The reason it was a long week is because nothing interesting happened. By that I mean that there weren't any conferences, we didn't go to TLC (I can't sneak in anymore 
), and no interesting meetings. Besides Sacrament Meeting, I suppose.
), and no interesting meetings. Besides Sacrament Meeting, I suppose. On Friday we had district council and one of the big things we talked about was getting members to lessons and having them extend invitations. We tried, that's all I'm gonna say. We tried. We will keep trying. But the idea is great. We missionaries switch out a lot, so it's good to get our friends introduced to members so they can know people other than us. There's a lot of people that lose interest once "their missionaries" are no longer in the area. Which kind of makes sense, honestly.
OH!! So I lied, there was something interesting that happened. I don't know how I forgot about the Ward Christmas Party. It was Friday night. There was a lot of food and then a long list of performers, from the ward. Nothing professional. We had to go up several times. We practiced a skit this past week as well as some songs. The skit was absolutely cheesy, so I'm glad all I had to do in it was sing. The other songs we sang were super fun. Since our ward is technically split with a spanish ward they were all there as well. We sang Silent night in spanish and another song I can't remember. It was actually really fun and we did pretty good. I always get shoved into the bass section, so I'm getting a little better at it. Hopefully I'm good enough at singing now that my sisters won't laugh at me anymore...
We've been having some great teaching, I'm just going to talk about Joseph. We have taught him the first 3 lessons and he came to church yesterday! It's great, except I don't think he's actually absorbing anything. I'm starting to fear that he's not grasping the importance of our message. He has been reading the Book of Mormon, and like I said, he came to church. But I don't think it's really sinking into his soul. Time will tell though. You want to know what didn't help? Yesterday we went to sunday school with him AND IT WAS A DISASTER!!! We chose the wrong class to join. They kept going on tangents about irrelevant information and the focus came off of Christ several times (Elder Gale and I had to remind them what it's all about several times). I think my least favorite part of that whole adventure is when someone pointed out Joseph and said "Who are you? Are you a new member or an investigator?" Two things, if there is someone new at church don't put them on the spot, it's awkward. Second, DON'T CALL PEOPLE INVESTIGATORS!! We are not supposed to do that, it makes them seem more like a number than a person interested in the church. This is why missionaries (should) refer to people we are teaching as friends. Because that's the goal, we want to get to know them and help them out.
I'm pretty sure it just went right over his head, but still. That's a weird and annoying thing to do.
This past week I read the book of Revelation and it was awesome! There's so much good stuff in there. I particulary liked chapter 12, the one that talks about the war in heaven. It helped me realize something. Every person who has, does, or ever will live chose this plan. We fought for the Plan of Salvation. It's a good thing to remember that even the difficult people in our lives once stood with us and we all fought together. It was a nice wake up call for me, because I get frustrated with people really easily. It's also given me a lot of motivation to work harder because I need to help these people! They can't remember that fight and why they're here. I'm grateful I get the opportunity to help my brothers and sisters remember what we fought for and what we should still be fighting for. Satan is working very hard to keep us all separated and even convinces some of us to fight against each other (or against ourselves). Let's remember that we all fought togther before coming here and let's do our best to continue fighting together. Christ is our captain and if we follow Him, we cannot fail.
NEXT WEEK IS CHRISTMAS!!! I'll probably write an email then. Have a good week. Sorry for the lack of photos.
-Elder Peterson
This is all I've got, sorry 
