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