One Crazy Week!!

Dear Sons of Mosiah,
The work is amazing, and great! I have learned a great deal in the past month and a half. There is nothing like doing the Lord's work everyday! My brethren who are nearing their chance to serve, prepare yourself for a great experience of the most ultimate joy and sadness you might ever experience. Word I would use to describe a mission that probably fit it best: bittersweet. More sweet than bitter, but there are definitely hard times.
One of the worst things you will experience, happened this week. We were teaching a man named Steve Bauermeister. He's a great guy, but a little slow. We had a really spiritual lesson with him, and I know that it got through to him. That lesson should have gotten through to somebody with a heart of stone! And his isn't even that bad! Still, days later, he called us and told us he didn't want to hear from us anymore. Future Missionaries, I will tell you right now, it really sucks when someone gets 'antied'! It seems like almost everytime you teach someone, somehow somebody hits them with some form of anti! The adversary is all over this! If there are three things I've gained an even stronger testimony of out here, they are: 1) God loves us more than we can even know. 2) Joseph Smith was undoubtedly a Prophet of God who did, in fact, restore Christ's Church to the Earth, and 3) Satan is VERY REAL! Not only is he real, but he is in fact very involved in trying to destroy the Saints. I know, we have all heard it, but do we all comprehend the amount of power he has? It's so true that it does not stand a chance against the Power of God, BUT it is powerful.
Anyway, I tell you this so that you will all be ready, those of you who are preparing to serve a mission. Be ready.
(Go to Part Two)
Crazy Person of the Week:
We met with a man named Devin, this week. He only let's us meet with him twice a month, or so, for some reason. He is hillarious!
We went to his house, and he let us in of course, muting his television like he did last time, and holding his little dog, trying to keep him off of us (on the side here, the poor dog! He forces it to stay on his lap, and he sits there and plays with the dogs legs, moving in around in motions, pulling on them, and ignoring the dog as it gnaws at his hands trying to get him to stop. It's really funny actually!). Devin is another black guy we are teaching, which automatically makes him one of my favorite.
Devin is a really logical man, in really bizarre way, and last time he told us that he wanted to analyze and compare Christ's Church that he set up in the Bible, to our Church (which is the same church). So, we brought him evidences...the 17 Evidences of the Church. We compared, and all matched up. However, this man is totally a debater. Heck yes (except in Missionary work, then it's funny, but not so heck yes)!
Later we were talking about the Book of Mormon, and how Christ came to the Americas. He was like, "How did he get there? By boat, or ship, or something?". And we responded, "No, he descended from Heaven, just like he ascended to His Father in Heaven." And he said, "What?! You mean he flew? Nah!" And we laughed, "He is the SON OF GOD, you know? Why not?" And he debated us about the possiblity of things like that, or course we all laughed the whole time (including him). Then we brought up that he HEALED THE SICK, RAISED PEOPLE FROM THE DEAD, etc. He was like, "Nah! For all I know that's all an alagory, or something." And we were like, "You're kidding me, right?" And he said, "No! I don't know! Have you ever seen something like that before, cause I haven't."
We talked about it for a while, talked about God, and also things like he purpose of life. We asked what he thought it was, and he says, "Man! I don't know. Maybe this is all a computer game or something!" I said, "What a boring game!", and he continued, "Or maybe God created us cause he was bored. If I was God floating out in nothingness, I'd create us too!" We were like, "You gotta be kidding..." we then started leading him in the right direction, presenting it as though they were possiblities, and phrasing some of them in questions that began "do you believe...", "do you think...", "what about...". He's like, "Man, I don't know! I don't know! How can I know that? I've never seen it!"
To sum up the story, I've never heard someone use the phrase, "I don't know", more in my entire life. Also, he continued with outrageous possiblities, that we rather amusing, but ridiculous. Like I said, he's one of my favorite people to talk to. Anyway, the conversation ended with him saying, "Hey, if I could make this remote float, would you believe me? Cause I ain't ever seen anybody do that before?" And we answered, "Believe you about what? You don't have a belief to present." And he said, "Yeah, but what if? I ain't never seen anybody do that..." Yeah, roughly the conversation, it's crazy.
Last Part:
Here's the last story. So, we did exchanges again this week, a few times. One in particular was insane! Background for this story (and it will be a short story): There are potholes like crazy in Omaha! Some of you complain about Lehi's roads, but they don't have anything on Omaha's roads! They are the most terrible roads I have ever seen in my life! The government even gave them money to fix them, and I'm not seeing much progress!
So, we were driving to people we had planned to see throughout the day, when we hit a pothole that was huge, and my companion didn't see. Well, we were driving, and we realized the tire was going flat. So we pulled off to the side, made the calls we needed to make, and of course, changed the tire. If it would have ended there, we would be just fine. So, we spent forever changing the tire, which luckily two of us knew how to do (me being one of them), and put the spare tire (the donut) on.
Well, we tried to avoid driving much after that, but we had to take the broken tire to get repaired. On the way there, we hit another pothole (this one seemingly unavoidable), and there goes the donut! The count is up to two! So, we pull over at McDonalds, at night, stranded in an area that wasn't our own. After a while, we called the repair guy who is a member, and he suggested putting on the original tire, and trying to make it to him on that one. Both tires had the same problem. The rims were bent, and air leaked. So, we had to drive another fifteen miles or so to get to him. The whole way there, we stopped at two or three gas stations to try to fill the tire temporarily, and we lost pressure fast, until we said a prayer.
Well, we made it to the repair shop, and we were worn out. He got to fixing it, when he noticed another tire had begun leaking. We ruined THREE TIRES! Also, one of them had a nail in it, but luckily the nail didn't penetrate. So they were all easy fixes. He banged the rims back into place, saying "The Lord is with you Elders", a couple of times, if I recall correctly. Anyway, what I've written doesn't justify what we went through. It was an exhausting day on little sleep, it was snowing, we didn't see many people, and it was a lot of work to get to our destination. Only two good things really happened that day: 1) The Lord answered our prayer, BIG TIME! 2) I got mail. :) Write me people, it makes my bad days good!
Love you all, sorry if I bored you, but I hope it's slightly entertaining, and I want to prepare all of you future missionaries for the craziness. Of course, who knows? Perhaps N.O.M. is the craziest mission of all! ;)

Love Elder Christopher Petersen