Photos to go...and Flat tires...

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     its so good to hear from you.  girl's camp sounded fun.  jaynanne was so worried.  oh man i'm jealous of all of your summer adventures.  i miss those.  oh well, i have plenty of adventures here.  daddio i have a question.  have you been riding my motorcycle at all? just curious.  i know what you're saying about transfers.  the grass is always greener on the other side.  i always flip flop between how much i enjoy sandakan and how much i want to leave.  ha ha i just feel like i want to meet new people and experience new things.  i see myself being here for like 6 more months because of some changes in the mission.  that is just a really long time.  oh well.  i'll just keep working hard where ever i am sent. 

     this last week was great.  a lot happened.  actually i start out with very very sad news.  oh man so since elder carter is getting transferred, yesterday we went to print some of his pictures that he wanted to give to members.  i figured i'd print a few because i was sending a letter home anyway.  so after i got off the computer, i put the memory card back in my camera.  i wanted to look at my pictures.  when i clicked the the play button it said i had no pictures.  i was like, what, no way!  so i showed the lady.  she stuck the memory card back in the computer and the pictures came up.  so they just weren't showing up on my camera.  so after repeating that process again, i told her to save all of the pictures to the computer and tomorrow i would go and save them to my memory stick.  as i was looking at the pictures, she saved, i saw that it definetely was not all of them.  there were no pictures from pre zone conference.  so that means all of my mtc pictures and early singapore pictures and first impression sandakan pictures have been deleted.  oh man it bites.  oh well you know?  there's nothing i can do but i am pretty upset.  so if you still have those pictures i sent from the mtc do not lose them because that's all i have.

     so we have transfers now confirmed.  Elder Carter is going to PJ which is right outside KL and Elder Garret is coming here.  i met him once in singapore.  is is an inch taller than me.  we are going to scare every native we walk up to ha ha.  every missionary is flying into singapore this sunday for a mission conference training so we will transfer there and then next friday we fly back to sandakan.

     so not a whole lot happened this week out of the ordinary except that we went to singapore which was a blast.  i can't wait to go back next week.  sometimes when we are at the church we play ping pong.

 i'm not the best but i can hold my own.  ha ha these members are pretty good.  they all spin it and drop shot it and slam it.  they're basically pro's.  so on saturday we were playing before a training meeting.  the 1st coulselor in the branch presidency challenged me.  i was scared.  i had already been watching him and oh man he was like olympian status.  ha he might have been going easy on me but i was keeping up with him.  the score was like 5-5, we were going to 11, and then he went on a run.  he scored like 3 or 4 in a row.  then, luckily,  the other leaders said we had to begin the meeting.  ha ha a bunch of the young men and other members were like "i guess elder petersen loses!!"  ha i know i would have for sure lost but i couldn't say that so i was like "oh man too bad we didn't get to finish.  we'll never know who would have won.  i was just hitting my stride.  i was on the comeback trail!"  ha they were like "no no no you would have lost i know it!"  ha ha i just kept saying "darn we'll never know."  the members are funny.  ha ha they are always joking around and are easy to tease.  one more story.  we were walking to the church for another meeting sunday night when all of a sudden we heard a huge pop-like bang.  we looked over and a car had a flat tire.  se we went over and offered help.  it was a bunch of chinese ladies who did not know what they were doing to they were very greatful.  the dang tire would not come off.  and there jack was so small and dinky.  it took forever.  the bolts were so tight.  the wrench we were using was heating up and bending but the bolts still would not turn.  after like 40 minutes we finally got it.  i was drenched in sweat and i got my long sleeve shirt dirty but it was fun.  we talked with them a little about the church.  they wanted to bring us to get drinks right then but it was still sunday so we said no no another time.  we are going to meet with them soon and teach them more about the church.  ha ha it was a good experience.  now i can check that one off the to do list as a missionary, help an old lady change a flat tire.

     alright i have to go.  it was great as always to read your letters.  they are very entertaining.  i'll let you know how my new companion goes.  thank you for your support and prayers!

elder petersen