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