A nice refreshing drink...

3.18.17

Hello everyone!

Before I begin, I must clarify that this is in fact my mission email. I do not believe most missionaries use a Gmail account, but then again, most others are not serving in a mission as unique as this one. I have been given a more official email with a church website, but that is strictly for business purposes. If you must contact me, please use this email, or write me a letter using the address at the bottom of this letter. Anyway, without further ado, let us begin the letter itself.

Phew! If I could describe these first five days in one sentence, it felt like taking a nice, refreshing drink of water - from a fire hose! It has been generally pretty good, but I could hardly take it all in! The majority of this first week has been essentially orientation and training, which included tours of most of the facilities. I have not been assigned to a zone yet, that will happen Tuesday at Transfer Conference. I will let you know which zone I will be assigned to.

To start, I might as well confirm some of the rumors I have heard about this mission, most of which are actually true. To start, it has been said that I work in the presence of general authorities whom I would be able to meet. That is only half true. It is likely I will run into some of the brethren during my time here, but, needless to say, they are just as busy as I am, if not more so. So, unless they address me themselves, I wont be able to really make acquaintances with much of them. Still, it us truly a blessing to be able to serve in the midst of such people.

It has also been said that I would be able to attend General Conference in person. This is also only partly true. I can attend sessions of conference when that comes two weeks from now, but I will only be able to get free admittance for the Priesthood session. Aside from that, I would have to wake up early so I can wait in line like a gamer waiting for the midnight release of the next big video game (which, come to think about it, is an analogy quite similar to what I'm actually doing).

Finally, I have learned that I might be assigned to work in the Granite Mountain Vault, but if I do receive such an assignment, I will not be able to disclose much of it, as you may have guessed. Much of the stuff here is described as SPC, or Sacred, Private, and/or Confidential. I would even have to sign a waiver before serving there. So, I am warning you right now that my letters from such an assignment will likely not contain much information.

Now, onto some of the content relating directly to my first couple days on the mission. I started the week with a sacrament meeting held right in the chapel of the Joseph Smith Memorial Building (or JSMB). After that, as I said, it has mostly been orientation and training. I have been taught quite a bit about FamilySearch, and how to use the website to do research on my family, or the families of patrons to the Family History Library. Disappointingly, however, most of my family tree has already been researched quite thoroughly. I was luckily able to find a couple names of distant relatives, however, so my research has not been entirely in vain. Still, I hope to be able to help others with their research with the knowledge I have obtained.

Though this mission is very much different than a proselyting assignment, this is still a full-time mission, and therefore my lifestyle is similar to that of most other missionaries. I have been assigned an apartment to live in, rather than having to seek one out myself. Me and my companion, Elder Hauswirth, who I will be leaving when I get transferred to my zone Tuesday, have been living with another companionship, which included our district leader, an Elder Dowd. To my knowledge, they keep the apartment open for any new elders who join the mission. I may or may not get moved to another two bedroom when I get assigned, though I kind of hope that I do. It would be kind of nice being able to establish myself in mine and my companion's own apartment, rather than trying to find a free spot in the fridge where the other companionship hasn't already filled up the shelf space.

This whole shopping for food thing is another new thing for me. I am given pretty much just enough to get by, meaning I have to learn to cook better. Luckily for me, I have been given multiple recipe books at the beginning of the mission, and Elder Hauswirth is a pretty good cook. I have prepared a couple meals myself, but I should learn all I can. My diet has been relatively simple, mostly dining on sandwiches for lunch and slightly nicer meals such as rice, chicken, and vegetables for dinner. When I get transferred into a more permanent apartment, however, I would like to gather some more ingredients such as flour and seasonings. I feel like I am going to become quite the cook before the end of the mission.

I couldn't possibly hope to cover everything from this first week in this letter, partly because I cannot remember a lot of things, as it seems I have forgotten the journal I was supposed to take. (Could you please mail that to me Mom?) Also, I am sure most people were intimidated by the wall of text I have created, which turns out to be a bit bigger than I originally anticipated it would be. If anyone wants to know anything else from the first week, please let me know, and I will try to get it all out to you.

In closing, I would like to try to send out one challenge each week to you, my friends back home. If you have not yet done any sort of family history work, I would advise you to start researching your ancestors. Most of you should be able to log in to FamilySearch with your LDS ID number and password, but if you cannot, that is fine, you do not need FamilySearch to start researching. I would advise using the following link https://familysearch.org/wiki/en/Research_Process to learn about how to research your family, it is the same sort of stuff they teach us, the missionaries in the field. I hope you are all doing well back home, and I hope to hear from you guys on my next P-Day!

From,

Elder Bryce Petersen.

P.S. I do not know when my next P-Day is, it will probably change when I get assigned.

Joseph Smith Memorial Building

Third Floor East Wing

15 East South Temple Street

Salt Lake City, Utah, 84150