Looking for the Kingdom Builders

Beautiful Rainbow!

hello,
     ha ha your emails crack me up!  i miss you guys.  thanks for the quotes from coach mac.  there's some good ones in there.  spencer you better send me some pictures from the dance.  i can't believe you got a snow blower dad.  you're becoming a big softy.  that's why weber high is 0 and 3.  i'll look for oskar but we will see conference at least one week late so just let me know where he was sitting.  the story about the stowers and about our cousins just killed me.  so funny.  
     well i don't have too much time so i'll cut to the chase.  this week was pretty good.  last wednesday night we got a call from the top.  they told us that lewis in penang was getting transferred and that he would be replaced by elder dass.  sweet.  so saturday elder dass showed up here.  we're with him right now.  he is funny.  it's good to be with him.  he's ok from the mugging.  we've asked him a few times to tell us everything that happened and it was interesting.  he can't really remember anything.  he just remembers a sharp pain at the back of his head and then he remembers waking up a little and they were going through his pockets.  his companion was only like 20 feet away when it happened he just didn't notice.  so dass stumbled along without a bike or shoes or money until he found a pay phone and called his companion.  he said he passed out a few times on the way.  wow pretty intense.  this kid has had a rough mission.  in every area he has been in he has had troubles.  oh well we're glad to have him up here as long as he doesn't bring bad luck with him.

     well we basically still don't have any investigators.  so we've been doing some serious contacting.  it has actually been fun.  this is the best times i've had on my mission knocking.  usually it is a dreaded thing but not lately.  we've chosen two areas in the town that we thought would be good to go to.  then we've been praying that we can just meet somebody there that has been prepared for us.  then after we get out to the area, but before we start, we pray again.  we've met some interesting people.  we've gone out sometimes with absolutely nothing.  sometimes nobody is interested.  nobody even says hi.  nobody even smiles.  but sometimes people actually do talk to us.  we met this guy the other day named john.  he was totally opposed to us.  he just didn't want to hear about us.  he is like 50 with no wife or kids.  he came out to his gate and just started going off telling us how hard things have been for him.  he has had so many bad experiences with christians.  he said that he will die before he goes to a church again.  his ex had an affair with a married church man, a church has robbed him, and so forth.  so we just let him talk for a while.  after he was done we tried to say a little bit but he would cut us off again.  after a while he started to see that we weren't really arguing with him but that we were agreeing that most christians are in fact hypocrites.  he started saying that last time Christ only had one church and that people have changed his teachings.  we pulled out a pamphlet and showed him that the things he was saying was exactly what we teach.  as he started to tell us more about his past he actually got really emotional.  he started to cry.  i couldn't tell if was sad or felt the spirit.  he took it and said "i guess there's no harm in reading"  we just told him our testimonies and said that he can finally find peace in this church.  then i really did feel the spirit and i know he did.  after a while later he asked us where our church was.  he said "i guess there's no harm in coming to just see"  that was awesome.  he totally mellowed out.  he was still pretty reluctant but we left on a good note.  that was cool.  we met another guy who lived in utah for a little while but doesn't really know much about us.  he has three daughters and is catholic.  hopefully we can meet him again. 

A Lantern for the Lantern Festival

They just wanted our picture

Crazy Branch Mission Leader :)

     another thing i learned this week is that our branch has a lot of struggles.  oh man the branch president and the senior couple told us that we cannot baptize any more people with problems.  they were dead serious.  so we're trying to find "kingdom builders".  last week a member named ruben got his mission call.  he is going to the india bangalore mission.  he was way excited.  his mom and younger sister were even more excited.  ha ha.  he'll be awesome.  
     alright well sorry but that's all for this week.  mom sister johnson wants your saurkraut and hot fudge recipes.  asap.  i love you all.  have a great week!

elder petersen