Dogs can fly! 🐶


Happy SeptemberEveryone!

Is it really September already?! Wow. This year is flying by!

This week was great! We saw lots of miracles, were able to go to the
Temple, and had a lot of fun!

We have been having a lot of success with he,ping less active members
coming back to the church. There is a lady in our ward who is a young
mom and wants to come back and set a good example for her kids! She is
willing to read and pray about anything and everything! She's been
coming to church and really showing a good desire to be in the church
and have her kids grow up in the church! It's been a neat experience
so far to help her come closer to Christ and regain her testimony. I
love being a missionary because I have such great joy when someone
decides to follow Christ and come unto Him.

This week we had a super cool experience. A couple of months ago Elder
Fielding and I were tracting a street (going door to door) in East
Aurora. We were walking down a street when we hesitated and felt like
we needed to wait before we went down that street. So we did. A couple
weeks ago with Elder Gardner, we found a Filipino lady on the street
that was very nice and accepted a copy of the Book of Mormon. She
didn't really seem interested in meeting with us though. This week, I
felt like we needed to go back to that street again, so we did. I felt
as if someone were ready to hear the gospel on that street who wasnt
quite ready to hear it a couple of months ago. We tracted that street
and no one was interested if they answered the door. One door we
knocked on, we heard a kid say, "grandpa! The exterminators are here!"
The grandpa eventually came and opened the door and looked at our
badges. We said, "hello!" To which he replied, "goodbye!" And slammed
the door. It was rude but kinda funny at the same time. It's funny to
see people's reaction to us sometimes. But, the very next house that
we were going to knock, the Filipino lady we met a couple weeks ago
came out! She walked up to us and started talking to us! She was happy
to see us. We had a good chat and we invited her to read the
introduction to the Book of Mormon. She accepted and said we could
come back and teach her next week! The Lord truly does direct us to
those He has prepared to hear His gospel. It's amazing to see His hand
in all of our lives each and every day. If we follow Him and the
promoting He gives us through the Spirit, we will see miracles. He
knows us each individually and loves each of us.

We drove out to Palmyra this week and attended the Temple so all the
other new missionaries and their trainers. It was great! We got to see
Elder Stokes and his trainee (his son; my grandson)! We took a
posterity pic outside the Temple. It was pretty sweet. It was great to
see Elder Stokes and how much of a stud missionary he is. He's rocking
out in Bath. He and Elder Neinstedt had a baptism last week! The work
is moving forward.

Okay now for a funny experience from this week. We were tracting
around a members' neighborhood before our dinner appointment with
them. They live in a really nice neighborhood in Orchard Park. We go
up to this one house and knock on the door. I told Elder Gardner, "you
got this one." (We switch off on who does the approach or initial
contact) We heard a bunch of dogs barking and going crazy, ready to
maul us as soon as the door opened. When the door opened, this lady
was holding back what looked like a big ole black bear by the collar
and a bunch of other dogs ran out at us. We tried to talk to the lady
but the dogs were jumping on us and barking and ....it was hard to
think. Then, the bulldog jumped up on Elder Gardners leg. Elder
Gardners first reaction was to protect himself so he kneed the dog
(more like kicked the dog) and the bulldog went flying and landed on
its back. That dog got airborne! He went from a chubby little bulldog
to Air Bud in a flash. The lady wasn't really interested and didn't
have time to talk to us. Maybe it was because her dog got got
kicked...actually, that was probably the reason. I was upset after
that because it was disrespectful to do but looking back on it now,
Elder Gardner is still brand new and wasn't expecting that at all so
he had to protect himself. At the Adjusting to Missionary Life
Meeting, President Evans asked everyone if they've had any "epic
fails" (yes he said epic fails haha he's awesome) on their mission so
far. Elder Gardner raised his hand and shared the dog experience and
everyone thought it was hilarious. President Evans will probably
remember that for the rest of his mission now haha. His first round of
new missionaries and someone is already kicking dogs haha.


This week we also took one of the young men out with us to do some
missionary work. His name is Brett Burnard. We took him with us
Tracting. He is going to be a senior his year but is already a rocking
missionary. He leads out I tracting approaches and is bold with
people. One of the first houses we knocked, a couple dogs ran out at
us and eventually started chasing one of the the crazy cat lady's (who
lives right across the street) cats. She was freaking it at the
neighbor who's dog it was and everything while we slowly walked away
haha. "Your dogs gonna be in big trouble if he gets my cat!" We walked
away awkwardly. (We talked to the guy who's dog it was already and he
said he wasnt interested) But he whole time we were tracting with
Brett, I was praying that we would be able to Have just a little bit
of success because it's hard to find sometimes tracting. We had taken
Brett out with us before and seen little success but I wanted him to
be able to pass out a copy of the Book of Mormon or something. We kept
knocking on doors and the very last house we knocked we were able to
share a copy of the Book of Mormon with them! It was such a blessing.
Brett was excited. The Lord grants us with the righteous desires of
our hearts if we but serve Him with all our heart, might, mind, and
strength!

I love being a missionary and sharing the gospel with those I come
into contact with. The gospel has brought so much light, peace, and
happiness into my life and I want to share that with everyone!

Thank you all so much for the love, support, and prayers. You have
happened me so much. I love you all and I hope you have a great week!
You are in my prayers! Talk to you soon!

Elder Preston Peters

From left to right: Elder Neinstedt (my grandson), Elder Stokes, me,
Elder Gardner

Sent from my iPad