Elder Acaylar and I have never herded cattle before so the family was laughing at us...We had to rope the cows and then tie them up while pulling from all sides with ropes. That's when the guy in charge would come over and brand the cattle. I felt like a straight up cowboy. It was Awesome!

Ya'at'eeh! This week has been the coolest week for service ever in the history of missionary work! We worked with so many different people it was amazing how much we got done! Probably the best part is the fact that we now have two new families to teach from service. Last Monday we drove to Farmington to get our new/old truck aligned and serviced but we should be getting a new one soon to replace the one we have now so that's good. Elder James the Housing coordinator in the mission office took us to lunch while we were waiting so that was nice. Later in the evening we had a branch cook out and had burgers and hotdogs with grilled corn and some other stuff and it was a good turn out. Everyone had fun and the Branch president was able to share a spiritual thought on missionary work! Tuesday we drove to Dennehotso and helped a recent convert family pull weeds in their front yard. The recent convert is the 12 year old kid who was baptized a month and a half ago and unfortunately he was out of town with his grandma so we didn't get to see him. The good news is that night he got home and he called us to invited us to his home tomorrow evening for a lesson because he misses us haha! He is a really cool kid! The rest of our Tuesday we spent helping the Senior couple there in Dennehotso work on some little things here and there that they needed help with. They are super cool too! Wednesday, we helped build a shade house/ shed thing for and older couple that needed help and were able to get most of the walls built. We had some really good lessons with less active members and had a really good lesson with a new investigator family that shows some promise. Thursday we had an epic district meeting. Elder Moser is our district leader and he is going home in a week so he taught us everything he has learned on his mission, which was very helpful. Sad to see him go though, good guy. We then went back to the older couple's home with the shade house and helped them finish the walls and part of the roof. While helping them with that they started herding their cattle into their coral for branding. Its that time of year so they needed to get them all in one place. Elder Acaylar and I have never herded cattle before so the family was laughing at us. There were a few times where we were able to get them to the coral but half of the herd would slip past and run away from us. It took 4 tries before we got all of them into the coral. It was amazing and actually really fun to work with their ranch. That evening we noticed their were tents out front of the Chilchinbito school and went to go see what was going on. Turns out it was a group of students on a Tour De Rez bike cross country trip. They were super cool and nice. They even asked if we wanted to ride bikes the next morning with them. We rode 11 miles with some bikes they lent us and were able to talk to the leaders about the church. Almost half of them were members so it was cool. Friday was slow but worth it. We had one super important lesson with an investigator we haven't seen in a few weeks and they are looking to back into it so we are exited! We finished the roof of the shade house that day too. Saturday we helped brand cattle at a different home further out in the boonies for a new family who wants to take the lessons! It was the coolest thing ever because they handed us ropes and said "alright go for it." We had to rope the cows and then tie them up while pulling from all sides with ropes. That's when the guy in charge would come over and brand the cattle. I felt like a straight up cowboy. It was Awesome! Now I can say I have roped cows and helped brand. They had a huge lunch afterwords where we got to talk to all of their family about the church! Almost all of them lived close by and wanted us to share our message with them! They were laughing and telling jokes with us so it was fantastic! Really cool Family! Sunday we had a really good sacrament meeting. Branch president asked a family to give a talk and during the week they had a huge fiasco thing go down with one of their relative going to prison but despite the huge distraction they still prepared and gave talks! That's a lot of commitment. Very proud of them, and good talks. The rest of the day we visited everyone we could to make up for all the service we did that week and it was decent because we managed to see 4 families. Things are doing really well here in Chilchinbito and I am exited to see how next week is. Thank you for listening and I hope you have a great week. Talk to you next Monday! Hagonee'!

--Elder Petersen


*this is a picture he sent a while ago but i thought it matched what he did this week :)