Elder Peterson Week 64

  On Thanksgiving morning we went to this big thanksgiving service event where free meals were being handed out to people who need them. We went and the spanish sisters in the area showed up after a couple minutes too (Sister Williams is actually from Nyssa, so some of y'all might know her). We pulled apart turkeys for the first bit, and then we were loading to-go trays for people who couldn't come in person. Then we were helping people get their food in the cafeteria. It was a ton of fun and I got to meet a lot of interesting Louisiana natives . One sweet old lady gave me a little pilgrim pin for helping her get her food. Turns out she made it too. There's a picture of me wearing it down below. 

      It was a super fun thing to participate in. We were supposed to do more service at a soup kitchen the next day, but they didn't need our help...

     We also helped Brother Courville chop some wood. He had a tractor doing the hard work, so we pretty much just stood there and loaded it. Still fun though. He also took us to lunch after.

     On Wednesday we met with Daniel. We stood outside his garage and shared with him the Restoration. He listened very intently and made good comments. After we finished we invited him to read Moroni 10 and pray about it. He told us that he is catholic and a lot of what we shared goes against what he is taught. "But" he said, "I'm willing to try. Either my faith in the Catholic church will strengthen by finding out you're wrong, or I'll be converted and find greater truth." 

     We were amazed by this humility and told him that's exactly what we wanted to hear. We prayed with him and then went our way (after sharing our testimonies of course). It was such a great time, we hope he is as sincere as he seems.

     For Thanksgiving we went to the Aucoins' (pronounced oakwins). They had super good food, but I was amazed at the absence of mashed potatoes! I didn't notice that there wasn't any until later, but this was my first EVER Thanksgiving where I didn't have mashed potatoes. Sad. But the meal was still amazing, Brother Aucoin made some of the best brisket I've ever had, which almost made up for no potatoes.

     The rest of the day was kinda lame because we didn't want to bother anyone that was their family, so we just tried contacting people we thought might be lonely. With little success.

 I'm at IHOP and I'm hungry, so that's all I've got for now. Plus this list of things I'm grateful for:

-Jesus Christ and the Atonement

-My family

-My friends

-The people I get to meet

-The time I get to serve God

-Mashed Potatoes

-The Prophets and scriptures

-A safe place to stay

-Modern Technology (but not the annoying parts)

-My education

-The challenges that strengthen me

-Mashed Potaoes

-My knowledge of the Gospel

-The Gospel

-The Plan of Salvation

-Temples

-Basketball

-Other fun sports

-Dirtbikes

-MASHED POTATOES

-And many other things

Have a great week!

-Elder Peterson