Let’s Hear it For the Missionaries!

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Roller Coaster of a Week

Email dated July 25, 2011

Hello family and friends,

Thanks for the emails, the love and the support as usual. I´m glad to hear that everyone had fun at Yellowstone, and I feel honored that you all remembered me while you were there. However, I´m sure you know what I am gonna say already...I want to see pictures haha. But I´m glad to hear that everyone is having a good summer, and Bryce and Zack are gonna have a blast at EFY. Crazy to think that in ONE month....Tyler will be heading off to BYU and Jordan will be entering the MTC. We are growing up!!

Anyways, the week was a roller coaster. Crazy, with tons of ups and downs. It started on Tuesday with zone conference, which is always a lot of fun. We get to be spiritually uplifted by our leaders, learn things to better ourselves as missionaries and as people, and see missionaries from other zones and catch up with them for a little bit. High point. Wednesday and Thursday we were still riding high as well. We had 2 people we were looking to get baptized and on Thursday I hit my ONE year mark. We celebrated with...what else....tacos in the street (pastor, sausage, beef, and TONGUE) and then after we planned at night we had the shirt burning ceremony. I spiced things up a little bit using Axe deodorant spray to give it a little extra power (Bryce would be proud...although I didn´t have my machete to slice it up as it was burning...).

Friday morning is when the roller coaster all started. We were planning to marry a couple on Saturday, and we received notice that the Judge where we always go went on Vacation!!! So Friday we called around to try to figure something out, but we couldn´t find the couple, so we couldn’t get anything set. Our other baptism we had planned told us that she wanted to wait longer and that she wasn´t ready to do it yet (she really is ready though)....AHHHHHH!!!!! Everything was just falling through one after the other. Saturday in our last hope, we went down to the marriage office to try to figure something out. We got an appointment, went and notified the couple, and after the most stressful morning and afternoon of my life, we got them married and Veronica got baptized right after. The wedding of course was much more expensive then  the judge that normally helps us....so the checking account definitely took a blow [looks like it cost him (us!??!) about $120 USD, yikes!]....but you can´t put a price on the happiness we could see on Veronica´s face with her wedding and baptism. What a week.

My companion and I continue to work hard and we are so grateful for the help the Lord gave us this weekend...we definitely wouldn´t have been able to pull it off without His help. It was an amazing, great, stressful, scary experience, all at the same time. (Just got your email Mom...Love you too and I´ll look forward to your email next week ) I´m so grateful for my mission and the experiences it is blessing me with...Crazy that I only have one year left!

And this is my joy (Alma 29:9)

Love you and miss you all. Have a great week.

Elder Peacock

One Year!!

July 21st marked Elder Peacock’s one year anniversary in the mission field, celebrated with the traditional shirt burning…

Kid #2 / Almost 1 Year!!

Email dated July 18, 2011

Hello family and friends,

Sorry for the short letter last week, but this week I have a lot more to talk about so I´ll make up for it. First off, thanks for all the pictures and emails....Oh my...Zack Larson looks SOOO much older...and Bryce looks like he`s following my footsteps (not so much with the machete haha...dork) Left tackle is where its at!!! I´m excited to see pictures and hear about how Yellowstone goes. Hope you guys have a good trip and stay safe.

Anyways, I guess the big news of the past week would be the arrival of my second kid. On Tuesday we went down to the mission office and had a little orientation and met our new companions. Elder Juker and Elder Duffin from the MTC are also training and also are District Leaders which I thought was pretty cool. My new companions name is Elder Mora...which would be “berry” in English. He`s from Monterey, Mexico and doesn`t speak English. He is about as new in the mission as you can get. He entered the 22 of June and came right from the MTC. He is very timid, doesn´t really like to try new things....guess we won`t be eating any kran with him haha. But what missionary isn´t a little timid when they arrive, right? Training this time around will be a little different. They have a new program in the church for training missionaries. Number one, we will be together for at least 2 changes...so I better start getting used to those hills, cuz I´m here for another 11 weeks at least. Second, we have TWO hours of companionship study every morning instead of 1. But it`s not that bad because #3 We all get little DVD players (which have been rigged so we can`t watch stuff like Harry Potter 7) to watch Preach My Gospel videos. I`m actually really enjoying the whole 2 hour study thing. We go over things in Preach my Gospel and the Scriptures and then watch a video that highlights the things we went over and then we practice it with each other as if we were teaching. Its pretty cool. So yeah that`s where Elder Mora and I are at at this point...getting better everyday.

This week, I had a very spiritual experience that I would like to share. We got to an appointment a little early this week...so we decided to knock some doors around the house of the appointment for 10 or 15 minutes and then go to the appointment. We talked to a few people and we set a few appointments....usually with contacts like that about 30% of them are there when you return for your "appointment"...so nothing really seemed that amazing or out of the ordinary. On Sunday we went to one of the appointments we had set up while we were knocking doors. Her name was Sara...we knocked, she answered and said she was a little busy....but we convinced her to give us some time. We taught her in the house of some members...As we started talking to her, it was brought up that she had talked to MANY missionaries before, but really she´s not looking for religion. But she shared that last week she prayed to God, asking his forgiveness and for direction in her life, and shortly after, we knocked on her door. She took that to be an answer to her prayer, and for that reason she agreed to listen to us. One of the things I have been working on lately is realllly listening to people and trying to listen to the Spirit to know what I should say. We had planned to talk about baptism and then move into the Restoration through Joseph Smith...but as we asked inspired questions and really listened to her...it became clear to me to teach about Faith, Repentance, Baptism and the Holy Ghost...or the Gospel of Jesus Christ. The lesson seemed to address her needs perfectly and I found myself teaching those principles in a way I had never explained before...We invited her to baptism. She accepted. When I left from that lesson I felt a joy inside of my heart. I had done it. The Spirit guided us and we listened. If I wouldn`t have listened...she might not have even accepted another appointment. But we listened and I felt the Spirit of the Lord working through us. It was truly amazing and I am very grateful for that experience. 

I know that this Gospel is true, and I know that the Lord is preparing people, like Sara, to receive the Gospel each and everyday. I am so grateful for the time I have been blessed with to help the Lord with the people He is preparing. I love being a missionary. I love you and miss you all. Have a great week!!!!

And this is my Joy (Alma 29:9)

Elder Peacock

PS  HAPPY ONE YEAR!!! its almost shirt burning time!!!!

A New Change

Dear Family and Friends,

Thanks for all the emails and love and support. 

I forgot to tell you that we have transfers today.  I am going to be training a new missionary again and will remain in my area as District Leader. I will get my new companion tomorrow when they arrive so I will just be with other missionaries today. Elder Torres went to Tenanzingo in the Metepec Zone. I`m excited for the new opportunity and will definitely have my hands full this change for sure.....

The work went well this week, married another couple and baptized the wife. Her name is Erica and she is the sister of Araceli that we baptized last week. She is one of the ones that went to the temple with us when we went. I love seeing their whole family grow together in the Gospel. We`re planning on baptizing the other sister next week, named Veronica. 

Well I don`t have a lot of time because of the transfers today, I`ll write more next week I promise, and send pictures (this computer isn’t reading my camera for some reason).

I love you and miss you all 

And this is my Joy. 

Love Elder Peacock

Happy 4th of July!!

Hello family and Friends,

Thanks for all the email and all of the support. I hope that you are all having a good 4th of July, and enjoying the nice sunny weather, here as I think I mentioned in my last letter, the rainy season has begun, so its been raining and raining and then raining some more. But don´t worry Mom I have my rain jacket and my umbrella so we´re all good to go. 

So this week was a pretty exciting one I guess you could say. I´ll start with a new food experience that I had this week. Tried some new tacos....Before we headed in for the night on Thursday I think it was, we stopped by a taco stand to grab a quick bite. This taco stand had every kind of meat you have ever imagined, and then some you had never even thought that you should eat. I figured I would give some new ones a try...I´m only gonna live in Mexico once. First one - tongue taco. That´s right cow tongue. And it wasn´t chopped up or anything like that...just a nice whole tongue sitting in my tortilla. Believe it or not I enjoyed it. It´s a very meaty taco....not a lotta fat and I enjoyed it. The next taco. Brain taco. Yep, just a nice big chuck of brain. It wasn´t good. Very squishy, almost like jello but warm. So, that´s probably the last time I´ll eat that...but I´ll probably give tongue a whirl again sometime in the future.

On Saturday, we also had a great experience. We got to go down to the Mexico City Temple and go to the visitor´s center with some investigators. They were all super stoked to go (despite the lack of smiles in the picture—I don’t think it transferred all the way, hence the weird color) and I think they had a good time. We did a little tour of the visitor´s center with the Sister missionaries there, and watched a movie called “On the Way Home”, which is about a family preparing to get baptized, which was pretty good. The temple is very beautiful and I´m glad I finally got to go with some investigators. The rule in the mission is that we have to go with at least 4 investigators, so a lot of times it´s hard to get it planned so everyone goes, but we did it and it was great. Getting to the temple was a whole other experience. We had to take  buses and the subway to get there. We were in the subway and it was PACKED...I mean PACKED. People were pushing and shoving to get in and out. If you weren´t aggressive, you weren´t gonna get in the subway. Different than anything I have ever experienced....it was great haha.

 

On Sunday, we were blessed with the opportunity to help another person enter the waters of baptsim. Her name is Araceli, and she is the one next to me without a baby in the visitor´s center. The other two are her sisters and the boyfriend of one of her sisters. She is great. Definitely was prepared by the Lord, we found her a week before we went to the temple on a Saturday night, she went to the church with us on Sunday and got baptized the following Sunday (yesterday). She has a lot of faith and is very strong in what she believes already. I am very grateful that the Lord put her in our path.

 

I am so grateful for the Gospel of Jesus Christ. I am especially grateful for the knowledge I have received about the Plan that God has for us or the Plan of Salvation. I know through this plan we will all see the ones that we love again someday through the Atonement of Jesus Christ, if we do the things that God has commanded us and follow the example of Jesus Christ. God loves us and is always waiting for us....we just have to take that first step towards Him sometimes, and He will carry us the rest of the way if we continue to put our trust in Him.

I love being a missionary and this is my Joy (Alma 29:9)

Have a great week, love you and miss you all.

Elder Peacock