Pick up Pictures

The End

Hey, everyone!

(Aren't y'all glad that I am actually sharing some pictures for once??)
So, this is the last general of my mission, it seems. AS I am typing this right now, I am actually not in Salt Lake City, but rather again in good ol' Woodruff, Utah. Just when I though things were warming up, I am now back home again, where there is still a good amount of snow on the ground, and it has not yet gotten warm enough to quite melt away. Oh well; though I will miss the mission somewhat, it is good to be back home.

So, now for happenings of the week... We had a nice mission conference last week, which I feel was quite fitting for the end of my mission. Of course, we have a conference with every transfer, but in my opinion, in this sort of thing, you can almost never get too much of the good word of God. I don't remember much of what was said, but I do remember that it was a good one.

I was actually assigned to teach a lesson for our Priesthood meeting last Sunday, which was very interesting in some ways. Now, in the meeting was actually a group of people, mostly youth, from Arizona who were not members of the Church. Of course, I was not aware of this at the time, so I gave my lesson as mostly normal. During the lesson, I got a question from one of the visitors which did not have much to do with the material covered in the lesson, and in hindsight may have been an attempt to get me to trip up. Looking back, I don't quite know how or why I answered how I did, but it was probably the best way the question could have been answered; President McKnight of the mission presidency, who was there, was quite impressed by it. At the end of the lesson, one of the people in the group had come up to me, thanking me for a good lesson! I am happy to have been able to take part in sharing the light of this Gospel to some of those who are not of our faith, and teach them some of what we believe!

For my second to last day (which was my last day with my assigned companion, Elder Showgren), we had some extra time after our district meeting, which he and I used to have ourselves a nice last dinner together at the Lion House Pantry restaurant. I had a bit of extra money left on my mission funds card, so I had myself a nice steak dinner. They really do a good job with the food they make there! After this, we spent some time up at the North Visitor's Center, mostly at the Christus statue on the upper level. It was a nice little visit up there, and a good way to kind of say goodbye to Temple Square.

The next day was spent mostly with Elder Hauswirth, who had come in to the mission at the same time as me and would be leaving at the same time as well. The day began with an exit interview with President and Sister Fenn, who gave us some parting words of advice for us on how to go about the rest of our lives. A while after this, l we had a luncheon with the mission presidency, their wives, and the young elder coordinators. The meal was nice; the advice from them all was priceless. A lot of the day for me was spent packing up, trying my hardest to make sure that I forgot absolutely nothing. And so, after it all, our next destination was our final transfer conference of the mission. There was much to be said by President Fenn; this too was a great message regarding the symbolism of both the Brazen Serpent of the Old Testament, and the Liahona of the Book of Mormon, and some likenesses of these which can be had in our lives to look to for life, and for giving us guidance in our wildernesses. And then, the transfers were presented. I don't remember much, and details are probably documented in other E-mails sent home, though I would like to make comments on some notable changes. Elder Showgren, my companion, has now taken my place as a district leader in the zone, which change I am honestly not too surprised to see. Elder Bastian, who I had trained last September/October, has now become a trainer himself, which is pretty neat!

Now, for the reunification with the family. It was quite emotional for all of us, to be reunited with the family which I had not seen for two years (except for Dad, who I kind of ran into that one time, though that doesn't exactly count)! There were hugs all around, and some log-awaited hello's! And then, it was time to say goodbye to the other missionaries with whom I had served so long. It was quite bittersweet for us all; I will miss them, but also keep in touch with them. After meeting up again with my family, we all went out to dinner at a restaurant known as The Roof, which is on the top floor of the JSMB (They get no prize for name creativity). The dinner there was spectacular! Everything was delicious, and we had a great view of the Salt Lake Temple right outside the window! Coincidentally, the mission president for the Temple Square mission was also nearby, eating a dinner with some of his missionaries. After this, of course, we took our truck over to the Garden Apartments so I could enter for the last time to grab my belongings, take them out to the car, run back hurriedly after remembering that I forgot to return my key, and return so we could go back home!

Well, there you have it - the story of my mission, one weekly E-mail at a time. Thanks to everyone for the continued support while I have been out in Salt Lake City. The past two years have been years of hard work, but also great improvement - I am much greater than I was before, and serving just might have been the best decision that I have ever made. So, I will look ahead to make sure that, though the past two years have been my best two years, the next two will be even better! Thanks again, and have a great day!



From,

Elder Bryce Petersen



Rather than a challenge for this E-mail, I feel it proper to give a testimony, which testimony was grown and strengthened while on the mission. There is a God, and He reigns supreme over this Earth and over the universe. However, He loves each of us individually, as we are all His children; He loves us so much, that He gave His only begotten Son (John 3:16) that He may suffer more than a man can suffer, save it be unto death (Mosiah 3:7) that He could satisfy the demands of justice, and open up a path for us, who have all sinned, to repent of such sin and return unto God. His literal Resurrection also has burst the bands of physical death, allowing us to one day be resurrected ourselves into glorified, perfected bodies, perfect in substance and in mind. This all I know to be true; I know also that for this day and age, the Gospel has been restored again, through God's prophet, Joseph Smith; through him, God had brought forth to us a marvelous work and a wonder (2 Nephi 27:26) which is now before the world as the Book of Mormon, God's instrument in bringing people unto a knowledge of their redeemer for this day. As a necessary part of the restoration of all things, Joseph Smith also had restored the holy priesthood of God, which priesthood was had in the days of old, and was held by Abraham, Moses, and all other of God's ordained servants in times of old. This priesthood has remained on the earth until this day, where we are led now by a living prophet, who speaks for God (see D&C 1:38) to prepare the world for the second coming of the very Son of Man himself. This all I know to be true; I know it is true, for this witness has been born unto me by the very Holy Ghost himself (see Moroni 10:5). What a blessing it is, to have the Gospel on the earth again, as in times of old, and to have this knowledge restored to Earth once more!

Video calls every week for one week!

Hey, everyone!

So, I think this will actually be my last official P-Day out here. I will be here for one Tuesday more, but that will be my very last day on the mission, and I think there will be a special schedule set out for me. I don't think that I will need much of a P-Day on this day anyway: I won't need to shop, or to clean the apartment I will be leaving (though I should get packing soon), or to do laundry. I will need to get an E-mail out to you, though I think I will do that after I have already left the mission (that means don't freak out if you don't get an E-mail on Tuesday; do freak out a bit if it doesn't come on Wednesday either).

Now, you may have heard that the First Presidency had recently announced a new change in the policy for contacting family back home; specifically, one can now call home with about the same rules as were in place for calling home on Mother's Day and Christmas. Of course, it is just my luck that this would happen right before I go home; but, one more video call home is better than none. We did get a bit of further clarification on this policy as it applies to the mission soon after tit was sent out. Unfortunately, I will not be able to call everyone who is on my E-mail list; pretty much, this will only go out to my parents. Sorry... But, then again, this will only be one call home. I will then be able to talk with people back home all I want!

Now, for the rest of the week... I can;'t say that I was able to celebrate Valentine's Day in the traditional sense for obvious reasons; my favorite part of the holiday was going to the grocery store the day after and cashing in on some day-after sales that they had! Also, I did go in to zone again for this day, as normal. Again, I can't exactly celebrate the holiday. But, I do hope that you all enjoyed yourselves this day! Also, aside from President's Day, this is the holiday which I had most narrowly missed before going home. Oh well; I will get to celebrate again next year.

I did have two other Capstone meetings this week. The first was on job interviews and resumes; the other was on keeping balance in physical and mental health. In the first, as this was presented in the middle of the day, we all got free lunch! We were all told that we were given chicken cordon bleu, but when I head opened my box to find a different meal, I didn't question it much, until the end of the meeting (I had already eaten it at this point) when our instructor, Elder Hodges, the mission's executive secretary, began wondering where his steak salad had gone. As it turns out, when he had gotten all the meals together, he had mixed all the take-out boxes up, and had distributed them a bit incorrectly. Guess who got his steak salad... (I hope Elder Hodges and I are still friends.) The class was still quite nice, as our instructor had quite a bit of experience in the business world, including hiring new employees and such; he knows what he is talking about! The other class was also pretty good; keeping balance in life is very much important. If one cannot find balance in one aspect of life, then the others will also suffer from it. I will look forward to my final Capstone training this next week!

We had a young elder mission conference this week as well. As always, we had learned more about how we can be the most effective missionaries we can be. There were some issues which were addressed, as always, though there were no major problems which needed fixing. I am happy to have been able to attend yet one more young elder mission conference, and learn some more from President Fenn once more. Then again, there will be a mission conference coming up tomorrow and the next day which my membership in the Elijah Choir will allow me to attend, as well as my final Transfer Conference! So, there will definitely be more opportunity to learn in my last little bit here.

Finally, there was a holiday yesterday, as you are likely all familiar. For most of the day, there was no organized schedule for what we were to do with our time; therefore, me and Elder Showgren took some time to take a hike up a trail in the Memory Grove park. We would probably have gone further, but the trail was already a bit precarious; not all the snow had gone away yet either, making most of the dirt trail quite muddy; therefore, we had left off a bit early, before the trail became too dangerous. Later in the day, there was a talent show for the mission. All sorts of talents were showcased; unsurprisingly, many were music-related; however, there were also many which demonstrated other different talents! These ranged from the interesting to the impressive, to the straight up wacky (one of our Young Elder Training Leaders demonstrated a talent for "consumption of food" by eating a serving-size bag of Lay's chips). There were also a few non-performance talents shown, including a low of drawings. All in all, the talent show as a nice way to end off the holiday, which was a nice little break for me!

Well, that is all that I have in this E-mail. I will be sending out one more E-mail after this one, as I had previously described. Keep an eye out for that, sometime around Tuesday and Wednesday. Have a good one!



From,

Elder Bryce Petersen



Challenge: I may have talked about this subject a few times before, but as this has been on my mind a lot during this final part of my mission, I feel I should talk about it again. To put it simply, there is never an absolute "end" in this life. Sure, there are ends to certain parts; these are but ends to "chapters" in life, rather than the whole book itself. But, with each end to the chapter, there is a new beginning. Each new beginning is a time to analyze how well you had performed in the previous chapter, where you did well, and where you could have done better. Each is an opportunity to resolve to do better, and to rise up, and to continue to improve. The Lord expects us to improve; that is why He had sent us down to Earth; if it were not so, we would always have remained as spirit intelligences, with no trials but also no improvement, and we would never have been able to improve line upon line, precept upon precept. Until we die - and even then, until a long time afterwards - there will be room for us to improve, for only One has ever come into and left this life a perfect being. To know where to improve, we must regularly take some time to analyze where we are, and where we can improve. That is my challenge, to regularly analyze yourself, and where you are at, and see where you can do better. This can be done at the end of each day, as you pray to God, and inquire of Him as to how you are doing; I have said many times before that He is willing to let you know. When you know where you can improve, set goals on how you can improve here so that you can track your progress on these goals. You will not always succeed; again, only One perfect being walked this earth, and this was two thousand years ago; you are not Him. That's not the point; the point is that you are honestly striving to reach these goals, and growing stronger in the process. If you do always succeed in these goals, you may want consider setting more difficult (but still achievable) goals. So, to recap; take some time to analyze yourself, and find out how you can improve; then make plans to make improvement in these areas, and - most importantly - carry out these plans. This is the path to improvement; in the Gospel sense, this is the path to eternal life.

Capstone and other fun things

Hey, everyone!


So, it's been another fun week here on the mission. There are many reminders all around, both formal and informal, that I am about at the end of the line. That's alright; I have had a pretty good run. But, then again, there is still much to do, and there are a few programs which I would like to get started off in zone, which will continue to grow and flourish if I am lucky. Aside from this, there will be a few things near the end of this mission which will keep me quite busy.

So, one of the more notable things which began this last week was my beginning a new program known as Capstone, the purpose of which is to prepare a young elder to return to the outside world when his mission ends. I did work to organize a companionship exchange with Elder Hauswirth, who had come in with me and therefore is also finishing up his mission. Usually, this happens every month for the departing missionaries, but because our group is so small, as are the next couple of groups, we instead are doing these classes for the next couple months of elders, which only include Elders Buers and Hartner, whom I had hosted near the beginning of my mission. The subject of the first class was an orientation of sorts, after which we were taught the subjects of goal-setting and having a mentor out in the world to help us to succeed. There will be other important skills taught, including such as resume writing. In fact, I have another class tonight for this (Elder Buers even reminded me of this just now). I know that there will be much more great things to learn in this training, and I look forward to being able to learn them, and prepare!

Even with the end of my mission coming up, as it always has in the mission, the work goes on. I have been working hard in the zone, trying my best to improve the situation for everyone working here. My latest task I had taken upon myself was to improve the spirituality of the zone, because it sometimes feels a bit like just any 9-5 job. I have talked with the district leaders about this, but there have not as of yet come anything out of it. I do have some of my own ideas though, which I feel they may be interested in. I do feel that missionaries really cannot forget the reason why they are here, because when this vision is lost, then this feels more like a job than like missionary service. I won't be able to stay to see what all comes of this, but I hope to at least be able to make a difference in this way, and to improve how things turn out for the others in the zone. There is some which has been done to accomplish this, but there ought to be more; and I intend to do so.

I have been participating well in the choir. They had recently passed out the last of the sheet music which will be performed for the month of February, so I know that this is the last of the music which I will sing with the choir. I think that I have learned a lot in my participation in the choir, which is great. I know a lot more about how to sing - and I mean really sing! I feel that I probably could go somewhere with this! But, for now, I have a lot more to focus on than just singing my way through my mission. That said, I don't intend to leave the choir until the very end of the mission; I have stuck with it for so long already, I simply cannot leave now! And when I get back home, I will need to seek out more opportunities to do music when I get back off the mission. I will surely pick up my guitars when I am done as well; it has been quite a time since I have been able to play, and I anticipate that I will be using them quite a bit when I get back! (If only we had another young elder music coordinator who could pull off me playing guitar for some meetings...)

As for other notable happenings in the week, the zone did have a special breakfast yesterday. I don't think these breakfasts are a monthly thing anymore, as it seems they have been occurring less and less often; as a result, I was acknowledged both for my birthday, which happened last month, and my leaving the mission, which will happen later this month. I was invited to share some things, which included how much I have changed with my service in the zone (which will amount, in total, to 20 months!), and my testimony of the work which we do out here in the mission. Aside from this, the food there was great, and made it so that I did not have to worry about breakfast so much! And so it was, that after the breakfast, we returned to zone as normal.

And so, this is my week. I am happy to be out here serving, and I hope to be able to continue to endure to the end. Thanks for all the continued support, everyone! I hope to see you all again next week! (Of course, by see, I mean hear from you and write you again.)


From,

Elder Bryce Petersen


Challenge: The time on this Earth has been given to us that we may learn and grow, and to have experiences from which we can learn that which we will need to know in the world to come. Every person who follows the Gospel has his or her life guided by the hand of God, that he or she may have an experience custom tailored to help us become the men and women we were meant to become. In such a situation, God knows exactly how much time we need in this earth life to continue learning and progressing, for He knows all. So, from this concept, we can know two eternal truths: first, we are not expected to have a perfect performance in this life on Earth; prophets have warned us against the "toxic perfectionism" caused by such expectations placed by ourselves on ourselves. Second, though it may seem somewhat contradictory to the first, we are also expected to not grow complacent with where we are on the eternal scale of progression; we are expected to continue to learn and to grow. We cannot rationalize ourselves by saying, "I am not perfect; God knows this, and He will 'justify [me] in committing a little sin' (2 Nephi 28:8). In reality, the Lord Himself has said that "[He] cannot look upon sin with the least degree of allowance;" however, He also adds that "he that repents and does the commandments of the Lord shall be forgiven" (D&C 1:31-32). Rationalization is one of the most dangerous tools of the adversary, which he uses to prevent progression on the part of the children of God; "And others will he pacify, and lull them away into carnal security, that they will say: All is well in Zion; yea, Zion prospereth, all is well—and thus the devil cheateth their souls, and leadeth them away carefully down to hell." (2 Nephi 28:21). The truth is, God does have a standard, and He justifies no man in deviating from the standard; justice will always be worked out, for God is a just God. However, because Jesus has wrought out a perfect Atonement, if we will honestly repent and turn unto Him, then Christ's suffering can heal us, and we can be forgiven. Remember, Jesus Christ had suffered to redeem us, not in our sins, but rather from our sins (see Alma 11). Brothers and sisters, I challenge you to no more rationalize that which you know to be sin; instead, engage in brutal self-analysis to find where it is that you can improve; once you have found the problem, tolerate it no more! "if thy right eye offend thee, pluck it out, and cast it from thee" (Matthew 5:29-30). This is where improvement happens, and this is how we work out our salvation as children of the almighty God. It has changed the lives of many; it can change you.

Gym

Hello, everyone!

It is another beautiful day in the neighborhood of Salt Lake City. Okay, the city is a bit bigger than your average neighborhood. But, life has been good for me down here. Later today will be our transfer conference (six weeks has made for a long transfer, though I suppose that in a teaching mission that is the normal length), but I don't suppose that much will change for me; based on my previous interviews with President Fenn, and the fact that neither me nor my companion received a moving notice yesterday, I think I can safely guess that I will remain in Data Services for the last month of the mission. It is a bit of a weird thing for me to think about, that I truly am near the end; once the current outgoing group of missionaries leaves, Elder Hauswirth (who came in with me) and I will be the longest out in the mission; soon after that, I will be packing my bags myself. But, I do still have one more month, to do that which I had kept telling myself that I would do. I still have time to complete that which I had planned on completing, and getting my things in order so that the mission will not have to miss me too much. There is still a work to be done, and it is up to me to not forget that, and to hold out strong until the end, that I may truly be able to say that I have fought my way through, and endured to the end. (Is that inspiring enough for you?)

Now, going forth with my week... The zone has been made much more interesting recently. The leaders of the zone had met together to discuss the current training regime which we had been doing. There had been some discussion regarding what was going on in the training, so we had decided to make some changes to improve what was going on. So, we carried out the new changes on Monday; now, rather than two hours of training courses, we only get one hour of such, then we all discuss things happening in the zone, training topics which the missionaries need to know more about, etc. We had also more widely publicized one-on-one training, which gave missionaries more change to learn in a more hands-on experience than can be gotten in a classroom setting. all in all, I think the common consensus is that the training is much better than it had previously been! It is noticeably more personalized, and missionaries are much more able to pay attention/stay awake for the entire thing! Aside from training, things have been rolling swimmingly at zone. There has been much more work for us all to do - even at night zones! There is currently little reason to try and say there is nothing for us to do! So, the work has therefore been going well.

Apparently, the Church Office Building has a gym on one of it's floors! Even better than that - missionaries have received authorization to use this gym, if they so desire. A missionary in my district, Elder Sannar, had wanted to go to this gym, which would require him to wake up early; his companion was not overly enthused with the idea of waking up early to exercise. They had wanted me to authorize an exchange so that he could take Elder Showgren instead; however, Elder Showgren was not overly interested either. I had been wanting to go to the gym myself, so I decided that I would go with him instead. And boy, do I need to go to the gym! I had realized during my time there that my arms could use all the extra working out they can get! I could barely put any weight on the machines before it was beyond what I could do. So, I will definitely be going there more often; maybe my arms will be some good by the time I am done. Another interesting thing about this gym is that it is opened to and used by the entire Church campus, including the general authorities of the Church (we are still not allowed to talk to them unless they talk to us). I did not anyone like that during my time in the gym; however, when leaving the gym through the Church campus's underground tunnel system (the buildings I think were still locked up), me and Elder Sannar did run into and get to meet Elder Gong!

I have been singing with the choir more, though the songs for the month of February have been selected, so my composition won't be able to be sung before I leave the mission. Oh well. It is still good to be in the choir. I will look forward to finishing strong with them. I have enjoyed being in the choir during my mission, and hope to be able to participate in such things when I get back home, such as choirs or other productions. But, again, that is a month in the future. For now, I get to sing with the choir still, and I will enjoy doing so.

That is about all I have to report for the week. Life has been great, and I have had good things to report. Now, if my next E-mail does not come on a Tuesday, don't worry too much; it just means I have had a rescheduled P-Day. That said, I don't think that P-Day will change for me; I don't think that very much at all will change for me at the end of my mission. So, there you have it. I hope you all have a good week!



From,

Elder Bryce Petersen



Challenge: "And see that all these things are done in wisdom and order; for it is not requisite that a man should run faster than he has strength. And again, it is expedient that he should be diligent, that thereby he might win the prize; therefore, all things must be done in order." (Mosiah 4:27). In this day and age, hard work is made somewhat simpler with gas-powered tools, which perform the same job as their hand-powered counterparts with much more power and efficiency. This is seen in lawn mowers, chainsaws, and ice augers (you're welcome, Dad). In fact, oftentimes the hardest part of using such tools is getting them to start! I remember spending a lot of time and effort pulling on the cord of such tools to get them roaring. In such situations I have been aided by a "primer", which puts a bit of fuel into the engine so that the spark plug will have some fuel to ignite to start the engine more easily. Oftentimes, this is necessary to get the tool to start up at all. Similarly to how a primer helps an engine to start operating, careful planning can make the difference in whether or not our objectives will be met or not. Planning allows us to take some time to look ahead, and determine what we will do, and when we will do it, so that when we are thrust into such a situation, as an actor onto a stage, we will not be without a script. I could talk for quite a while on this subject, but to get to the point, there is no better planning ahead than to plan to obey God's commandments. We must know what we will do in a situation where we are tempted to break the commandments, especially those which we have hitherto struggled with. Today, use your primer - "choose you this day whom ye will serve; ... but as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord" (Joshua 24:15). If you decide today that you will serve the Lord, then if you are confronted with a decision regarding His commandments, it will be more easy to decide that you will obey His law than if you had to make this decision right then and there. The Lord will not force you to make this decision, but he will also not condone unrighteous actions if you choose not to serve Him; therefore, there is a right and a wrong answer to the question of whom to serve. Choose to serve the Lord; I can promise that He looks after His own.

Seeing Stars

Hey, everyone!

So, it has been a bit longer than usual since the last time I was able to get an E-mail out to you; it feels even longer than that, though, because there was quite a bit of stuff which happened between then and now. This of course included two major holidays: the first being New Year's, and the second being my birthday! (What do you mean, my birthday isn't a major holiday??) Of course, there are a few other things which have happened in this time period, including (but not limited to) the change to the two-hour Church schedule and another family history workshop which I got to help put on! So, let's get right on down to the exciting stories of my week!

It feels weird writing to you about the new year's celebration, because it seems like it was longer than a week ago. I guess that it was so, but that's usually the amount of time separating my P-days, which explains things. Now, the day was mostly a day off, which was nice. Much of the day was spent either hanging out with other missionaries, and cleaning up the apartment, as well as the regularly prescribed missionary study time and the like. Later in the day, the mission got together to watch another classic movie. You see, just as I thought that we were in for a long chain of sports-related movies, they changed things up on us, and we are getting old movies instead, which may or may not have been in black-and-white originally. So, we had spent the afternoon watching a movie called Ben-Hur. It was a pretty good movie, though it was also quite long! We had gotten together to eat a dinner and watch the movie at around 4:00, and after soon after the movie ended, the curfew alarm on my phone went off (for those of you who don't know, curfew is at 9:00). Despite the length, I feel the time was well-spent. I will have to watch again after the mission sometime!

So, after that, the work in the zone has stayed somewhat the same. The highlight of the zone work this week was putting together a training for the missionaries in the zone on a certain aspect of the work we do here in FamilySearch Support. It was also our first training meeting in a new room which we were all able to get ourselves fit into. After our big move back to the JSMB, it had been a bit of a challenge for a while to find rooms which have been open and available for us to meet in, and we always had to resort to rooms which were often too small for us all. I was recently trained in how to go about reserving a room, however, which allowed me to go in and find one for us, which solved that problem. I feel that I have come a long way from where I had started at on the mission, and in the zone. A mission truly has the power to change a person into someone greater, I feel. As far as I have come on the mission, however, I still have a long way to go, and I only have so much mission left to go. However, though a mission is a great learning experience, there are also such great experiences out in the world outside. So, I guess that I will do my best out here while I can, and hope for the best when I return home.

Now, my birthday was yesterday, which was great! I do feel that I am growing up quite nicely now. I have grown a lot on the mission, but it is also nice to have a number to go along with this! I was not able to celebrate on the day of, due to the busy missionary schedule. This was yesterday (Monday), which means that the evening was not spent at zone; however, there was a fireside with President Fenn which kept on getting scheduled, then cancelled. Eventually, they had settled on having the fireside; however, it didn't make much of a difference for me, as I was scheduled for a family history workshop that night anyway. The location for this one was at a care facility known as Friendship Manor; unlike many of the previous such workshops which I did, this actually had a pretty good amount of people in attendance. There were ten of us, and all of us were able to keep busy with helping the residents there with their family history research! It's great to be able to go out and do this service for them, and I hope to be able to help out like this in the future!

Now, today, I was able to have a celebration of sorts for my actual birthday! The day was a bit limited, especially due to a shopping trip that went much longer than expected. However, I was able to visit the local Clark Planetarium, which is a place which I had visited a couple of times when I was younger, and wanted to visit again before leaving the mission. Of course, I did not feel that it would be acceptable for the mission rules to watch the films which they had shown in there (these specific ones may be, though I wanted to be safe), so I instead got to enjoy the exhibits. It had been a while since the last time I had been there, and things have not changed a whole ton since this, which was nice; there were some noticeably newer things there, though, which also was cool! I feel it was time well spent down there.

Well, that is my extra-long week for you - and boy, what a week that was! I should also thank everyone who had sent me birthday presents; I will also get cards sent out to you for that. I hope that this E-mail finds you all in good health, as always. Have a good one!


From,

Elder Bryce Petersen



Challenge: The Church has been giving us more responsibility as of lately, with the ministering program and the "Come, Follow Me" curriculum. We as a Church have been given a trust from the Brethren that we will make the most of such an opportunity. It is important, now more so than before, that we make the Gospel important in every day of our lives. Consider the Zoramites of the Book of Mormon - among other things, one of their major problems was that they only worshipped God on Sundays, in their Church buildings (see Alma 30). In fact, their unwillingness to live the Gospel every day of the week was likely one cause of their religious practices degenerating to the state described in the Book of Mormon. To put it simply, there is strength in the Gospel - strength to endure adversity, strength to resist temptation, and strength to rise above where we now are to become the sons and daughters of God that He wants us to become. Just as with physical where I am serving, I am obligated to say that family history work can also be a relatively simple task which can make a big difference. It is small and simple things like this by which great things are brought to pass (Alma 37:6); if you can work to incorporate goals like this into your daily life, you will be able to find strength in all things previously described. Your testimony will remain strong, and you will retain the blessings of the Gospel.