Oct 2,2011

Bonjour Tout le Monde!

September ended, you can all wake up now ;) It is so weird that it is October already! On the 14th, I will hit my one year mark in France! Crazy! I

Dad I did receive both envelopes of photos! Thank you so much for thinking about me! It is nice to get photos in the mail, and I enjoy your little note :) Maybe you could make that little note a bit bigger though? ha ha You look great papa, you and momma look so good!!!! I haven't actually had the opportunity to watch the Priesthood session of conference yet, so I have know idea what you are talking about, but I love President Monson's personality too. The Saturday morning session made me laugh when he said, "Hello! Who should I call on to replace me?" ha ha

Speaking of Conference! Unfortunately, we didn't get to watch it in English like planned. We didn't run if from satellite at our church, we just hooked up the internet to a Giant TV that our Branch President bought. He is LOADED by the way. He bought a laptop and a brand new TV just for the General Conference (because we don't have the satellite hook up in Gap). Well to run two computers with internet didn't work to well, so we had to settle for the French version. It wasn't bad, I understood most of it, but Elder Workman wasn't too thrilled. Good thing it comes out in the Liahona ha ha.. P.S. in France the Ensign is called the Liahona. 

I loved all of the sessions I saw! I got to watched Saturday Morning through Sunday Morning. I followed President Utchdorf's counsel in the Liahona by preparing for the Conference. I asked some very specific questions, prayed fervently,  and was so thrilled to receive the answers! I have never really done that before.... It makes me wonder why I didn't ask questions before!!!! I have learned how much more I appreciate the counsel we receive at General Conference while being on my mission! I study the ensign from April all the time!

I had questions like: How can I become a better husband and father now? Sister Dalton answered that one ;)  How can I improve my Gospel Study? There were so many talks that answered this question! My favorite was probably Elder Richard G. Scott and his testimony about memorizing scriptures. SO TRUE!!! How can I best preach the Gospel? Elder L Tom Perry answered that one like a champ!!! And I also asked, What Christ like attributes do I want now, and in the future? I had listed Patience already because I have little ha ha, and Charity was added on after Elder Scott's talk. 

I also loved Elder Bednar's talk about "The spirit of Elijah". I have had a lot of questions about my Patriarchal Blessing, and I feel his talk was just for me!

Aside from the great General Conference, this last week was good! It wasn't a super good week for contacting, but our success isn't always measured by how many numbers we have ;) I'll start off with telling you that I bought some new shoes :) Mine were about dead. I put a lot of miles on those bad boys. I probably will throw them on every once and a while so that I can really consider them dead one day ha ha. My new pair are almost like the old, but a French brand. They are comfy, and that is the most important! I actually bought one pair, and they were TERRIBLE! I thought my feet were going to fall off after one day. Gratefully, the store let me exchange them :) The Lord takes care of His missionaries and their feet ha ha ;)

Oh yeah I didn't tell you, we were in the newspaper here in Gap too :) I'll send you a photo sometime!

Elder Workman had a really neat experience this last week. I'd say it was more of a MIRACLE! 

It all started on Saturday morning, on our way to Sisteron (a city that is an hour from Gap) to do work there. We are tired of working in Gap ha ha, spreading our wings a bit! Anyways, on the bus, we ended up sitting in front of a Jehovah's witness from Ireland. We had a great talk with him, and when we transferred onto the train, he invited us to sit by him again. He was really nice, and sincere. He asked a lot of deep doctrine questions though.... I hate that. I tried to just tell him what we teach people, but where it was in English, I got into some deep doctrine about the Millennium ha ha.

 I swear, all that the Jehovah's witnesses want to talk about is: the name of God (they think it is Jehovah), if the kingdom of God will be on earth, and what we think of the political crisis in these last days. In other words, they focus on all the things that aren't very important in other words. I'm a bit tired of talking with them, because they always read Revelations 22:18-19 and tell us the bible is all they need. It's ironic though, because they don't follow the counsel of John themselves. There are many scriptures that they have taken away from their version of the Bible. For example, they don't have Matt 17:21, or 18:11. They are just missing, (ex. 17: 19, 20, 22) Anyways, enough about my ranting ha ha. This guy, Jared, was really nice and receptive. We taught him that the Holy Ghost is indeed a personage of Spirit. He was touched.

But that wasn't the miracle! It happened after lunch in Sisteron. We had planned to go do some door to door outside the center villa, but I had a feeling we should do a little bit in center ville. We picked a small descending alley and took it. We found a door that was open and walked in. We tired the very top first, no one there. We tried the second door down, and a very drugged up man answered the door. The fumes were reeking from his apartment, and I asked him about it. It was then that he got a "deer in the headlights" look and started swaying back and forth in his door way. His legs were weak, and he didn't look good. I was scared. I felt something bad was happening. We urged him to go into his apartment to lie down and we would go get help, but he didn't respond. He turned around as if to follow our counsel, and then as I had pictured earlier in my head, he fell like a dead fish backwards into my arms! He lost all consciousness from what I could tell, and I just laid him on the floor.. I think he was having a seizure. I laid him down and looked into his eyes and saw just an empty void of darkness.... I thought he was dead. I am not very calm in these situations and was freaking out a bit. I told Elder Workman to go get help, but Elder Workman didn't know where to go, it was very dark in the stair well. It wasn't only a few more seconds and the man said "I'm fine' and slowly brought himself to stand, entered his apartment and locked the door... It was a very bizarre, and eerie experience. 

We thought we better find him some help still, so we knocked on the door on the floor below. What are the odds, the man is a Paramedic/ EMT guy. We checked on the man, but the man said it was rare, and he doesn't really know what happened. After checking on the man, he then invited us in to his apartment to drink some tea (don't worry it is approved tea) I was very very shaken by what happened and was reluctant to do so, but he insisted. It was then we become his friend, taught him the Restoration, and invited him to read the Book of Mormon. We will see him again on Wednesday.......The Lord works in mysterious ways eh???

Well I have no more time! I know this work is the Lord's, and  He will direct us to those who need the Gospel!!! I am a witness that it is true, I cannot deny it! I love you all and I can't wait to talk to you again!

Elder Petersen

P.S. not sure if the photos will work this time, sorry!