Two enormous bags of free bread?!

Hey everyone!

Well, the week has been alright, though I currently have a bit of a cold. I am still able to leave the house and do things like send E-mails, though I have stocked up on Vitamin C and cough drops, which have helped. This morning, the cold had really affected my voice - the strange thing is, certain people have commented that it actually sounded better than without the cold! But, I do hope that it (the cold, not the voice necessarily) goes away sometime soon.

The week has been pretty good. It kicked off with a visit from Elder Craig C. Christensen of the Presidency of the Seventy, who had previously visited the young elders pf the mission, coming for our Monday morning devotional. It was quite a special visit, and it was good to hear from him. The same Monday that he visited, the mission got it's thirteen new young elders! It is truly quite the group! Therefore, because of this, I was able to meet the two elders whom I would be hosting for the coming week, Elders Lane and Ferguson. I was quite excited to have them on board - I had even planned out a special dinner for them - fettuccine alfredo, with homemade sauce! However, I soon found that one of them could not have dairy products. Luckily, they already had plans for dinner that day, so I did no have to change my plans too much.

You are probably wondering how this week's trip to the MTC went. I hate to disappoint you, but we actually did not go to the MTC this week. I am still not completely sure why, but I believe it may be because the mission department is still wondering whether or not they want to have those of us in the mission doing this work. They don't like the fact that there is a chance each transfer for missionaries to transfer out of the zone, and be replaced with new missionaries who need to be trained all over again. Therefore, they are still coming to a decision about this. The way things currently stand is that they will have until Tuesday to make a decision - that is when we lose Elder Hunsaker, as he will be returning home. When that happens, the only two left for mission support will be me and Elder Harris - to put it simply, though we are good at doing the work, we cannot do it all by ourselves. Unfortunately, there is not much that I can do about this decision, whatever it will be - even President Fenn said that his is out of his hands now. But we will have a decision this week. I will let you know how this goes.

The mission choir has been doing pretty well. I still do enjoy singing with it, and I hope to be able to do so for the remainder of my mission. However, the choir is not the only music-related thing which I am now involved with - I had been asked by one of the senior missionaries if I would like to participate as the bass singer in an all-men's quartet. We have been practicing a rendition of "Because I Have Been Given Much", which rendition I believe we will sing at an upcoming sacrament meeting, which performance I am really excited for. This has taken quite a bit of time out of my schedule - I have had to make schedule compromises so that I can practice for this and the choir, as well as eat before coming to zone. However, I feel that, in the end, it will be worth the sacrifice.

Now, I feel I should share that today, the young elders of the mission will be going to the Mormon Miracle Pageant in Manti today, as well as attending the temple there. I do look forward to attending this, and I will share more details on how exactly everything went next week; however, this meant that I had to rethink P-Day for the rest of the week. My and my companion's decision was to do our shopping and our laundry on Thursday evening in place of night zone. After we had went shopping, me and my companion went to return our van key; when we were returning to our apartments after doing this, a man standing outside Temple Square near the FHL asked us if we were serving in the square or in the library, to which we responded we were in the library. As it turned out, he had with him some bread from a local Kneader's restaurant that he wanted to donate to the missionaries serving in the library, and he asked us to help him haul it inside. I say "haul" because the load was two enormous bags - think at least twice the size of a normal kitchen garbage sack - completely full of loaves of bread! So, we hauled the bread into the staff break room and spread the word that there was free bread! People are truly generous with the missionaries, for which I am very thankful! (There have been a few times where others have paid for groceries or restaurant tabs for me - I need to begin doing that for missionaries when I am off the mission.)

Anyway, such are the happenings of my week. I am soon to go down to Manti, which I will write more about in my next E-mail. Anyway, have a good one!



From,

Elder Bryce Petersen



Challenge: The Book of Mormon shares an account of King Benjamin delivering a message to his people, one of his last. During his message, he says to his people: "...I cannot tell you all the things whereby ye may commit sin ... But this much I can tell you, that if ye do not watch yourselves ... ye must perish" (Mosiah 4:29-30). I do agree with this concept - God's children should not need to be told in such detail all that is wrong to do; living so strictly by what exactly was written down as being right and wrong was one of the major problems of the Pharisees of Christ's day. Of course, the letter of the law given in the scriptures is important as well - otherwise, the only scripture we would have needed would be Jacob 6:12. The teachings of the scriptures and prophets teach us the character of God our Father and his son, Jesus Christ; give us examples of what is right and wrong; show to us what happens when we disregard the commandments of God; illustrate the blessings of righteous, obedient, and faithful living; and demonstrate how we can get the most out of living the gospel of Christ. But, as I said before, we don't need spelled out for us every possible way for us to distance ourselves from God - if the scriptures and prophetic teachings did this, it would unnecessarily dilute all of the other valuable information which the scriptures have to offer. However, the Spirit will make known unto you when something you are doing is wrong, whether or not it is recorded in the scriptures. So, be wise - don't look for loopholes in the scriptures, the prophets, or even the laws of the land. Listen to the Spirit - it will tell you when what you are doing is wrong, whether or not the specific situation is forbidden in holy writ. Such living will demonstrate honesty, and will open the windows of heaven, and you will be more open to revelation.