Hello, everyone!
I hope you have all had a great week; time has flown here. I cannot believe that I am already sitting at this computer again!
It has been a magnificent week!
Monday night we went and saw one of the Recent converts that are here, his name is Jean-Luc, and he is amazing, he had not been coming to church and always had excuses, so we wanted to see how he was doing, we had a Great discussion and by the end of it. We found out what his fears were and why he was apprehensive to come to Church.
We taught about The Atonement, its sacred nature, and the incredible opportunity that it gives us to change, to put our pasts behind us and to advance. It was cool to talk about these blessings, and then we spoke of the sacrament and the amazing benefits that can bring into our lives.Because he was not coming, he in a way was depriving himself of these blessings, to repent and to start off a new, to always Remember our Heavenly Father and his plan, to Remember our Lord and Savoir Jesus Christ. That is the importance; we can remember him, follow him and have the promise of the Spirit of The Lord upon us to guide us and to help us change, what an incredible blessing! It was a very humbling lesson for him and at the end, in the closing prayer, he promised the Lord that he would come to church, that he would partake of these promised blessings of the sacrament.
The other day, he told us that during that evening he started to study about the sacrament and he was up till 3 AM studying about the Atonement and the Sacrament! It is such a blessing to be in the work of our Heavenly Father. I honestly see how he uses us missionaries as his hands!
On Wednesday we had District Meeting! The mission did not give an outline for the meeting, so it was up to me to figure out the needs of the District and teach in accordance.
It went well. I felt guided the whole time and filled up the two hours with no problem! Which of course, everyone who knows me knows that I can fill two hours of talking. 🙂 🙂 However, this was different, I felt the Spirit guiding me the whole time, and I feel it was all useful information!
The big focus was reminding ourselves how marvelous this Gospel is, often we forget how great it is, we forget about what it is like without the gospel.
A fantastic French Author Marcel Proust once said: “Le véritable voyage de découverte ne consiste pas à chercher de nouveaux paysage, mais à avoir de nouveaux yeux” which I think is beautifully said, but I’ll give the English translation. 🙂 🙂
“The true voyage of discovery does not consist of searching for new landscapes, but to have new eyes.” Meaning that we need not explore outside our current situation, for some amazing things, but we need new eyes with which we can appreciate what we already have.
I spoke about how maybe sometimes these incredible blessings seem to become “Normal” and simply a part of ordinary daily life. But in reality, these blessings are a marvelous gift from the Lord Jesus Christ in our lives! He loves us, and because he lives we can all live again. We can change have the blessing of forgiveness and then we, in turn, can also forgive others and draw close to our loving Heavenly Father! Often our eyes may seem to glaze over, and we become unfocused but if we learn just to wake up and smell the roses that surround us we can appreciate all that he has given to us.
Then Thursday was a superb day. We were invited to go to the Branch Presidents house to Lunch. He had asked some of their friends, one of whom I had met at the Branch Picnic, a few weeks back. We went over and shared a great meal, then we taught about the family and showed them how to start working on their family history work. They were very great people, and they seemed interested in learning more! I guess people listened last week in church about how we need to invite people over with the missionaries. 🙂 🙂 We had an excellent time!
Then we went to help some less active members move, luckily they are moving closer to the church so hopefully, they will be able to come back soon! They have ten children. That was fun to see a big family like mine own. I was especially able to connect with the youngest because we had a lot in common!
Then Friday we helped people move in the morning and then in the evening we played soccer at this indoor soccer place with some members and our new Ami Anthony. We had a spectacular time!
Saturday we continued to help the less active family move, a lot, seeing at they have ten kids, and it took a while. 🙂 🙂
This week with some great spiritual work and then three days of moving different people. We are tired, but we feel accomplished!
Oh, and Sunday afternoon when I was working on my family history, I found 14 new family names!!! Ended up being a super great day!
I hope you all have a great week!
Love,
Elder Peterson
Elder Aaron Peterson 