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.