Getting Our Act Together!

Hello!

We've had a huge spectrum of weather hit us this week. On Tuesday, it was in the 90s with probably 98% humidity. We walked during the morning, then just had to crash out on this porch swing at an apartment complex to cool down. Then on our bikes, no one was home and we were just trying to find someone who would let us in and give us water. This one lady who knows the missionaries invited us in and also gave us a giant zucchini from her garden. So then I was lugging around this huge zucchini in my bag while riding my bike, haha. Thankfully that was the only day where it was deathly hot outside. Yesterday we got a ton of rain, and then some thunder and lightning so we couldn't go out and work. And there was a tornado spotting in a northern part of Columbus. 

We've gotten way better on our bikes, and we don't want our car back. We feel lazy on the days we aren't out riding around, and are loving the fitness aspect! No one wants to be a fat and lazy missionary!!! 

After district meeting on Wednesday morning, we met with our zone leaders for an individualized training. That was a huge wake-up call for us and we decided how we wanted to improve and what we should focus on. The thing that motivates me is personal success and progression, so I made goals for the person I want to become on my mission. We also wiped out our teaching pool that day and kind of just started over. As a result, we've found 7 new investigators this week. It helped that we had the sister training leaders for exchanges here as well, so the 5 of us split up on a street or in an area, and just went finding. It's interesting that when you're not fulfilling your purpose as a missionary, you feel super lame, but then feel so much happier when you do!

I've met some great people this week. Tom, the ex-marine with 7 bullets in his body and a hand that was sewed back on, a really awesome black lady named Chacha ("cha-cha"... I tried not to laugh on her doorstep), and a couple more Africans in our Columbus area who are now investigators.

We got Teri to church. We've realized that frequent contact with her, like on a daily basis, is going to help her the most. When we showed up the other day, she told us that she got rid of all her cigarettes. She's quite a handful at church though, and it's hard to put a filter on her! Sis. Pollock and I were asked to do singing time in Primary for the chorister who had had surgery this week, so we missed Relief Society, but apparently it was a riot. Teri was firing off all kinds of crazy things! But we think that this is a great opportunity for the ward to step up and have a way to be involved in missionary work and service. Teri's had a rough past, but is innocent and child-like at the same time and needs a lot of help with moving her life forward. 

We also met with Steven again. Basically, he just goes to the Lutheran church for social reasons. He knows that what he reads in the Book of Mormon is true and constantly testifies of the power he feels in us and in the Church. We're still working with him to help him make that jump, but it's difficult because half of the time we still don't understand what he is saying. 

Fun facts about Westerville: It was recently rated as the 7th happiest place to live in America, it's often nicknamed "the city within a park," and is the dry capital of the nation, meaning that it was a big central place during the Temperance movement and the alcohol ban was apparently just lifted several years ago. If only Westerville could continue to live the Word of Wisdom, haha. The library here has an "Anti-Saloon League" museum. We might check that out today. 

Pictures: chilling in our sweats yesterday since we couldn't go work due to the storms, me eating a tiny apple that fell off a tree while we were walking around, and the bikes in our living room. 

Have a great week! 

Love, Sister Petersen

Adventures on Bikes!

Hi everyone,

I bought some spandex, so I can effectively ride a bike in a skirt. Also, I acquired a gel seat pad from a member, so it's not so uncomfortable anymore. However, when we went out on our bikes for just the second time last Monday, within two seconds, Sister Pollock's skirt got sucked into the gears and I had to get her skirt out of the bike! So after that, both of us just tied up our long skirts around our waist and went riding around like that! Not so professional, but it is what it is. We are getting pretty fit though, and that feels good. Now when we arrive to dinner appointments, we're praying that we get fed lots of protein!!

Random experiences this week: we witnessed a less-active's dog attack the other dog and almost kill it, met a lady who's dying from being a chain-smoker (sometimes I feel like Ohio just smells like cigarette smoke, there's a lot of people killing themselves in this state!), met several alcoholics who seem incapable of keeping commitments, for 5 hours helped some members move on Saturday, and have been constantly getting whistled/catcalled/yelled at while we're on our bikes. We've accepted that some people are simply pigs and we move on. 

We had interviews with President Daines this week. We also had time to talk to Sister Daines, and I like them both. They're very nice, though of course it's a change from the Nilsens. President Daines showed me the scripture in D&C that explains the joy we'll have if we bring one soul to the kingdom of God, and explained that the one soul is often ourselves as missionaries. My mission's success is not hinged on whether I baptize people or not. That offered some comfort as we just keep dropping investigators and the work in this area is totally petering out. It's been incredibly difficult to find people who will actually progress and keep commitments. 

We did find this one 19 year old girl though, Jennifer, and her brother Isaac. They're from Ghana and have only been in America for 2 months. We've seen Jennifer twice now and she's committed to start reading the Book of Mormon and is interested to learn more. 

Sister Pollock and I still have fun together though. She's basically the best companion ever- she made homemade whole wheat bread this week! We also have matching Ohio shirts (see picture attached), haha. It's going to be so sad for me when she goes home next month!!

In other news, we are just exhausted! We haul our bikes up the stairs at the end of the day, and then fall over. Also, it's been a while since I've made it through the entire Sacrament Meeting without falling asleep! Nothing's changed since the MTC, haha.  

Other pictures are of us and Sister Barker and Sister Chapman from our zone at a zone meeting the other week. 

Love you!

Sister Petersen

Riding a bike while wearing a skirt= worst idea EVER

A discouraging week after the car accident.  Any bit of a letter or note would make their day!

 

Address:  4302 Executive Parkway #223

Westerville, OH 43081

 

whitney.petersen@myldsmail.net

Hey everyone, 

It's a good thing that missionaries have the added measure of the Spirit, because anyone else probably wouldn't have made it to this point, haha. 

It's been quite a week. We don't know when we'll get a car again. If it's not totaled, we can get it back in 2-3 weeks. If not, then a new car will be purchased and it could take 60-90 days. On Tuesday, we spent almost 5 hours of our day just walking, and got almost nothing out of it. On Wednesday, we had a great zone meeting, but then failed to get rides to go elsewhere, and we decided to just walk to our dinner appointment. That took almost an hour and a half and ended up being 5 miles. The one positive thing that could come out of this transfer is that I will get really in-shape. But I'll be honest, every morning we've gotten up this week, our bodies have felt trashed. After several days of walking, we came in at night and soaked our blistered and beat-up feet in the bathtub, haha. 

Friday was the day that was almost comical. We didn't get a ride to the Columbus area of the ward (our favorite area to work in), and didn't feel like asking the whole ward for someone to pick us up, so we planned to walk all the way there just so we could say we did it (this was possibly a little prideful of us)! By the time we made it to an investigator's apartment (who wasn't home), it had taken us almost two whole hours. We then showed up at a member's house and begged for water, haha. We then saw an investigator, a Hungarian lady who gave us back the Book of Mormon we gave her, because it wasn't the Bible (well obviously). The member for our dinner appointment forgot, and was impossible to get ahold of that day, so once Sister Santillan got off work, she picked us up and ran us through a drive-thru to wolf down some food before getting dropped off to walk some more. Her dog was in the back of the car with me and licked the last part of my sandwich, so that was gone! Plans fell through, and we walked through another neighborhood. Some teens/young adults taunted us and then taunted us again when they saw us 10 minutes later, but we were too exhausted to care (otherwise I may have launched the hardcover Hungarian Book of Mormon at them that I was now carrying... but I know that wouldn't be very Christ-like!). When we arrived at our apartment, we basically just collapsed. 

After doing some cleaning and service at the Santillans on Saturday, they gave us bikes to use. So for the rest of Saturday, we traveled by bike. This was quite an adjustment for me as the bike gave me a lot of pain (the seat was like a rock) and wearing helmets only made us sweatier. But oh well. Also, the skirt thing should not be acceptable- I need to buy spandex today or something, because who knows how many people I flashed while riding the other day, hahaha. 

However, we did see Steven this weekend, we invited him to dinner at a member's house, the Petersons. We then had a lesson with him and pushed baptism, but he keeps saying he was already baptized (though we've emphasized the proper priesthood authority a lot). He believes that the Church, the Book of Mormon, and the things we teach are true though. We'll still work with him, it may take him a little longer to get that burning testimony that will cause him to act on what he feels from the Spirit. 

No matter what happens though, I know that we can always be strengthened by Jesus Christ and seek the peace we need in our lives. The gospel is true!

Love, 

Sister Petersen

Never-ending Car Problems!

Hey!

So it's been a wild week. We were without our car for almost 3 days, to get that bumper fixed that Sis. Pollock messed up in Zanesville last year. But we got some records done and had some good lessons with people. However, when we went to see this one investigator, his neighbor just bashed and anti-ed us like crazy, saying we were of the devil and were going to be cut down and whatever. Turns out, Jerome wasn't even interested but didn't have the backbone to say no to the missionaries. To his neighbor, we just had to end the conversation and leave, because he wouldn't even listen or let us say anything back. He was so clueless, and it was quite the test of trying to be Christ-like!

We met President and Sister Daines this week!  Half the mission got together for a specialized training to see them. They are SO nice, and while we all love the Nilsens, it also felt good when we met the Daines. It was meant to be. That day we also had two meals with members, a lesson, and a meeting, so we lucked out and had someone driving us everywhere all day. 

Funny story. We went to the Santillans' to do some house-cleaning and walk their dog while they were out of town. When we came back with the dog, we realized that the door had locked behind us, and we left the key inside, along with all our stuff. So after an hour, we walked to our dinner appointment (with the dog!) which thankfully was only 15 minutes away. It was funny when we showed up to dinner wearing service clothes and someone else's dog in hand! Thankfully, one of the Peterson sons was able to get ahold of Brother Santillan, and their oldest daughter had briefly stopped at home right then before leaving again, so we were driven back and were able to get back into their house! Haha. 

Now for the not-so-funny story. We went on exchanges in Mt. Vernon this weekend, which was fun for the most part, and we had set up a family history booth at a town square event on 4th of July. Before wrapping up the exchange, we were all driving back from Chipotle, and I was driving our car with Sister Reed and Carter. I came to a stop sign, and when I got going again, this other car came flying up from a previous intersection and I didn't see it until it was in my face. I wrecked the front of the car, and the lady I hit called the police to do a traffic report and whatnot. It was really shocking for me and I was a mess for two days. Our car wasn't drive-able, the grill was messed up, the hood popped, and there was fluid leaking all over, so it was towed. We had to get a hold of a member to drive us the hour ride back from Mt. Vernon that afternoon. Yesterday my shin started hurting like crazy, because the impact was mainly on my side of the car, and must had gone through my right leg that was on the brake. I was almost limping around at our zone fun day today where we played softball again. The other sisters were okay. 

So I have no idea when we're getting a car, but I know we can't walk our whole area due to the distance and freeways and everything, so it's been a lot of coordination with members for rides to places. It is holding back our work a bit though and there's people we just haven't gotten around to seeing that we had wanted to. It's also just really frustrating that we had JUST gotten our car fixed last week!!

But we were blessed yesterday. Steven came to our ward at 11 am, instead of going to the Lutheran church first. It was a miracle, after we put our foot down and told him we couldn't go to the 1 pm Sacrament Meeting with him anymore, and asking him why he went to two churches. It was just what he needed, because he went to priesthood for the first time and got to meet more members. 

Sister Pollock though is seriously the best companion ever and I don't know what I would do without her! I know I've been blessed in several ways during this really eventful week. 

Oh, and members aren't always too faithful with the "no desserts" thing... they will try to tempt us and it's kind of annoying, haha. Thank goodness we have to walk a lot so our metabolism stays up!

Love, 

Sister Petersen