Peter's Ponderings

Hi Sister Shadel, "...Your Elder has been serving has been serving in North Carolina for a while now and we absolutely love him. He is such a hard worker. Thank you for sharing him with us. I thought you would enjoy hearing his testimony. He spoke in Sacrament Meeting today and did a great job! I hope you have a good Sunday!"

And it came to pass in the final week of the sixth transfer... Exchange with Elder Ord!  It started out great! Monday night we got a text from our zone leaders saying that President Stevens was felt inspired that Tammy's baptismal date should be moved from the 14th to the 7th (this last Sunday)! She is incredible and so prepared for baptism! She had another break in on Tuesday that caused chaos and she missed her baptismal interview that was supposed to be Wednesday night. Fortunately we were able to reschedule and it happened Thursday night. Unfortunately, chaos continued and she wasn't home Friday or Saturday and she didn't answer the phone. At some point on Saturday we got a voicemail from Tammy saying that she was staying with her aunt and to call her back. We had been calling for the last 2 days every 30-60 minutes because her phone is super buggy but when it's working she answers. Still no contact on Sunday so her baptism did not happen. Still no contact as of tod...

  And it came to pass in the fifth week of the sixth transfer... Our friend Tammy is so elect! She has a super strong testimony of Joseph Smith and the Book of Mormon. She is "giddy" and wants to be baptized so much! She is also already sharing the gospel and telling everyone about the Book of Mormon. She is going through so much and she is determined to not let it stop her. Every time she visits she tells us she knows it is Satan because every time she tries to come closer to God bad things happen and she isn't going to let it stop her this time! Mike and Sandy unfortunately have decided to postpone their baptisms indefinitely. I'm really sad about it. I had an exchange with Elder LaRose. He gave me a haircut! It was a good much needed exchange. He forgot his stuff so we had to drive back down and back up so we didn't get back until after 10pm. Then he forgot to get the SIM card back from Elder Freeman when we exchanged back so we drove back down and back up agai...

May 25, 2026 And it came to pass in the commencement of the fourth week of the sixth transfer I was sick. Not too much happened because I was sick. Our friend Tammy came to church and accepted a baptismal date! She also came to Nerissa's baptism! We put Nerissa on date about 3 weeks ago and found out she is YSA so we passed her off to the YSA. She got baptized which is so cool! And I was able to go to it! Lots of things happened that I won't say here because I don't want to start rumors in my mission but some crazy things happened. Nothing affected me thankfully. I love you and God loves you! And this ended the fourth week of the sixth transfer  Nerissa Tammy

May 18, 2026 And it came to pass in the third week of the sixth transfer... I finally finished coordinating Mike and Sandy's baptism then later that same night we found out the date had to get pushed back. They are now out of town. They will be baptized soon after they get back but right now the exact day is still up in the air. Arlene accepted a baptismal date! She's been taught by missionaries in and off for 3 years. She's come to church more in the last 2 months than in the rest of those 3 years!! She's still a little unsettled but we'll work it all out and she should be baptized this Saturday. Several people came to church which was awesome! We had interviews with President and Sister Stevens. This was our last interviews with them, they go home next transfer. Anyways, during the interview President Stevens brought up the momentum of the area and I mentioned that it feels like it lost momentum. He told me that the area is doing great and I am doing great and tha...

 May 11, 2026 And it came to pass in the second week of the sixth transfer... I had another exchange with Elder Brooks! I got to go to the YSA. It was interesting. Also the YSA covers the whole stake and we were in Lake Wheeler for most of the day and we were invited to a house. Elder LaRose and Elder Freeman (our companions) happened to knock into us!! It was crazy! They were so confused when we answered the door. Mike and Sandy are preparing for baptism!! They were sick for 2 weeks so we couldn't meet with or teach them. After church Mike's comment on Elder 's Quorum was "it gives me the strength to stop smoking" and we hadn't taught the word of wisdom so I was super worried because I wasn't sure if he'd be able to go cold turkey and quit smoking. We went to their house last night and Mike gave up cigarettes! This morning President Stevens gave the green light for their baptism. They'll be baptized on Saturday! They are so awesome and have ama...

 May 4, 2026 And if came to pass in the commencement of the sixth transfer we had a double baptism! A double baptism is then two people get baptized, but this double baptism was a little different. Tamarcus got baptized twice. He didn't go under all the way the first time. We also put Nerissa on date for baptism! She is so cool and we were a miracle for her and she was honestly a miracle for me in ways that shall not be shared here. Unfortunately she is YSA so we had to pass her off to the missionaries over the YSA. I had an exchange with Elder Beasley! He's really cool. I also realized last week I forgot to mention I had an exchange with Elder Brooks! I love Elder Brooks so much. I'm excited to go on another exchange with him later this week. Oh yeah! Transfers happened. I'm still with Elder Freeman in Lake Wheeler so nothing changed for me yet. The stake split is supposed to happen in 2 weeks. Elder Brooks is going to be one of the ZLs opening the stake and chanc...

 April 29, 2026 And it came to pass in the sixth week of the fifth transfer Alexander Young was baptized!! On Wednesday we had an exchange just for the day so Elder LaRose could do baptismal interviews for Sky and Alex. They both went well, unfortunately Sky was not able to be baptized last Sunday. He has a super strong testimony and did well in his interview and there are no worthiness issues or anything. Everything was looking really good but on Saturday night something came up but for personal reasons I will not share he won't be able to be baptized for a few weeks. He also had some other opposition in addition to everything else. His car broke down and when he went back for it the next day he couldn't find the street it broke down on. Fortunately he did find his car the next day. Unfortunately it was later towed and a lot of other unfortunate bad things have happened to him. He still has a strong desire to be baptized and I am excited for it to happen eventually! Alex was ...

 April 20, 2026 And it came to pass in the fifth week of the fifth transfer my companionship changed and chaos ensued Disclaimer: this is marathon week so my next email will not be until Wednesday the 29th. One of our zone leaders got sick and had to go home early. Elder Brooks was called to take his spot. Our Saturday morning was very rough because we had to get everything packed and meet up with the other missionaries. Now it is just Elder Freeman and I. Friday night was awesome! It was our last night together and a member generously gave us some cash so we went to a buffet called Carolina BBQ and got shirts there too! We stayed up pretty late talking and packing. Overall it was stressful, but good. Saturday hit and everything starting going wrong. We didn't have a trio so Elder Brooks could do contacts while driving like usual so right off the bat it felt like we weren't as effective and then people starting canceling for church. One of which was our most progressing frie...

And it came to pass in the fourth week of the fifth transfer the work hastened even more!! Media Referrals (people who filled out an ad to meet with us): We stopped by a media referral late at night with a member. Robert, the media referral answered his door with a gun then saw us and said "oh it's the LDS missionaries! Come in come in." The member was pretty concerned but we weren't too phased and we walked in. The member asked "is that a gun!?" to which Robert said "yeah let me put this away before it goes off accidentally." He is super cool! Apparently he came to church 2 weeks ago without us knowing and he's pretty interested in learning more and he came to church again yesterday! Alex filled out a media referral as well. He was on date when I first got here but he was too busy so we stopped teaching him because he couldn't set up a time and he couldn't come but we reached out after his request on Monday and he set up a time with us...

 A nd it came to pass in the third week of the fifth transfer... I don't really want to write out too much and honestly there isn't much to write anyway. There were a lot of events but none of them were super eventful. ~ AP exchange with Elder Fonger (my zone leader last transfer) ~ I got to drive the AP's minivan ~ We had a zone temple trip! I got transferred into a zone that didn't have one yet so I got 2 transfers in a row! ~ We had interviews with President. They didn't go too well. He thought I was doing something I wasn't. ~ I love general conference! We got to watch every session with a member and we had lunch and dinner with members all weekend! ~ I broke my glasses but I went to a place and got them fixed My biggest general conference takeaways! ~ Minister to the one / no one sits alone ~ We are all children of God! He loves and ministers to us individually! ~ Celestial marriage is necessary! I can't think about that one yet though  I love y'all...

 And it came to pass the second week of the fifth transfer the work hastened in Lake Wheeler! Narrowing down the people we are teaching to only the elect was epic! I don't think I've ever talked about numbers before because they aren't the most important thing but it emphasizes how effective this has been! Typically this area had 20-30 new people each week. We dropped it to 12 however we got 10 people to sacrament! Last transfer the most was 4. We got 30 Lessons with members participating! Last transfers high was 17. And we have 5 people on date for baptism!! This area is super elect and as we have focused on finding the elect instead of just anyone God truly has led us to those prepared to take action and come to church and accept the restored Gospel and it has been incredible! God is so good! I had an exchange with Elder Hardman. It was fun but not very Eventful. We had zone conference and after zone conference a member took us out to a really fancy restaurant. It was so ...

  And it came to pass the commencement of the fifth transfer was indescribable  We now have permission to go to the temple once a transfer. Because temples are closed on Monday we can move our Pday one time to go to the temple that day. I'll try to warn y'all before that happens if possible, but if there's no Monday email that's why. Transfer news! I am in a trio in Lake Wheeler, which is in the South Raleigh Stake! It is considered one of the most elect areas in the mission. I've heard it called "The Promised Land" Apartment: it's my first one bed one bath apartment and it's for a trio. It's also the smallest apartment I've had. We have a bunk bed as well. It was also filled with random junk from previous Elders. I've spent over 3 hours organizing stuff that people might actually want one day and throwing away anything that's broken, useless or gross. Overall the apartment isn't actually too bad now, even if it is small. Compan...

  And it came to pass that the fifth week of the fourth transfer was full of lots of random things  I went to Mount Olive with Elder Bergstrom and it was awesome! I love him so much it was such a great exchange! We have a lot in common in the way we approach missionary work and how we teach. We also went to a Pentecostal funeral for the mom of one of their friends on date. It was good. Different than what I'm used to and it made me miss country music. We also put 3 more people on date for baptism!!! On Sunday we had an amazing ward conference! Our bishopric and elders quorum got reorganized. The bishop is still the same. The best part was that Woody, one of our friends we're teaching, came! And the ward was so awesome and welcoming! He was very touched and felt the spirit for sure!  Other random things: * A guy we talked to said he's good at chess and that he'd beat me. Elder Howell let me set up to come back on Pday so I'm going to be playing against him later toda...