Elder Peterson's Birthday and my 6 month anniversary on my mission

May 2nd - May 9th

What a fun filled week!! It flew!! Let me tell ya the deets!!!

Monday - We e-mailed and had a blast sleeping all day haha. We then had a dinner and ice cream with president Cavarretta and Brother Larsen at Taco Bell and Memory's which has been around for decades, probably the best ice cream I've had. Tastes like frozen custard, amazeballs.


Tuesday - We went to Walmart and ran into Sister Fox, nice lady. She's 22 with a 3 year old kid it looks like. She's the sweetest thing ever. Super nice meeting her! Later tonight we then went to their house to give her husband Jon a blessing. Saturday night Jon's neighbor was really drunk and came and assaulted him in front of Sister Fox and their 3 year old daughter. Jon has a ruptured disk, borderline broken wrist and is very sore. They area a young, young family and are in a tough spot as a family. Very nice people, just need some love, so I'm giving them my deep blue doterra rub which is supposed to help relax his muscles and help him recover faster. My injury isn't doing any harm to me now, and as a missionary, I felt like I should give it to them. They need it at this time more than I do. Sister fox was telling us the things and stress and emotional stress she is personally dealing with, my heart melted. I felt so so bad, she went into tears and I almost did also. We shared Helaman 5:12 and told them as long as their foundation is all in the lord, he will help, and they have seen His hand in their trials. What a blessing to run into someone who desperately needed us, amazing how we slept all Monday and had to go to Walmart today and we happen to run into her.I know that was an answered prayer, I was an answer to someone's prayer for help, and I was there to help. Amazing.


Wednesday - I got an email this morning that gave me one of my favorite bands, Memphis May Fire's tour map this year.. They will be in Portland Maine (2 hours from me) at the end of the month and in another few months they will be in Bangor Maine (a little far out there).... Pretty sad for me since I can't go see them, haha, but anyways!! Today in district meeting we talked about planning.. Again.. Afterwords, we went home and I did some studies and language planning and some vocab exercises. Later, we went to sister Scott Halls and got some food, after that we came home and resumed our studies then left to go to a dinner with the Crapos. They are way cool, sister Crapo collects frogs. She has over 200 frogs doing different things and she also collects snowmen, way cool. Today it was very rainy and gross and there is a monstrosity of construction going on so all of the sidewalks are blocked off.. So we can't street contact, pretty dumb. So we study more and we planned and called people.


Thursday - We woke up and went to do service at Zions camp for a good chunk of the day! It was way fun! We got to drive the trucks and pull out trees and clean up some stuff! We where pulling trim off the side of one of the garages and it broke and a nail stabbed my foot... Nothing bad, I have to watch for tetanus for a while, but it's okay. Now I have a little limp and I'm very sore haha but that's work! We dropped off my lotion to the Foxes, hopefully that will help brother Fox out.We went home and showered. Later, we had a lesson with Sally again! We showed her the video "Flecks of Gold" and she showed us what she's doing for school! She's studying graphic illustration, so she has amazing drawings she's done on a computer! Afterwords we left home. We have stomach aches and we are gonna take it easy.

Friday - Today is Elder Petersons Birthday!! He's so happy, our alarm was "22" by Taylor swift.. It's gonna be a long day haha we went to Walmart to get a few things then we went to the food pantry and had a wonderful time. haha I love being with those people, so kind and so funny!! Later, we went home and prepared to go to the Idells. We got there and it was a chatting, celebration for Jay and Elder Peterson, it was awesome getting to talk with everyone, enjoy some cake, pie and a wonderful Navaho taco dinner! It was a pretty chill day today !


Saturday - Today is transfer calls!!! But that's not until tonight so, we didn't do a lot today, pretty I guess laid back. We planned and I did some extra studies to understand some other things and practice saying sentences in Spanish. I feel huge with all of this food I've eaten this week... Or in my mission in general, 30min early morning workouts are not easy.. At all, but that's joy of it I guess haha. We went to the church and helped take stuff down from the stake women's conference. It was way cool, we where able to talk to a lot of women, old, young, it was awesome and see a lot of people from Portsmouth!! Later, we went and had dinner and ice cream at Memory's with the Gish's, it was awesome! I love seeing them!!

We also got our transfer calls and we both are staying here in Exeter!! It was fantastic!! I'm so happy we get to stay here!! We also found out that Elder Pace will be our district leader in Derry!! How awesome!! I get to serve with him again!! So stoked!! This transfer will be awesome!!


Sunday - Happy Mother's Day to all those mothers out there!! Relax, tell the husband and kids to do stuff, it's your day to chill and point the fingers!! Haha Today at church was all about our mothers, the role of women, the blessings of mothers and it was a amazing time to reflect. In 2nd hour, I was asked about my mom. As I was sharing my testimony about how strong, loving, caring and funny she is, a fellow investigator shared his testimony and really thanked me for sharing what I did. He said "I am jealous that you have that relationship with your mom. I didn't think that was left in the world, I didn't have that and it's very comforting to know that there is still traditional love in this world." HOW CRAZY IS THAT!?! I was borderline gonna cry! I didn't think my family would bring a strong testimony to someone like that! Amazing. The spirit was so strong as everyone else proceeded to talk about their moms. 3rd hour, we talked about missionary work and how we can be better missionaries in our home, to our family. Building that together as a gospel centered home.

We went to the Gish's and Skyped home!! I loved seeing my family!! After some wifi errors, we had here, we were able to fix it and we had a blast! I loved hearing them, I loved being able to talk to them about my mission!! It was an awesome day! Afterwords, we had dinner and we played some games with the Gish's and Huies. It was really really fun!


Thursday was my 6 month mark as a missionary out in the field,  I often ponder my life in some ways, but I had a wonderful time pondering these last 6 months. I've come such a  long way from where I was back home. I've been in 3 areas and have had 5 companions, all whom I love dearly and have all taught me unique traits to develop and to master over my mission.

They say the first 6 months are the slowest, I don't believe them haha 6 months of smiles, fun, learning and testimony building is amazing. I don't even remember the MTC haha my only remembrance of it is from my journal entries, which by the way, suck haha I can clearly see how much more mature I've gotten over 6 months.. Kinda wish I could rewrite those days, but oh well!!

6 months down, 18 more to go!! I'm gonna make it the best I can! I love it in New England, lots of change continues to happen, but we are in the lords hands and I'm ready for more challenges and opportunities to be the best missionary I can be for people!!


Con amor de

Elder Vogel