Look for Miracles

hello hello

     very good to hear from you all.  wow thanksgiving.  trunky!  on friday morning there was a point where i stopped and said "i bet everyone is sitting around the table back home right now playing 9 cards down."  ha ha i was right.  we played a few card games that night as well.  ha ha ha oh man that tree sounds awesome!  that is funny.  does it take up the whole family room? i can just imagine kids from idaho clapping to see you guys.  i can't believe utah lost!  come on!  that's good to hear that nba is back on but it is still weird.  like if utah went all the way and won it all it would probably be down played because it wasn't a complete season.  so i guess this year we'll just let someone else win.  ha ha ha a bushman from borneo huh?  ha i've seen plenty of those.  that is too funny. yeah here people do the fist bumb a little bit.  mostly the two people will do a thumbs up and then flip each other's thumbs or after the handshake change to a grasp thing and then flip the thumbs.  i always do the fist bump to people.  it seems cleaner than shaking some of their hands.

     well intersting week for sure.  first and foremost was thanksgiving.  thursday after i emailed you we headed over to the Larson's.  oh man i really like them.  probably my favorite senior couple i've served with.  they are just all around awesome.  so so funny.  elder larson is a stake patriarch.  they are from north carolina or something.  they have thick southern accents and just say exactly what they are thinking.  wow sister larson is an amazing cook!  thanksgiving was made up southern style.  there are no turkeys here so we had awesome chicken with mashed potatoes(!) and buttery green beans (so good) and sweet potatoe casserol (amazing) and great biscuits and salad and cranberry jello stuff and sweet potatoe pie and chocolate apple sauce cake with ice cream.  oh my gosh it was incredible.  i gained three pounds over dinner.  after we ate us four elders couldn't move.  we just layed down and were stuck there.  sister larson didn't notice at first but then she looked over at us and started laughing so hard and ran and took a picture.  we got in a few card games as well.  very good thanksgiving.

      well as part of our push for the end of the year we are trying to look for miracles everyday.  each night we have to call the other districts in the zone and we ask them what their miracle of the day was.  we have seen so many miracles.  when you are really looking for them you start to see a lot.  it's cool.  one cool one is that i contacted a girl on the bus named beverly.  she was way nice.  we were both going to the end of the line so we talked for a while.  she actually was contacted by the sisters a few months ago when it was two different sisters.  she said she gave away the pamphlet to her parents so she doesn't have it anymore.  i gave her a new one and we talked about it.  she seemed like she would really come to church.  i passed it to the sisters because she lives in their area.  a few days later sister gopinath contacted beverly's sister on a different bus.  she was really interested and said basically she is a church hopper so she would love to come and see what our church is like.  since then she read the whole pamphlet and has a lot of questions.  that is not coincidence that we both contacted two people from the same family.  another cool thing is that a christian family just moved in next door to one of our top investigators.  last time we were there he was just standing outside and he called me over to talk to me.  he asked if i had a mormon bible and i didn't have any extra so i gave him a pamphlet.  he said that he met missionaries about 5 years ago in a different part of kk but they didn't really speak malay.  so he was asking a bunch of questions.  he gave us a ride home later that day any we had a good talk with him.  yesterday we went back and gave him a book of mormon and when we walked up he was watching the finding faith in Christ dvd that he borrowed from our investigator.  ha ha he was definitely prepared to meet us.  he is a school teacher so he has good work hours and he knows english pretty good.  definitely a kingdom builder. 

     our other investigators are doing good as well.  we have three, lawrence, elly and peter that are going to be baptized really soon.  they are all looking good but all have their own little challenges.  we are pretty confident they will all make it.  i have a sad story to tell you but i just called an audible and decided not to tell you.  it is about this drunk guy we met.  why would anybody subject themself to be drunk.  they lose all control of their body?  ya that was random but oh well.

     on monday we had a branch social.  it was fun.  we played this game called telefon charades.  it was so funny.  basically like 5 people are involved at a time.  most of them go out into the hall and wait.  the fist person acts out the charade thing and then the second person watches.  after thirty seconds the second person has to act out what he thought it was to the third person and so on until the last person has to guess what it actually was.  it was so funny.  elder larson was just dying of laughter.  some of the things were a fish, angry birds, thou shalt not kill, mermaid, and the bml david chong.  i'm telling you it was hilarious.  the elders quorum pres did the mermaid one and everyone was dying laughing.  it turned out a lot better than i expected.  there was some investigators there and some recent converts.  afterwards there was lots of food and so all in all it was a successful fellowshipping activity. 

     well besides that we just have to same old same old going on here.  next week i go to sibu for zone leader council so i won't email you on wednesday. after that i'll probably go on splits each week till christmas.  the branch here is awesome.  the members are so cool.  the missionaries are all cool.  our investigators are all cool.  no complaints.  dad tell me about you money scheme.  a truck would be cool but not a huge truck.  and cough cough what happened to that motorcycle cough cough...  oh one last cool thing.  i got two letters yesterday.  one was from grandma.  tell her thanks.  she is awesome!!  the other is from a random girl from arizona.  she said that her and her friend were just looking through missionary blogs and decided to write some missionaries a letter.  also can!  anyways the church is true the book is blue.  keep up the work on the home front.  i love you all!!

elder petersen

Knock, Knock, 3 In A Row...

selamat hari bersyukur!

     wow awesome letters.  first and foremost i will be praying for the U's success.  that is the best news i've heard in a while.  wait, does spencer have his license?  that is so weird ha ha.  i can't wait to play games with you guys when i get home.  i just remember back in the day i used to crush you all.  we'll see if that still the same ha ha. occasionally we play games here and uh i hate to brag but yeah i haven't lost yet.  ha ha.  i can't believe bishop is a runner.  sweet.  you guys all seem to be on a running craze right now.  also can.

     well well this week was awesome!  seriously i can't even tell you everything that happened.  friday was a big day.  ok well every monday and thursday we report with our zone.  thursday after reporting elder hawkins and i were trying to think of what we could do to help out our zone.  we feel like we are definitely limited because we are 6 hours from one city and 9 hours from the other.  we decided to have a fast the next day on friday.  we decided not to do it on sunday so that it would seem different than your average fast.  so we were pretty pumped and we told everyone about it.  so we started thursday at the end of the day.  friday morning at about 10:30 elder hawkins and i joined in on a conference call with all of the zone leaders in east malaysia and president clark and the ap's.  we didn't really know what it would be about but we assumed that it would be about our gap between our goal and our actual performance as a mission.  we were right.  with six weeks left before the end of the year we are pretty far off from our mission baptism goal.  in a loving way president clark told us that we simply are not doing good enough.  he said that the past few weeks have seen the fewest number of baptisms since he has been president but we have the potential to see the highest number of baptisms soon.  i really wish you could have heard him.  he was incredibly inspiring.  no doubt he cracked down on us and was mad.  he was very too the point and told us what needs to be done so that we can hit our goal.  he said each companionship mission wide must have 4 baptisms before the end of the year.  there will for sure be people that dont hit that so some need to step up.  he said obedience brings blessings but obedience with exactness brings miracles and brethen we need a miracle.  the only way that i can describe this to you is that he sounded like off of some sports movie like "miracle".  in the end he said you have failed if you didn't do all that you could.  if you could have had 15 baptisms and you only had the four required then you failed.  so he told us to have a zone meeting and pass this information on.  well we couldn't exactly meet with our whole zone together so that night we had our own conference call.  there was no way we were as inspiring as president clark but i think we passed his message along.  so right now it is crunch time.

     so like i said friday was great.  after the conference call i was pumped.  we were already fasting and we had nothing planned for the day besides going finding.  the night before as i was laying in bed i was thinking about where we could go and i really felt like we should go to this one area that we scouted out a few days before.  it felt good.  so that is where we went.  i basically had in mind two streets there.  well before we started knocking we had a prayer.  the first street started off with a muslim house.  there were so many dogs barking everywhere that i felt we should just abandon that street.  so we left it and said we would come back later.  the next street was completely fruitless.  lots of muslims and angry chinese people.  people ignored us or closed the door on us.  nothing.  we wandered around a little bit and had a few other lessons but really we got nothing.  i was feeling pretty bummed because i was so pumped earlier.  so we went back to that first street.  the first house we knocked was a christian but she totally ignored us and was rude.  ok whatever.  next was muslim.  it was looking like a repeat of street number 2.  the third house was different.  a katazan lady invited us inside her gate and we sat on her front porch and talked.  she was really nice and has 5 children and we were able to share a good message about the restoration.  she gave us her number but didn't set up a specific return appointment.  so she wasn't quite a new investigator but had potential.  she was the last house on the one side.  the next house we knocked was the last house on the other side.  an old lady came to the door and she was really quiet.  there was some dogs barking so i asked her if we could come inside the gate so we could hear her better and surprisingly she said yes.  she took it a step further and set out chairs and told us to sit down.  we talked with her for like thirty min.  as she told us about herself and we talked she actually shed a few tears.  she told us that lots of people from other churches have come by her house but she never let anyone else in before us.  sweet.  she also told me that she saw me on the bus before.  she overheard me contacting someone on the bus one night and she wanted to know what i shared.  after a closing prayer she said a specific time we could come back.  awesome!!  she also has a big family.  two houses in a row.  wow.  the very next house was a similiar story.  we were standing by the gate and there was a lot of  people walking around and stuff and we asked if we could come in.  they said of course.  they probably let us in more out of kindness than anything but we were able to share a good message with them and they gave us their phone numbers.  wow.  three houses in a row.  it pays off to endure to the end.   those were the last three houses in the area.  we were invited in and had three good discussions with a potential of about 12 or more people.  really awesome.  it was still light out and we wanted to keep knocking so we went over to another area and continued.  the first two houses were no good.  at the third house there was a man and wife outside weaving a couple of fishing nets.  we said hi and they invited us over.  we talked about fishing for a second and then sat out on their porch and shared about the restoration.  they were pretty strict catholics but really nice.  it was a mom and dad and one teenage kid.  he gave us his pone number but then said oh no now you are going to call me every day right?  so we don't want to pressure this guy too much.  by this time it was dark and we had to go back to the city.  but what a day.  four solid solid potentials.  that was almost a week ago and we've already had follow up lessons with two of them.  elder laycock said to me, "i'm not going to lie i feel pretty spiritual right now."  ha ha me too.  i think our fasting and our preparation paid off.  it was a good day.  miracles do happen.

Contact Mario at the Mall

     well other sweet things have been going on since then but i don't have time to tell you everything.  i told you about lawrence last week.  he stayed strong!! he didn't drink with everyone at the tradition moment of the wedding but unfortunately he drank the day before after helping to set everything up.  but we talked with him and he is still looking really good for his baptism.  it's exciting.  we've been getting closer to some members here.  the members up here are so solid.  they are funny.  a few funny guys who are going on their missions in march one to new york and one to texas commented that missionaries in general but me specifically say "also can" a lot.  ha ha.  it's a west malaysia thing.  but now i have them all saying it.  they are so funny.  we recorded me saying it and set it as one of their ring tones if we call them.

Harun Sisters Mission Calls to London, England

oh i just thought of another huge story but i will summarize.  there is an awesome family up here named the harun's.  they have a missionary right now in salt lake and one is the elders quorum pres and the dad is in the branch presidency and the girls all have big callings.  there are two twins that are 23 i think.  girls.  they are so funny but they've been waiting for 


their mission papers for more than a month now.  on sunday they opened them.  a bunch of us went to their house after church.  it was way exciting and way spiritual and way surprising.  they both report to the mtc on the same day and they both are going to england, one to london england and one to london england south.  they just cried and hugged when they read them.  cool.

     well things are going awesome here!!  i love it.  we have p day on thurs this week so we can celebrate thanksgiving.  later we are going to the larson's for some southern style cooking.  the larson's are from the south and they are so so so funny.  she is just like paula deen.  i love you all.  thanks for everything.  oh i really need your full chocolate chip cookie recipe.  i told everyone it was my specialty so they want me to cook for christmas.  ha ha.  we'll see how that goes.  say hi to everyone in the ward.

elder petersen