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.