     alright your emails were awesome!!  man they were packed with detail, just how i like it.  i'll try to respond to it all.  wow i am really trunky right now.  ha ha mom's description of dad getting ready for a trip sounds accurate.  i loved scout camps.  i wish i was there.  yes i saw the snow picture.  crazy.  that's great that the year ended successfully.  nice jaynanne and mollie and spencer for good grades. yeah i heard from john.  bad news.  his dad got an institute assignment up in seattle washington.  so john will return from his mission to washington.  he doesn't know about going to the university of utah now.  this could screw up all of my plans!!  but he's still doing awesome.  yeah we heard all about that may 21st end of the world thing.  a lot of random people asked us about it.  we braced ourselves but nothing happened.  so we braced ourselves for 12:00 in america and again nothing happened. i heard he switched it to october so we'll brace ourselves again.  ha ha crackhead.  oh yeah i wrote about elder bednar in my journal.  just that three hour meeting took about 8 times more journal space than a typical journal entry.  ha ha i tried to write it all.  yep dad i'm still quite skinny.  it's a gift.  HAPPY BIRTHDAY SPENCER!!!!!!  good job. you made it to 16.  oh man!  ha ha i love coach mac.  i totally remember that night.  it was a blast.  me and john got totally lost up a random canyon in the dark in ogden.  ha ha we ended up by her house so we swung by.  yeah i know mrs iverson.  she's way cool.  she had cancer?  dang.  her daughter just wrote me a letter.  i'll mention it.  i'm so jealous of escalante.  sounds fun.  oskar made it!  ha ha cool.  oskar don't slow them up.  trying to cram scout stuff in.  nobody will want to do it all.  maybe we could try that article of faith thing with our investigators.  i don't think it would be as good of a reaction though.  i hope dallas wins.  i love sacrament meeting.  you enjoy it if you are in the right mind set.  if you don't enjoy it then you don't have the spirit with you.  sorry thats your fault.  whew.  that was a lot to write.
     ok this week went so good. first of all i don't have a lot of time.  sorry this is late.  we spent all day at an island off of the top of singapore called Pulau Ubin.  you take a $2.50 boat over and then rent bikes and ride the mountain bike trails.  it is way sweet.  i think we are the first missionaries to ever do it.  we had to ask president a bunch of times before he agreed as long as we had life jackets.  it was a blast.  i am quite sore and scratched up.  i'll send you some pictures another time.  ha ha the other day in a lesson, we were talking to our investigator about his schooling and i was talking about later this year and i referred to the fall as in the season.  ha ha he was so confused.  here they don't have fall.  they don't have seasons.  i had to just say october.  it made me laugh pretty hard.  another thing i was thinking the other day was about you daddio.  we talk all the time about setting goals here.  i'm a terrible goal setter but i just want to resurrect an old goal of ours.  i really want to hit the highest peak of every county.  you should set up a game plan and a time limit.  i think it would be really fun to do.  we've already done a handful.  there's got to be some easy ones out there.  think about it old man. 
     at long last!!  we had a baptism!  well kind of.  ok it wasn't mine and elder hawins' baptism but i'm counting it.  two of my former investigators were baptized.  jenny and michelle.  jenny if you recall is filipino.  on sunday she was baptized.  her boss wouldn't even let her miss "work" on saturday so that she could be baptized then and confirmed at sacrament meeting.  so she will be confirmed next week.  it was a great service.  she is awesome.  i'm really glad she finally made it.  second was michelle.  if you recall we have been teaching her forever.  me and elder dass met her way back in the middle of january.  i don't want to tell you the whole story but i taught her with dass, thomas, sugi and hawkins.  then the ap's stole the expat ward from me and so the sisters ended up baptizing her.  curses.  oh well.  it was probably better that way.  she really liked them.  but i have known her for a while and she really liked me.  i saw her progress so much and i saw her through some really hard times.  the webbs and the hancocks were pivitol in the teaching.  all of them were at the baptism.  most of the missionaries were there.  a lot of ward members were there.  it was a lot of fun.  michelle was really happy.  at the end of each baptism the bishop of branch president has a moment to welcome the convert in.  bishop neff is so awesome.  he served his mission is taiwan.  he is legit.  he knows what he's doing.  i think he's been the bishop for like 14 years.  he is one of the only long term expats.  anyways he was talking and then he got really emotional and said "I don't usually do this but i want to talk to michelle, the rest of you can listen in if you want"  then he just started speaking in mandarin.  he spoke directly to her for like 3 or 4 solid minutes.  that evening i asked one of the chinese elders what he said.  he just told her a story about chinese people and told her that she had a big responsibility to share the gospel with her family especially because we are not allowed to have missionaries there.  he gave her a bunch of advice and stuff.  well michelle is awesome.  i think she'll be a great example to her family.  the baptism was so fun.  i got to see all of my expat friends ha ha.  tomorrow we are going over to the webb's.  i love them.  seriously they feel like my family here in singapore.  sister webb is so good to me.  we're having cafe rio style salads.  i will look them up back in america later. 
     well like i said neither of those baptism counted for our area.  nevertheless we are still doing good.  we don't have any baptisms on the horizon but we have been working really hard and it's been paying off.  we're picking up new investigators.  this weekend is transferrs.  elder garrett is going home and two other elders.  man i loved elder garrett.  i had a blast with him up in sandakan.  oh i talked with president weiland last week in KL.  he gave me an update of sandakan.  the work that we had going there is still rolling forward.  sandakan is still cranking out baptisms even though it went for a year before me and elder carter without one.  the weilands are doing really well.  they are doing a great job.  it's tough to do what they are doing.  they're doing better than i would.  i'll let you know what happens about tansfers.  if i don't get transferred this week then i for sure will at the end of july.  ha ha so long.  we'll see.  i'm really loving singapore though.  i'd be torn if i left.  it would depend where i go. 
     i love you all.  i want a very detailed description of your trip.  i wish i could do it with you.  we'll have to do another family backpack trip eh?  don't have too much fun this summer without me.  while you enjoy the summer snow i'll be enjoying the heat and the perpetual sweat.  don't forget the church is true and kebenaran akan mengatasi!
elder petersen

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