Eventful Happenings

Hey everyone!

After 4 months of being in Westerville, I'm finally seeing things happen in the past 2 weeks. After being a missionary for over 6 months, I also finally get to see someone be baptized that I taught. Tony, the investigator who is literally a blessing to us, is dead set on being baptized September 13. We had another lesson with him and he came to church with his girlfriend Kali (recent convert who's 22 and now one of my friends!!) yesterday. He felt like a million bucks, and knows that this is what he wants. While everyone is a child of God, it's humbling for me to see that we as missionaries are here to find the people that are PREPARED. Even though I get to be involved in teaching him from the beginning to the end, I feel like I haven't even done anything for this, because he's just so ready. 

We went back last Monday night to teach our "African group" but only found Nancy at home. But we had a great first lesson with her, and then came back on Wednesday with the same member, Sis. Huffman, to teach the Plan of Salvation as well. She started reading the Book of Mormon and finds it all very interesting. She's 28, pregnant, and is currently just staying at home but is bored out of her mind, and misses being in Africa (Liberia). Yesterday Sis. Huffman had us, Nancy, and a member from the other ward who is from Ghana over for dinner. We watched the Restoration with them and set up another teaching appointment. I can't tell you what a relief it is to actually teach progressing investigators, I feel like I'm doing real missionary work for once. And I love Nancy, she's awesome. 

We've done a lot of tracting this week though, it's been like our fall-back plan. We met a couple of interesting people who we're going to come back and talk to. When we're not tracting or teaching, I feel like I'm dying from the heat. Summer was mild until this past week or so, and now it's really hot and humid. Bugs also appeared out of nowhere, when walking around a neighborhood we were constantly smacking ourselves all over because we were literally being eaten alive. After riding our bikes to a less-actives house in the heat and then sitting down in air conditioning, my body shut down and I fell asleep instantly, no matter how hard I tried to stay awake. How embarassing, haha. It's supposed to be even hotter this week and drowning in sweat is really losing its appeal by this point in being on bikes. Those car repair guys are a bunch of liars!

Sister Malloy and I are chugging along, and I'm amazed at what a great missionary she is, she's very dedicated and wayyyyy more spiritual than I am! If I want to be a consecrated missionary, as our mission president stressed this week at zone conference, I have a long way to go, haha. 

Random story. We were visiting a less-active's home on Saturday, the Finks. The wife is a member, and the husband, Joe, was baptized a long time ago but there's no record of it. Since he didn't stay involved with the Church, he felt like he was free to read even more additional "scripture" (aka false writings), and read to us for HALF AN HOUR from this book of Enoch that was apparently "revealed" to some guy in 1971 (we literally couldn't get out of there). Then he told us how the silver clouds in the sky were ships, and the star of Bethlehem was a mother-ship.... weird. Then he read us the name of our Heavenly Mother from that book of Enoch, and we KNEW it was false doctrine because that name will never be revealed to us on earth. It just goes to show that when you don't go to church, you start mixing with the philosophies of men. Stick with the true prophets and canonized scriptures!!!

Also, here's pictures of my district going to the Hoover Dam reservoir that's in between Westerville and New Albany. Very green, but also looks pretty flat in this area. 

Love, 

Sister Petersen

New Investigators

Dear family and friends,

I'm back in a regular companionship now, it's just me and Sister Malloy. Our apartment feels pretty weird after someone else leaving, and getting ride of a bike. It was hard for both of us to see Sister Pollock go home. But I know I'll see her soon after I get home in a year!

For the whole week, the 3 of us were basically a biker gang, riding around Westerville. Apparently the car still needs extra repairs, so hopefully this is the week we'll finally get it back. Those slackers, I'm pretty sure our car has been sitting there in Mt. Vernon for a month before they started doing anything with it. I'm about to call them and give them a piece of my mind. But I digress.

After getting a little irritated with one of our investigators who won't do anything, I made the executive decision to go tracting. We found this lady named Rita who let us in and told us how she knew a Mormon, but he passed away before she could talk about his religion with him more. She told us she wanted us to come back, and come back often. We didn't even know what to say, what a miracle!!! I'm excited to teach her. 

That same day, we also went back to follow-up with Hawa and Nancy, and found them sitting on their lawn with another friend, Soko. We talked to them more about the Book of Mormon and Restoration, and Hawa's husband, Andrew, also came outside and talked to us as well. Andrew had shut the door on us and locked it the day before when we tried to see Hawa, but he warmed up to us a lot after talking to us. He wants to see how we convert former Catholics, haha. Soko also loosened up a lot and before we left, she was like, "You can call me Sister Rogers!" We basically taught them part of the Restoration lesson 3 or 4 times, since more people joined, and that made a big difference. It was the best, most "normal" lesson I've taught, it felt like I was teaching in the MTC. They had such great questions, too. Tonight, we're going back to teach all 4 of them again. 

We're also going to put Tony on-date this week for baptism. We had another great lesson with him last week, he's awesome. He quit smoking without us having to tell him to. 

Sister Malloy and I are doing pretty well together, and we want to teach solid, progressing investigators this transfer. From the miracles that happened last week, we might actually get to enjoy that privilege. 

Love, Sister Petersen

Pictures: Sis. Malloy and I at Panera Bread (and we accidentally coordinated our clothes that day), the three of us at Terry's apartment, and us at church.

Tri-Companionship

Hey everyone,

So you're not going to believe who my new companion is- Sister Malloy, from the Valencia ward!!!! Her sister is friends with Megan, and I met them 6 years ago at the Williams' house one summer! I've also seen her around BYU before the mission as well! What a small world. 

Sister Pollock goes home in exactly a week. For now, we're a small pack of missionaries trekking around town. Currently our apartment is full of bikes (borrowed another one), and Sister Malloy sleeps on couch cushions on our bedroom floor and lives out of her suitcase, haha. She goes home in two transfers, we're thinking it's likely that I'll be here to "kill her off" as well and keep my reputation going as the companion killer (she would be the 3rd companion I send home). 

Columbus apparently has some kind of refugee center for Africans coming from war-torn countries, so that's why we find so many here. It's great though, because they're a lot more receptive to what we have to say. We had a great first lesson with Isaac, a 16 year old from Ghana. We also met Hawa and Nancy, who are neighbors and both were interested in a Book of Mormon. 

Terry didn't come to church, but Steven did. We're a little baffled by their fence-sitting, and we have to be very dramatic and bold with Terry. With Steven, it has to be him that makes the choice in the end. You can only tell someone they have to be baptized by the proper priesthood authority so many times!

Things are changing in the mission with President Daines. All the random little rules that were in place with President Nilsen are gone, and it's back to the basics of the white handbook. Also, our P-days go until 6 pm now like the handbook says, instead of ending at 5!!! That kind of just made our life, haha. Things are feeling a lot more lax now for sure, and the crazy emphasis on numbers has been cut back a bit. 

Oh, we also got a new investigator named Tony that fell in our lap. His girlfriend was baptized into the Newark ward this past year, and he's interested too but lives in Westerville. Since he has to be baptized in this ward, we get to teach him! Sis. Pollock knows them from her last area, so that's pretty sweet. We had a great lesson with him, and this week we will put him on-date for baptism. 

Love, 

Sister Petersen

Already a third of the way done!

Hey everyone, 

Yesterday was my 6 month mark! It's kind of a relief, because the first several months are slower. But the past 2 transfers have flown by, especially this one. So I'll see ya in a year!! 

We're still riding around on our bikes, it's been a month since we lost the car. Our vehicle coordinator just notified us that we get it back in a week or week and a half, there's still some things to be fixed. At this point, a week is definitely no big deal. We're definitely feeling more fit and bike-riding makes the day more fun and time goes faster. However, the past 2 days were really hot and humid, and there's a point we reach where we start going to people's houses just to get water and sit in some air conditioning for a few minutes. And there's times where people will pull up and say "Hi Sisters!!" later in the day when we're all sweaty and nasty and we're like, don't look at us!!! Haha. 

We haven't gotten transfer calls yet, but we're assuming we'll be in a trio companionship for the next week and a half until Sis. Pollock goes home. We have no idea how we're fitting another person in our tiny apartment and how effective things will go with a third person on a bike (that probably won't be in-shape for it like we now are), but we'll see what happens. 

Teri came to church again, and is trying to get a job and quit smoking and everything. We've been seeing her a lot and hope that she'll be able to make things happen this time. Other investigators are kind of floundering, and the other 3 sets of missionaries that cover the town of Westerville have similar problems where barely anyone can progress. We're not sure what that's all about. 

We had a fun day on Saturday. An investigator that Sis. Pollock tracted into last transfer in Newark got baptized, so we attended the baptism. We saw our old companions, since Sis. Pollock and Sis. Baldridge traded places last transfer. The Santillans (our favorites!) drove us out there and we went to Granville afterwards and got Whit's Frozen Custard (my favorite, it's only in towns east of Columbus like Zanesville). It was also nice to not be on bikes all day, the physical aspect of it definitely catches up to you at some point! 

I love you all, and keep having a great summer!

Sister Petersen