Being a zone Leader is fun and yet the most difficult thing I have done on my mission so far.

this is the last few weeks combined into one :)

Jan 19

Hello everyone!

   Being a zone Leader is fun and yet the most difficult thing I have done on my mission so far. My companion is Elder Mackay (Mac-Key) from West Point, Utah. We serve in Famington 2nd ward which is the biggest ward in Farmington. It includes part of the Navajo Reservation, so I am happy. I live in a two story apartment and Wal-Mart is across the street. Pretty weird. City life is way different than what I remember it being! It might take a week or two for me to adjust. At least when I was in Kirtland it was farm country and spread out. I will say though, there are probably more homes in Famington 2nd ward than all my other areas combined. We have a great deal of work to be done. This past Saturday a 17 year old investigator was baptized by his 19 year old cousin which was fantastic! Great baptismal service and the two boys will never forget how they stood in the font together. Church was very nice yesterday, and I enjoyed how smooth the 3 hours went. All of the members seem like very nice people :)

    Elder Mackay is great and we have a wonderful zone so I am exited to see what happens this transfer! Have an awesome week and I look forward to talking to you next week.

--Elder Petersen

Reunited at Last! The very first district I ever had, all in Farmington during exchanges!

The very first home I lived in consisted of, Elder Nicholson, Elder Beck, and Elder McCarry

Elder Nicholson is my Assistant to the President and I am his Zone Leader! (that was Josh's first companion - the one on the far right in the picture below) Its crazy awesome! I have seen him 3 times already this week :)

Baptism in Farmington!

Jan 12

I'm getting transferred to Farmington 2nd Ward to be the Zone Leader in Farmington!!! Ahhh! I almost dropped the phone when President Batt told me! Wish me luck. I am happy but sad to be leaving. I like Kirtland 1st ward a lot! hopefully I will Love Farmington as well.

12/29

Hello Family and also friends!

   It was great to skype home and talk to you for Christmas! Jared and Nathan have grown since I last saw them and I am glad that you are all doing well. I want to say Thank You to anyone who helped Nathan and my family while he was in the Hospital. I found out about his accident Wednesday morning because Sister Signs here in Kirtland was able to find out through messages on Facebook. Definitely a Christmas miracle! I am glad you are all home now. This week we have had the chance to see what it is like to be in a walking mission. We were given 700 miles to use on our truck but two weeks ago they changed it to 400, so last Tuesday we had to start walking. I like waling now because we have been able to talk to more people this way! That and the members have been giving us rides and in a way I feel like it is helping them because they feel more involved in missionary work. Christmas Day was a hoot because we ate at four difference homes. I don't think I can ever eat that much again! We also were given all of the members sweets that they didn't want so we have three big boxes of candy and treats left over at our home. We are thinking of giving it away :P. Being District leader has proved to be one of the most challenging/rewarding things I have done. Being responsible for 9 missionaries is a bit daunting but well worth it I love the missionaries I serve and they have helped teach me a lot. With the "He is the Gift" initiative over and done with we are now transitioning into family history work. All of us missionaries are going to become family history consultants and hopefully teach the members how to do missionary work through the redemption of the dead. I am exited to see the results from our new focus this next month. All is well in Kirtland. I love it here! Talk to you next week.

--Elder Petersen

I am the new District Leader For Kirtland! I thought "Are you sure you called the right person?"

*so I've been horrible at keeping Josh's  blog up to date. Here's the last 3 weeks

Ya'at'eeh!

  Greetings from Kirtland New Mexico! This week has been our best yet! We are finding more and more people to teach and we have been able to get into the groove of things. The ward members have been very helpful in giving us places we could go and teaching us how to work with a big ward. Since this is the first area where I have had the privilege of working with a whole ward council it is different, but very easy to involve the whole ward in missionary work so it is nice. We were part of the ward council meeting yesterday and we expressed that us missionaries are here to work and do whatever they would have us do and I feel that set us off on the right foot. Bishop Wethington has directed us to work with the young men and to encourage them to go on missions so we will be talking to them this Wednesday about missionary work for their mutual activity. The Members are still very enthusiastic about feeding us so we have yet gone a day without being fed dinner! Also, this past week we gave out three Book of Mormons and now have a very solid investigator! This new investigator knows a sister in the ward and so we will be involving the member as we teach this new investigator. It will be great! Elder Cartwright and I have been focusing a lot on reactivation in the ward and have made it a priority to visit every family that is not active and figure out their needs. From there we are going to report it to our ward mission leader and he will tell bishop and the less active members home teacher. Very efficient and an inspired way of working in the church and I am grateful to have such a great ward! We also were able to finally sit down and teach a sister in our ward who has not been to church in over 10 years. She has two sons and two daughters that are not members and she has expressed that she would like her kids to be baptized. We are hoping this will be this sisters way back to the Church so we will cross our fingers. There are two really great converts in our ward that were baptized in the summer and one of them, Jenny, just finished her new member lessons and is going to get her patriarchal blessing this week! The other sister who was recently baptized, Debbie, is working on going to the temple! Things are great here in Kirtland 1st ward and I love being a missionary! Thank you for your letters and emails this week. I hope to hear from you next Monday!

--Elder Petersen

Ya'at'eeh!

   Elder Cartwright has been very sick since Thursday morning and we have been inside for most of the week. The three days we had before then were pretty good though so no complaints. I am glad that Elder Cartwright is feeling better today! The ward was very helpful with delivering some dinners and making sure my companion was taken care of so It is good. The church has a cool Christmas thing going on called "He is the Gift." It looks pretty good and we have been asked to show it to people this December. I am doing well and now my companion is doing well so this upcoming week will be much better. Talk to you next Monday!

--Elder Petersen

We are living across from a member in an extra home they have. I would say that the home we live in currently is the nicest in the whole mission because a member owns it and it was intended to house sister missionaries so we are living the dream :) Its a super nice double wide trailer with two showers and three bedrooms.

It's December!

   And I am the new District Leader For Kirtland!

Yeah so things are about to get crazy around here. When President Batt told me the news I thought "Are you sure you called the right person?" Thankfully I did not say it out loud! I did not see this one coming and so now I will be a District Leader, a Trainer, and a Senior Companion! I will admit I am a little nervous but I am confident everything will turn out great. The church is relay pushing this new "He is the Gift" Initiative for Christmas this year and so as missionaries we will be telling as many people as we can about it. It is a 2 minute video on the internet that the church made to support the truth that Christmas is about Jesus Christ. We have nice little cards to hand out to people as we contact and there is a lot of advertisement going on through the church. Youtube will only show ads for "He is the Gift" on December 7th to make sure that anyone who goes on youtube that day sees the true meaning of Christmas. Out of time but have a great week! Love you all!

--Elder Petersen

Transfers and new mailing address :)

*playing catch up on the blog for the last couple weeks - sorry about that :)

Ya'at'eeh!

All is good in the town of Kirtland! I can say that after a week of hard work, now I have some understanding of what it is like to start over in an area. White washing has been one of the hardest things I have done on my mission but it has also been the most rewarding week of my mission so far! (*I looked up what white washing meant - its when both missionaries are new to the area. usually only one missionary is transferred and one stays but this is when both are switched out) We have seen the Lords hand leading us to a great goal and we are exited! My new companion is Elder Cartwright and he is from Michigan. He is 21 years old! So I am being trained really haha. He has a great testimony and is very hard working so things should be great here! We have been finding a lot this past week and we have found some great potentials so things are looking good in the future! Things are calming down now that we have our bearings. Here in Kirtland the members feed us every night and some have even offered to feed us lunch too. This is going to take some getting used to since I have never been off the reservation. This small town feels ginormous in comparison and our home is 20 times bigger than where I was living before! It feels like I have walked into a whole different world. The ward is great, the people are great, the food is great! I feel I am going to like it here :). A spiritual experience we had this week was when we were finding three days ago. For a reason I did not yet fully understand I felt prompted to stop the truck and walk to a house. We only had 15 minutes until our next appointment but we were able to talk to a man outside of this home for a good 10 minutes and he was genuinely interested. He told us to come back this week and so it made me feel glad that I had listened to the spirit. It also seems like since we are both new to the area that the spirit has been working extra hard to get us going. Tons of great experiences have been falling into our laps so to speak and I feel it is because we need all the help we can get. Things are great, I love it here, and I look forward to this upcoming week! Thank you for your letters and emails and I will talk to you next Monday!

--Elder Petersen

*I love catching him online when we can chat back and forth. I asked him if he needed a bike now:

Elder Petersen:       The Mission has bikes that are donated by members and so if we
                                need one the mission office has plenty. Plus we have a truck and
                                a nice house because this used to be a sister missionaries area!
                                The members feed us every day too! We are living in paradise :)

Me:                         Compared to your camper I'm sure it is! Bet you took a
                                looooonnnnggg hot shower!

Elder Petersen:       We have an unlimited supply of hot water, heck yeah! haha and
                                the water here is drinkable

New Mailing address:

Elder Joshua Petersen

6 CR 6559

Kirtland, NM 87417

Ya'at'eeh!

    I survived Halloween! Our mission president asked us to be in at 6:00 pm during the holiday so that we would be safe. I'll admit I wasn't to happy about it but at least we were doing what was asked of us. I can see why it might be dangerous and maybe even bad to have missionaries out during Halloween.

    This week has been very good! I am amazed at the spiritual preparation that has been put in the lives of those we have come in contact with. God really is preparing the people here for the Gospel! We have been knocking on doors quite a bit and I have seen the hard work paying off. For this area it feels as if Less Active work is what we are sent here to do. Lots of members have fallen away and have stopped their conversion. Hopefully we will be able to help this ward with reactivation. We were teaching a great Investigator but this weekend they moved to Arizona so we will have to keep searching for another Investigator or two this week. I already love the work here in Kirtland and the members have been very supportive! Our ward mission leader has given us a lengthy list of people to visit and it has kept us busy. Elder Cartwright and I are getting along great and I love his commitment to the work! We were finding two days ago and we happened to meet a Youth Pastor for another church here in town. We talked for 30 minutes on his front porch and were able to bear our testimonies of the Book of Mormon and Joseph Smith being a prophet of God. Although there were not any visible results from talking with him and his wife, we knew we did the right thing by not arguing or fighting. We hope that we were able to plant some seeds that a missionary can reap in the future. I feel that we are here in Kirtland for a very important reason and i hope that My companion and I will be able to complete that great purpose. I know that I am here for a good reason! Thank you for your emails this week. It's great to read about all the good that is happening at home as well. Talk to you next week!

--Elder Petersen

My headaches are gone and my ears don't hurt anymore! :D I feel really good this week

Ya'at'eeh!

    Hello all! This week has been a good one! I feeling much better this week and have not had any headaches since last Wednesday! Things are doing amazing here in Chilchinbito with plenty of work for us to do. Wednesday we went to a Zone conference in Tuba City and were able to watch "Meet the Mormons" which is now in theaters! Pretty amazing movie with some great stories about members of the Church. Very informative too! It shows what Mormon life is like for members all over the world. I recommend watching it because it is very well done! During Zone conference we had a training from the Assistants on appropriate missionary music, and even though they never said flat out what is good and what is bad I felt that I could clean out my music a tad. President and Sister Batt trained on better teaching methods and making sure we take the time to talk about the First vision of Joseph Smith and the Atonement of Jesus Christ. They told us that in some of the teaching they have seen Elders rush too quickly through those subjects and miss the opportunity for a spiritual experience. There were a lot of helpful things I learned from the training. After Zone Conference Elder Winborg and I went on Exchanges with the Zone Leaders in Tuba and we "Blitzed" their area. Elder Winborg and Elder Scofield took the North part of Tuba and Elder Nishimoto and I took the south Side of Tuba. I was able to learn a great amount from Elder Nishimoto which I am grateful for. I have amazing leadership and it has been that way since the day I started my mission! There are a lot of great Elders in this mission! At the end of the exchange Thursday morning Elder Nishimoto gave me a pretty powerful and motivational talk which was greatly needed. With my Headaches the past two weeks I had been struggling to find motivation to go out and work but now I am confident everything is going to be great! Thursday was good because we were able to set up the Baptismal program with an investigator. This past Saturday she was Baptized in Kayenta with a decent turn out. It was a great experience for her and her kids! The spirit was so strong and all the sisters in the Branch were very emotional at the end. It's looking good for her future, I have no doubts that the Branch will take care of her! Yesterday we had a sweet lesson with the two kids who are looking to get baptized soon! We talked about the Temple and their dad was super exited to go as well. The parents are less active members of the Church and so we are hoping they will come back and start working on taking their son to so some Baptism's for the dead after he is Baptized! Now all the dad needs to do is work on getting Sundays off from work. Everything is going very well here and I am exited for all of the Investigators who are making progress. I do not believe I have ever had this many Progressing investigators my whole mission so we are very blessed! We are looking at three more people with a Baptism date in the next week! Great to read your emails and letters this week. Stay Awesome and I will talk to you next Monday!

--Elder Petersen

Elder Holland is a boss!

Elder Petersen didn't write much of anything for a letter this week. We mostly just chatted back and forth. I love catching him when he is online. :) 

Request from me to you:

-- Could you find a way to make a large detailed map of Chilchinbito so we can mark where people live? The church website has the boundries so maybe dad could figure out how to get all of the close up pictures and you could piece all of them together into one big map... I am thinking this will more effectively mark who has been visited and how to get there so that future generations of missionaries can continue the work where we have left off.

-- Could you also print off an epic picture of Christ with Helaman 5:12 quoted on it? A sister in our ward wants to hang that scripture in her home but we don't have the means to print.

-- Also, Elder Acaylar my last companion had a birthday last Sunday and has 0% family support because they are not members of the church. I want to send him something so he feels loved haha. He loves zelda and Minecraft so maybe you could send him those funny pictures/cartoons you have been sending me of Minecraft and such. He also has been missing those real pretzels you get at carnivals or sams club so maybe you could include one of those big ones. Anyways, If you are okay with it he could use a happy birthday, even if it is late. I will have the Napierski's send you his address tomorrow, with a note from me to him, while we are working out there.

much appreciated :) Please only do this if you can. I don't want you to stress out too much about it. These are things I cant do on my own

I am almost out of time so I will have to update you on this last week, next week instead. Simple summary is that Elder Holland is a boss! :D and Chilchinbito is continuing to be supper awesome! Bye Love You!

So I started working on the maps for Josh and I've been pulling it from the church website and then just piecing it together and i thought - there has to be an easier way, so i looked for maps online and found a several road atlas' on ebay and have been asking the sellers if it includes a map of both cities. this one seller replied it did so i asked her to send a picture and how big it was in inches. this is what she sent back..... 

hahahaha!!!!!!!!! um, no, that wont work, thanks though! :) 

so for his next request of an epic picture of christ for Helaman 5:12 which is;  And now, my sons, remember, remember that it is upon the rock of our Redeemer, who is Christ, the Son of God, that ye must build your foundation; that when the devil shall send forth his mighty winds, yea, his shafts in the whirlwind, yea, when all his hail and his mighty storm shall beat upon you, it shall have no power over you to drag you down to the gulf of misery and endless wo, because of the rock upon which ye are built, which is a sure foundation, a foundation whereon if men build they cannot fall."  I found this picture by Scott Sumner. how's that for epic? :) I called the guy and he's going to print the scripture on it for me.

we love spoiling missionaries so the next request was easy :)

Elder Petersen did tell me last week that Elder Holland was visiting: "We get to see Elder Holland on Saturday at a missionary fireside! but you cant tell anyone. It's low key so no one knows he will be there. but they gave us a list of rules and this was one of them...

(7) Absolutely no pictures are to be taken in the chapel (this is church policy). No voice recording of this fireside is allowed. Please limit your picture taking to enable you to return home as early as possible. If you take pictures, do it quickly....in the cultural hall or outside."

this is what his companion Elder Winborg said about Elder Holland's visit: "

Then on Saturday was the greatest thing that has ever happen to me up to this point in my life! I not

only got to listen to Elder Holland, but Elder Petersen and I got to shake his
hand!!!! We had to be at the fireside early because Elder Petersen was singing
in the musical number for the fireside. We were there a bit early and was just
talking to some people in the chapel when Elder Holland walked by. He stopped
and shook our hands, asked us how we were doing, and told us to keep up the
good work. During his talked it really opened my eyes and made me remember why I
am on a mission!"

"...at the moment four people are committed to be baptized in the next month and a half so we are exited!"

Ya'at'eeh!

  Hello ha. Things are going well here and this past week has been a good one! Monday we had interviews with our Mission President and that was good! I  like talking to President Batt and his wife :) We also got to practice teaching the plan of salvation with Sister Batt and she told me I did very well so I'm going to take her word for it haha. It's always fun teaching in a "practice" setting, different, but fun. Tuesday we worked in Dennehotso for the day and that was good. There is an investigator there who has been going with her kids for two months now and this week we invited her to be baptized and she committed so at the moment four people are committed to be baptized in the next month and a half so we are exited! Wednesday we taught three investigators and one less active member and they were all really good lessons. One of the lessons was with the two kids who will be baptized on the 20th of September and they are really coming along! Thursday we had a really good District meeting with some helpful teachings from our District Leader. The end of the meeting was a little scary though because Elder  Coulson asked me to talk about being a diligent missionary for 5 to 10 minutes. I prepared all last week and it went alright. I definitely learned from studying it so overall it wasn't too bad. The rest of the day we went on exchanges and Elder Coulson went with me to Chilchinbito for the day. We did some service but unfortunately three of our appointments canceled and all we were able to do is set up appointments with people for other days so we didnt teach that day. Friday we switched back to our normal companionships and Elder coulson went back to Monument Valley while Elder Winborg and I went to Chilchinbito. The day was really good and we were able to meet with three people. One of the lessons was with a member family that we committed to give away two copies of the Book of Mormon. Their still working on it haha. Saturday we took down a shade house at a less active members home and that took two hours. Hard work but it was fun. We also had a much needed lesson with a part member family that we have not seen since Elder Winborg got here. They are done working out in Durango Colorado so they are home more. We are going to see them again later this week. Sunday was good because the whole chapel was full! more than 35 people came so it was a good turn out! All three of the investigators on baptism date showed up so that was even better! We finished the day with another three lessons and had dinner at a members home so it was a good week. Thats pretty much it so I will have to talk to you all next Monday. Talk to you then.

--Elder Petersen

I don't know what I did to deserve this area but it is Awesome and I like it a lot!

Ya'at'eeh Shima do Shizhe'e!

    This week has been GOOD! Probably my favorite part was when an Investigator (Marlana)  told us she caries the Book of Mormon around with her everywhere she goes and isn't afraid to tell people about it! She is a single mom and her and her two kids came to church Yesterday. She is scheduled to be baptized September 27th. Also two kids, Carlial (brother) and Carleas (sister), who are scheduled to be baptized on September 20th came to church as well! They are super cool and are getting their parents active through their example! We asked the members to take them to church and it was great to see their support. The whole branch welcomed them and all Three Investigators have fellowship here already! Last Monday we went to the Temple and it was Amazing! Got to see some new stuff and had the chance to talk with Elder Nicholson my trainer! He is a Zone leader in Page with my first District leader Elder Beck! Elders Beck and Nicholson lived with me in Many Farms so it was funny that they are now companions! haha Elder Winborg is doing Amazing! In just 4 weeks he is already taking charge in lessons and teaching with the spirit. I love letting him teach because he is very humble about it and he means what he says. It's also very simple teaching so it is perfect for some of these people who are new to the gospel. We keep having days where it might not say we did well on our numbers but we both agree that it was still an amazing day! So many people tell us that we come at the right time and that they were looking for what we told them and they didn't even know it! We are being led to the people who truly need us! The ward members are gung-ho about helping us now and we have been challenging the members to give a Book of Mormon to their friends and family. Five of them are currently writing their testimonies in the Book and will be giving them to those who need them this week! I don't know what I did to deserve this area but it is Awesome and I like it a lot! haha. Yesterday we spent the whole day finding the lost sheep and that was very cool. We thought of all the people that we have been neglecting to see and sure enough, all of them were home and all of them needed us! We are going to be very busy this week because almost every day is booked with appointments already! It's a good thing and at least it makes planing easier so I wont complain. =P Thank you for your letters and emails this week! Have a good 7 days and I will talk to you next Monday!

--Elder Petersen

Jared saw a tv show with Navajos eating sheep intestines so he asked Elder Petersen if he's tried it yet.... 

Elder Petersen:

Jared, yes I have tried sheep intestine here before. They call it Aachee' which is Navajo for sheep intestine. It tastes ok but probably not my favorite. Its like eating soggy bacon that tastes like old noodles. It's a little bland but the people here love it! Sounds like life is good! Keep being Awesome!

Your brother,

--Elder Petersen

Side note from me (Ruth):

So this week Sister Biser in our ward called me and said she was going on a trip and will be near the mission home and wanted to know if she could take anything down for us. I told her of course! Because I didn't have to worry about shipping weight or size I went a little crazy on the goodies and ended up with 2 small boxes of stuff. I didn't want the mission president to think I was spoiling my son (which I was!) so I searched through Josh's emails to find the name of his current companion and put his name on the boxes too. That following Saturday, we took our missionaries and another set of missionaries that used to be in our ward (Elder Hern) out to dinner and I asked the new missionary what his name was. He told me and I said, wow - that sounds really familiar!?! Do you have a missionary relative in Arizona right now? He said, I think so. So i checked Elder Petersen's mission blog to see if I could find that name and sure enough! it was the name I had written on the boxes!!! They are cousins! We took a few pictures and I was able to email them to his mom which in turn got me in touch with Josh's companion's mom! Yay!! I loved staying in touch with his first companions mom, sharing pictures and stories and I was hoping I could do the same with his current companion and now I can! :) 

From Elder Petersen:

Elder Winborg logged in to his email and pulled up this picture. I asked him why he had a picture of my dad and he said, "Why is your dad with my cousin?" haha That's freaking Cool! Tell him his cousin is the bomb.com and is leading the work out here in Airizona! Good companion :)