Apostle week! 01/28/2013

We had a memorable family night this week with a less active family. They live basically on a ranch and all the members seemed to sort of flock in from everywhere to be present for the lesson. The boys of the family prepared refreshments and I think the family got excited about everyone being together and just enjoying a good night together.


I got to see brother Rodolfo a recent convert, whom I haven't seen for a while because he had to move to be with his family for a while. It was great to catch up with him and to know that all is going well.
On Saturday as missionaries we had a meeting with the Apostle Russell M. Nelson and we each got to shake his hand and enjoy his remarks. It was a wonderful meeting. It surprised me as well that Elder Clayton of the presidency of the 70, who was accompanying Elder Nelson could speak Spanish!


Then on Sunday several stakes met together to hear the Apostle. It was a wonderful event full of emotion and the spirit. It just made me so happy. The apostle might look a little old, but his spirit is as young as ever and he demonstrated in the most wonderful way the love he felt for the Mexican people. I felt highly blessed and highly grateful to God for the wonderful servants and blessings he sends to all people in all nations. Elder Nelson who had an interpreter the entire meeting, finished by bearing his testimony in Spanish and I felt SO grateful that he could connect with the people and that he prepared so that they could hear his testimony in their own language. I will never forget it. I love the Lord so much. I know this is His true church. I cant believe how blessed we are to have his restored gospel here on the earth.


I love you all,

Elder Peine

Family Night!

The branch on Sunday when we went to see the Apostle Russell M. Nelson!

Rodolofo! (a recent convert)

Thank you for the goodies!

Today is the best day of my life! (why not?) 01/21/2013

 We visit Sister Mercedes, a recent convert, and she always asks us to sing a hymn with her. So we all pull out our hymn books and then she asks us: well which page? We tell her the page and she says: Oh that’s a beautiful hymn! This happens every time we visit and I happened to notice that she really doesn’t know which hymn corresponds with each page number but she loves all the hymns and thinks they are all just wonderful! It made me smile because she is always so excited to sing whatever hymn whatever we choose and she says its just great.

We were coming home from visiting another town nearby and in the van/bus that brought us home there happened to be a drunk (absolutely harmless) and we tried not to pay attention to him even though he wanted to strike up a conversation. We soon arrived at the drunks destination and has he got out he handed a bill to the driver and said: that should cover my ride and the Mormons also! He paid for our bus ride! I was a bit shocked, considering we didn’t even speak with him. I hope hes as kind when hes in his normal state as well. But it caught me off guard because I'm not going to say I had the best of thought of him but he was charitable enough to pay for us even though he didn’t know us.

We stopped by to visit an inactive member and he came out to great us but said he was too busy and couldn’t visit at the moment. So we put and appointment to come back and then he started talking with us about how hes doing and how our day has been going. So we talked for another 5 or ten minutes and then shook hands to depart then another comment was made and we continued talking. What had started out to be a brief hello at the front gate, apparently turned into a 30 minute conversation. I found it interesting because at first he really didn’t want to spend time talking with us but I could feel that he had missed coming to church and he liked the feeling he had when he was active.

Life is wonderful, I couldn’t say much more. I find myself enjoying everyday. I have a wonderful happy optimistic companion and the branch is starting to really work hard in doing their visiting teaching and working with investigators. So things are going well. And Saturday we have a meeting with Elder Russel M. Nelson with the missionaries which we are excited for, and Sunday the whole branch is traveling by bus to hear him speak.

Love you all!

Elder Peine

Manuel (our wonderful member friend who lives nearby), Elder Morales and I

Hello Hello!! :)

What a great day! 01/14/2012

Thank you! (and just to let you know I had help eating all those cookies)


Hey Family,


This week  we had a wonderful family night with some of the members about love in the home. My companion and I sang Love at Home and I accompanied on the guitar (Thanks parents for starting me off young). It was a wonderful night as a less active, now getting active father gave his lesson about how we should demonstrate or love for one another. He mentioned how often times its easier to give love to those outside of the home and how we can tend to forget to demonstrate it to those who really we most deeply cherish.


While we were at a doctors consult (my companion has a bad blister or something on his foot) we started talking to the doctor and he mention how he had heard about the Mormons and said how he hadn't really been attended his church seriously and could be interested in learning more. My companion gave him a Book of Mormon and invited him to read the introduction. We will see what happens with that at our next appointment (medical or religious, I'm not really sure, but I hope things go well on both ends.


We visited an inactive in the hospital who has between 90 and 100 years old who fell out of his bed the other day and fractured his hip. It was good to visit him, he was happy to have visitors, I don’t think he recognized us but it was great to see that he was still with it and doing his best to recover.
I received my Xmas package from Jordan and from Kay! It was so great thank you so much I loved it!! And the members loved the jellybeans, its new for them! I hope you all have a wonderful week!

Love, Elder Peine

Thank you! (and just to let you know I had help eating all those cookies)

Happy New Years to all! 01/07/2013

Well as of yet I still haven’t received any Christmas packages but I heard there is at least one waiting for me in the mission offices and I should be able to receive it this week.
This week was passed by to visit an old investigator (in the fact that shes been listening to missionaries for a long time, shes not that old). We hadn’t been to visit her for about two months and we decided it would be a good time to see how she has been doing. She told us that she has been feeling quite sad lately and that coincidentally the very morning she had said a prayer to help her be guided in the right direction. It was a little miracle that helped her get on her feet again. She came to church this week and really enjoyed it.

In district class we spoke about love and charity. It was a wonderful class and to finish we had several practice teaching circumstances. But this we different than pretending to be teaching investigators, we were to teach other as who we are. So my companion and I taught Elder Restrepo (as Elder Restrepo, from Colombia). We talked about the mission, the difficulties, how we’d like to have things easier, but then we talked about how the Lord is preparing us and guiding us through these experiences so that we can learn and grow. Elder Restrepo has had ups and downs but I love him so much. I shared D and C 64:33 with him (about laying a building a strong foundation) and he looked up at me and smiled. He said he shares this scripture with everyone but had never really applied it to himself. He started to tear up. He thanked us but really it was us who needed to thank him. He is a wonderful hardworking missionary who loves the work and it was a joy to be able to share our appreciation for him.

We visited a referral, a single mother of three kids. She said when she was younger she and her friends had always laughed about the missionaries, but now that she is a bit older has grown a curiosity as to what it was that they taught. We shared about the plan of Salvation with her and we had a great conversation. She thanked us for taking the time to talk with her and found herself surprised to find out that many of our beliefs are similar to hers.

I hope you all find yourselves surprisingly happy. Thank you for all of your prayers and support. We are enjoying our time here in Pemex City and look forward to another 6 weeks here. (Transfers happened today but we are both staying). I'm sorry I can’t send warm weather to those in the cold so bundle up! Stay happy fam! You’re so great!

I love you all!

Elder Peine

Merry Christmas to all! 12/24/12

What a wonderful Christmas eve. To all those who have snow and pine trees I’m a bit jealous, but I can’t complain with 80 degrees and palm trees. This morning our district played a game of soccer in the heat and cooled off with some cold mandarin oranges. Life is good.

This week we held the branch Christmas activity with skits, songs, pinatas, and tacos. Each organization was to participate and for our part (as missionaries) we made a slide show of the members. As we watched the presentation my companion and I sang carols (since the music we put to the slide show didn’t end up working, but that’s okay). We enjoyed the night were happy to see that several investigators could attend and enjoy themselves. I was thinking about the daily lives of many of these people and what they go through to maintain strong in the gospel and in their families and I just felt grateful that the Church opens up opportunities for people to enjoy each others company and puts effort to into letting us celebrate together. I know the Church does amazing things for its members and have seen the blessing that come from the Gospel as members work together. 

I had a wonderful  birthday on Sunday. And although I wasn’t able to have a famous Aunt Ruth chocolate cake like usual a member cooked some wonderful chicken instead (not quite the same but it was still delicious). I also was asked to speech in church, teach a Sunday school lesson to the youth and then we spent an entire afternoon with a member visiting her friends who aren’t members and singing hymns. Our mission president called me on the phone at night and sang happy birthday to me with his family (in English), it was great.

I hope you are all having a wonderful Christmas eve and that you have a wonderful Christmas day. Thank you for all of the love and support. I apologize I didn’t send anything in advance but Ill do my best to make up for it next year. I keep you in my prayers always and hope you all enjoy this wonderful time of year as we commemorate the birth of our Savior. His gift is surely the greatest of all. May we all remember him and focus our efforts on doing his will and loving others , as he would have us do.

Merry Christmas to all!

Much love from Mexico,

Elder Peine

Christmas Activity

Morning soccer

Feliz Navidad!!

Merry Christmas!!