Delayed in Tokyo....Portland Flight Changed

Trevor called from Tokyo Tuesday night around midnight.  Their flight to Portland had been delayed a few hours.  Therefore, they are missing the Portland to SLC flight.  They will arrive in SLC at 3:49 pm today, Wednesday, April 4.  Flight 1208 on Delta Airlines.

Airport Wrap Up...Love

Just waiting to leave in the Singapore Airport...

   this last week was awesome.  it was so fun.  the biggest thing was our baptism on saturday.  i'll have to tell you about it all some other time but the lady's name was josephine.  she chose me to baptize her. i was actually nervous for some reason.  but i got in there and got it done.  it went well.  after they closed the doors on the font and she went up in to the women's side i was just all alone in the font.  i was so just happy.  i just said a prayer right there of thanks.  i couldn't stop smiling.  it was a great feeling.  

   we had 5 investigators come to the baptism so it was great.  and right after that we had a branch social. our investigators loved it.  i can't wait to show you all my pictures.  sunday was also a big day.  i had to bear my testimony in two sacrament meetings.  in the first one i was just really emotional.  oh man i was pretty teary.  i joked it off pretty well.  nobody kacau'd me about it.  really nice.  i love those branches.  i just can't believe that soon i will wake up and not be in malaysia, i won't be in asia, i won't be elder petersen.  that's too weird.  it makes me sad.  

on monday a few people came to the airport with us.  laura and elsie harun, cicie, and flora.  flora was really sad.  she gave me a gift.  she is incredible.  she is one person i for sure have to look up when i ever come back to malaysia.  it was a teary goodbye.  last in the airport i gave my favorite family in sandakan a call.  oh wow they were just all sad.  they are my favorite people i've met here.  they were the hardest to say goodbye to.  i just really hope they can stay strong in the church.  they are in a small struggling branch.  i always pray for them.  

     i can't believe it.  this is it.  i'm in the airport about to begin my long trip home.  wow what an adventure it's been.  i'm just speechless.  all i can say is it was worth it.  i had an incredible time.  i knew the mission would be awesome but i didn't really know what to expect.  i have seriously made life long friends.  i've never had so many people in tears to see me go.  most of my relationships were pretty short but it was real you know.  i have a deep love for the people i've taught and baptized.  i can only imagine the day we meet again.  i won't be able to stop crying ha ha.  i can't wait to see you guys again.  it will be glorious.  i've been telling everyone for two years how awesome you are so i hope you are still awesome.   I love you a ton.  see you later today!

 

elder petersen

Glorius People

alright here i go

     last email.  hmm weird.  i remember sitting in the mtc two years ago pounding out an email in the short time they gave me.  so long ago.  so much has happened since then.  well i don't have a whole lot to say.  my time is short.  this week flew by.  i'm scared ha ha.  it is kind of sad that pretty soon i'm going to wake up and not be in malaysia.  i can't even imagine it. 

     well i just want to share one thing really.  last saturday and sunday was district conference.  it was so fun.  a lot of members from sandakan and tawau came and all of the elders as well.  ning's family from sandakan, minus ning, was all there as well as joshua and kimberly who we also taught and baptized.  i was so happy to see everyone.  the saturday night adult session was extremely moving for some reason.  it's hard to describe.  i can't put into words what i actually felt so i don't know if it's worth it to tell you ha ha.  but the meeting started out pretty good.  after the first few speakers was a musical number.  it was done by the sandakan choir.  torch tabiar was on the piano and all of the youth were lined up all dressed in white.  they sang "how great thou art".  it just hit me hard.  rayne ning started out by singing the first verse and everyone joined in on the chorus.  then jackson tabiar sang solo the second verse with everyone joining again on the chorus.  the third verse was sang by ebee with everyone on the chorus and the fourth was all three of them with everyone on the chorus.  it was just way way pretty.  each verse got louder and more powerful.  it was just really touching to see 7 of my converts standing there singing this beautiful song.  they sang it so good and the words are so moving.  after they all sat down and i snapped out of it is when i started to get emotional.  i just couldn't stop crying for very long ha ha.  all of the speakers talked about when they met the missionaries and i just thought about all my converts from sandakan and when we first started teaching them and their families.  i am so thankful for the experiences i had there.  i really feel like that is one place where i made a huge difference.  i feel like the people i met there really changed me as well.  i just hope they can stay strong in the gospel.  i always pray for it.  i hope that they really mean the words that they sang in that choir.  in malay it says "aku memuji kebesaran mu, Juruselamat ya Allah ku, aku memuji kebesaran Mu, betapa agung nama Mu".

     like i said i'm extremely thankful for the experiences that i've had out here.  the mission has been hard, but i've had some of the most spiritual experiences out here of my life.  i've learned so much.  the greatest thing has been mostly the people.  i've met some high quality people.  that is irreplaceable.  thanks for everything.  i love you guys so much.  after thinking about all of the people i've met on my mission and how much i love them my thoughts turned to you guys.  it's going to be crazy to meet you.  i really miss you guys and i'm glad that you are all strong in the gospel.  that's what brings me the most joy of anything on my mission, meeting families that all stay strong in the gospel.  i just can't imagine what it is going to be like to meet these people again.  and i promise you i will meet them again.  it will be glorious.

     well that's all.  if you want to know anything else just wait till next wednesday.  i fly into singapore on monday, and wednesday morning i fly out.  so i'll have some time there.  tuesday i might email so if you email me, email me a day early.  so i guess this isn't yet my last email because i will send something out next week.  alright well have a good week.  enjoy conference.  i'm so jealous.  say hi to everyone!

elder petersen

Such a Small World!

dua minggu lagi!

     thanks for the emails they were  awesome.  really touching.  from mom it sounds like things are really busy.  well i can't believe you went to another jazz game.  oh man.  save a ticket for me will ya ha ha.  i definitely want to go to the temple when i get home. 

What a cute white guy :)

     this week was ok only.  hold on i have to remember what happened.  well actually last week wasn't that good.  our numbers were way low.  but good things happened.  the thing is that about 7 of our investigators went back to their village for various reasons.  that is so frustrating.  ha ha so we couldn't teach them and they couldn't go to church.  if only we could force them.  just kidding...but seriously..  last thursday we flew to sibu sarawak for our zone leader council.  oh man ha ha we were all scared.  from what we could tell we though president was going to rip into us.  there have been a few cases recently of missionaries being idiots and not following some big rules.  we thought he was going to rebuke us for obedience.   well that's not really his style.  he did talk a lot about commandments and obedience but he's a nice guy.  nothing condeming but we got the message.  i love those meetings.  i'm very lucky to be able to sit with president once a month. and the zone leaders are so awesome right now.  it is a lot of fun. 

     well i don't remember who i've told you about already so here's to gang.  first we have an awesome investigator named simon.  he is deaf in one ear and can barely barely hear in the the other (like only loud claps or horns or something).  apparently he was in a backpack on his dad's back when he was young and his dad was hunting.  the sound of the gun just broke his ears and some tree branch or something took out one of his eyes.  maybe all at once.  it's kind of sad.  from what we understand the dad then took off.  he didn't want to take care of him anymore.  he met the sisters a few years ago but never stayed with it.  about 3 weeks ago he just showed up in church.  he is really eager to learn.  we've been teaching him ever since and he is set to be baptized the week after i leave.  he's not mentally disabled but it is hard for him to understand what is going on.  but he is really really cool.  we have good spiritual lessons.

     next is a girl named senci.  she is really cool. she has read about half of the book of mormon already and loves to learn.  she wants everthing we have to give her.  she is set to get baptized on the 31st.  she went back to kampung (village) last week.  it's always kind of a nervous time because we don't know if the kampung church will anti them or if their parents will get mad.  but she said everyone sat down and watched the restoration dvd with her and they all really liked it.  that is so awesome!  there's no chance the church will go up there anytime soon but it's good that they like it.  so she is doing really good.  she is related to a strong member so it's exciting.  i'll keep you posted

     next is a little miracle.  she is a lady named josephine.  actually she is half european.  wow.  so we met her way way back in october or november.  she came to church a few times but could never meet us.  then she was having some passport problems and just dropped off the map.  her strong member friend dorkas had no idea where she was.  so we were pretty sad but moved on.  last month she showed back up.  she has been coming to church everyweek since she showed back up but we could still never meet her.  so basically she has come to church a lot and knows a lot already from that.  on monday we finally met her.  she's great.  we taught lesson 1 and things started to come together for her.  she just kept saying "this is true".  ha ha ya it is.  so we asked her if she wanted to be baptized and she said "yes of course".  also can.  we were trying to choose a date with her.  i said "well if you are really fast then you could get baptized before i leave".  she said "ya i must be baptized while petersen is still here".  i said "ok well that would be next week then".  she was just like "ok next week i want to be baptized".   ha ha it was awesome.  really she already knows everthing from sunday school.  she stopped smoking immediately and we've already seen her twice this week.  it's so cool. 

Stenley, Pres. Chuah, Maylin, & Viviana

President Chuah & his Family doing
a traditional Dusun dance.
Later, we all joined in and it was a lot of fun.

The cute primary kids singing, "I am a Child of God" for the Larsons

The Reads & Larsons with gift

Larson's, Trevor, Read's

so that's not everyone but it is a few good people.   this past week a new senior couple came.  they are the Reads.  the Larsons leave next week so they overlap for one week.  actually i found out that he worked with the weber state administration and she worked in the chemistry department of weber state.  i said i was from north ogden and she asked me if i knew the lipperts.  i said ya that's my bishop!  ha ha they know the lipperts really well.                         well at least she knows all of the boys names.  you'll have to ask them if they know her.  on saturday was a welfare party, welcome to the reads and farewell to the larsons.  it was a lot of fun.  i'm really going to miss the members here.  they are so strong and so fun to be with.  there is one awesome member named jen.  she helps us out with missionary work a lot.  she had a passport problem so she had to leave to indonesia yesterday.  she was so sad to leave before me and the larsons because she wanted to go to the airport with us to say goodbye.  she was just crying.  i hope i can meet her again.  i hope i can see most of these people again.  i hope they remember me.  if nothing else i'm the tallest elder to ever serve here ha ha.well one more week.  i'll make it count.  president is coming in to town tomorrow for district conference.  we'll be going to mount kinabalu again.  the sandakan and tawau members are going to be coming in.  it should be a lot of fun.  thanks for the emails.  i can't wait to see you.  say hi to everyone.  i love you!!

elder petersen

It is so True. Through and through. There is no Flaw.

holy cow

    i am speechless. i really don't know what to say.    so dad it sounds to me that with reona you guys lost.  i mean she basically had no case against you because of how clear grandpa's trust was but she still ended up with so much.   true?  but it does sound good that it is settled and you can all move on.  you said cash will all be split but what about all of his possessions.  man who knew that it could be such a hassle to divide up one's assets.  sounds like you did have some fun this week.  that's good.  spencer!  nice going to prom.  i know his lips are sealed but come on how was it?  i need a picture. well i plan to have some fun with thomas for a few weeks before work or school settles in.  we'll see but you'll have to give me some ideas.

      well i had a real good week out here in kk.  i love it here.  the biggest highlight of the week was flying down to miri sarawak thursday for a conference with elder perkins on friday.  it was a lot of fun.  i love those kind of conferences.  haha there are some real characters in our mission.  elder perkins is so cool.  he is the asia area president.  he is an inspired man.  it is just so nice to talk with general authorities.  he can see the whole big picture where as we can only see a little tiny piece.  one interesting thing he said was that china will not open anytime soon.  he says when china opens it will take off.  people are already being baptized pretty quick there.  the church really couldn't handle the growth. there's not enough missionaries.  interesting.  he also said to keep up our language skills.  he said if the muslim world ever opens up to the gospel, malaysia would automatically need 4 missions,  indonesia would be about 30 more.  how valuable as senior couples could we be or in some other capacity.  cool thought.  he gave some good marriage advice.  i took good notes.  also he gave good insights into teaching.  teaching about tithing especially.  that was his main focus.  i can't even tell you anything he said because i wouldn't do it justice but it was good.  believe me.

     well we used to have a ton of investigators but they've slowly been weeded out.  it's kind of sad really how many we've dropped but we are left with quite a few solid ones.  the other day we were teaching a lady named Welista and all of her kids.  they are really crazy but so so cute.  ha ha there are five from the range 2-11.  we keep our lessons pretty short because they don't have very long attention spans.  but monday we started our lesson off by singing keluarga dapat kekal selamanya (families can be together forever).  i was surprised how quite and focused they got.  it was spiritual.  it's times like those that i will really miss.  sitting on the floor in a circle with a awesome family like that singing a primary song.  there's no feeling like it.  that family was all able to come to church on sunday and they really liked it.  it was so good to see.

     we met one investigator on sunday that we thought was ready to drop us.  she was texting us earlier and she sent a message something like this "honey it will be ok, i gave the church books back, don't worry love, see you soon"  clearly we weren't supposed to get that message.  we thought it was going to her dad or something because she was talking about seeing him.  we thought oh no maybe he turned on us and doesn't like us.  and we thought she was ready to give us all of the pamphlets and book of mormon back.  we were worried.  later we met her and much to our "comfortable surprise"  ha she was doing great.  that message was to her boyfriend.  she had books from another church and she gave them back to that church because she has chosen to follow our church.  on top of that she said her boyfriend and also her parents want to meet us.  so it was a big relief.  she is still doing really well.

    everything else is just sort of slowly going along you know.  things are going good.  the branch is doing really well.  the zone is doing pretty good.  this evening we are flying to sibu to have zone leader counsel with pres clark.  should be good.  it will be my last flight before my final flight, my "final transfer".  i can't believe it. 

     well thomas sent me a sweet email.  i kind of updated him by forwarding him most of dad's last email.  well between thomas's email and dad's email and even mom's short but powerful email i just want to say how lucky i am.  how blessed am i?  like i said a few weeks ago why do i deserve this.  to oskar, mollie, spencer, jaynanne, and abbie you have to know how awesome mom and dad are.  it is amazing.  we're so lucky.  i really love you all.  i'm so glad i have an awesome family.  i am so grateful i have awesome friends like john and thomas.  i'm grateful i have an awesome bishop like bishop lippert and awesome neighbors like his family and the slacks and stowers.  above all i'm grateful for this gospel.  it is so true.  through and through.  there is no flaw.  i understand it a lot better than i used to.  i hope i can do as good as dad in raising a family in the future.  i have a great vision of being way dedicated to the church and keeping the commandments for the rest of my life.  i know i'm not perfect but i plan to do my best.  thank you all for everything.  can't wait to see you again.  i hope i can hear from oskar, mollie, spencer, jaynanne, and abbie before i come home.  i love you so much.  have a good week.

elder petersen

Investigators Attendance

hey...

     well, well interesting email dad.  thanks for the pictures jaynanne ha ha classic.  i'm always so surprised at how young i look.  i think back and i felt old at that time.  right now i feel old but i'll look back later and look really young in all my mission pictures.  i can't believe what's going on back there.  sounds crazy.  i hope everything is alright. i can't believe you went to a jazz game.  i have written down in my notes here to ask you about going to a jazz game.  do you think you can get me and thomas a ticket for may?  or me and you?  or maybe i should ask brett haha.  that would be awesome.  ha ha dad you can't make me any more trunky than i am.  ha ha i am completely ready for american food!  i haven't been eating exotic food, just a lot of rice and bland foods ha ha.  actually last week was the end of the month and me and brodie still had a bunch of money left so we went to pizza hut.  we got the combo meal which was 2 regular pizza's and 4 soups and a pitcher of pepsi.  we downed it.  so good.  and on monday we had our usual big mac monday and i got the mega mac.  wow so good.  ha ha so yeah basically my stomach can handle anything.  it better not be oatmeal.  but ice cream and hot fudge is like number 1 priority.  oh man i was looking forward to going to the fast sunday.  plus i want to hear you give your talk.  oh man.  oh well

Sandakan Family

    
   well yeah this past week was alright.  it was only the second full week of 2012 that i've been in my area.  so it was weird.  but we got a lot done.  well come to think of it i can't think of anything specific. ha ha but everybody is doing pretty good.  we finally sorted through all of the sister's old investigators.  it is weird to only have to missionaries sini.  it's just like, i don't know, quiet.  some of their investigators were garbage that we quickly sifted out, but they actually gave us some really, really cool people.  this sunday was even better than the last.  we had a whopping 16 investigators at church!!  wow.  kk hasn't had that much since 2010.  also we had the highest attendence since the Larsons got here 18 months ago.  kk1 had 75 and for the second week in a row and the second time only kk2 had more than kk1 with an all time high of 79 making for a total of 154 total in kk.  that is awesome!  i hope we can sustain it.  district conference is coming up in two weeks and i think we should have quite a few people here for that.  also sandakan and tawau are coming over.  it should be sweet.

FHE in Sandakan

Tamparuli Market...Mt Kinabalu in background

     a few days ago we decided to try out a new restaraunt for lunch and to our great surprise they were playing a live nba basketball game on a huge flat screen tv.  ha ha also can.  we watched a quarter of the lakers whooping the timberwolves.  it was so cool.  i haven't seen that level of basketball in a long time.  it was cool to see.  dad you gotta get me to the energy solutions arena!

Suspension Bridge between Villages

Peter helping me at the Upside Down House

     two sundays in a row this deaf guy has come to church.  last week  the sisters never got his number so there was no getting a hold of him.  sunday he came again so i didn't let him get away.  his name is simon.  on monday we went over to his house with a member.    simon is very flamboyant ya know but he's cool.  he's like 30+ and unmarried.  basically he can't hear what anyone says right so he walks to the beat of his own drum.  he wears pretty tight shirts and is a little bigger ha ha.  but he was so excited to see us.  it was hard to communicate with him.  basically he doesn't know malay that well.  just sign language.  but we wrote out the lesson line by line on paper.  he told us he knows sister ritchie, harrison, and petty.  that was quite a while.  apparently his parents weren't too happy that he met with them. but recently they both died.  so he immediately came to church.  can.  when we asked him if he wanted to be baptized he just lit up.  he was so excited.  so that is great.  i hope he can get a friend at church but even if he doesn't, i think he'll keep coming.

Upside Down House in Rumah Terbalik

     oh man i can't think of anything else to write.  i'm running out of interesting things.  basically things are going good here.  we're just doing the same old same old that i've been doing for the past 2 years.  oh president clark had a heart attack.  he didn't pass out or anything.  basically he was on a ten mile run with his buddy in singapore and he felt some pain in his chest.  he walked the rest.  he went home showered got ready etc and then drove down to the hospital.  when they ran some tests they told him he definitely had a heart attack.  his artery was 95 percent closed.  despite him being extremely healthy this condition was genetic.  his father died of a heart attack at about the same age president is now.  but being in shape helped him.  so they had a stint put in and now he's doing good.  we're supposed to meet him tomorrow in miri sarawak but he can't come.  elder perkins, the asia area president, is touring the mission.  so the ap's are in charge.  oh great.  president's a boss.  nothing can keep him down. 

Nuf Sed

     lately i've been reading this one teaching's of the presidents of the church book wilford woodruff edition.  it is really interesting.  he had a crazy life.  it's good.  um what else.  i've been trying to keep my journal up to date but keep falling behind.  people here are talking about the hunger games.  i'll have to read it when i get home.  yeah well that's about all i got this week.  i promise next week will be better.  or maybe i'll just keep all of my stories so that i have something to tell you when i get home.  i feel like we might just have a lot of awkward silences when i get home cause i have nothing to tell you that i haven't already.  hey i read that talk on grace like 3 times.  it was awesome!!  wow so good.  actually the guy was in elder brodie's bishopric back at byu.  he says he is a way good speaker.  cool.  thanks for the talk.  it is inspiring. it really put things in perspective.  i mean nobody is perfect but that doesn't mean we give up.  we just try again.  it was a good message.  i want to hear your comments too.

     hey what is the popular music there?  i need to be up to date when i get home.   basically

Borneo Homesteads

 right now we've got adele somebody like you, katty perry the one that got away, stereo hearts, sexy and i know it, and yeah that's about it.  oh and love you like a love song.  are any of these still played over there?  i heard t swift has some new songs.  true or not?  let me know

     well don't worry i'm still working like crazy.  i'm having the biggest numbers i've had on my whole mission, except for baptisms.  but i feel like i'm really making a difference anyways.  the branch is strong.  we're not going to slow down.  the church is absolutely true.  thanks for your support.  i love you all

elder petersen

Bear Tracks and Three Amigos

well hey hey hey happy leap year

     good to hear from you guys.  mom thanks for that article.  i read it.  ha ha it has a lot of flaws.  i mean it has inaccurate info about the church.  no wonder people over there are all confused.  that'll be the day if our church is ever highlighted in the paper over here.  no one really cares ha ha.  oh ouch.  backed into a parked car eh?  ha ha better not do shut ins again.  nope i'm clean dad.  never hit anything.  well there was that one time where i was driving down ogden canyon in the winter and the car would not stop sliding and then i carved the gaurd rail.  do you remember that.  that's all.  good luck with tennis spencer.  is there anyone good out there.  i remember back when i was a sophomore there was this one kid that was so good.  he was a state champ.  out of everybody's league on our team.  anyone like that?  oh yeah i know who tyson thornock is.  i used to be friends with his sister until she got popular and well i didn't ha ha.  ya i can't wait to get home to mom's cooking.  oh yes dad i'm getting good at taking rejections ha ha should be no problem when i get home. 

     this past week was awesome!   i mean there were tons of lowlights but some awesome stuff is happening here.  after p day last week we flew to sandakan. it was a blast.  elder nowland and i went and visited one of my recent converts, Jessica and Kong.  they are basically inactive unfortunately  but they are still awesome and still love me.  their oldest son joshua is 13.  when we were teaching him he was so shy.  he always sat in the back and really didn't want to learn.  we had to drag him out.  now surprisingly he's an all star.  he is way active.  he's really involved and has even taught himself how to read.  it's interesting to see.  he's a stud.  sandakan overall is kind of struggling.  it makes me so sad.  i mean we really had the place going back when i was there and i hope it can get out of this slump.  well the biggest thing from this past week is transfers.  seemingly out of the blue there was sister transfers.  both sis gopinath and sis song got taken out of kk.  in fact, there is no one to replace them.  so as of monday kk is down to two missionaries only.  we inherited all of their investigators and now cover both branches.  our area is huge now.  i really don't know how we can manage it.  we'll see what happens. 

     sunday was an awesome day.  on saturday we visited a ton of people and invited everyone we could to church.  we ended up having 13 investigators at church.  dang.  we were so excited.  plus the sisters had 5 which are now ours.  ha ha so many.  plus we had the highest attendence kk2 has had since splitting off last august.  we had a whopping 72 at church.  and for the first time we had more than kk1.  the members are really excited right now.  though you don't know them here is a list of everyone who came to church:  durus, senci, helen, elis, jason, elly, ketty, richard, eric, alvin, ritchie, josephine, and simon.  basically each one has a really cool story behind them.  i can't tell you everyone's.  so i won't tell you anyone's ha ha.  besides that we even had about 5 that we were really hoping would come that let us down.  oh well. 

     when i was walking through town with elder ahmad in sandakan a guy called out to us.  well a lot of people say crap to us because we're white and they think it's funny.  but this guy said hey are you from kk.  that's weird so i stopped and said yeah.  he said he is too.  he was in sandakan for work for just a few days.  he said he's seen us on the bus by his house and stuff. cool.  so he asked is there a time like a month when people can typically join the church because i was raised buddhist but want to switch to christianity.  ha ha wow. also can.  i said ya we baptize people anytime.  we can baptize you tomorrow if you want.  ha ha.  but seriously he is so good.  we met him again yesterday.  he said the same things.  he doesn't know much but for some reason he is really interested.  so i had to go all the way over to sandakan to meet this new solid investigator.  he told us yesterday that he in fact saw me on the bus because i was standing right next to him. what the heck.  why didn't i say anything to him then.  luckily i ran into him again.  talk about me being in the right place at the right time.  my thoughts are wow.  how lucky is this guy.  he doesn't know this church from any other christian church.   he just wants to go to any church.  hopefully he can also realize how blessed he just was.

     yesterday we spent all day out and about.  it was jam packed.  today also we have a few appointments even though it's p day.  we're willing to take the hit though because these people are awesome.  after someone is baptized we as missionaries reteach all of the lessons again.   because the sisters moved yesterday we met and taught flora.  she is amazing.  holy cow she is one of a kind.   she completely gets it.  she is a different person.  she tells us that everyone can see it.  she is also really eager to share the gospel with her friends and family.  wow cool.  i can't really put into words how excited i am.  and i can't describe how good it makes me feel to see someone catch the gospel and just run with it.  so fulfilling.

     well thanks for the talk topic.  ha ha i have a story i wanted to share with you that coincidentally goes along with that topic.  oh man it was so funny.  we went to this one curry house by home with awesome roti cobra daging.  well they have a two huge flat screen tv's.  we sat down to eat and there was a lame movie on.  all of a sudden there was some "bear tracks" if you know what i'm saying.  we could see that there was going to be a bad scene coming up.  so i asked the waitress if she could find something else on.  she was confused so she called this other guy over.  it kind of made a big scene but they eventually switched it to the next station.  ha ha on the next channel was the thee amigo's with steve martin.   ha ha ha oh man it was so so funny.  but it's really old school you know.  so because everyone didn't understand it and it was old they didn't really like it.  i mean this was a pretty full restaurant.  then there was this one scene where they do this little number called my little buttercup.  ha ha ha me and brodie were laughing so hard.  but nobody else was.  so we were trying to suppress our laughter.  we got out of there quick and just started busting up.  everyone totally judged us.  there was this guy behind me that brodie later told me was just hitting his head.  i'm sure all of those cool muslim guys were thinking why on earth would these two young white guys switch the channel from a guy and a girl to three guys in goofy outfits singing my little buttercup.  ha ha i can't think about it without laughing out loud.

     well that's about it for today.  sorry.  my keyboard sucks and my thumb is tired of pounding the space button.  don't get trunky for me.   hey mom all of my white shirts are spoiled.  i was thinking it would be good probably if you could get me a new one for church when i get back.  i forgot what size.  like 15.5 neck or something.  i'll tell you next week.  ok well keluarga have a good week.  love you all.

elder petersen

We're Down but NOT out!

hey hey hey (at letter number 102 i can't think of any new greeting, sorry)

 

     wow your emails were awesome.  i can't believe you got my flight plans!!! ha ha that is nuts.  i'm a dead man.  ha ha.  president's day eh?  ok sounds cool.  i forgot about that one.  that's cool that joseph is home.  actually yeah i've heard of this Lin guy.  basketball is not very big here though.  so not really.  ah weber state weber state... great great great.  ha i remember in the mtc there was so much i wanted to tell you guys but when i sat down at the computer i couldn't remember anything.  also the computer shut down at exactly 30 min.  maybe kolton is just has no time there.  i love good talks.  can you send me the link or something to that one on the atonement.  oh man dad what are you doing to me??  ha ha trying to kill me?  telling me about my talk, asking if i want to know the topic.  sheesh.  yeah let me know asap.  ha ha.  i've been trying to think of things to share actually.  well i've been just trying to remember experiences from throughout my mission but it's hard. 

Typical Malaysian sign, vague...still couldn't find the stall

    oh man so this last week... oh man.  it was pretty good.  i mean we're still kicking.  but one by one, over a three day period, almost every single investigator called us and gave us the axe.  some were more brutal than others.  ha oh man it hurt.  i usually hold the phone.  most people are to weenie ish to tell us to our face that they don't want to meet again.  so the usually sms us.  we would get a text and then i would turn to brodie and say "i've got some bad news..."  ha it happened like 8 times.  it's kind of funny but it sucks.  let's see here's a few.  sunday morning we got a text from a family that said "hi we won't be coming today, i don't think my family should be baptized twice, also maybe we won't meet you again".  another said "elders i'm sorry my family doesn't want me to switch religions, they are very mad".  another said "stop bothering us, we're busy lah"  ha ha ouch.  there was "i really don't enjoy your church, i don't understand malay so it is confusing"  one said "i can't go to your church until i'm 100 percent sure it is true, so i'll let you know"  so yeah basically there's a billion excuses.  they're all garbage.  i just wish some of these people would confront us face to face.  oh man.

8 yo with older bro...I did the confirmation

     despite that slew of trials, we still have a few really awesome investigators.  we're down but not out.  i'll tell you about a few.  first is this awesome girl named Senci.  two weeks ago a member brought her to church.  she is really sincere.  our first lesson about the restoration was great.  she answered all of the questions 100 perecent.  but we were still pretty tentative.  this past sunday she couldn't come to church because she went to kampung to visit a sick family member.  well we met her yesterday and she's on fire.  she read and marked up like 20 scriptures from the Book of Mormon including like all of moroni,  most of 3 nephi, some in alma and in 2 nephi.  she said she just went through and looked for chapters about Christ.  ha ha well they are all about Christ.  she told us that at kampung it rained and rained so she couldn't go outside.  she just sat on her bed and read a ton.  that rain was a little miracle.  she said she feels awesome when she read.  we taught her the plan of salvation and she said she's never heard these kind of things and it really makes sense to her.  she also said her husband really wants to come to church this next sunday and she really wants her younger sister to come too.  also can!  she is kind of hesitant to get a baptismal date but it's because she seriously wants to know.  it's actually a good thing.  we have high hopes for her but in light of everybody else just dropping us we don't want to get our hopes up too high.

     we also have this lady named Welista.  well it's a long story how we met her.  basically she is the neighbor of a member.  her husband is working all the time except for saturday night and sunday. and on those days his friends come over and the all drink all day.  ha ha.  so the member thought maybe they would really be interested.  well we were able to meet this lady the wife.  she is way cool.  turns out to be senci's sister in law as well.  she doesn't know a whole lot about Christ.  she doesn't really have a religion.  she seems to really enjoy our lessons so far.  we've taken it really slow with her.  we've only taught about prophets and Christ and prayer.  but we've taught her 12 year old son a lot more at our weekly fhe's next door.  he even came to church on his own.  we are praying mightily for that family.  they have 5 small kids. 

     another all star is elis.  she learned from the missionaries in like october or september.  then she moved to the tip of borneo.  in the last few months she finished the book of mormon.  she doesn't understand much about the church but she knows it is true and wants to get baptized.  she really is cool.  way sincere.  we still can't really meet here that often but when we have it's been great. 

Me & the Boys...Peter (peace sign) & David (bml)
Peter is headed to Texas on a mission.  He's so cool!  I call him Petrus. David is a total character.  He is crazy but he is the famce of the KK branches.  Everyone knows him, and he knows everybody.

     

    so yeah things are going good.  we're still seeing cool miracles despite a bunch bad things happening.  we've been really blessed.  i just really hope someone we have can hang on until baptism.  i have a few random thoughts from the past few days.  the first is about a return missionary from before i left.  he said in his homecoming talk that there was a point on his mission where he just wasn't sure if the church was true or something.  he said he just had to pray and find out.  well i agree with you dad, every day that goes by just strengthens my testimony.  there is no doubt in my mind that this church is the only real church on the whole earth.  this is Christ's church no doubt.  everything points to that.  logically there's no flaw.  also i can't deny the many spiritual experiences i've had to confirm it.  it's true.  i've never really questioned it.  so i don't know what was going on with that other missionary.  

next is a common thought that we seem to come across.  it seems like most people don't really think that there can only be one true church.  so if we get them to the point that they think the book of mormon is true and we say ok then this church is true, they just think yeah it is and so is mine.  ha ha but i was talking about this with brodie.  there can only be one true church.  and this is it.  it wouldn't make sense if there was more than one.  it is hard to get people to see that because i have the whole huge big picture.  they don't.  at first they just have a 30 min discussion about prophets and joseph smith and i hope they see the church is true.  ha ha it's just something i was thinking about.  i'm so glad i know what i know.  i don't know why i'm so blessed to be born in the church.  there's billions of people who don't know what i know.  it's not fair really but i am thankful. 

     well sorry for all of those random thoughts.  hope you understand.  i really love you guys.   keep it up back home.  i can't wait to see you.  i'm still working hard all the way to the end.  thanks for everything.

 

elder petersen

Travel Itinerary for Elder Petersen

Trevor's mission was extended a month.  He comes home APRIL 4, 2010.  Here's the official word.....  

PETERSEN/TREVOR CHR 

  MISSIONARY TRAVEL

  SINGAPORE MISSION

SERVICE               DATE  FROM           TO             DEPART/ARRIVE

_____________________ _____ ______________ ______________ _____________

DELTA AIR LINES       04APR SINGAPORE      TOKYO          610A    155P

DL 622            WEDNESDAY CHANGI         NARITA

K ECONOMY                   TERMINAL 1     TERMINAL 1

           NON SMOKING      BREAKFAST                     NON STOP

                            RESERVATION CONFIRMED         6:45 DURATION

                  AIRCRAFT: BOEING 777-200/300

                            SEAT 50C NO SMOKING CONFIRMED

DELTA AIR LINES       04APR TOKYO          PORTLAND OR    330P    835A

DL 618            WEDNESDAY NARITA         PORTLAND INTL    

K ECONOMY                   TERMINAL 1

           NON SMOKING      DINNER                        NON STOP

                            RESERVATION CONFIRMED         9:05 DURATION

                  AIRCRAFT: BOEING 767

                            SEAT 36B NO SMOKING CONFIRMED

DELTA AIR LINES       04APR PORTLAND OR    SALT LAKE C UT 1025A   109P

DL 2189           WEDNESDAY PORTLAND INTL  SALT LAKE CITY

K ECONOMY                                  TERMINAL 2

           NON SMOKING                                    NON STOP

                            RESERVATION CONFIRMED         1:44 DURATION

                  AIRCRAFT: AIRBUS INDUSTRIE A320-100/200

                            SEAT 13C NO SMOKING CONFIRMED

So Trevor leaves Singapore on Wednesday morning, arrives in Tokyo that day, Wednesday, and leaves for Portland, USA.  He arrives in Portland the next day, Wednesday, and leaves for SLC. He gets home on WEDNESDAY.  Crazy.  Singapore is 14-15 hours ahead of us, depending on DST.  He's travelling 17 1/2 hours backwards.  Doesn't that mean he's still 2 1/2 hours ahead of us?  :)  He's always kinda thought that :) We're so excited!  I think he'll be speaking in church on April 15, 2012 at 2:45 pm.

Iban & Indon Villages, I Love the Natives....

saya sudah mininggal,

 

Trevor's 2012 Valentine

     hey what's up everyone.  thanks for the awesome emails.  pretty funny.  it sounds like valentine's day was fun.  sounds like oskar is a little player ha ha.  pretty much nothing happened here.  i have no kekasih.  you didn't meet joseph did you?  i wonder what he's like now. are you going to the homecoming?  ya that would be sweet if thomas came to arches.  is there room?  john comes home to washington the last week of may.  it seems like just yesterday we all left.  crazy. 

spencer's got to get off starcraft.  we just had a training about addictive destructive wasteful things and video games was in the line up.  ha ha.  they're not bad just time consuming.  president clark said his smart smart son in law did terrible in college because he just always wanted to play video games.  so he couldn't even do the program he wanted.  

oh hey i just got another letter from the johnson's yesterday.  it was good.  it looks like i'll be home to see joe married ha ha.  

what the heck mom!  just throwing that last line out there nonchalantly.  ha ha you are so mean.  oh mercy funeral potatoes and spare ribs sounds so so so good.  jahatnya kamu!

things are still going awesome here.  i can't remember what happened this last week to tell you about though.  let's see.  i've gone on two trips since last wednesday.  thursday we took off to tawau for two days.  tuesday we flew down to sibu for two days.  it is so fun.  in tawau we just went on normal splits. 

Traditional Bajau Wedding Picture
....just a picture :) 

old EngKang...He is the man
Elder Trotter and Trevor

Sitting on the Kursi Raja (King Chair)
it's not as comfy as ours at home,
but EngKang handcarved it.  Pretty cool.

elder trotter and i saw this little culture fair thing so we went and checked it out.  they had a bunch of different booths from a bunch of different malaysian and indon native tribes.  the iban one was so funny.  this old guy really wanted to dance for us.  at another one they dressed us up because an old lady really really wanted to take pictures with us.  we also got our picture with a bajau girl in a wedding type picture haha, and also a cool kadazan man playing the flute.  it was a lot of fun.

while meeting all of these people we made some contacts and found out about another iban village that is all christian that is not far from tawau.  that is really good news.  hope it pays off.  also while in tawau i met up with a family that has a son in kk that i baptized.  the old dad lived in kk for a while and he is so funny.  he just moved back to tawau.  he was happy to see me again.  i'll send you a picture.  ha ha i love the natives. 

Iban Traditional Clothes

we went to sibu on tuesday for zone leader council.  it is a once a month meeting.  it was actually really good.  president clark is awesome.  he gives such good trainings.  i always leave those things feeling pumped.  i'm supposed to give the same training to the other districts in our zone.  i feel bad for them because i wish they could just hear it from pres clark.  i can't do it justice.  it is always a blast to see the whole gang each month.  the zone leaders across east are way funny right now.  every one is a good reunion.  there's me, brodie, maughan, pendleton, stratton, howell, hunt, gallinger, polley, and georing.  awesome.

well there was no big, big advances by any of our investigators this week.  but things are still progressing.  we are teaching a way nice family.  i'll keep you posted on them if they progress.  the dad's name is peter.  we are praying hard for them.  on monday we met a really cool referral named sensi.  she was just one of those people that gives all of the right answers to every question.  she is way way good.  we invited her to church on sunday but she said she had to go back to kampung because her father in law or something had a stroke.  bummer.  but she is way good.  she just really digested everything we told her.  later the same day we met a different referral from a different member across town.  she's awesome.  we invited her and her family to church on sunday but she said that this weekend she has to go back to kampung because someone had a stroke.  we thought hmm is there a bunch of strokes going around?  could it be the same guy?  ha ha we asked and sure enough the two referrals are cousins.  they are from the same kampung.  wow.  so two referrals were referred to us by two different families and they are both cousins.  that's cool.  not a coincidence.  they are both good.  we're excited.  but feel bad about the guy with the stroke. 

     oh my gosh other big news is that on tuesday my recent convert got engaged!!  that is crazy.  she is from my favorite sandakan family.  her name is rainah and she is...16!! ha ha wow i was shocked to hear it.  she's still in young women's ha ha.  it's to a member though so that's good.  better to a member than to a muslim.  apparently it's official.  the families got together and the dad's bartered over a price.  ha ha kind of like johnny lingo.  i think it's more of like a promise thing because it is still way far out.  so we'll see.  so weird.  dad pretty soon i'm going to need you to come over here to malaysia to barter for my kadazan princess.  ha ha ha...but seriously. 

     well this email was lame.  but i hope you enjoyed it.  i can't think of what to write.  i hope you liked my pictures.  i should be home pretty soon.  pretty much everyone i meet tells me i'm dead and asks me if i'm trunky ha ha.  yup it's true.  i still haven't got any flight info for going home.  i think they'll just email it straight to you.  let me know i guess.  well i love you all.  no need to get me an iphone before i get home ha ha i was just wondering about it.  but on the other hand i didn't get anything for my birthday.... jk ha ha.  ok well say hi to the ward.  i don't really recognize any of the names you were dropping.  i don't think i'll know anybody when i get home ha ha.  might as well move to washington.  have a good week.

 

elder petersen