Exchanges with Elder Peterson

Monday Miracle

Hey Everyone !

Man it has been a crazy week.... a good week though ! Last wednseday we had stake correlation...the meeting with bishops, stake presidency , mission president and ward mission leaders. Wow that was scary. These are all very successfull people. It was intense. It went really well though. I said a little prayer as we were about to do our training, and felt at peace.

Saturday we had a lesson with Craig. It went ok. He had just got back from a business trip in Chicago. We could tell something was bugging him, or something was on his mind because he was being more quiet than usual. Finally he told us " One night after a long day of meetings our company went out and I had a couple drinks . " It was dissapointing im not going to lie, but at the same time it was amazing to see the remorse he had. We talked to him for a little while and hopefully gave him the strength to resist the temptation next time.

Sunday night we went to a departing missionary fireside. Basically all the missionaries who are leaving give a brief testimony. There were 23 leaving so it was a looonngg night. Craig took us down, I think it was a little long for him. I have some good friends who are going home though so it was good to see them all

Monday....wow what a great day monday was. Well our zone has been struggling a little bit. Ashburn zone is a very tough zone to lead and to be in. President called in the morning and we threw around some ideas of what we could do to make things more effective. Well we also found out a couple days before that there was some disobedience happening with some of the missinoaries so it was just a very stressfull day. Then we had district meetings which went well. By the evening though I was just beat. We went and visited with Flora...she hasn't been coming to church or meeting with us for a while. We had a great visit. Then we had dinner with a family in our ward. Then we had one of the biggest miracles ever. So it was about 8:45. We live about 10 min away so we were thinking of just calling it a night. We were in the safeway parking lot on the corner of broadlands avenue and claiborne parkway. My companion says well heres a few options ...... The last option was to go tract for a few minutes across the street. That was what I wanted to do so when he said it im like yes ! Lets go tract these apartments. Right when I said there in my mind I heard a voice say " You are going to find someone tonight ! " It was clear as day. I was going to tell my comp but I kept it to myself. I knew we would find someone. So were knocking...its about 9:00 now...were on the 3rd floor and have maybe 5 doors left. We knock on this guys door named Gerald. We talk to him for a couple min. You can tell hes religious and he was way nice. We asked if we could come in for a few minutes. After a pause he said ok. So we go in and sit down. His girlfriend is on the computer typing a paper for college. When we first got in they were both kind of closed minded. They were way nice but just disagreed with some stuff. The spirit was so strong. We kept teaching him for about 25 minutes. By the end, his heart had been softened. His girlfriend had stopped typing her paper and was fully engaged in the conversation. At the end Gerald said " Man you guys probably can't tell but im going through an extremely rough time in my life right now and on top of that my mom just passed a way recently. " He went on to say " I have been praying that god would send me a sign of help and of strength. Then you guys knocked on my door. " Then he said " I dont' know if you guys can but i would be so gratefull if you could come back and teach me more ! " During the closing prayer his girlfriend was in tears. I have never felt the spirit that strong in my entire life. Never have I had such a convincing experience in my life that has told me this church is true !! I have no doubts that what I teach every single day is what the the lord would teach his people if he were here. It was incredible...such an adrenaline rush. It felt like I was at a jazz game and dwill hit a buzzer beater to win the finals....but it felt even better than that. It was unexplainable.

Last night we had another lesson with Craig. We talked alot about the scriptures and how he needs to apply them to his life. We told him again that he needs to pay attention to the feelings he has. We told him if hes looking for an angel to come down and shake some sense into him that its not going to happen ! It was a good visit though.

So that was my week !! It was great. I can't believe transfers are in a week. Its flown by. I love you guys. Your always in my prayers. Thanks for all the love and support ! Thanks for never giving up on me !!!

Elder Davie

Hey Mom and Family !

How are you guys ? It was great to hear from you mom !! For Thanksgiving we will just visit with members. Someone signed up for dinner already . Transfers are actually on Thanksgiving day so there is a chance I won't even be here. We will see. I have a feeling I am staying in the area though..who knows. We did get a new investigator this week. It is a part member family in our ward. The husband who is not a member has been coming to church for 5 years but never had the desire to be baptized. Well hes ready to now. He wants to get baptized the same day as his daughter. She turns 8 the end of December so we set them on date last night for January 8th. We taught them the first lesson. It went pretty good. The weather here has been crazy. Its been in the low 70's high 60's. Im wearing a short sleeve shirt today ! I wish it was cooler...but at least its not hot. Oh ya I had a couple questions for you mom. Do you know if they ever got my missionary plaque ? Also I was on the Founders Park Stake website and it didn't list me as one of the full time missionaries serving? Maybe they forgot about me haha. Let me know though if they got my plaque. Its hard to think of what I want for christmas because I don't really need anything right now. Let me think about it this week and see if I can come up with anything. Last Monday we had dinner with John Beck ! Quarterback of the redskins. It was awesome ! It was interesting to hear some of the stories hes told. He has such a strong testimony though and gave us some good advice. He also invited us and our investigator to the redskins vs eagles game on monday. He said hed get us in. But I highly doubt our mission president would let us. Probably not the best environment for a missionary to be in. It would be a blast though. Thats about all the excitement of our week. I love you guys !!!

Elder Davie