Week 24 in the Field: Bishop's Storehouse, Inspiration, and Great Lessons

1. Bishop's Storehouse volunteers photo: (Missionaries in the front row left to right: Sisters West, Tagilala, Squire, Cruz, Williams, Brown, Dansie, and Penrod. Second row missionaries from left to right: Elders Owens,Peery, Nimmer, Moeller, Hohneke, and Rivera. Third row missionaries from left to right: Elders Black, Colver, Alarcon, and Womack.)

Hello!

Things have been super busy here today with a lot of interesting things happening this week in general.

So on Tuesday we had a full day at the Bishop's storehouse. The storehouse is where people who are in need of food may come to receive it free of charge.  It is staffed by volunteers from our church, including missionaries.  

We had to fill about 42 orders plus at least 30 walk-ins. The amount of orders for people we needed to fill nearly made us run out of supplies, but it was awesome to see all the volunteers working together cheerfully to help those not as fortunate. It was also the last day of working in the storehouse for Elder Moeller, Elder Alarcon, and Hermana Cruz who are all going home this transfer.

It was a great day until Bro. Wolfertz who is one of the workers at the storehouse came in and said "Who rode the black bike?" I raised my hand. "Your back tire ISN'T flat!" Then everyone laughed as Elder Moeller loaded his bike onto the zone leaders bike rack.

2. District Funeral for Elder Moeller--this is because Elder Moeller is about ready to go home. Out here in the mission field, we say that he is being "killed off." Of course, it is all in good fun! Missionaries left to right: Elder Womack, Sister Squire, Sister Tagilala, Elder Owens (above being the speaker at the funeral), Elder Peery (the murderer--because I am Elder Moeller's companion), Elder Colver, and Elder Nimmer.

On Thursday we got to see our investigator who wanted to do an entire lesson on the Book of Daniel. If you have read ALL of Daniel, not just the stories, but his prophesies, too, then you'll understand why we were kind of cringing. But we are told to read the scriptures with the Spirit so we gave that a go. It was awesome. Elder Moeller and I felt totally guided by the spirit, coming up with all these great insights into the book and our investigator was agreeing with all of it 'cause it all made sense!

Afterwards we started talking about how these prophesies show that we need to be prepared when Christ comes and that's when he started talking about how he feels he needs to be baptized properly as the Bible dictates. We were more than happy to talk with him about that and will be hopefully doing so this week with my new companion, which I will get to later on.

3. Elder Moeller signing my laundry bag--a mission tradition--to have 

all your mission companions autograph it.

On Friday Elder Moeller practically finished packing and felt exhausted. But I felt prompted we needed to try this one family one more time. This family is a part member family with the husband and mother being members and the kids nonmembers but they want to be baptized. We have tried them many times but each time they were not available. As we were walking up to the door we saw the zone leaders trying to find one of their members whom I had actually happened to meet many weeks ago and remembered where they had moved. Their family happened to live right across from ours and in a miraculous event, both doors opened to two sets of elders at the same time.

Our family had loads of pets including a snake, at least one chihuahua, two big dogs, 7 fish, two birds, and a bearded dragon. It was a mini zoo! We had a great lesson and they said they'd be at church. Even though they didn't show up on Sunday, we still have a good time for when to try again.

4. Me holding a snake that likes to constrict.

Everything else is going really well. On Sunday I received word that my next companion was going to be Elder Hansen (Hanson? Hansan? No idea yet how his name is spelled) and I have no idea who he is. All I know is that I will be the senior companion in this companionship which is an awesome new thing, since my only other companions I've "killed off" (which means I was their last companion before their mission ended and they went home). Having someone younger than me in missionary age is a good and needed change. I will get to meet him tomorrow.

I hope you all are doing well. In my Bible Challenge I have reached the Book of Revelation which is way ahead of schedule--about a month ahead to be exact, so I will be doing a relatively in-depth study of it, and will still probably finish by the end of the month. Then my goal is to read the Doctrine and Covenants (a volume of revelation given to Joseph Smith by the power of God from 1820's to 1844 including other revelations to some other modern day prophets as well) before the end of the year, which is pretty doable.

6 months down!  It’s going by fast—only 18 months to go!

Elder Peery

5. Getting stuck behind a tractor!

6. It snowed about half an inch this morning--just enough to make people annoyed, 

because it still meant they had to go to work.

Week 23 in the Field: Doberman, Music, and Go-Karts

1. With Cara, a large 2-year-old Doberman who was very friendly

Okey-dokey, so this week was a roller coaster of fun and interesting times.

On Tuesday I went on exchange with Elder Colver who is the district leader's companion. We taught a couple lessons but then had to head back to the apartment to wait for a guy who was going to give us an estimate on the mission car we drive. While it was with the other set of Elders, some lady while talking on her cell phone backed into it creating a massive dent. The total cost of the damage was approximately $1000.

Before we met up with the estimator guy though, one of Elder Colver's investigators on Facebook reported that she was going through a crisis. We sort of had to book it to get back to the problem. Since I don't have a Facebook for missionary work, I kind of just sat there awkwardly as he dealt with the situation.

On Wednesday we had our zone meeting, which is when all the missionaries in the stake meet and receive trainings from the zone leaders. One of the announcements made was in order for someone to meet the requirements of Facebook, they must teach 20 people consecutively for two weeks--for me that really hurt and irritated me.

The zone leaders had set it at 15 prior to this and I was able to achieve it once by teaching 16 lessons last week which was really good for the area we are in. But as I looked back at the records, the last time anyone taught 20 lessons was way before we even got to Hendersonville.

On top of that later that day we were blasted by the number of other lessons we had per week. Other lessons are essentially lessons without a member present. It was almost like they were saying "Are you even doing anything there?!" With the stress of the world, mission, and area I broke down in the pouring rain in sheer frustration. 

Elder Moeller did his best to calm me down and cheer me up but I was pretty shaken till later that night when we received an apology as well as a notification that the zone leaders would be going on exchange with us.

On Friday I went on exchange with Elder Cullum and we went to an elderly care facility called Wings. We were not prepared at all. All we had was an address and a very brief summary of what the sisters did while they were there. We met 7-9 elderly folk who were eagerly excited to hear from us although we had no clue what to do. Elder Cullum and I agreed that we would sing. So with our iPads as the background music we sang "I am a Child of God", "A Child's Prayer", and "Love one Another" all of which are from the Children's Songbook.

I bore my testimony on faith and prayer and then after the 30 minutes we were there, we left. It was a truly humbling and interesting experience. After tracting for 4 hours without any success afterwards, Elder Cullum finally said he understood that we were trying hard out here which was exactly what I wanted him to see.

On Saturday and Sunday we had our stake conference and on Sunday I sang in a missionary choir the EFY Medley (which is As Sisters in Zion combined with We'll Bring The World His Truth combined). It was a very spiritual experience and loads of people cried as we sang. It was sweet. Later that night we went over to a member's house and had homemade fried chicken. It was incredibly delicious. While there he had me play his Les Paul electric guitar which was incredibly beautiful and I also got to mess around with his 2 year old Doberman named Cara. Super adorable big dog.

2. Elder Moeller with Cara, the Doberman

Today we went over to Opryland where a member worked at a go-kart and mini-golf place. We got in for very low prices and it was loads of fun.

3. At the starting gate at the go-kart track in Opryland

 I ended up beating everyone in the go-kart race and only wrecked once into Elder Hohneke. He was trying to turn and I may have...accidentally... spun him out and then once reset, took the lead and kept it. To be fair I lapped him again so that counts.

4. Wrecking into Elder Hohneke

At mini golf we had a lot of fun and I didn't do too bad in that either. It was all in all a fun day.

5.  At the mini golf course.

I am now reading in 1st Timothy in my Bible Challenge and am set to finish long before Christmas. Meanwhile Elder Moeller is preparing for his sfinal 8 days as a missionary. Hopefully after this transfer I won't have to deal with too many more companions that are going home. And hopefully, we will have a better week!

We are expecting miracles and we hope you are as well.  Thank you for your prayers and continued support. I appreciate you all so much.

Elder Peery

A few more pictures below:

6. Passing Elder Cullum on the racetrack

7. Passing Elder Womack and later the rest of them

8. BYU buses at Opryland?

Week 22 in the Field: Better Work and Piano for Primary

1. Gallatin and Gallatin Spanish districts combined photo. 

(Third row left to right: Elder Black, Sister Tagilala, Elder Womack, Elder Moeller, Elder Hohneke, Elder Cullum, and Elder Colver with his apple carving. 

Second row left to right: Sister Squire, Elder Peery with a pumpkin carving of the Angel Moroni, Hermana Cruz, Hermana Dansie with a pumpkin carving of CTR or Choose The Right, Sister Williams, Sister Brown with their Tree of Life pumpkin. 

Front row from left to right: Elder Alarcon, Sister West with her fake pumpkin, and Sister Penrod.)

This week was a lot of fun. We actually really improved and knocked in 16 lessons which was a new record in the area for about three months. A lot of it was just people being home and actually finding new people to teach. It really boosted our confidence. Another thing that is really good to report is that the members are getting even more excited with missionary work with several less actives coming back to church. Some hadn't even been for almost 20 years! It was a great sight to see.

A few days before Halloween we had a district meeting where we were supposed to bring our carved pumpkins. Unfortunately Elder Moeller's chipmunk had dried out and looked pretty terrible. Mine wasn't too bad since I didn't make too many cuts. Out of my entire district I was the only one who brought a good pumpkin. Elder Colver carved an apple which while impressive, didn't count. In the other district only the sisters and hermanas brought pumpkins. One set carved the entire tree of life scene which was really cool.

We had a great lesson with our major investigator who is into the study of the scriptures vs the actual performance of what the scriptures say. After several big discussions, we've finally deduced that he does not believe the restoration of the gospel is happening and that we are still in a state of apostasy. He has really gotten sucked in to the book of Daniel, which while study is important, you should honestly try to be living what the teachings say as well. A member we brought over with us encouraged us to have one whole lesson on the book of Daniel and then we will be moving on. I'm bracing for it because Daniel has some pretty complex stuff.

On Halloween we had a fun experience over at a member's house. She made an entire Halloween themed dinner by eating a head (meat loaf with bacon), fried skin and pus (chips and guacamole), skin grafts (chicken quesadillas), and fingers and toes (meat and cheese combined with French fries and tater tots. Afterwards, President asked for all missionaries to be in for the night by 6 p.m.. Apparently we can't go trick or treating as missionaries. Ha!

Other than that not much else happened this week. Shortly around Halloween I came down with a really bad cold. I couldn't sleep for several days and when you're a missionary, that's a really rough lifestyle. I feel that I am near the end of it but who knows. Tomorrow I'm going on exchange which is always interesting. And in my Bible challenge (reading the Bible cover to cover before Christmas) I am in1st Corinthians and should finish the whole thing by the end of November.

This past Sunday, I played the piano during the third hour of primary. It was pretty humbling since I barely remembered the songs. One song the kids are learning is Called to Serve which is basically the missionary anthem. The chorister is amazing cause she is having the kids start to be missionary minded by thinking about the meaning of the songs. It's always cute to see all their hands shoot up when asked "Who wants to be a missionary when they grow up?" I stumbled along and for not playing the piano too much, it wasn't too bad. At least I didn't have to play crazy hymns like True to the Faith.

Anywho, hope all of ya'll are doing well.  Thank you for your emails and letters.  I really appreciate it.

Have a great week—

Elder Peery

Here are some photos from the week:

2. View of Hendersonville from one of the highest points in the area.

 3. Super value sized container of Cocoa Pebbles which is one of my favorite cereals.

4. Elder Moeller outside on the deck.