Of Rats and Pillow Forts

Oh boy have I got some stories this week.

Last Friday, one of the new Book of Mormon videos came out (they’re coming out every Friday) and to celebrate and just to shake things up a bit we took all the couches that are in the common area of our house, moved them around, took the cushions and laid them on the floor, and covered it with blankets to make a fort under which we watched the new Book of Mormon video together as a district when we got back to the house, and it was way fun. It got pretty hot and stinky under there pretty quick though, with 8 18-19 year old men all under there. (Second to last picture is of me and Elder Roberts under the fort. It was pretty dark.)

A couple days ago before walking to breakfast, Elder Roberts and I dropped our bags off in the classroom before heading to breakfast, which is what we usually do. When we walked out of the building, a lady worker ran past us screaming and jumped on top of one of the planters that line the sidewalks. Turning the corner we saw three male workers screaming and yelling at each other and jumping around a tree. Only when we got closer did we see that there was a big rat running around and trying to climb the tree. Elder Walker, who was ahead of us, said he saw the rat bite onto the pant f one of the workers and swing around for a second before he kicked it off. Eventually they got a good hit on it, and one of the workers went to town whacking the rat over and over again until it died, screaming with every whack. They finished it off with a ball peen hammer. It was still there after breakfast, so we took pictures with it, of course. 

Hermana Scott painted postcards of all of us in the district and gave them to us last Thursday! They’re all so cool. That and an Elder who’s in our house drew all of us too, which was also super cool of him. Those were two fun surprises. 

Elder Weiss was playing hymns from his iPad and had to leave the room for a while during study time, so we hid it in the ceiling. It would have been a lot funnier if the music hadn’t stopped playing only about 40 seconds after he got back and was looking for it. 

Our class mascot Warnut kept getting parts of him erased, so we just improved him.

We found a scripture that pretty accurately describes a big part of our MTC experience here in Mexico. Especially the food. It’s Job 30:27, and it reads:

My bowels boiled, and rested not: the days of affliction prevented me.

We went to the temple again today! It was a great experience, as always. I bought two more ties. 

James Ashton got here this week! We’re going to get a picture with him, Matt and I before I leave on Monday. 

This last Sunday, we watched a talk given by David A. Bernarda about the character of Christ. In it, he described how even when going through incredible personal trials (fasting for 40 days, suffering in the garden of Eden and on the cross), instead of turning into himself and retreating back, he turned out to others, which was a really cool insight. He healed the ear of the soldier who he knew was going to take him to be killed after suffering immense pain in the garden, he didn’t give in to the temptations of the devil to eat bread and prove him wrong, and even on the cross, he comforted the other men who were being crucified as well by saying that they were going to join him in paradise that day. I know I turn in to myself a lot when I’m going through a hard time to take time to recover, but Christ didn’t do that. He turned out in love and service to others instead. That really struck me. 

This weekend is also general conference! It will be live broadcasted on LDS.org and on YouTube, probably under something like “LDS General Conference.” It always has great messages of healing and comfort, and we get to hear from modern day prophets and apostles as well, so I’d invite everyone to check it out if you have the chance. I promise you won’t regret it. 

I leave at 4:30 Monday morning to fly out to my actual mission, Ciudad Juárez! I’m really excited. I always get a little nervous and anxious when a big change comes up,  it walking around the temple today and talking with people on the grounds made me super excited to get out there and start talking with people and helping them out and just spreading joy and friendliness. 

Sorry these are kinda long, but I know some people like to hear all those stories, so if you don’t always have time to read everything feel free to just look through the pictures. 

Love all you guys, and keep on loving your fellow man and trying to be a little more Christlike every day!

Nos vemos en Juárez,

-Elder Peters