Okay, so I pulled out my coat this morning.

  But to be honest, P-day mornings include just a lot of sitting around in the cold pre-dawn breeze, which isn't conducive to staying warm in any way. Frisbee is getting hard to do as our fingers are numb enough to be constantly fumbling and missing throws. So yah, it's colder. Which is pretty good, but I still need snow. The plants are struggling with staying inside all day, but they are not acclimated to the cooler weather and it definitely doesn't help them. 

Speaking of plants, while we were at the store the other day I spotted mangoes on sale, and had to pick up one or two. I enjoyed eating them one half at a time throughout the week, which was cutting it close as the last one I ate had a little bit of mold on it. This week we had our first district council in forever, due in part to the district leader getting transferred this last transfer. Elder Markham is our new district leader, and he set some pretty crazy goals for this transfer. For starters we gotta take a cold shower every morning. Set the shower handle all the way to cold and leave it there for the transfer. I am able to handle this one okay, as I have been taking not cold showers per se, but colder ones since I got here. When we first went out to exercise, and the temperature and humidity were killing me at six in the morning, I had to counter it, if just a little bit, so my showers have been on the colder side anyways. You should hear the yips and howls from the other guys, including Markham, every morning when they have to get in. The other goal though, in my opinion, is wholly unrealistic. We are all supposed to be doing a hundred push ups every day. I've only been able to do around forty five, and that is throughout the day, with a lot of breaks in between. I still can't run worth a can of cheddar and broccoli soup though, despite us doing running exercises every other morning. All the other guys leave me in the dust, and I would just love to challenge them to a twenty mile bike ride. Biking I have tried to keep up with every day, and I hope to not lose any power there. Before district council we went to Braum's, one of the most delicious restaurants in the area. They have wonderful ice cream, but are only located in a couple of states near Texas. The reason being that they get their delivery of milk every single morning fresh from a farm located only a couple of hours away from every Braum's. You move too far away from Texas and they start petering out. After district council on Wednesday, we had meetings every morning from ten to eleven, as Elder Teh of the seventy spoke to us in a mission wide zone conference. He talked about our toolbox, how we need to make sure we are not cutting wood with a screwdriver. That we are supposed to change up our tools and make sure we know how to use all of them. Then he backtracked a little to say that we should always be using the Book of Mormon as our central main tool, and to use our other tools to compliment it. He talked about how in the Bible when it says that a shepherd would leave his sheep in the wilderness to go search for the lost one, that this is a mistranslation. Joseph Smith correctly translated it as the shepherd would leave his safe sheep to go travel in the wilderness to look for the lost one. And that is what we are doing here, searching the wilderness for the lost sheep. We discussed a story of a millionaire who went missing and how the whole world searched for him. The military pulled out their scanners to search for him. We as missionaries need to use all of our tools as we do our best to find the missing sheep. We heard rumors that afterwards he would be doing apartment inspections by phone, so we scrambled to clean up but he never did. 

All of us were wearing short sleeved shirts on the first zoom meeting so that afternoon our mission president sent out a link that led to the missionary standards of clothing. The next meeting about half of us were wearing our suits. Then the ZLs had to just tell us to wear our suits for the last one. Right after the last meeting was President Nelson's message to the world. Despite the slow and pausing internet we got through it and I loved it so much, we shared it with a lot of the members we were working with. Then we did more service setting up for Christmas at the train depot this week, plus helping a couple people move. We did have two appointments set up for this week but they both cancelled. We did get a big list of new numbers to call so we are working through that. Problem is, its really old and we are getting a lot of dead numbers. Out of about fifteen numbers we got one who picked up, who had moved, who we helped to move their records. We got a lot of people asking us this week if we had a place to have Thanksgiving dinner at, and we did. The family confirmed with us at the beginning of the month about it, but in this last week they had to cancel because of something, but we'll be able to find a place for the holiday. That's been about all this week. I've gotten some time on the piano as my companion continues his Pathway work. I'm hoping for more connected calls this week, and I hope all is well at home. Enjoy Thanksgiving!

I got my first breath of sweet fall this evening

  Hey peeps. I just wanted to let you all know, that the snow is missed. When you guys are looking at it, and thinking that you wish it was gone, know that there is a Utahan boy, in Texas, wishing with all his heart, for that snow. The temperature has finally moved down to the high sixties, as of Friday. We enjoyed the warm seventies all up to this point. I knew it got hot down here in Texas but I'm now resigned to not seeing a bit of ice down here for the entire jolly season. When doing service at Nash farms this week, setting up decorations for Christmas, they showed us a picture of how the decorations looked last year at Christmas. The picture showed cloudy weather, and no-one in jackets, but a lot of Christmas decorations. It doesn't feel right. Luckily, this week some leaves started falling off the trees, and I got a hint of fall in the air. It truly is beautiful down here, even if it is missing a lot of white. Everywhere. 

This last week was transfers, and Elder Bodily moved up to Hirst, and we got Elder Markham down here. Elder Markham served for a few months in the mission of Puerto Rico, and is incredibly fluent in Spanish. He has been out here since Covid started and also loves Cream of Wheat. We have already made several batches together with my favorite butter dips to go along with them. He is very kind and always optimistic, and seems to know what he is doing out here. He is making a valiant push in the Spanish side of the area, and will probably do great things, but it was a little sad for him to come here and tell us he plans to reorganize the area book, and we show him how many times we did that in the last month. He wanted to call every gray dot. We showed him how many times every dot with a phone number has been called in the  past month. We have had to stop trying to contact a lot of them so we don't overwhelm. We are a little bit caught up on the work we can do in the apartment, and we are pushing our limits setting up as many healthy member visits as we can. 

We have to be so cautious, as in simple terms, we are walking covid magnets. We go from house to house, talking to people, and then we find out one of the five groups of missionaries has covid. We have to tell the ward, stay inside for two weeks, then we get freedom and a week later it happens again. Two pairs of missionaries had covid this week, and it's only because they didn't show up to P-day activities that the rest of us are still free. There have been three quarantines in the zone since I arrived, and I'm just lucky I wasn't locked up for all of them. Our nurse, Sister Walker, is a lovely lady, and doing her best, but she seems a little stressed out about trying to manage this craziness. If we even call and suspect we are sick she will order a shutdown on the district. The sisters who got it this week waited until results came back positive before mentioning it to her because she had shut down zones for possible sickness before. Anyways, we are actually working this week on trying to get more phone numbers. We requested a complete ward list of inactive members, and only got a page and a half, and only half of them had numbers with them. This week we will work to filter out bad numbers and addresses. I have already done a bit of cleaning this week. While Bodily was cleaning out his closet, I cleaned out my own. I ended up throwing out my long sleeved shirts, my neon orange tie, and my phone when I held it and did not feel joy. Well, not really, but I did toss a lot of stuff I haven't used since I got here into my suitcases. And I found out that all I really used on a daily basis was my candy stash so that's all that's in my drawer now. And my socks.

 We did a lot of service this week, twice at Nash farms, and once at Grace. The Nash farms was all setting up decorations. Everyone was scrambling like mad to get everything in order. Truly, Thanksgiving is gone and dead. We joked about that back home but asking about it will get you a blank stare here.  I should explain that Grapevine was officially nominated as the Christmas capital of Texas so, I guess that's the thing here. I think they like their holidays a bit too much here though. I was sad to find out that Halloween marks the end of Texas wine month, with a big drinking party for most people. Sigh. Anyways at Grace we were helping them move boxes for the Christmas events they host. It was just us hefting a lot of boxes. There was another shift in the afternoon where they opened the boxes and sorted the contents, but we are kind of limited to three hours of service a day without special permission. After that though we went to a restaurant called Bartley's BBQ with the zone and I got the Italian Pepper cheddar sausage. One of my favorites now. That was cool because that restaurant was the one I visited on my first day here, and represented my first true Texan meal. Or something like that. Also on Saturday we met with the Healy's. Now these guys we had been speaking to on the phone since we got here and they seem like some really cool people. Unfortunately, due to covid, we couldn't meet with them until now. We had a wonderful time talking about Utah, and Logan in specific because he spent a portion of every year working at the USU space dynamics laboratory. He knew In-Tech and I was happy to tell him I ate my lunches there right outside the space dynamics building, and got to tour it several times. Brother Healy shared with us stories from Tennessee to Washington to Pennsylvania. He grew up on an oil farm and told us how he would simply go out with a wrench every morning to do repairs on the grasshopper pumps all over their property. 

He even had a cool lamp that was oil pump themed. We talked with them all from Enos, to the brother of Jared. Faith and prayer, and generally just had a really good time.  It was one of the few physical interactions other than dinners we had all week. we try to fill up our week with at least one meeting a day but that just never happens. most calls don't connect, or the people are busy. now, this was a first, and I still haven't met this member face to face, but we called him to set up a meeting and a message, but he flat out refused. He told us he was fine, he knew the missionaries had a quota to fill, but just would not like to meet with us. He told us he had been a missionary too, and that he knew we were supposed to be persistent and all that, but that he would really prefer if we dropped him as a contact, thanks, bye.  We have so much time, that we can't go out and tract, we can't call any more dots, and we don't have any meetings, So I am always so grateful for meetings like with the Healy's. We do happen to have member meals every night of the week which is the result of a wonderful ward meal coordinator, and those are such good time for us, when we can get out of the apartment. I love meeting all the people of the ward, one by one, and getting to know their stories. It is usually the highlight of my day. This week one of the members we went to made us crepes. not crepes, but crepes. pronounced like peck, because that is how they say it in French. They had cheese and ham on them and were delicious, and they told us about foods around the world. just today we went to a family that makes wonderful Mexican food, from empanadas, to steak tacos to some foods I can't even say. I can't speak much when we go over there because they prefer Spanish but it was still pretty great. One of the meals we went to this week, I had to run across the street to get a picture of a corvette that was parked in someone's driveway. 

One thing I am noticing a lot here, is the cars. In Texas they have really fancy cars. Twice this week I saw a vehicle named the Lamborghini Sian. I only know that because there is a very expensive Lego set of it, and it is one of the most beautiful yet expensive cars I have ever seen in person. I have heard tales of Lamborghinis parked in front of mobile homes here, because cars are so important to people here. Its pretty cool though. Anyways, while we were walking out from the Healy's to say goodbye, we stopped for another half our because he wanted to tell us about his new truck, and at three o clock in the afternoon, when the leaves are starting to fall, and you feel a cool fall breeze wash over you, and you are actually outside with someone who wants to talk, that's all you want to do in the world. Listen.

Transfer News

   Hi there, its Elder Peck calling in from Texas, the state that refuses to acknowledge that winter exists. It has been a pleasant seventy degrees and the trees are only just starting to turn yellow. My plants are none the wiser to the season. This week was transfers, so we stayed up till late last night waiting for the list. It came, and Elder Leatherwood and I are still together. Elder Bodily is going to Hirst though, so we will have a new guy in the apartment. I still don't know his name or anything about him but I guess we'll see how that goes. We went to a meat place for lunch, to celebrate transfers.  I love pepper and cheddar Italian sausage.

This last week I had exchanges with Elder Schoonover, who was a really cool, easy going missionary. We made a couple of cool videos to send to members about faith and seeds, and then I let him keep the plant we had planted as an example. He then helped me to make cookies to drop of to the "M" family, who we have had trouble contacting. I had fun doing stuff with him. I also made him a monkey fist toy. I have only just met up with my list of requests for those things, and at pickleball this morning I handed out three. Then the next day we helped with an event at Nash farms. They had a ropes theme for the day and Elders Bodily and Youngstrom got to make rope all day while Elder Leatherwood and I did string games. Stuff like "cats cradle" and "witches broom." Kids would just come up and we would give them a string and teach them how to do the games. They are pretty fun and I can see why people can do them a lot, but my hands got tired. That evening we didn't have anyone signed up for dinner so Sister Ganschow dropped off pizzas for us. This ward is amazing. Two days later I was back at Nash farms again teaching leatherworking. Miss Prack learned that I had taught it at scout camp and was putting me to work using my skills. 

No joke, I would have random people come up to me and I was simply recalling the lessons I had given as a scout camp teacher, to tell them about where leather came from and how it was used. It was a lot of fun though, and continues to remind me just what a big part of my life that was, and weirdly, how it was still affecting me here. So I would help little kids stamp their names into leather just like I used to, and Elder Leatherwood helped shaping tin into cookie cutters. After the event, we got to tour the nearby historical museums. One was a printing press, one had a cotton gin, one was a schoolhouse. 

There was a building that was closed that we were told was a sister city museum. Apparently, Grapevine had sister cities in Scotland and Russia. Weird. The printing press was really cool, and we had a very nice gentleman named Mr. Smart who guided us around and told us about all the stuff in there. Mr. Smart is always at the farm and is is a very kind and soft spoken man who we work with a lot. He knows everything about history from his schooling, and has a wife and two kids who I met at one of the events.  

Anyways, we saw pictures of the DFW airport being built and some of the tools they used to measure the circles that make it up. 

We also got to see a lot of neat old police equipment like a radio and lie detector. 

That night, we had dinner with the Olsen's, a family that I was happy to learn, is moving to Liberty, UT, right next to the Avon pass, in a year or two. The house is being built now. They had chicken and rice covered in the most delicious homemade teriyaki sauce. Brother Olson had an old video game machine that I noticed and asked about, and he told me he loved the old Metroid games. Now, this was great because those were some of my favorites back home too. So we talked about that. They were also avid readers so we talked for a while about books too. This week I had a lovely message sent to me by the mission president, President Chapman. He reminded me to read D & C chapter six. its basically the field is ready to harvest again but with some other stuff. The scripture really moved me, and I encourage all you guys to read it too. On Sunday, I was lucky again to attend sacrament meeting. Even the other members in the ward realize we are pretty lucky to get to go to church every week. The speakers spoke about becoming immersed in the Book of Mormon. To be completely honest, I spent a while without even opening it because of my studies in the Bible right now. Because of the "Come Follow Me" overlap in my seminary year I never got the Old Testament studies, so all these stories are new and interesting to me, but I had spent too long without reading from the Book of Mormon. The speaker invited us to reread Moroni chapters nine and ten. I did and was once again moved by the message. I loved Moroni's commentary on gifts of the Lord, something that actually ties into D & C six very well. I was reminded that daily scripture study is necessary, yet fulfilling. A needed input for the soul to see clearly. A polishing for the soul maybe. I hope we all remember it and give it the credit it deserves in allowing us to see the world clearly, knowing with the Spirit what is good, and what is bad. I hope more people will allow it and us into their lives, as we continue to search for them. I am grateful for the prayers that have been offered on my behalf, and I pray for all you guys at home as well. Good luck,  

from Elder Peck

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Monday Letter

   Hey everyone. What's up. It's Monday so I guess that means another letter. In this episode I get to give the first lesson to a new family, eat Japanese food, and celebrate my birthday. This last Wednesday, we finally got the go ahead from a self referred person for us to come visit. Maguy had invited us over once before but was unable to make the meeting herself. So we were pretty glad to actually get to see her this time. We met her family, her two sons and got to talk to her about her beliefs. She struggled a bit with her English, but her son, Leo was pretty good and shared a lot of info about how they grew up. He enjoyed attending his local church and hearing the pastor there. He was very respectful and interested to hear about what we had to say. So we gave him the restoration lesson, and he listened but I don't know if he fully believed us. We gave him a Book of Mormon and a chapter to read and we are planning to see them again soon. We will meet up with the French speaking elders the next time we go so that hopefully we can include Maguy a bit more. We will probably have to completely hand them off in the end but whatever. As long as they are given the truth, and the chance to grow closer to God. 

For a service activity on Friday, the missionaries helped clean and prepare the train at Nash Historical Farms for their Halloween train ride.

Then on the twenty eighth we celebrated Elder Youngstrom's birthday, I was able to get him some piano music that I hope he will enjoy. (The theme from "Up"-- I got a copy from another Elder, and some of his music from home his mother was so kind to send me.) We spent the evening of that day moving a sweet old lady who simply had too much stuff. We only got there after it had already been sorted a good bit, but it still sorely needed to be cleaned out. There were plenty of cockroaches under all the furniture and a pile of them under the TV. After seeing them under the TV I let other helpers move the TV. Something I didn't mention to them was the fact that cockroaches are attracted to warm things and most likely were swarming every warm circuit inside the TV. In I.T. we watched plenty of instructional videos on how to clean cockroaches out of computers and laptops. We ended up "donating" most of her stuff into a nearby dumpster that we felt bad about for the sake of the next garbage man. We actually were asked to check the desks at the dumpster for anything that was left inside. And while searching, found five pairs of scissors, a lot of scrapbooking stuff, and her social security number. She was so happy to see it she said "maybe tonight we'll find my driver's license too!" Anyways, we hope she's been doing alright. The next day we went out with the Evan's to knock on the apartment doors. We spent an hour going from door to door without a single answer. On the last door the blinds next to door opened then closed really fast. We knocked again, no answer. So we went home. 

I got annoyed by our apartments new policies about mail delivery during Covid, but I luckily got my package for my birthday the day before. I opened it up immediately in order to rescue the spinach vine inside. It's a little limp now but once it puts out roots it will be fine. 

The next day, Halloween, I got up and looked in the box to find mom had sent me Cream of Wheat and so I happily made that. It tasted just like home. 

I decided to open one of my presents at the table. An explosion of seed packets fell at my feet. I was so happy to see all these different kind of seeds I could plant. I will never be able to plant them all but I love having such a variety to choose from. Mom also sent some fertilizer that will definitely be used. 

After breakfast we went to a farmer's market and just walked around. We talked to one or two people, but kind of just enjoyed the morning. Then we met up with the APs and we all went to Texas Roadhouse, not just for my birthday but Youngstrom's and two other missionaries who have a birthday this week. The steak was delicious. Then we went to the ward trunk or treat. We walked around and saw all the other members cars they had decorated and and talked with them. Elder Bodily and Youngstrom were excited to see all the Spanish speakers who showed up. 

I talked with who I could from home in the evening and it was all pretty great. Sunday night, we had dinner with brother Pinto, our ward missionary leader. His wife is from Japan, and happily made us a dish I can most easily compare to stir fry, except it had tofu instead of vegetables. With beef and onions. It was really really good, the tofu was delicious. They gave us their life story of how they met and their testimony while we ate. He is a convert who was introduced when he met his wife in Japan, who was one of 40 members in a very wide area. It's a pretty great story. This P-day, or Monday, I had to go to the store to pick up some more para cord. Just so you know, I have a little fidget toy that I build out of para cord, and I'm constantly spinning it around my fingers. More people in my district are requesting I make one for them so I needed some more. Also I made a stop into a great clips to get my hair cut. My first cut yet. That's all that has happened up till now. I got to give my first introduction to the gospel to a non member family this week. We'll see what happens this next week. Oh and also I'm nineteen now. So there's that.