Week 83 in the Field: Happy New Year! Let's Get to Work!

Performing "Me, My Suitcase, and a Red Chair" at the talent show.

Hey guys! 

I hope you all had a good New Years and I wish you all luck with your resolutions and what not. Things have been kinda slow once again this week but we are hoping that since the holidays are over that we will be able to go see some people now.

Alrighty then, let's start off with Monday! We once again did pretty much nothing except write people and watch church movies like "TheTestaments Of One Fold and One Shepherd."  

Here is a little information about the film, if you are not familiar with it:

The Testaments of One Fold and One Shepherd is a 67-minute film produced by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church). Testaments depicts the life of Jesus in Jerusalemwhile also depicting the events described in the Book of Mormon from approximately the same time period. The film's climax occurs after Christ's resurrection, when Jesus appears in the Americas.. This film is shown every day at the North Visitors' Center on Temple Square in Salt Lake City, Utah, and at the visitors' centers of the church's Washington D.C., Mesa Arizona, and Idaho Falls Idaho temples. You can also order the DVD at store.lds.org.  It's great.

This is kind of a boring area when it comes to stuff to do, especially when it's starting to get colder.

Elder Harrison working under the house

Tuesday was fun! We went over to the Hennessee's to work on their house. This time, we had taken up all the sub floor and were working on stopping the moisture from further damaging the house. We also had to install some insulation to protect the heater so we used Elder Harrison's skinny figure to get that done. He wasn't thrilled about it, but that's one of the perks of being skinny. We tried a bunch of people after that but didn't see anyone.

Elder Harrison working under the house

Wednesday we had district meeting and Elder McClain trained on asking inspired questions, something I've really enjoyed working on. Elder Tracy also trained on recognizing the spirit which was good, too. It's been entertaining to be the oldest missionary in the district because people will ask for my opinion, as if I know more than anyone based on more experience. Not true, but it's fun to get all kinds of questions. We tried people after that but no luck.

Thursday we were notified that someone was moving, so we packed our gear up and headed over to what we assumed would be a two hour project. What was meant to be a two hour project turned into an entire day project. The lady we were moving had been living in Nashville, which is about an hour and a half away. When she came to the house she realized after we had loaded everything into the moving van and arrived at the storage unit in Manchester, that she had forgotten her storage unit key.

So, while she drove back to Nashville some members and I went to go have lunch at a buffet. While at the buffet, one of our part member families walked in so we were able to see them and have the members we were with fellowship them! It was great and also was our first lesson of the week sadly. But anyways, back to the storage unit, she opened the unit and it was completely packed. Mind you, we have an entire large U-haul filled with all her stuff. Patiently, we piled boxes on boxes on boxes of her things until there was literally a wall. And then we went to another storage unit to finish up. That was ridiculous, but at least the members we were with were awesome. Ironically the lady's mom was from the Smith Springs Ward (my last area), so I talked to her about that some.

In the evening on Thursday we rushed home to grab the guitar and then went to the Assembly Hall to be at the talent show. I performed the song Me, My Suitcase, and a Red Chair and it went really well. I got a lot of compliments afterwards. We had to bolt right after I played it though since it was already pretty late.

Friday (New Year’s Day) was Super Pday which in missionary terms is basically a day where it's an all day Pday with certain abilities. For instance you can watch certain approved-usually unapproved-movies on this day. It only happens once a year so usually you look forward to it. For us, it was kind of boring. But we did have fun at the church. We watched the movies, Inside Out, and the first two Harry Potter movies. That was a lot of fun.

Saturday we were back at the Hennessee's knocking out old insulation and dry wall in the walls of the kitchen. I was doing great at it, so he had me take out two and a half of the walls while Harrison cleaned up. There was so much debris in the air though that we got sick, even while wearing some protective gear. So yeah, that was fun.

Sunday I hadn't gotten much sleep so I was very tired during the day. Church was kind of the usual so not much to report there. After church we went to go contact some non-member folks and got chewed out by a few of them, which was entertaining. But we at least contacted a referral, which was good. Not interested though, haha.

So yeah, kind of a slow week overall. I'm hoping things will change with the transfer. I'm still kind of sad about what happened in Smith Springs but the only thing I can really do about it is move on.

I like the members here in McMinnville though. They are great people and want to serve big time. 

Hopefully we can make things happen. Talk to you later,

Elder Peery
Email:  andrew.peery@myldsmail.net

Week 82 in the Field: Christmas Week!

 Christmas time!

So not much happened here due to Christmas, so this will be a pretty short letter.

Monday we really didn't do anything. Just kinda chilled. We later went out to go see our insomniac investigator and set up a time to go see them the next day.

Tuesday all our appointments cancelled and nothing really happened. Fun fun.

Wednesday for district meeting Hermana James trained on Chapter 10 of Preach My Gospel which focuses on mainly how to start out teaching and some other useful tips. Elder Catherall then basically trained on Christmas by having each of us bear our testimonies about Christ. It was a very spiritual meeting and I noticed for the first time that I was the oldest missionary in the room at that time which was weird. In the afternoon, we tried a bunch of people but again, no luck. At least we had the bishop take us out for dinner at the local China Wok which was fantastic. Will revisit in the future.

Santa!!

Thursday we were again unable to see anyone after trying a ton of people, but at least we were able to have a good time at the Ward Mission Leader's home. The Caten's invited us to come over and spend Christmas with their family and another family. During the party, Santa came, they did a live Nativity, and I performed my musical number again. It was a lot better than when I did it in church last Sunday.

Live Nativity (narrated by the missionaries)

On Friday we got up and opened presents. I was grateful for all who sent or are in the process of sending mail to me. It was awesome to see a lot of familiar faces. We also got to skype our parents which was cool. After that we didn't do too much until the Shoemaker's came. We had dinner with them which was fun.

Our Christmas tree. A blanket over a coat rack with lights and a squirrel on the top.

Saturday we tried a bunch of people but struck out yet again, until the evening when we finally got to see one of our investigators and see how her Christmas was. We invited her out for the New Years party, and that was about all that happened that day. It was also pouring down rain most of this week which was fun.

Spring Castle at Rock Island State Park

Sunday one of our members was giving his missionary farewell talk, but that was about all the highlights that happened then. After church we went up to Rock Island to see the Pennington's and the Hennessee's for lunch. We had a mini jam session in the basement and it was fun to shred on an electric again. After that we drove up to the State Park there since it was on the way to a member's home. There were a lot of waterfalls, so that was cool.

Today we aren't doing much again. It's kind of a boring area for Pdays, but we are hoping to go exploring next month. Should be fun. Anyways that's about all that's going on this past week. Wish you all the best and hope you all had a Merry Christmas and a have a happy new year!

Elder Peery

Little hidden gem we found while tracting

Great Falls and Dam at Rock Island State Park

Week 81 in the Field: Wishing You a Cool Merry Christmas!!!

MERRY CHRISTMAS EVERYONE!!!

 

Companionship Christmas picture from the Nativity

Alrighty then. Here's the week.

Monday we really didn't do anything honestly. Just kind of chilled at the apartment and I worked on some guitar stuff. Nothing really to report there.

Working on the member's floor

Tuesday we went over to a member's home where we worked on fixing up their house. So a few weeks ago we went there and helped out and discovered that an unusable chimney was weighing the whole thing down, so we destroyed it (Sorry Santa). That helped, but the problem wasn't totally fixed, so we ripped up the floor boards and discovered termites and ants. After fixing that, we used a jack to lift up the floor which helped dramatically to level the house which was good. That took awhile so that was mostly what we did that day.

Wednesday we biked over to the sisters to pick up the car, but unfortunately I had either eaten something funny or over worked the bike ride, but I got sick so we had to stay inside and make calls instead. Very uneventful.

Performing the WW1 Presentation at the McMinnville Rotary Club

Thursday I was up and rolling. We first went over to a meeting called the Rotary club. Still not 100% on what that is.

(Insert from Elder Peery's mom:  Rotary International is an international service organization whose stated human rights purpose is to bring together business and professional leaders in order to provide humanitarian services, encourage high ethical standards in all vocations, and to advance goodwill and peace around the world. It is a secular organization open to all people regardless of race, color, creed, religion, gender, or political preference. There are 34,282 member clubs worldwide. 1.2 million individuals called Rotarians have joined these clubs.^[1]

Rotarians usually gather weekly for breakfast, lunch, or dinner to fulfill their first guiding principle to develop friendships as an opportunity for service. "It is the duty of all Rotarians," states their Manual of Procedure[2], "outside their clubs, to be active as individuals in as many legally constituted groups and organizations as possible to promote, not only in words but through exemplary dedication, awareness of the dignity of all people and the respect of the consequent human rights of the individual." The Rotarian's primary motto is "Service Above Self"; its secondary motto is "One profits most who serves best.")

At the Rotary Club, we performed a WW1 presentation there with some other members. The presentation involved singing carols, other hymns, and the narrating of the story of the Christmas truce of WW1 where British and German soldiers played, sang, ate, prayed, and gave gifts to each other during the Christmas of 1914--basically to show that peace was possible even on a battlefield. It was very cool. We also saw a lot more of our people that day. We've been showing the new Christmas video the Church put out called A Savior is Born and it's pretty cool. It brought some of our investigators to tears, which was super cool. Here is the link so you can watch it, too: 
 https://www.mormon.org/christmas?cid=HP_SU_11-29-2015_dMIS_fSPC_xLIDyL1-A_ 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ly7c9scxB9I&feature=youtu.be
After that we had dinner at a pizza joint and went contacting some more.

Friday we had some planning and then we went off to Tullahoma. It was cool to see President and Sister Andersen again. President appreciated that I had come to terms with leaving Smith Springs (still not 100% there but close). We also talked about other stuff too. I also trained at this district meeting on working with less active's and bringing them back to church by giving them a vision. It was cool.

Saturday we were on foot and were only able to see one family but it was good. We shared the Christmas message and then left. We walked up to the Walmart so that we could rest a bit and then caught a ride back from a member.

Sunday during sacrament meeting, I played my rendition of "What Child is This?" And apparently it went over really well. I got loads and loads of compliments. So much so that people asked for my home address to write my parents saying how good it was. It was fun. During church the youth invited us to a brunch with them which was awesome, but then we found out we had lunch at a Samoan family's home. They had a bucket of fried chicken, loads of other stuff, and basically by the end, we were so stuffed that we had to suppress laughing when they said "Do you want anything else?" Lots.of.food. After that we rolled ourselves home and then went to try some people but no doors opened.

I'm excited for 2016 but definitely excited for Christmas. This is my last Christmas as a missionary, so it's bittersweet. I wish I was spending it in Nashville, but McMinnville's a good town, too. I hope you all have a good time with your friends and family. I can't wait to talk to my family this week. We will talk to you next week!

Elder Peery

Please keep in touch!  I would love to hear from you!  Here is my contact information:

Elder Andrew Peery

Tennessee Nashville Mission

1646 Sunset Road

Brentwood, TN 37027

Email: Andrew.peery@myldsmail.net

Blog:  Elderpeery.blogspot.com

The dam overflowing