Warming Up

[Email dated 12/8/10]

Hello everyone,

I am writing today with a VERY FULL STOMACH. For lunch today after the temple, we went down to Tucano’s. Elder Morris's (an elder in our district) parents offered to pay for his whole district for Christmas. So, we went to Tucano’s, ATE A LOT and Elder Morris paid for it all.  It was sweet, and I'm full for the week. haha

This week has been pretty normal. Nothing too out of the ordinary. We have found a couple of new investigators. One is from El Salvador and he came to church with us on Sunday, and Sunday night we went with him to Temple Square. We checked out all the Christmas lights with him (amazing, highly reccomended). Then, we watched the Joseph Smith movie with him. Afterwards, we talked to him about baptism and put him on date for the 18th!!

The weather has done a bit of a 180 this week. It has been in the 40s this week and has actually felt a little bit warm at times. It even rained a couple days, instead of snowing. Most of the snow from the big snow storm is gone by now, so I'm hoping this can last until I go to Mexico. Speaking of which, still no word on the Visa. I have heard rumors that they are expecting to get them sometime in the middle of December, which would be next week, but who knows could just be a rumor. Also, Elder Juker, who you may remember from my MTC district, said that an Elder in his zone got his Visa this week. So, who knows they may be coming in. Next week is also transfers (Wednesday), so I may be getting transferred to a different area in Salt Lake. We will just have to wait and see.  [We also independently heard of another elder who was in the MTC with Justin, and who just got his Visa, so there does seem to be some activity on that front…]

Hmmm, lets see ...So the weeks are going by fast and I swear all the days are just blending together. Oh ok, we had district meeting on Monday, as usual. But this time its a little different. The District Leader interviewed the senior companions and got to know who the investigators are in the area right now...meanwhile the Junior Companions got to train. So I got to train everyone else in the district for about 20 minutes on asking good questions. So, we went through the section in Preach My Gospel and then did some role plays to practice. It went well for my first training. Luckily it was in English haha.

I also have started doing something a little bit different for Language study this week. I have been reading the Book of Mormon in Spanish out loud to help work on my pronunciation and reading. I also have been doing those exercises to work on my R's (Thanks Mom) and then I end doing some grammar practice in a workbook I got at the MTC. So, I feel like that has been helping me with my Spanish.

I will just end with my testimony that I know that this church is true. Sin duda. I know that we have a prophet today that leads and guides us, and with his guidance we can stay on the straight and narrow path that will lead us back to our Heavenly Father. If we follow his teachings, we will find happiness. Some things may look like fun or like they will make you happy, but in the end "wickedness never was happiness" (Alma 41:10). You will only find true happiness by following the commandments of God. He doesn't give us commandments to bind us down or make us feel restricted. He gives us commandments because he knows what is best for us and he knows how we will be happy in the end. We need to trust Him and His teachings and commandments and I can testify that if we do that we will find more happiness and receive more blessings than we can even imagine.
I love being a missionary, and I know this Gospel is true.

And this is my joy (Alma 29:9)
Con Amor,
Elder Peacock