E-Mail August 13, 2012

Hello Familia! (See Taylor, I can speak espanol too!)

This week was awesome for us! We only had about 8 lessons but, they were productive. We saw so many blessings this week it was ridiculous!  So, we decided we would try to use the bus system this week and walk more. In my head I thought it was going to slow down the work because we werent going to be able to go directly from place to place. It actually helped out a little bit! We were able to talk to a lot more people because we slowed down and we saw the blessings from that! Pres. Ballard made a promise to missionaries that if we talk to 10 people a day our baptisms would double. We havent seen our baptisms double but we have seen that people are a heck a lot nicer and more open to standing and talking with us for a bit. We actually were walking from one appointment to another and we came across this guy getting out his car. He had some stuff with him so we asked if we could help in any way. He told us no and we went into our whole shpeel on what it is we were doing. He said he knew and then he started to talk about the pidgeons on top of his roof. Kind of random, we thought. We started talking about how they were God's creatures and how if he blesses those birds by feeding them than God would bless him. So he started to throw bread at these 40 pidgeons just sitting on his roof and they started eating. We got into a conversation for about 5 minutes and he told us "You guys are the best." We tried to play the humble card (We all know we are though ;) ) and shrugged it off. He asked us, "Who can yo think of that is better than you?" I said "Well my parents for one." He stopped me and said "No, dont even go there. No one is better than you (pointing to me now). You are the best! You are the best (pointing to Elder O'Toole)! I am the best! Dont let anybody tell you differently!" And he went on for like, 10 minutes explaining this to us and how we are unique and the only ones like us and all that kind of stuff. It was hilarious! It totally made me feel like I was the best though! Made my week!! Hahaha. It was things like that that just kept happening that made the week so good!

Now here is the one scary thing that happened this week. We went to the temple on Tuesday, our one temple trip for the transfer. Elder O'Toole calls a few people and gets us a ride there and back. Well on the way, keep in ming we have this 70 year old man driving us, we are turning onto the freeway from the main road and we pull up to the light. The light is green and our driver goes for it. There is a big ol' truck coming straight at us at like, 60 mph and almost kills us! This truck got like 10 feet away from my face. The driver just laughs and says, "I bet you didnt expect that to happen on your way to the temple!" Our hearts stop pounding about 5 minutes later and we calm down. We ride the rest of the way safely to the temple and do the session. On the way back we get onto the highway and this guy sets his cruise control at 60 when everyone else is doing 70 or 75. It's alright though until about 5 minutes down the road. EVERYONE is starting to stop because of an accident that happened up ahead. We all see the brake lights up ahead but the driver keeps his cruise control set. He obviously doesnt see the lights at this point. We get to be about 15 feet from these parked cars going 60 mph and he jerks the wheel to dodge this mini-van we are about to just plow through. Well we are in the middle lane and so we have another 2 lanes to get over before we are in the far-left lane. He jerks past the mini-van and just about clips this little mazda! We were prolly 6 inches from that car and we get into the left lane. The back end slides out and he corrects and we keep driving. Everyone in the car except the driver has peed their pants at this point and is just speechless because we wanna call this guy a lunatic! We drive for another 10 seconds and he speaks up... "It's a good thing I was a racecar driver back in the day. No ordinary driver wouldve been able to get out of that mess alive." Are you kidding me?!?!! ANY "Ordinary Driver" would've seen the brake lights coming on and had PLENTY of time to brake!!!! It was the closest I have ever come to being in an accident and DEFINITELY the closest I have ever come to death.

So yeah, that was our week in a nutshell for ya. I hope all is well! I love you and miss you all!!
(T-Bake! I need your mission home address or something so I can mail you something!)

~Elder Daniel Peterson
2155 S. 55th st. #1048
Tempe AZ 85282