Week 65 in the Field!

Hi everyone! This week was busy!

Monday we mostly hung around the church since we couldn't drive anywhere for Pday. So yeah that was kind of boring a little. After striking out in trying to contact people, we went over to the church building, where they were having a YSA activity. We joined them and shared a spiritual thought later on.

Tuesday we were notified that one of the members was staining their deck for a party on Saturday. The deck was huge and had a lot of little lattice pieces. So we went over to help. The deck was loads bigger than was expected. So we decided to help them out a lot this week. After a few hours of doing that we tried to see some people but struck out. This was kind of a theme for the week sadly.

Staining the deck

Wednesday I asked Elder Nalder to train on listening which was okay, except for the use of an air horn during a bit in his training. That wasn't so good. One of the zone leaders was there on exchanges so that was fun. I trained on developing a vision for members and used the vision of the South that was created by President Spencer W. Kimball (12^th Church President) – quoted by Elder Vaughn J. Featherstone (a member of the Seventy). One of his prophecies was that there would be a million members of the Church in the Southern states. Totaling most of the southern states today, (everything east of the Mississippi River and south of Virginia), I found out there are almost 750,000 members in the south which is cool.

With Elder Bedwell and Elder Porter

After district meeting we resumed help staining. After that I believe we went on a split without any success contacting people. We were able to pass out a family history discovery day pamphlet though.

Serving At The Well

Thursday we had a semi-busy day at The Well. There were a few more people here this week, but it was still a little relaxing. We then resumed work on the deck-staining project. I should note that after we did the staining, we got to talk to the member's father who was from Nicaragua (Central America), and I got to show off some of my guitar abilities on his guitar. Also got to practice some of my Spanish. After that we went to a place I felt prompted to go and contacted a recently widowed lady who talked with us for a few hours or so. She was really kind and was still going through some stuff but we shared a positive message with her. She said it made her whole night. It was awesome.

Friday we went over early to help with the deck-staining, because it still wasn't done, and the party was Saturday evening. We worked on this giant tower thingy for the most part which was cool. We then went to help some people set up for the family history discovery day. After that we resumed work on the staining project and didn't stop till the evening. Finally, we had used up all the stain buckets and had almost finished everything.

Saturday morning we went over to the Family History Discovery Day, where we had a lot of cool things happen. We actually had many non-members show up and participate. To my knowledge everyone had a good time. I found out I have a lot more ancestors than I realized thanks to the help of the grandparents on my dad's side of the family. (Thanks so much, Oma and Opa.) I hope to find out more information about them someday soon.

Saturday night Elder's Quorum Fiesta with former Herndon Ward friends!

After that, we did some planning and then went over to the fiesta at the place we were working on staining. Even though it had rained, everything was fine. I had fun at the party and was surprised when they had me play the guitar at the party. I didn't really want to cause I don't like playing for large groups of people anymore unless I'm with someone else. But it was okay. We then went with the TS1 WML (Thompson’s Station 1^st Ward Mission Leader)  to go help this family move. They had been trying to do the whole thing by themselves and were overjoyed to see us. We then went and helped the father pack some other things into the truck in Franklin and then rode down with him. By the time we finished it was about 11:30pm.

Sunday was kind of the usual, except during TS2 Ward's sacrament meeting. Two guys were giving their missionary farewell talks and, ironically, finished fifteen minutes early. I kinda laughed a little bit at the scenario and then put my head in my hands ‘cause I was super tired from the move. It was at that point the 2nd Counselor got up and said, "We'd like to have Elder Peery come up and bear his testimony." Yeah. That kinda shocked me. I walked up and kinda used that moment to finish my farewell talk that I had rushed. I talked for about 5-7 minutes and then the bishop closed off the meeting. After dinner we went to go see some people and then ended the night.

It was a very long week but lots of fun. 

I'd like to congratulate my step-brother, Daniel, on getting married to Barbara, an awesome lady from Brazil. It'll be fun to see you guys again in less than 9 months. I'm excited.

We find out transfer info this week so that'll be fun. 

Thanks for all your prayers and support.
Until next week,

Elder Peery