Small World/Church After All

Hello everyone!

Well, Transfers have come, as they always do. This transfer, however, was a bit different than any which I have experienced so far. Right after Monday Morning Devotional, I got asked to visit President Fenn in his office, as well as a few other Elders, including Elder Garfield. He interviewed us one by one, and gave us assignments. Elder Garfield is now a District Leader in the Contact Center, and I am responsible for training one of the new Young Elders who came . At Transfer Conference, these new callings were announced to everyone, and I learned who my new companion was - his name is Elder Stacey (Britt, if you are reading this, this guy is your cousin Rick - small world, isn't it). This calling does make me kind of nervous - now I must live up to a higher standard than I have before. President Fenn has told me that he has put a lot of trust in my by putting me in this position. However, I do have faith that I do have it in me - if I could not do it, I would not have been called. So, I look forward to learning and growing, as well as helping Elder Stacey get used to mission life too. Aside from this, no changes have come from this Transfer - I am still serving in the same zone, and I live in the same apartment as always. My P-Day is still on Friday, so you can still expect my E-mails around the afternoon on the same day as always!

I am sure you are all probably wondering about the eclipse from the point of view of someone in Salt Lake City at the time. My family got a much better view of the eclipse than I did - they visited my Mom's family in Idaho Falls. However, the view in Salt Lake City was not bad either. The entire mission was allowed to take their lunch breaks at 11:00 this day, as the peak of the eclipse happened at 11:33 AM. I had actually become somewhat of a distributor of eclipse glasses during this time, as I had asked for my mom to send me a bunch of them a couple weeks in advance. I was able to hand all 12 of them out - even the first counselor in the mission presidency, President Hansen, had asked me for a couple of pairs. The sky did not completely black out - the day just got a little bit darker, despite the moon covering 90% of the sun at the peak - but it was still nice to watch through the glasses. Me and the rest of my district watched it happen from the 10th floor of the Joseph Smith Memorial Building, away from most of the crowds which filled the areas below. All in all, it was a nice little show to watch.

Work has been fairly typical, despite these big happenings. I do feel like Contact Center has been a bit slow as of recently, but it will likely pick up again. Elder Stacey has gotten through the training modules much quicker than I have - he was finished with all of them by day 2. So, he has begun taking chats, which are essentially text conversations, but with keyboards instead of cell phones, and the other one on the line is a FamilySearch Support consultant. These are a bit easier to work, but they do not come in often. So, I think that it will be good for him to go a couple more days on chats with help from other Elders in the zone helping him out (myself obviously included), and get put on phone calls by next Wednesday. I do think Elder Stacey will do good in this zone, but it is still up to me to help him adjust to service here, as well as to help him with the whole missionary thing.

The monthly Young Elder temple trip happened this morning, which was good because I could really use some inspiration to help me with serving in this calling. I do wish I could have been more attentive going through, but I still got some good out of going, just as I always do. Elder Stacey was also there, though his mind was a bit distracted. So, I think that a thing we can both work to improve on is preparing our minds for the temple on the days we attend. I also plan on attending the temple more on mine and Elder Stacey's own time - me and Elder Garfield have tried to do this, but we were not able to make time, sadly. But, I will make time this Saturday.

Well, that is my week for you. I am looking forward to serve as a trainer for Elder Stacey, as well as continue serving to coordinate Morning Exercise (me and Elder Garfield, despite our new callings, are still going to work together on this). Let me know if you have any questions about anything, and I will try my best to answer them. Thanks a lot, and have a nice week!

Challenge: The family is the basic building block of society. God's standard for a family includes a father to work to sustain the family, and to lead the family in righteousness; as well as a mother, who can raise her children to become good fathers and mothers, as well as prepare them to meet any other righteous goal they may have. If this standard is ever done away with, or in other words, if the family falls apart, then it will take nations with it. So, my challenge for the week is to strengthen your families. Fathers and mothers, begin doing more activities together as a family. Read the scriptures and pray together. Children young and old, get along better with your siblings and your parents. Right any wrongs which you may have done, and apologize to your family members, even if you may be right about whatever the argument was about. If the family can be strengthened, so can it's individual members. Everyone in the family will benefit from such actions, even if it might not be visible at first. So again, work to strengthen your family, and you will find that you individually will have more energy and strength to overcome.



From,

Elder Bryce Petersen