The Word of Wisdom is for Champs!

Hey Everyone!

The Lord blessed us so much this week! It is so great realizing the
ways He blesses us on a daily basis. He is with us every step of the
way! He loves us and wants the very best for us.

This week was good. I started off by going on exchanges with the zone
leaders. Elder Ahola from Finland came to Orchard Park (he served her
before me) and we did some work down here. In the meanwhile, Elder
Gardner went up to Lancaster with Elder Leifson. While Elder Ahola was
here, we taught the Filipino lady named Abby that I talked about last
week in my weekly email. We were able to teach her and her husband! We
taught about Joseph Smith and how he was a prophet of God, called to
restore the fullness of the Gospel of Jesus Christ to the earth. They
were interested! We read Moroni 10: 3-5 with them. This is a reference
from the Book of Mormon. Moroni (who was the last prophet to write in
the Book of Mormon before they were buried to later be translated by
Joseph Smith) promises that if we read and pray with real intent and a
sincere heart, then the Holy Ghost with manifest the truth of all
things unto us. When we read that, we challenged them to read and pray
with sincere hearts. They both were willing to do so! They seemed
sincere and even desirous to do so! It was so cold. The Spirit was so
strong there as we bore testimony to them. It was great. Exchanges
with Elder Ahola were great. I learned so much from him.

Yesterday, we got the transfer email yesterday and Elder Gardner and I
are staying together in Orchard Park! That means I will be here for 6
months just like Batavia! So cool! Oh! And we are getting two more
missionaries in our district! One of which was just released from
being an assistant to the Mission President! Oh and another thing.
Elder Marks, Elder Olson, and I will all be training. So we will have
three greenies in our district! Haha fun! It's gonna be great!

We have been working lot with the members here trying to involve them
in missionary work as much as possible. They are doing well. I feel
like they all have a desire to be involved but sometimes may not know
just how to do so or lack the courage to do so. So, our job is to help
them feel more comfortable in sharing the Gospel with their friends
and family. We have been applying Elder M. Russell Ballard's promise
that he gave in a general conference a while ago. And that promise is
that if the full-time missionaries kneel in prayer and ask for our
fear to be replaced wi faith when it comes to missionary work, then
more missionary opportunities and miracles will occur on both sides of
the situation. We've seen great things come from it. We've received
referrals and members are a lot more missionary-minded! All this has
made me think. Was I as involved in missionary work as much as I could
have been back home? Or was I scared? Or nervous? Or did I not know
how to reach out? Was I scared that I might ruin friendships? All
these thoughts and doubts about sharing the Gospel come from the
adversary. He doesn't want us to share the Gospel and the Light that
accompanies it. But I know that as we all reach out to our fellow
children of God, that we will be blessed and we will share the Light
that we love so much with the world. The Lord said, "Ye are the light
of the world. A city that is set on an hill cannot be hid. Neither do
men light a candle, and put it under a bushel, but on a candlestick;
and it giveth light unto all that are in the house. Let your light so
shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your
Father which is in heaven." Let us all press forward and seek out
those who are ready to hear the Gospel. The Lord is preparing people
to bring each and every day. There are people in your lives NOW that
are ready to hear the Gospel of can at least benefit from its message.
My invitation to all of you is to kneel In prayer and earnestly ask
our Heavenly Father who we can help. I wanna hear how it goes with
you! Shoot me an email when you try this out. I wanna hear the
miracles that come from this! Whether it be by service, by our
examples, by love, by our testimonies. It is my testimony that there
are people who need the Gospel and are looking for it. We just have to
show them where it is!

His week we were teaching a less active lady who has recently been
coming back to activity in the church. We have been teaching her he
missionary lessons and she is loving it! She really has a great desire
to com back and to regain her testimony! It's great to see. This week
we were talking about the Plan of Salvation. She and her brother love
Pokemon so I used a Pokemon analogy in the lesson about how we gain
EXP (experience) here in life to help us grow and to eventually become
the Charizard that God knows we can become. They kinda paused and
looked at me. Then said, "that's awesome. I love the nerdiness
relating it to Pokemon!" Pretty proud moment right there haha. Oh! And
I also made a LEGO analogy with this kid who is preparing to be
baptized. I quoted Helaman 5:12 and built a structure with the LEGOs
he was playing with. I told him that the foundation which the building
was built upon was Christ and that when we build upon Christ, we
cannot fall. We had some fun teaching this week.

We had a fun experience yesterday. We had a little time before a meal
appointment with a family in the ward. So, we went street contacting
in Orchard Park. It was about time for us to head out to our meal
appointment when we were walking past a bar. There was a patio there
where people were watching football and drinking alcohol. A guy said
to us, "keep the faith!" They then called us over to the fence by
their table. They weren't all the way there, but they praised us for
doing what we are doing at such a young age. They then said that they
had a bunch of questions about Jesus and everything. It was great. We
were able to bear testimony. This guy didn't want us to go. He kept
telling us to come closer and keep teaching him. He would listen
really well to us as we bore testimony. He invited us to come to his
house tonight to talk about Jesus and to answer some of his questions.
It was so cool! But it was weird at the same time because who knows if
it was him talking or the alcohol. But we shall see tonight! Haha. He
kept telling us to come In and he would buy us some soda. That
probably wasn't the best idea. Just picture it, two missionaries
chilling In a bar. Yeah. That's like an oxymoron. Before we left, he
said, "you guys come here. I'm gonna give you a big ole hug!" So he
came up to the fence and gave us a big hug over the fence. The whole
bar was filled with some really happy cheering haha.

Anyways, thanks for all you do to strengthen me each and every day!
Your prayers are felt even as I am walking down the street talking to
people! I love you all and am praying for you each and every day! I
hope all is well back home. I love you all! Have a great week! I will
talk to you soon!

Much Love
Elder Peters

Oh and p.s. I was asked yesterday at our dinner appointment, "So Elder
Peters, do you have a football scholarship?" I sadly said no. These
push-ups must be paying off! Haha


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