Yo yo yo!

Hey everyone! Hope you all had a great week. My week was good!

The weather here has been super humid lately. We were Tracting the
other day and I went to grab a Mormon.orgout of my shirt pocket. I
pulled it out and went to put it into the door when I noticed that it
was soaked! We've been super sweaty here because of the humidity haha.

On Saturday, we gave Tristan a church tour! He is pretty excited to
get baptized. We taught the Word of Wisdom to him and he said that he
already lives it! It was a bummer she he didn't show up on Sunday. He
just needs to come to church for Sacrament meeting and keep meeting
with us and he should be ready! He's awesome.

The first Bills preseason game happened the other day. There were some
streets that were shut down because of it haha. So cool how close we
are to the stadium. It's a great conversation starter, "is that the
Bills game?" One day we were doing some Tracting and a guy came out
before we could get to the door and said, "no thanks. Bills game on."
That's all he said before he shut the door. Too bad they lost.

The work is going well here in Orchard Park! Things are starting to
pick up and we are working hard to continue to find and teach more
people. I love being a missionary. It's the hardest thing I have ever
done but it is also the most rewarding.

I love you all! Thank you for everything! You are the best. Have a great week!

Tofa Soifua
Elder Peters


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He's the Gardner here!🌳🌱🌲

Hey You Guys!

How goes it? I hope all is well with you!

This week was great! On Tuesday, Elder Fielding and I drove up to the
Amherst building (Buffalo Stake Center) and met up with the other
missionaries that were being transferred. Elder Fielding met up with
his new companion Elder Fauga and we headed up to Lewiston. It was sad
seeing him go but I know he will do great things up there in Lewiston.
I, along with some other missionaries, hopped in what we like to call
the Millenium Falcon (it's the big silver mission van) and drove out
to Rochester with the assistants to the president. When we got to
Rochester, the meeting where I would meet my new companion wasn't till
the next day so we made arrangements where I would stay with Rochester
Spanish for the day and then ride out with the other trainers in the
Rochester area to our meeting the next day. I got to be with Elders
Broadhead and Vizcaino! They are way fun! I came into the mission
field with Elder Broadhead so that was fun.

When we got to the meeting, President Evans announced the
companionships and who would be training who and I was assigned to
train Elder Gardner! He's super cool! He's a baller too! He's from
Kaysville, Utah and was ready to work!

Once we got back to OP and got situated, we hit the streets and
started talking to people! He is rockin. It's been great.

On Thursday, we took a young man from the ward named Clayton with us
to visit some potentials and tract a little bit. At first, we were all
bummed out that no one was answering. If people do answer hear, it's
usually, "oh I'm Catholic. We're all set here!" (Side note: We
actually ran in to a Catholic lady the other day and when we told her
where we were from, she said, "I was baptized Catholic, I was married
Catholic, and I'm gonna die a Catholic!" Everyone is Catholic here!)
But, we kept pushing forward. Soon enough, we knocked on a guys house
and he said he was interested! We gave him a copy of the Book of
Mormon and said we would come back to see what he thought about it.
When we were walking away, Clayton looked at us and said, "that was my
principal!" Haha. The next door we knocked, a guy answered and we had
a good talk. He told us that he served a mission for his church in New
Zealand! Then he asked what we thought about the Trinity. I told him
that we believe in God the Father and in His Son Jesus Christ and in
the Holy Ghost. Three separate beings that are one in purpose. We were
bracing ourselves to be bashed because that happens a lot here but it
didn't happen! He just nodded his head and said okay. We asked if we
could come back soon and teach him and he said we could! This
experience was just what we needed. We were not seeing much success
but we didn't give up. Then, the Lord blessed us to be able to come
into contact with these people. It was great! And to have Clayton
there with us. What a blessing!

This week was great! Elder Gardner is adapting really well in the
mission field! He is a fast learner! It's been great working with him.
We are going to continue to work hard and we are going to exercise our
faith that we can see miracles happen here in this part of the Lords
vineyard!

I love you all! I'm praying for you. Hope you have a great week! Talk
to you soon

Elder Peters

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I'm a Grandpa!!!!❤️


Hey You Guys!

How are you doing? I hope you're doing well! You're in my prayers!

Okay so to explain the title, in our mission when someone trains a new
missionary we like to think of it like a father and son relationship.
So, when Elder Rushton (shoutout to him for finishing his honorable
full-time mission! Hoes going home!) trained me, I was his "son". Then
I trained Elder Stokes and he became my "son" and Elder Rushton's
grandson. Does that make sense? Haha. Anyways, I was given the
assignment this week to train a new missionary this upcoming transfer.
I don't know what his name will be, but I will tomorrow! But, Elder
Stokes will also be training! So that makes me a grandpa! Haha fun
times.

This week was great! We saw many miracles. Our district has really
been pushing to get some new investigators and we have recently been
seeing "the fruits" of our labors. As a district, we have 5 people
with a baptismal date!!! The Zone Leaders were blown away when I was
reporting our numbers last night. The Lord truly has blessed our
efforts! We can't don't this work without Him!

One miracle we saw this week was when we taught Tristan. Last time we
met, we left 2 Nephi 32 with him. So, we talked about that chapter
with him this time and how it is super important to pray to know the
truth. When we do so, we can gain a spiritual witness of the truth of
all things through the Holy Ghost. He seemed to understand that. We
then read in the precious chapter (2 Nephi 31) and talked about the
importance of following the Savior. The Savior's invitation to all of
us is' "Come, Follow Me". Chapter 31 of Nephi tells us, "if the Lamb
of God, he being holy, should have need of being baptized by water, to
fulfill all righteousness, O then, how much more need have we, being
unholy, to be baptized, yea, every water!" Our job here on earth is to
follow the Savior's example and to "prepare to meet God" (Alma 34:32).
When we taught Tristan this, we felt prompted to ask him if he were to
find these things to be true if he would be baptized (he said he would
before). He said yes. We then invited him to prepare to be baptized on
September 3rd. He said that he would try but we testified to him that
if he does the things we leave him and if he prays with a sincere
heart, he will be able to know for himself that the things we've told
him are true. We promised him. He then committed to be baptized on
that date! I am so excited for him! We are going to keep working with
him!

I am excited for my new companion to come but I am also sad to see
Elder a fielding go. He is going to Lewiston with Elder Fauga! Elder
Fauga is the only other Samoan missionary in this mission haha. It's
cool that Elder Fielding gets to serve with both of us in a row haha.
But it's cool cuz Elder Fauga is from Salt Lake City and Uncle Sam was
his bishop before he left on his mission! Haha it's a small world!

Anyways, I hope all is well! Things are going well here all due to
your love, support and prayers. Thank you al, so much for all you do!
I will talk to you soon!

Elder Peters

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Treasuring up the Word 💰💸💶

Hey You Guys!

How goes it? This week was weird. We started out in a trio with Elder
Marks and ended with having a service missionary Elder Toone come and
be Elder Marks' temporary companion. It was a good week though.

This week I started studying the Doctrine and Covenants. When I told
President Evans that I was studying from the D&C, he showed me where I
can find a bunch of background information on each section. I am
loving learning about church history and the sacrifices so many early
members of the church made so that we could have this wonderful gospel
today.

While we were Tracting this week, we found a lady named Shannon.
Shannon lives in Boston (Boston, New York). She was standing outside
her house when we started talking to her. We bore testimony to her of
the Book of Mormon and she told us that she has been starting to look
into religion. She gladly accepted a free copy and thanked us for
stopping by. The Lord truly does know each and every one of His
children and what they are looking for.

Another cool experience we had this week happened on Thursday after
dinner. We had planned to go to East Aurora to do some finding. Elder
Fielding was hesitant on going there but I felt like we needed to. So,
we jumped in car and drove there. When we got there, we prayed to know
where to go. As we were praying, I saw a picture of a place we needed
to go. So once we closed the prayer, we got out of the car and I told
Elder Fielding, "Follow me." So he did. After a little bit, he said,
"where are we going?" I replied, "I don't know." We went to the place
I saw in my head and lo and behold, there was a big concert-function
thingy going on! Lots of people were there and we went and bought a
hot dog and talked to people there. We were able to talk to a really
nice lady from Lancaster who has been to church at the Lancaster
building before! We gave her a Book of Mormon and she was very
thankful. We got to talk to so many people! It was great. There was a
group of women that talked to us about our missions. We bore testimony
and taught about the Book of Mormon. It was a miracle!

Anyways, this week was a week of miracles! I love being here and
serving. Isss de besssst.

Scripture of the Week: Doctrine and Covenants 11:21 "Seek not to
declare my word, but first seek to obtain my word, and then shall your
tongue be loosed; then, if you desire, you shall have my Spirit and my
word, yea, the power of God unto the convincing of men." As we study
and we treasure up the word of God, He will bless and He will help us
help those around us to learn of Him through our example and
testimony.  📚

I love you guys! Hope you have a great week! Talk to you soon!

Elder Peters


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Hey You Guys!

How goes it? Things are going well here. Elder Fielding and I have a
new companion Elder Marks! He is in our district. His companion Elder
Daugs finished his mission this week and his parents came and picked
him up and went to the Hill Cummorah Pageant! Super cool. So Elder
Marks is with us now and we are covering two areas until the end of
the transfer (around August 1st). It's been interesting being in a
tri-panionship (that's what i like to call it). I haven't been on a
trio since the MTC! (8 almost 9 months ago!)  Shoutout to Elder Matos
and Elder Brown (serving in the Seattle Mission). But it's good. We
have and will continue to spread the gospel and help others where we
can. That's our job! We do that by inviting others to come unto
Christ.

We had some awesome experiences this week. On Wednesday, we were doing
some service at a park in West Seneca called Burchfield Nature Park.
It is such a nice park. The lady that volunteers there was telling us
what she needed us to do when she told us to look and see how many
people are walking around with their phones. I didn't think much of it
until she pointed out what they were doing. She said they were playing
a new game called Pokemon Go! It was unreal how many people were
walking around totally oblivious to their surroundings. I caught this
guy off guard by asking if he was playing Pokemon Go. He looked up at
me startled and then jumped right in to what he was doing, "yeah dude.
I just caught a Pikachu! There's another one around here somewhere." I
had to try not to laugh haha. But anyways, that's not the experience I
wanted to talk about. As we were leaving the park, we were going to go
get some lunch. I saw a guy walking through the parking lot. Being a
missionary, I waved at him and I got the warmest/happiest wave back.
Before we left the parking lot, I told Elder Fielding to turn around.
We had to talk to that guy. Elder Fielding didn't even see the guy but
he turned around. I hopped out of the car once we parked and I took
off down the trail that I saw this guy go down. He only had one arm
and was struggling to put something in his pocket. I said, "excuse me
sir" he turned around and happy as can be, he said, "hey! How are
you?" His name was Melvin. We talked to him for a little while and he
told us that he is a long time choir member of his church. He has
recently been through a lot of health problems. But the coolest thing
he told us was, "today i told myself that I was going to go walk in
the park and talk with the Lord. And look. You guys came along! I'm so
happy that we are getting to talk right now!" He was one of the
happiest men I have ever met! He told us that he would love it if we
would stop by and talk. Such a cool experience. He is awesome. Here
I'll attach a picture of him to the end of this email.

This week one of the people we met on the street one time pulled over
next to where we were walking. She rolled her window down and asked
for our help with Orchard Park Historical Society Yard Sale. We
offered our help to her earlier when we had run in to her on the
sidewalk. So she was asking us for help now. Helping the Historical
Society was so fun. We got to meet all the legends of Orchard Park.
They loved us. The all were pretty old so they didn't feel comfortable
calling us Elders. It was weird hearing my first name so much haha.
But they were so grateful for our help.

This week I finished the Book of Mormon twice! I finished the two
different readings that I had going on. It was sweet. I love it. The
Book of Mormon is so true. There is too much good, light, and
knowledge in it to be false. "When you feel good, you feel God." Word
to Sister Fisher and Sister Argyle (best seminary teachers ever). The
Book of Mormon is good. The Book of Mormon is of God. If you haven't
had the chance to read it yet, I would encourage you with all my heart
to read it. It will only help you in the challenges that life throws
at you.

I love you guys! I'm praying for you! I hope you all have a great
week! Thanks for everything that have done for me! I will talk to you
next week!

Elder Peters

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Melvin

Hey Everyone!

How goes it? This week was awesome! The Fourth of July was awesome. We
got to see some sweet fireworks in Orchard Park.

This week we got to meet our new mission president. President Evans is
from Middleton?, Idaho (Boise area I think). He and his family are
super cool! I'm excited to serve with him here in the mission field.

On Saturday we went to the Hill Cummorah Pageant with a less-active
member named Sister Plummer! We went to the Sacred Grove before! (The
Sacred Grove is where Our Heavenly Father and His Son Jesus Christ
appeared to Joseph Smith and answered his prayer.) She really had a
good time there.

Then, we went to the Hill Cummorah Pageant. Now keep in mind, this
thing is no small production. It has around 800 cast members and
seating for 9,000 everyday there is a show! So there are lots of
people there. I got to see a lot of people that I hadn't seen in a
while like Elder Stokes, George Schmidt, a few other people from
Batavia, and even a family that Elder Rushton and I found in Batavia!
It was so awesome. I would definitely recommend checking it out in the
future! The special effects are something else. Such a cool show.

Anyways, my week was good. We taught a guy named Dave Newman a couple
times and he is really trying to feel the Holy Ghost in his life. We
kept giving him things to do to where he can feel the Holy Ghost, but
he would make up excuses the next time we meet as to why he couldn't
do it. So, this week, I asked him if he would just pray everyday and
establish that connection with our Heavenly Father. He said that that
was something he could do! We bore testimony on it and the Spirit was
really there. He kinda lost it cuz he's kind of a gabber. He is a bee
keeper and if you get him talking about his bees, he won't stop haha.

This week Elder Daugs is finishing his mission and his parents are
coming to pick him up on the last day of Pageant! Since it's the
middle of the transfer, his companion Elder Marks will be joining me
and Elder Fielding in a trio for the next 3 weeks. But it'll be cool.

But yeah! That was my week! We are seeing lots of miracles everyday! I
hope you all had a great week. Thanks for all the love and support. I
love you all and hope to talk to you soon.

Elder Peters

P.s. Shoutout to Justin Shanklin! He returned with honor this week!
Good work man! Love you! #ReturnWithHonor

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Talofa Lava!

Hey You guys! Happy 4th of July! Hope you all have a great one! Be
safe while you celebrate with all those fire works!

We got a new mission president this week! It's sad to see President
Francis go home, but at the same time, I am so excited to meet and get
to work with President Evans. He is from Idaho and has left behind his
job, uprooted his family from school and everything to come serve full
time for 3 years! Lots of sacrifice but sometimes that's what the Lord
asks of us.

This week was great. We saw a lot of miracles in our district. Lots of
people are interested in learning about the gospel. And we are anxious
and ready to teach them! This week I also got to go on two exchanges.
Exchanges are where missionary leaders switch companions with other
missionaries to do some training and help them wherever they need it.
So, I first went on exchanges with Elder Marks (one of the
missionaries in my district). That was good. I was able to talk to him
about some things that he needed help with. Then, I went on exchanges
with the zone leaders. Elder Ahola (from Finland) went with my
companion Elder Fielding in our area. I went to the zone leaders' area
which is Lancaster with...*drumroll please*...ELDER RUSHTON!!! It was
great being with him again. For those of you who don't remember him,
he was my first companion here in the mission field! Super sweet. We
had a great time together and he gave me some good advice. We taught a
lady who had a baptismal date but had dropped them. We finally got to
meet with her after a long time of her not wanting to talk to
missionaries. We took a recent convert who turns out to be friends
with her! The lesson was great! We talked with her about where she is
at in the conversion process and things like how her relationship is
with our Heavenly Father. It was great having Greg (the recent
convert) there with us. She really listened to him because she knows
him and where he has been in his life. Now, he holds the Aaronic
Priesthood and holds the office of a Priest. She was shocked when he
said he was a Priest. She said, "REALLY?!?!" To which he replied, "I
know right? That's what I said!" He is so funny. We had a great lesson
with her and she said she would like to start meeting with us again!
Well...not "us"...but Elder Rushton and Elder Ahola. But still! She's
got lots of potential.

The weather was perfect this week. Although it has been starting to
warm up lately, it's been a pretty nice week as far as weather goes.

The work has been moving along nicely. We have been finding more and
more people to teach and help them along the journey of conversion.
While I was on exchanges with Elder Marks this week, we taught a guy
named Robert "Frenchy" Segool. He is a Vietnam veteran and was very
impressed that we go around knocking on doors at our age. He said that
if he were at our age, he would be chasin girls haha. But we taught
him about the Restoration. He came to church yesterday! He is so
awesome. It was fast and testimony meeting and all 4 of us
missionaries got up and bore our testimonies. During the meeting,
Robert leaned over to Elder Marks and asked him, "how do I join your
church?" He has real intent! I am so excited for him.

The Hill Cummorah Pageant is coming up this weekend and next week. It
is a huge outdoor production that seats 9,000 people every night!
Basically what it is is a play about different stories in the Book of
Mormon. I have only hear good things about it. We are going to take
some investigators and a less active member there. I'm so excited!

Anyways, that's what's going on over here...hope all is well where you
are. Thanks for everything you do! I love you all so much! Have a good
holiday and a great week!

Tofa Soifua!

Elder Peters

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