New Companions, New District

Hello from Montenegro!!!

I think Heavenly Father just wanted to remind me who was in charge this week. In my letter last week, I may have come across as a little prideful as I boasted about the warm weather in store for me in Podgorica. The week I get here, the temperatures drop tremendously breaking a nearly 120 year record according to some natives. To add to the cold temperatures and wind, snow fell for the first time in 4 years. Our apartment here isnt really “cold-weather proof” so that has made for some long nights!

The highlight of my week came with the baptism of the man that Elder Mangeris and I taught. I didnt get to attend the baptism, but President Grant told me that it was a wonderful service. He wished could have seen it, but he reminded me that Podgorica is where I am suppose to be. It didnt bother me too much because he was still baptized and thats most important. I just consider myself so grateful to have been a spectator of the change that took place in him.

I thought I would begin by telling about my new companionship and district. Im now serving with Elders Lewis and Froc. Elder Lewis is one of the older missionaries in the mission and he goes home 1 transfer after me. Elder Froc is on the other end of the spectrum. He just finished his training here in Podgorica. Its kind of a funny situation because Elder Lewis and I are the new ones and the young Elder Froc is leading us around the city! As for our District, there is one other elder companionship with 2 seasoned elders and a humanitarian senior couple. I think it is one of the most unified Districts that I have seen, which is likely a result of being so far from any other missionaries. I really look forward to the next 5 weeks with them all!

Like I shared last week, I was getting another Christmas this week. The Orthodox celebrate Christmas January 7th so it felt really weird for me to experience that. We had lots of fun together on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. Because we had to be off the streets by 18:00, the 5 of us elders cleaned the church building and had dinner together. After dinner, we went to the other elders apartment to chill and play games until we had to be home for the night. We made sure to go to bed pretty early Christmas Eve because we had to get up really early Christmas morning.

On Christmas morning, we woke up at 4 am and left for Dubrovnik, Croatia. Podgorica is the closest city in our mission (that is open to missionaries) to Dubrovnik, and President only allows missionaries to make such a long trip on Christmas each year. Somehow I managed to end up in Podgorica in time for this trip. It was probably one of the best gifts someone could get for Christmas! When someone Googles pictures of Croatia, probably half of the pictures that come up are of Dubrovnik. It is like the pride and joy of Croatia and the Balkans. After a day-trip there, I have to say it meets all of those expectations!

Dubrovnik is one of the oldest cities in the Balkans and it lies on the southern part of the Croatian coast. The city center is on this peninsula and there is a large wall that is built around the city. Just walking through the city, it felt like I was walking on a movie-set. It had to be one of the most beautiful places I have seen in my life! The pictures I share over the next few weeks wont even do it justice.

The city itself was wonderful, but the drive from Podgorica to Dubrovnik was almost just as good. We traveled through the snow covered mountains, across huge lakes by ferry, and along the coastal front. The trip was just as remarkable as the destination. I tried to get pics of the travel as well, but I didnt do to good! 🙂

Needless to say, it was a great second Christmas for me here in Montenegro!

We had church for the Podgorica Branch on Sunday. It was a little different than some of the other small branches I have been too. There were the 7 missionaries, 2 Montenegrins, and 1 American family who works in the embassy. Our sacrament meeting was only 45 minutes, and I was the only speaker for the meeting. After sacrament, we had a 45 minutes Sunday school with whoever could stay and that was the extent of our church services. I really look forward to getting to know these wonderful members here over the next few weeks!

Well, my time is running out. I love you all and wish you a great week! Talk next week!

Love,

Elder Petersen

Happy New Year & Happy Orthodox Christmas!

12/2/16

Zdravo!

Towards the end of this past week, things got super crazy for me here, and as a result, I am currently in Belgrade for the next 2 days. On Wednesday, I will fly down to Podgorica, Montenegro, where I will serve the last several weeks of my mission. I dont think I can describe how excited I am to be going there to serve! I have been yearning to go there since I heard how great it is from Elder Harris. Its a dream come true!

I will learn more about Podgorica when I get there, but this is what I do know. It has been opened to missionary work for about 4 years. The work there was kind of slow for a while with only a few baptisms, but it has recently blown up and one of the best countries to serve in. There are only 4 missionaries in the country, and they all serve in Podgorica. Now, I havent spent too much time there, but Ive seen some pics and its arguably one of the prettiest places in the world. In addition to its beauty, its much warmer there right now. Thank goodness!!!! 🙂

If you havent been able to tell up to this point, Im very excited to go there!

About my week, it has been a crazy one once again. Elders Larson, Eddington, and I went on an exchange to Celje, Slovenia. It felt sooo great to go back to the city where I started nearly 2 years ago. A lot has changed, but it was good to see the familiar faces. After meeting with some of the members I knew, I just had to laugh a bit because usually missionaries improve in their language ability throughout their mission. I, on the other hand, digressed tremendously from the beginning during my Slovene days! Haha

Anyway, it was great to work with the 4 elders there in Celje. We found some really cool people in the process. On one of the days, Elder Larson and I (both Serbo-Croatian speaking), went knocking with Elder Lewis (Slovene speaking). At one particular door, this lady answered and Elder Larson and I whipped out our best Slovene to talk with her. After our 1 or 2 memorized sentences, she responded in her very advanced-level Slovene and then turns to walk away. Completely confused, we turn to Elder Lewis for translation assistance. He just laughed a bit and walked past us into her house. Yes, we got let in!!! Not only did we get let in, but she brought her 17 year old son in and we taught them both about the Restoration. Unfortunately, its not to common in these countries to get let in while knocking, so we were so stoked to get to experience that on an exchange.

After we concluded our exchange, we started our drive back to Zagreb Wednesday night. Within 20 minutes of being on the road, a heavy snow started falling. It slowed our travel a bit so we didnt get home until later Wednesday night. It was still great to see a nice snow because I definitely wont get any more of that down in Montenegro.

So my time is running short, but I thought I would give a quick update on the people we are teaching. In Zagreb, we are having a baptism this next Saturday of the man Elder Mangeris and I found and taught last transfer. Im pretty sad to be missing it. We are also working with this couple we met on Christmas day. We had two lessons with them this past week, and they were two of the best lessons I have been able to experience on my mission. Their circumstances have prepared them and they are extremely humble and ready for the Gospel in their lives. Because they are not Croatian and English is not their native language, we have to teach very slowly and simply. However, that has not hindered their progression at all. They absorb nearly everything we teach. Ill be very surprised if they are not baptized soon. In Beograd, that couple I worked with while I was there just finalized their legal papers for their marriage. They should be baptized very soon too.

Im really enjoying missionary work right now! It is my greatest desire to finish strong and on a high note. I would love your thoughts and prayers that we can find people who are prepared and willing to listen.

I love you all and wish you a Happy New Year and a Happy Orthodox Christmas on Jan. 7th…yes, I get another Christmas this next weekend! 🙂

Elder Petersen

Merry Christmas!

12/26/16

It has been another eventful week for me and my companions. I traveled about 2000 km this past week, waited at a border for 4-5 hours, got about 5 hours of sleep each night (usually on a couch somewhere in the mission), participated in 2 more Zone Conferences, and enjoyed a Christmas celebration with the missionaries here in Zagreb. As a direct fruit of all of the craziness, this week went way too fast! I hope time slows down a bit so I can really enjoy this last transfer.

After a relaxing P-day of hiking last week, we continued with our second Christmas Zone Conference here in Zagreb on Tuesday morning. This conference included the Slovenian and Bosnian Zones. Individually, they are the two smallest zones in the mission, but a combined conference made it one of the biggest groups. There was 40-50 people all together which made it a little more challenging to organize. However, it was still a wonderful conference to be apart of.

When the Slovenian/Bosnian Conference finished Wednesday afternoon, Elder Eddington and I loaded up the big mission van and began a trip east toward Serbia. Along the way, we made a 2 hour detour to Banja Luka, Bosnia to drop off some missionaries who had attended the Zone Conference in Zagreb. After dropping them of, we continued to Belgrade where we would stay the night on the couches of the Zone Leaders there.

Despite the late night arrival to Belgrade on Wednesday night, we woke up really early and left Belgrade bound for Zagreb. Due to my inability to drive and a last minute car switch, I found myself in the back seat of one of the smallest cars in the mission squished between two long-legged elders for the extent of my travel between Belgrade and Zagreb. Although uncomfortable, we arrived safely and on time, but delayed flights, long borders, and countless bathroom pit-stops resulted in a majority of the rest of the missionaries coming from Serbia to be late for the conference which through everything we had planned off a bit. Luckily, we were able to make up time once the conference started and still get to enjoy the Zagreb Center Christmas festivities and each others company!

At the conclusion of the last conference on Friday afternoon, I got back into the mission van with Elder Larson and 7 other missionaries. The 9 of us began the (normally) 4 hour drive to Serbia to return missionaries to their proselyting areas. When we reached the Croatia/Serbia border, we were devastated to find a line of cars at the border which was several kilometers long. Two hours into the wait, we realized that the 4 Montenegrin missionaries in our van were not going to make their flight home (and this flight to Montenegro was the last flight until after Christmas). With no other travel options, we informed the airline company and continued to wait. After a total of 4.5 hours at the border, we finally made it through and continued to Belgrade. By the time we got to Belgrade it was 11:30, and the night was far from finished for Elder Larson and me. We dropped off all of the missionaries in Belgrade where they would sleep for the night and then continue the trip to Montenegro by bus. Elder Larson and I had no place to sleep so we had to continue to drive to the nearest town with missionaries which was Sremska Mitrovica, Serbia. We were exhausted and desperate for a few solid hours of sleep so the poor sleeping arrangements didn’t even phase us!

Saturday morning came quickly and we got back on the road so we could make it back to Zagreb for our District Christmas Eve lunch. We enjoyed some good Swedish meatballs from IKEA (I know, not your typical Christmas dinner!) and our time all together. The rest of the day was spent in District Meeting, shopping, and doing some service for refugees here in Zagreb. At the end of the day, 4 of us Elders went to the Halling’s to Skype with our families. Each of us took turns calling home and the others enjoyed some heated games of UNO!

It was so good to see my family. Although this call was the easiest to make because of how little time I have until I see them, 1 hour just wasn’t enough to talk with them and it was still hard to say goodbye. Luckily 8 weeks will go by so quickly and I’ll have no limits to how much I call home!

The call home was probably the climax and everything after paled in comparison to seeing my family. However, Christmas Day was still wonderful. We went to church services and then went up to the Mission Home for the rest of the day. Some missionaries Skyped home and those who weren’t skyping were enjoying lots of games and snacks. In the evening, all 21 missionaries that came to the Mission Home sat down for Christmas dinner together.

All in all, Christmas was wonderful here. I don’t think I could have asked for anything better this year. Out of the 20 Christmases I’ve experienced, the 2 Christmases on my mission have been some of my most memorable. I love being a missionary at this time of year!

I may have shared last week that President and Sister Grant gave a new Croatian hymnbook to every missionary in the mission for Christmas. I have continued to think about the words in Doctrine and Covenants that say, “For my soul delighteth in the song of the heart; yea, the song of the righteous is a prayer unto me,” This week, I have tried to determine how I can best utilize this new hymnbook to make myself a more effective instrument in the hands of the Lord, despite the absence of musical talent! While we were doing service this week with some of the refugees who have been forced out of their home due to their Christian beliefs, I had the impression that these newly translated hymns would be a wonderful blessing to them. I sincerely believe that the music will bring them feelings of peace and comfort into their lives, and it will teach them the simple truths of the gospel. Not to mention it will help them in learning the Croatian language. I committed to come back and sing with these families we have met. I will definitely need all of your prayers that I won’t sound too bad! Haha

That’s all for this week! I love you all and wish you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year soon to come!

Elder Petersen

“One of the funnest weeks”

12/19/16

Hello family and friends!

This has been one of the funnest weeks of my mission and I think its just going to get better next week! It is sometimes hard to be a missionary at Christmas time, but it is also so rewarding. This Christmas will be much easier than last year, that is for sure!

It was the official transfer this week on Monday-Wednesday. Meaning that some missionaries departed for home and new ones came in. Once again, I got to join President and Sister Grant and Elder and Sister Halling at the airport to pick up the new missionaries from the MTC. No matter how many times I do it, it can never get old. We picked up 4 elders who are all very excited to be here. I just love seeing their “greenie”(new missionary) energy!

As with every transfer, we spent Tuesday and Wednesday with the new missionaries and their trainers training them for this next transfer. I have participated in these training meetings 6 times now and I have enjoyed it every time. For nearly every one of those 6 times, I have had a sincere desire to be the one receiving the training and not giving the training. I really believe that Heavenly Father always calls us where we are needed for His work. Sometimes, that is not in the place or with the responsibilities we want, but we must be worthy and willing to serve no matter what.

On Thursday, we had a special Mission Leadership Council via Skype. Due to technical difficulties, it took 2 hours longer than we had expected. However, it was still good to see all of the Zone Leaders from around the mission. We have a really young group of leaders this transfer, but I think they are going to be some of the best!

Friday and Saturday was the the first of our Zone Christmas Conferences here in Zagreb. For Christmas, we bring all of the missionaries to Zagreb to enjoy the festivities in the city center. The first zone to come was the Croatia zone, and it was a blast! We began the conference in center at the Mission Office. After a couple hours of instruction from President Grant and the Assistants, we were released to go out into the city to carol for a bit and then tour the city. We then went back to the Mission Office for hot chocolate and snacks. After that, we all made our way out of town to the Mission Home for a devotional with President Grant. This devotional included a talent show and lots of singing with our new Croatian Hymn books. And, I was fortunate enough to be volunteered as a test dummy for a fellow missionary’s Karate. After the talent show and devotional, all of us elders went outside to the sports court and played some basketball late into the night. It was a ton of fun because we have several elders in the Croatian Zone who are good ball players, but I am definitely out of basketball shape!

The Saturday portion of the conference was also really good. President and Sister Grant gave more instruction to all of us missionaries. They also gifted each missionary a Croatia Hymn book and taught us how we could use it in our missionary work. Its amazing how music can be a powerful tool in teaching about the Savior and His gospel.

All in all, it was a great Zone Conference. I feel so lucky to get to experience it 2 more times this week. I definitely scored this transfer! 🙂

Sunday was also very eventful for me. Because our primary is small, I was recruited to help the little kids sing in the program. It was so much fun to be with them! Im just hoping that I will get to work in the primary or nursery when I get home! After church, we spent the evening giving 2 priesthood blessings and visiting a Psychiatric Hospital. The hospital vist itself was an unforgettable experience!

Well, Im out of time for this week. Our District is taking a hike up the the castle and ski resort here in Zagreb! I love you all and wish you all a very Merry Christmas!

Elder Petersen

Too many languages!

12/12/16

Well, when you think things can’t get any crazier…they do! Today would have to be in the top 10 craziest for me, mainly because its the first day of transfers and I have taken 45 phone calls since 6 this morning! Plus, its 5 in the evening and I’m just sitting down to write my first letter home…craziness!

Just to recount my day a bit, we started at 6 am and went to pick up the other missionaries in our district. All 8 of us went to a park by our house to play ultimate Frisbee. It was a ton of fun except for the fact that it was absolutely freezing! After we played and got cleaned up for the day, we wrote our weekly letter to the mission and then went to the church to meet some other missionaries who were traveling through Zagreb due to transfers. This is where I officially said goodbye to Elder Mangeris and was left with my 2 new companions, Elders Eddington and Larson. The three of us left the church and went to a meeting at the Mission Home with President Grant, which last for 2-3 hours. Throughout all of that, we took a load of phone calls from missionaries who either got lost, lost their luggage somehow, or had some other kind of setback in their travels. My favorite of all was the missionary who flew from Zagreb, Croatia to Sarajevo, Bosnia with his companion’s passport, who was still in Zagreb. Luckily after about 15 phone calls, we got it sorted out. Needless to say, its been a crazy one!

Interestingly enough, my week has been very similar to this current P-day. I believe I shared last week that I am getting 2 new companions to train them for the next few weeks while I finish my mission. President wanted them to get the full experience of planning transfers so he brought them in this past week. They have been living with Elder Mangeris and I for almost and entire week now as we train them. It has been a ton of fun working with them, but it has also been very exhausting. I think there were only 2 nights this week that we got home at a decent time. Many of those late nights were spent making travel plans for the upcoming transfer. Luckily, I will never have to do that again! 🙂

On Wednesday, we had our monthly Stewardship Skype Calls with each of the Zone Leaderships throughout the mission. We spend 1 hour with each of the 4 zones, talking about work in their areas. I always love hearing the progress they are making, but sometimes its a struggle for me to do 4 straight hours of Skype calls. Anyway, after the calls, we finalized everything for the transfer announcement that would take place Thursday morning.

Thursday, the day of transfer announcements, went pretty smooth. President announced transfers, we had a District Meeting, and then Elder Mangeris and I left for an exchange in Slovenia. This was the first time in like 10 months since I have been back to work in Slovenia. Since I left Slovenia, I have always desired to go back and serve there, but this week, I realized it would be a real struggle for me to go back. I do not remember a lick of Slovene! Going out contacting, I would just fumble over my words time and time again. The young girls would just giggle at me and then speak English to me, and the old folks would just walk away. It was still a real good time though! Slovenia is one of the most beautiful places I have ever seen. We would walk the streets in the center of Kranj and it would remind me of some fairy-tale city that you would see in a movie. The center was all decorated and their was Christmas music playing on the speakers throughout the whole city. Me trying to explain it doesn’t even come close to actually getting to experience it. I guess I just really scored with my mission call!

To add to the excitement of the week, sometime between last Monday and our exchange, I received the same cold bug that Elder Mangeris has had for the past week or so. I was truly grateful for my companions generosity when I woke up Friday morning with a sore throat and a congested nose. I hold no animosity towards Mangeris because it only added to the excitement of my week. Plus, it wouldn’t do much good since he is halfway back to America now! Haha

On Saturday, we had a baptism in Zagreb. This was a unique one for us here in the Balkans because the entire service was done in Spanish. The young girl that was baptized is from Argentina and she started coming to church about 4 weeks ago. She is amazing, and she is going to be a phenomenal member missionary. I got to participate by being a witness for the baptism. To fulfill that responsibility, I decided to memorize the baptismal prayer in Spanish…Habiendo sido comisionado por Jesucristo, yo te bautizo en el nombre del Padre, y del Hijo, y del Espiritu Santo. Amen. …Just in case you were wondering 🙂

After the baptism on Saturday, I got a call from a member of the branch presidency here in Zagreb. He asked me if I could give a 20 minute talk in church. Realizing that I still have LOTS of time on the mission to give talks, I asked him if Elder Mangeris could be my substitute…luckily we were separate from each other and he didn’t see me throw him under the bus! Haha The branch leader quickly responded that the best solution was that we both speak. As a result, I had the delightful opportunity to speak for 20 minutes about, “what spiritual truths I can learn from ordinances of the Gospel of Jesus Christ”…a pretty difficult top as you may see! Anyway, I survived and I think the natives understood my Croatian! 🙂

Well, I need to be going. I love you all and look forward to hearing from you soon. Have a great week!

Elder Petersen

The Best kind of Busy

Hello Everyone!

This has been another busy week for us on this front. Although “busy” is usually tied directly with “exhausting”, I have enjoyed every minute of it. I am sad my time with Elder Mangeris is coming to a close. Having a good companion sure does make time go so much faster.

Speaking of companions, we have started planning for the next transfer this week. Because Elder Mangeris goes home next Tuesday, we have been working to see who my next companion would be. It turns out that I will actually have 2 new companions next week! I will be serving with Elders Larson and Eddington who have been the Zone Leaders here in Zagreb for the past transfer. I stoked to serve with both of them! Its kind of funny because I served with Elder Harris 1 year ago as Assistants. Elder Harris trained Elder Larson who then trained Elder Eddington. I guess we are just keeping it all in the family line! 🙂

Along with finding out who my companions will be, I also talked with President about not finishing as AP. President said that I will be done on January 15th, and then I will be able to go any where I want in the entire mission to finish my time. I have never had that much liberty with transfers!

The beginning of our week was spent on an exchange in Banja Luka, Bosnia. Elder Mangeris and I both went to work there with Elders Garza and Cox. They both go home with Mangeris next week so I felt like a real pup working with them. It was a great exchange, and we enjoyed some amazing Bosnian food.

While in Bosnia on an exchange, we received a phone call from some missionaries who were facing a problem with a member. As a result, we made a trip to that city to do an exchange with the Elders there. After being there for about 24 hours, we decided we would just bring them back to Zagreb to work with us until the problem was solved. The problems wasnt solved as quick as we hoped so we played host for several days will missionaries camped with us. Although I love those missionaries a ton, I was so happy when they could get off our couch and return to their city.

With transfer announcements being this coming Thursday, a lot of our week was spent in preparation for that. This preparation includes talking with President about the “Transfer Board” (where everyone will serve) and making travel plans to get missionaries to their new assignments. As we talked with him about the transfer on Dec. 14th, he realized that we were going to need to do an early transfer to get some missionaries a head-start on their new area and assignment. He decided that this early transfer needed to take place this weekend. This was kind of a last minute decision so we quickly through together a plan and sent it to the missionaries involved. Luckily, we have a bit more time before the big transfer!

This week was also full of lots of little events that do not necessarily earn a full paragraph of documentation:

• Elder Mangeris has battled a cold all week so that was just a wonderful addition to the excitement of our week!
• One of the members here in Zagreb is a refugee from Lebanon. He is trying to learn Croatian so he asked Elder Mangeris and I to come sing some Croatian hymns with him for language practice. I still don’t know why the two least musically talented missionaries went to do this, but it was horrendous…absolutely the worst sound!! Haha
• In preparation for the Christmas season, we helped the branch decorate the chapel with Christmas ornaments. Once again, not really Elder Mangeris and my specialty, but we did our best!
• It was Fast Sunday so we had a District lunch with the other Zagreb missionaries at the senior couples house. Im not sure if it was simply because it was Fast Sunday, but the food was amazing!
• Elder Mangeris and I had a member meal with a family here in Zagreb. They are a wonderful family with 3 cute little girls. Not only did we get to eat with them, but we also got to assist them in setting up and decorating their Christmas tree.
• To add to the entire week, we got to watch the First Presidency Christmas Devotional this morning. I just love the Christmas season!

I’m sorry this letter is all over the place. But, I’m happy, healthy, and loving the work here! Have a great week!

Love,

Elder Petersen

Another Week Closer to Christmas!

11/28/16

We have had a really fun Pday today! Since the weather has been getting even colder, we decided we better do all of our fun outdoor activities before it gets too cold. The whole district went to the zoo here in Zagreb and it was a blast. I’m not going to lie, the zoo here is pretty weak sauce, but it was still fun to hang with the other missionaries in the District.

As for my week, it has been another busy one. We had President Paul V. Johnson of the Europe Area Presidency visit us for a mission tour. As a result, we had a week full of traveling and conferences.

It all began on Tuesday. We left early afternoon and drove 2.5 hours to Banja Luka, Bosnia to pick up the elders serving there. We then drove them almost another 4 hours to Sremska where we stayed the night. Early the next morning, we drove to Belgrade for our first Zone Conference with President Johnson. It was a wonderful conference, and I really enjoyed Pres. Johnson’s instruction. He is one of the best teachers I’ve heard! The only thing that would have made the it better was if Sister Johnson could have attended too, but after a series of unfortunate events (forgetting her passport) she was not able to come until Wednesday night. Luckily, some of the missionaries got to hear her in the second conference.

After the Belgrade Conference, Elder Mangeris and I left with the missionaries we came with and drove back toward Zagreb. However, a typical 4 hour trip from Belgrade to Zagreb took nearly 7 hours as we made detours in Sremska Mitrovica and Banja Luka. I felt pretty bad for Mangeris that night because I know he was exhausted but I couldn’t take a turn driving at all! It’s tough being red-dotted! Haha

On Thursday we had our second conference, and this one was held in Zagreb, Croatia. President Johnson taught a lot of the same things for this conference, but he did the teaching in a different style. Its was amazing how the same information, presented in two different ways, can teach you different things. One of the things I admired most about his teaching was how much he utilized the scriptures. At every moment possible, he would turn to the scriptures for answers and lessons. I definitely saw several characteristics from him that I want to emulate as best I can.

Friday was Mission Leadership Council with the Zone Leaders and Sister Training Leaders. This meeting was also with President and Sister Johnson. Once again, it was full of good training and learning for us. I wish I could just share my notes from all of these conferences because I know its pretty boring to hear that, “it was good” or “it was wonderful”. However, time just doesnt allow me to go into too much detail. I will share all of the details when I get home!

In addition to the travel and conferences, I had the opportunity to attend a baptism in Varazdin, Croatia Saturday night. It was a young man who got baptized. It was a special day for him as an individual, but also for his entire family. With his baptism, he joined his older brother and his father in the church. They are preparing to go to the temple next summer so that they can all be sealed together! 

One other quick highlight from my week is that the Christmas festivities have begun here in Zagreb!! The ice rink and stands were all set up and the partying has begun! I love it!!!

I love you all and will talk with you more next week!

Thanksgiving!

This week has been an eventful one for us here in Zagreb. We had some more conferences, an early Thanksgiving dinner, and final preparations for another General Authority visit this coming week. All in all, it was a busy week!

On Tuesday, we had the second Return and Report conference of the transfer for the other 6 trainees. This conference wasn’t near as demanding for E. Mangeris and me because it was held here in Zagreb. We met for about 6-7 hours at the Mission Home with all of these missionaries. It was another good conference; in fact, I thought it was actually better than the previous one in Belgrade.

After the conference, we worked with Elders Rasmussen and Isom. They are currently serving in Sarajevo, Bosnia and they flew in for the Return and Report. They are both awesome! E. Isom is currently being trained by Rasmussen. E. Rassmussen is one of my favorite elders I’ve worked with. We get along really well. He is planning to go back and play football at Utah State. It was good to be with them even for just a couple of hours. We made sure to conclude our time together with dinner at IKEA!

Because we have Elder and Sister Johnson of the Europe Area Presidency coming this week, we had to move our Thanksgiving celebrations to this past week, hence my late Thanksgiving greetings. Anyway, everyone got 5 hours off from proselyting to celebrate. Pretty much all of the missionaries in west Croatia (Rijeka, Karlovac, Varaždin, and Zagreb) gathered at the Mission Home for dinner. With all of the missionaries, the Grants, and one of the sons and his family, there was like 30-40 people! It was a lot of fun being in such a large group. Plus, it made for a pretty fun Turkey Bowl football game!

Last year, when I was serving here during the holiday time, I made a cheese ball for one of the meals. Evidentily, that cheese ball was a hit last year and I just didn’t know about it. This year, I was tasked to make cheese balls for post-Turkey Bowl and pre-dinner finger food. I made 3 big ones for the gathering, and it appeared to be another hit. My only mistake seemed to have been a short supply of crackers to accompany the cheese ball. It made me happy to know I actually did something successful in the kitchen! Haha Momma would be so proud!

The other highlight of our week came on Saturday. The sisters here in Zagreb got one of their tires slashed through the night and spent most of their day trying to fix it. The ZLs here in Zagreb had planned to use the car to go do a baptismal interview in Varaždin, but because of the tire, they couldn’t. Elder Mangeris and I came to the rescue with our car, and we went to Varaždin for the interview. The young man passed the interview, which is always a success! In addition, we also learned that it was E. Hillock’s bday so we took him out to dinner to celebrate! You could definitely say it was a successful trip!

During church on Sunday, all 8 missionaries in Zagreb had the opportunity to sing a special musical number, “How Great Thou Art” in Croatian. I may have already shared this, but Croatia got their first actual hymnbooks about 2-3 weeks ago. This hymnbook has over 200 hymns and the saints here are so grateful to have it. Many of the hymns in it they have not really heard so sometimes the singing is a little rough in sacrament and especially in priesthood meeting! Haha

This week, we found ourselves in several opportunities to serve. On one particular occasion, we were asked to take some left over Thanksgiving turkey to an older man in our Branch who has been really sick. For the few minutes we had left before we had to be home, we sat in his living room talking with him. More than really even wanting to talk with us, he just wanted to pray. It was a special experience for me, not because we did anything out of the ordinary but simply because I felt the Spirit as we sat with him.

In the elevator leaving his apartment, these words came to my mind, “pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this, to visit the fatherless and widows in their afflictions” (James 1:27) and to “look to the poor and the needy, and administer to their relief that they shall not suffer” (Doctrine and Covenants 38:35). I absolutely love talking about the Gospel of Jesus Christ and learning from the scriptures, but there is absolutely no better feeling than finding opportunities to apply what you talk about and study. That is he purpose of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

I love you all and hope you enjoy your Thanksgiving!

Elder Petersen

Becoming Grace

Hello Everyone!

11/14/16

Due to my real struggle with writing emails the past few weeks, I decided I would write this group letter first with the hope that it will come a lot easier. It’s not necessarily that I don’t like emailing, but I just think my ADD gets the best of me and won’t let me focus for more than an hour or so! Haha

The first few days of the week were spent in preparation for the remainder of the week. Monday and Tuesday were pretty much the extent of time in our own proselyting area. The rest of the week was spent traveling for exchanges and conferences in Serbia.

We left Zagreb after our District Meeting on Wednesday. Since I have been “red-dotted” (can’t drive anymore) most road trips are quite enjoyable for me. I just sit by and offer my valuable moral support to Elder Mangeris! Haha Anyway, we made the 4-5 hour drive to Novi Sad, Serbia on Wednesday night. Along the way we had to stop in Sremska Mitrovica to drop something off for the elders there. When we pulled into Sremska, the elders asked if we could meet them at a members house where they were. The family they were visiting is one that I have come love so much serving here in Serbia. Although I haven’t served in Sremska, it has become one of my favorite places simply because of the members. Elder Mangeris also has a great love for this particular family because he had served with one of their sons on a “mini-mission”. Needless to say, it was wonderful to spend some time with them before we finished our long drive to Novi Sad. By the end of our Serbia trip, I was kinda sad to leave. It’s amazing how each place I have served has found a special spot in my heart (usually because of the wonderful people) and it’s always hard to leave them.

Wednesday night and Thursday was spent with the Novi Sad Elders on an exchange. Elder Jex and Elder Echols are serving there. Elder Echols is in his training currently so it was a lot of fun to be around him and work with him. During that 24 exchange we worked hard and had lots of fun together. Those two are the only two young missionaries in Novi Sad so I imagine they were really grateful for our company even for just 1 or 2 days.

On Friday, we traveled to Belgrade for the first of two Return and Reports. Return and Reports are meetings that happen about halfway through each transfer, and they are for the new missionaries to report on their training progress. We met with the 6 new missionaries, along with their trainers, who serve in the eastern part of the mission. It was good to spend the day with them and see their tremendous amount of progression after only 5 weeks. We will have our second Return and Report with the other 6 trainees here in Zagreb on Tuesday. 

At Return and Report I had the privilege to talk about the process of “becoming” in every aspect of life but specifically in missionary work. As I prepared to speak, I thought about Christ’s life and the progression he experienced. From His birth leading to his earthly ministry, the scriptures say, “And the child grew, and waxed strong in spirit, filled with wisdom: and the grace of God was upon him” (Luke 2:40). Continuing the study on the life of Christ, I found some more scriptures that described His progression. “And I, John, bear record that I beheld his glory, as the glory of the Only Begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth, even the Spirit of truth, which came and dwelt in the flesh, and dwelt among us. And I, John, saw that he received not of the fullness at the first, but received grace for grace; And he received not of the fullness at first, but continued from grace to grace, until he received a fullness; And thus he was called the Son of God, because he received not of the fullness at the first” (Doctrine and Covenants 93:11-14). The thing that has touched me the most is that Christ knows exactly what it feels like to go through the process of growth and development because He has experienced it too. Obviously, we face a lot of set-backs that Christ didn’t-namely sin, but it is comforting to know that through His grace we can become better individuals than we were the day before.

I love you all and look forward to hearing from you!

Elder Petersen

Family shares in Baptism

Pozdrav!

11/7/16

This week has been pretty low key. I wish I had more to share, but it was relatively business as usual. To be honest, I am really struggling with my desire to email right now. I dont know what it is exactly but I am afraid the quality of my emails is going south! In addition to my lack of desire, we just finished a rigorous game of ultimate-frisbee that served as another great reminder that I am way out of shape! Haha

Here is a rough summary of what we did this week:

On Tuesday was kind of rare event for us this week. It was All Saints Day here in Europe, and all of the young missionaries went to the main cemetery in Zagreb called Mirogoj. We did this last year too and it is always lots of fun. There are tons of people, vendors, and little red candles all over the cemetery. Im pretty sure all of the missionaries had a good time that night.

Wednesday through Friday were spent on an exchange with the Serbia Zone Leaders. Instead of us going to Serbia to work with them, we decided to change things up and have them come here. It was great to work with Elders Osborn and Taylor for a few days. We just got to focus completely on missionary work and teaching which is wonderful.

During those few days on the exchange, our main investigator who was scheduled for baptism kind of faded. There have been some legal questions that Mangeris and I have had so we decided to slow down with him and move the baptism. Keep him in your prayers that his heart will continue to soften and change, and he will progress to baptism.

On Friday, we came home late after being gone all day. As we approached the door, I stopped to wait for Elder Mangeris to unlock the door. I soon realized that he was making no effort to unlock the door but was just waiting for me to open it. Within seconds, we both learned that neither of us had the keys with us so we quickly ran to the car to get our spare keys. When we put the keys in the lock and tried to turn them, there was absolutely no movement. At that point we both remembered that the last time we saw our original keys was as we were walking out the door. We had left them in the door and it automatically locked behind us.

In order to solve our mistake without having to call a locksmith costing to broke Elders 80 Euros, we attempted to pick the lock, but that was a huge failure. We weighed nearly every possible option and concluded that the best option was to climb from the neighbors balcony to our own. Although it was a bit embarrassing, we went to the old lady next door to ask to use her balcony. More than anything, I just consider myself blessed that we did not catch her in her nightgown…or worse! But, she was also very willing to let us use her balcony. Next thing we knew, we were in our apartment. Problem solved!

The highlight of my week had to be on Sunday at church. The young man that Elder Harris and I taught and baptized in March came to church with his family. Since I had left, he had baptized his sister and grandma. There whole family has been coming to church for the past few months and they are doing really well. It was just so good to see them!

I love you all and hope you have a great week!

Elder Petersen