Letter from March 23

Well, hope you guys are having fun in Vegas! Everything is good here. This past week was interesting. We all knew that there would be some changes here in Tena. Of the six missionaries that were here, two finished their misison and two we sent to other sectors. Elder Neagle and I remained here in Tena, Our companions will be getting here a little later. My new companion is American, woo woo. I have only had one before. I like having latino comapnions but sometimes it's nice to be able to talk to someone about things we both are familiar with. I think he's got 6 months in the mission. It should be fun, and Elder Neagles companion is from Peru. So, there wont be any more missionaries here, only four now. That should be an interesting change. The truth is that six was a lot of missionaries. There is not enough members for six missionaries. Tena is small. I am very excited for this change. We have a few people who can get baptized. And we have been able to reactivate a few people.  

This week I was reading in, The Teachings of Presidents of the Church, Joseph Smith. It's a good book. Something I have noticed lately and that I have read often, in a lot of different places is that if in this life we cannot live a celestial law, in the next life we won't be able to support a celestial glory. A very intersting piece of scripture. I was also studying in, Jesus the Christ this week. It was talking about the parable of the seed growing secretly. I believe it is found in Mark 4:26-29. The interpretation given and as I understood it, is that a planted seed will grow or not depending on its own potential. The farmer doesn't know how. He can weed the garden and protect the plant, but in the end it depends on the plant whether it grows or not. And that growth comes little by little first the blade, then the ear, then the fruits. The farmers job is to protect the plant and when the plant brings forth fruits, if it brings forth fruits, it is to be harvested, but not beforehand. It does no good to harvest fruit if there is no fruit to harvest. I found many relations between this parable and missionary work. Our job as missionaries is to invite, and teach. Spiritual growth depends mostly on the individuals and their own desires. When they finally bring forth fruits meet for repentance and have the desire to take upon themselves the name of Christ, we may baptize them, but not beforehand. President Hinckley talked a lot about that in a talk called "Find the Lambs, Feed the Sheep". 

Recently, we haven't seen a lot of results of the work we did at the hospital or with the busses. We got up this week again in the buses. It's kind of exciting to do that. We just stand at the front of the bus and talk to everyone. In other parts of the mission they just joke about doing that, but here we do it. The purpose really is that the people here in Tena know the church and the missionaries. 

 

Love,

Elder Peterson