Week 75 in the Field: Country Music Hall of Fame, Hard Rock Cafe, and Lots of Teaching!

Elder Ihler and I playing music with Brother Mortensen.

Loads of stuff happened this week.

The outside of the Country Music Hall of Fame it's cool how it resembles

a piano and from above it resembles a bass clef.

So Monday we went with Providencia elders to the Country Music Hall of Fame. Now I'm not a huge fan of country music, but I respect it as a music genre. It's also been growing on me. The coolest thing was that it wasn't about all the musicians, it was kind of like the story of country music and how certain artists adapted, altered, and changed it to where it is today.

Elvis Presley's "solid gold" Cadillac

In front of some of the Hall of Records. I'm standing next to one

of my favorites, Johnny Cash's "Folsom Prison Blues at Folsom Prison" on my left.

It started out focusing on the roots of country and showed some old time artists from the early 1900's and referenced some older ones, too, and it went all the way up to modern country with people like Luke Bryan, Jason Aldean, and actually had a lot of Taylor Swift in there. It was awesome. There were several exhibits that were only temporary there. One of them was highlighting the record studio where rock was essentially born with musicians such as Elvis, Jerry Lee Lewis, and Johnny Cash making it big there. Another one was highlighting a collaboration of Bob Dylan and Johnny Cash, which was cool.  There was also a Luke Bryan section. We had a lot of fun all over the place.

Luke Bryan's first guitar

Taylor Swift's guitar and computer that she used to write/make music videos

Watching the other elders record music.

In the evening we went with a member back to downtown and went to the Hard Rock Cafe. This one didn't have as many things as the one in New York or Chicago, but it was still pretty cool. We went and explored some places downtown which was also fun.

Nashville at night (on the roof of the Hard Rock Cafe) with Elder Ihler and Brother Sanchez

Tuesday we spent a lot of time cleaning and walking. In the evening we went out with the elders quorum president Bro. Drake and went to see a few people. We saw a part member family where the husband is still thinking about joining, we saw a member with PTSD from his tours in Iraq, and we also saw Melvin and invited him to church again.

Wednesday after district meeting, we had correlation with the new ward mission leader, Bro. Naylor. We went out teaching with him and contacted a lady who's been looking for a church. She later sadly texted that she wasn't interested after she read the pamphlet we left with them. We then proceeded to tract the whole street but no success.

In the evening we went with Bro. Naylor to go see a ton of people. We saw Ashley and told her she can be baptized soon, a less-active who is trying to get to the temple, a less-active couple who offered to feed us Saturday, and Melvin again to follow up on some things.

Thursday we tried to contact a bunch of people but struck out a couple times. We got to meet an elderly member who is in a nursing home. She was really happy to see us as was her neighbor. She was grateful for us praying with her. In the evening we went to a Book of Mormon study class at the church that the sisters normally teach. We ended up taking over for a bit. We were reading Alma 17 and Alma 21. I liked those chapters cause it's entirely focused on missionary work and conversion. The missionary in those chapters has two goals "that I may win the hearts of these my fellow-servants," and "that I may lead them to believe in my words." It's a pretty epic chapter. We also had dinner with David that night, too.

Friday we made a quick stop over to Bro. Mortensen's to fix his guitar. I now have about 6-7 songs that are decent for recording possibly. I will try to get that going to finish it before Christmas (if everything works out okay). Elder Ihler doesn't exactly have the vocal range Elder Leavitt had, so most of it will be Bro. Mortensen and I recording unless we get someone else. We are stoked though. After weekly planning we didn't really have anything else going on that day.

Saturday we went to a baptism. An 8 year old was getting baptized, and she was one of the most spiritual kids I've ever met. She had everyone in tears when she sang her testimony. It was awesome. Her grandparents from both sides came and one of them was the twin sister of Sister Rosemary M. Wixom, the Primary general president of the Church. I got to talk with her and told her about the DC South area a bit where Sister Wixom served as the mission president's wife.

Later on we had lunch with David and then went to go help out the elderly member who had the flea problem. We were hesitant at first, but it was good to see that most of the problem was gone... For now...

We hoisted a couch up to the top floor and also moved an entertainment system into the bottom floor. After that we went tracting in the area and had a good time all around. In the evening a member dropped off Subway which was good stuff. We didn't do too much after that.

Sunday we were happily surprised when Melvin came with us to church. From what I could tell he enjoyed it. I ended up teaching Gospel Principles again which was a blast this time. We had a lot more participation, because I split people up into groups and they had group discussions on the topics I gave them. The lesson was focused on why prayer matters. It was cool to hear different opinions. We also had some good questions as well.

After church we went and tried Ashley since they hadn't come to church. We set a soft date with her to be baptized on the 21st, which just so happens to be my 18 month mark. It'll be awesome if it all works out. It just depends on the husband's worthiness to be able to baptize her, and if they can make it to church this Sunday. After that we had dinner with the Alcantar's and then went with David to visit a Pentecostal church.

There are two kinds of Pentecostals I've observed--the chill and the crazy. This church was a decently chill church. The prayers were interesting cause it wasn't just one person praying. While one person was speaking, everyone was saying something different like "Thank you, Jesus", "Hallelujah!", or just "Praise Him!" And it was hard to make out what was being prayed for. But it was pretty cool. Everyone was very friendly and we didn't get yelled at or asked to remove our name tags. So that's awesome.

Today we have plans to hang out with President Andersen again which is exciting!  After that I'm not sure. I'm excited to be in the holiday season. Next year I'll be home for a lot of these holidays. Time is going fast.  Well, I'll talk to you guys later.

Elder Peery

Panorama of the Hall of Fame area

Johnny Cash's plaque

More of the Hall of Records

New and Improved with photos! Week 74 in the Field!

 Practicing for the new album

Lots to cover, not too much time.

So Monday we went over to the YMCA in Brentwood area and played racquetball and wallyball with President Andersen and the AP's. It was really competitive, so it was a lot of fun. After that we went over to the mission home, a place I hadn't been since I came to the mission, and had dinner with all of them and Providencia elders. After that, President came on exchange with us. The first place we tried was Ashley, a really awesome lady who's married to a returning member. She wants to be baptized, so it was cool taking President over.

After that, we went to the church to participate in giving David the Melchizedek Priesthood with the stake president and the new ward mission leader. After that we saw one more person, Melvin, and committed him to come to church. President had a great experience and appreciated our efforts. It was cool getting to know him a bit more, too.

Tuesday we got a call from an elderly member wanting us to clean his car. It was really nasty. I did most of the seat cleaning and it was just really gross. I won't let you know the details. After we did that, he wanted us to download gospel library and the LDS music app onto his iPad. Turns out that he hadn't created an iTunes account, so we had to go through a very annoying and long process of creating that, forgetting his password, resetting the password, verifying the account, downloading the apps, and finally setting everything up. Took about an hour. Meanwhile, Elder Ihler was getting attacked by fleas, as was I. We had to bomb our apartment when we got back. We were kind of frustrated.

Elder Ihler, Elder Sheffield, and Elder Nielsen

Wednesday I trained on the Book of Mormon and used Jenga blocks as a visual of how the Book of Mormon holds the entire church together. If the Book of Mormon isn't true, it's the same thing as taking an entire level away from the tower which naturally causes it to collapse. It was cool. The zone leaders and the AP's were present as well which was interesting. After district meeting, we tried to contact a ton of people but didn't have much luck.

Thursday we got a call from Tim Gates (member of the band Due West and Nashville Tribute Band) asking us to help him move a member from the projects to the same elderly member's home. Thus began a very big undertaking. Bro. Gates picked us up and we went off to the east Nashville projects which was kinda scary. Lot of crazy people. The guy we were moving hadn't even started packing, so the majority of the move was a "trash or take" style. It was cool to hang out with Tim Gates, but most of the place was nasty. A few hours later, we rolled into the elderly member's home and began unloading. Sure enough, we got fleas again. Tim was grateful for the help and we were grateful to be out of there.

Timmy and the talking deer

In the evening we went over to see Timmy, which he was excited about. He showed us his talking and singing deer head which was funny.  Here is a video that will introduce you to them.  You may have to cut and past the link, but it's worth it! 
https://www.mormon.org/timg

Friday after weekly planning we went to contact a bunch of people. Didn't have too much success until the evening. Our new ward mission leader, Bro. Naylor, came out with us in the evening, and he helped us teach a ton of people. It was awesome. One of them, Melvin, again agreed to come to church, as did the other two people we went to see that night. We also got haircuts at a member's home, which was cool.

Saturday morning, Bro. Inscho and Bro. Kessel took us out for breakfast at a really awesome gas station-looking eating place thing. During breakfast, they asked us if we had any service this week which we laughed about... And then we remembered we were supposed to help move someone that day. Hurrying home, we were able to get a lift where we moved a member family around the corner. Took several hours, but it was pretty fun nonetheless. In the evening we had dinner with one of the members in the bishopric which was fun. Sis. Hansen, one of the sister missionaries in the ward, was also there because she was sick and her companion was on splits with a member. She's still kind of new, but it was cool getting to know her a bit more. The sister missionaries work my old area on the other side of the 24, so I try to give them as many names as I can of people I taught.

For Halloween we had a pretty boring experience. We had to be in our apartment by 6 p.m..  Didn't even carve pumpkins this year. All we did was sat inside after six and watched Mr. Kruger's Christmas and The Mountain of the Lord. Both of which are fantastic movies. Ihler hadn't seen either, so that was a cool experience. One member was kind enough to give us two small buckets of candy but that was about as much as we got. (My mom sent us Mrs. Fields Halloween cookies).  It was cool.

Sunday Elder Ihler bore his testimony during sacrament meeting. I taught gospel principles, which was entertaining. Although there were about 20-30 people there, only like 5 of them gave insights to what I was talking about. Rough crowd for sure. After church, we went contacting a bunch of people. One of the guys we met with had this really crazy experience where he was saved by a spiritual being from a drunk driving accident. I also had a good discussion with an atheist who was big into science proving truth. His main argument for not believing in God was because the Bible has so many contradictions and mistranslations and also the element of faith being so overreaching. 

He was surprised when he found out that our church believes that many parts of the bible had been mistranslated and that we had a record to back up many truths found in the bible to show which parts were true, and which ones were not. He wasn't interested in learning more, sadly, but it was still cool to kind of plant that thought of the possibility of there being a true religion on the earth.

Today we plan to head on down to the Country Music Hall of Fame. I'm soooo stoked. Even though I'm not huge into country (it's growing on me), I do appreciate music and the history of it in general, so this will be a cool experience. Later on we plan to head down again to the Hard Rock Café, which will also be awesome. I've been working on the guitar more -- thanks to Brother Mortensen, and should be recording a new album sometime soon. However, we need to get one of the strings fixed first. It will be sad not having Elder Leavitt here singing with me, but I guess my voice will have to do.

Talk to you guys next week!

Elder Peery

I’d love to hear from you.  Please write to me:

Email: Andrew.peery@myldsmail.net

Blog:  Elderpeery.blogspot.com

Mailing Address:

Elder Andrew Peery

Tennessee Nashville Mission

1646 Sunset Road, Brentwood, TN 37027

Week 73 in the Field: Back to the Future? NO! Back to Smith Springs!!!

 Tracting with my new companion, Elder Ihler!

Loads of stuff happened this week.

So Monday we all got packed and headed to the church for three hours of dodge ball (until one kid got hit in the face) and eventually basketball. It was the last time we'd all be together,  so it was kind of sad. In the evening we had dinner with the Shirk's (the family that took us to the Carter House and Carnton Plantation). It was sad to say goodbye to them ‘cause they were a really awesome family in that ward.

Pday crew

Later on we said goodbye to the Krewson's (family from Herndon Ward) which was also sad. To top it all off, we had to say goodbye to the growing YSA group.

Saying goodbye to the Krewson's

Tuesday morning we were picked up by Riley Bria, who is a semi famous guy who went on American Idol, and he took us to transfers. He is still thinking about a mission so it was a good experience for him. It was sad seeing all the departing missionaries go. My former companion Elder Steed also went home this transfer.

Elder Steed's parting advice

For his parting advice he got up there, waited about 40-50 seconds in silence before saying, "Embrace the awkward silence." And then walked off. It was funny, but sad cause that would be one of the last jokes I would hear for a good while from him.

Departing missionaries

What broke the sadness was what was going on for transfers. I watched as they announced the different missionaries going to the different zones/stake. Each stake passed by and only Nashville and Paducah were left. So I figured "I'm probably not going back to Nashville, but it would be nice." Sure enough, they announced that I'd be serving with Elder Ihler in.... SMITH SPRINGS A!!! I was going back to my first area!! I could not sit still for the remainder of the meeting. I was so stoked to head back after so long away. I couldn't believe it. It was so cool!

New companion, Elder Ihler!  He is from Malad, Idaho.

Elder Ihler has been out for about three months, so I'm his second companion or "greenie buster". The second companion usually is the make it or break it moment for a greenie, so this is an awesome responsibility.

We got back to our place thanks to a member named David who was supposed to get the Melchizedek priesthood on Sunday. After unpacking a bit, we hit the road and started tracting. We then had dinner at a member’s home and got to go to their neighbor's. That family is so missionary-minded it's awesome. After that we did some shopping and went home.

Wednesday for district meeting I got to meet everyone in the district. Elder Sheffield (the former AP) is the district leader and he has two companions: Elder Nielsen (he's been out as long as I have, but is a Spanish missionary) and Elder Sargent (who has been out for about three months as well but is still training). The only other missionaries are the Hermanas: Hooker and Levitre. It's a pretty solid district altogether.

After district meeting, we went to go try this lady named Saron. She didn't understand the purpose or even what was the Book of Mormon, so we explained it. Not only did she accept it, but she committed herself to read the entire chapter of 1^st Nephi in the Book of Mormon.

Dinner with the Elson's

In the evening, we had dinner with the Elsons. David Elson was my recent convert who was baptized on August 9th, 2014. So it was awesome to get to see them. In the evening we went over to the church to use the bathroom, and I ran into Bro. Mortensen (the nice guy who recorded an album last year for my trainer, Elder Leavitt and me). He told me he wanted to work on a version of I Stand All Amazed with me on backup so I told him I was down. We also ran into Bro. Clark who was happy to see me.

Thursday we taught a ton of people. Like loads. We went tracting for a few hours and were able to find like 5 new investigators and teach like 8 people. Elder Ihler is pretty diligent, but he's also smart and works inspired. He wants to improve and work hard. It's awesome. We even got a new investigator, just by chasing down a cat! In the evening, we had dinner with David and he told us how happy he was to have us here for Thanksgiving. He's planning on making something big.

Absolutely crazy chihuahua we tracted into

Friday morning we went over to the church for some weekly planning. After that we went over to Saron's again with Bro. Clark. She didn't see the purpose of being baptized and just kind of talked a lot, so we said we'd be back another time. In the evening we played basketball with a bunch of guys. It wasn't easy since Providencia Ward had been there before we got there and so we had to wait for them to finish up.

Saturday morning Bro. Inscho and Bro. Kessel took us over to clean the church. Bro. Kessel (the elderly man we used to mow the lawn for) is now in a wheel chair and lives in a retirement home. Both remembered me and took us out to Golden Corral afterwards. I've decided that place is probably my favorite buffet restaurant. Later on David picked us up and we went to DQ. He had a question on who Korihor was in the Book of Mormon, so we showed him the video "All Things Denote There is a God" on LDS.org. It basically talks about how an antichrist went up against a prophet and got beat pretty bad. But it's also a great story in general. Here is the link:  https://www.lds.org/media-library/video/2012-08-2257-all-things-denote-there-is-a-god?lang=eng  

Take a look at it.  Let me know if you have questions.  

In the evening we went to the church for the chili cook-off/trunk or treat. It was awesome. So many people recognized me and were happy to see me. After that we played basketball with a very cocky 14 year old.  Fun!

Sunday was weird. And crazy. At church there were so many different faces and not that many people. I was told a lot were missing. However, several people were happy to have me back.

Nashville Tribute Band concert

David was unable to receive the Melchizedek priesthood at church because no one from the stake was present. He was sad about that. After church we had an early dinner with the Clarks and then went off to Green Hills with David to see the Nashville Tribute Band perform their album Redeemer. It was sooo awesome. Once again I got to see a lot of familiar faces. Some of them actually remembered me which was awesome. The show was great and cheered David up. Also the stake president was there and agreed to give him the Melchizedek priesthood the next day which will be awesome.

It's so good to be back in Nashville. The entire week has been one giant welcome home party.

I am so happy here and I can't wait for the work to improve here. It'll be awesome. Tonight we are having dinner with President and Sister Andersen and then going on exchanges with him. I'm looking forward to it. I'll talk to you later!

Elder Peery

If you have any questions, or just want to say hi, you can email me anytime at:

andrew.peery@myldsmail.net

I would love to hear from you, and I will write you back on Monday, my P-day.

Thanks for all your prayers and support.