Spring is here!

Hey, 

It's 62 degrees outside- it may as well be summer! :) It's been really nice outside this week, I haven't even had to wear a coat the past several days! Which is good because we were on foot this week. 

We had a couple of lessons with our progressing investigator, Isaiah. He has committed to quit smoking so he can be baptized on April 18th. He's a very chill, big black guy in his early 30s, and we're excited for him if he can stop smoking. The ward has been amazing in fellow-shipping him and having him over for dinner all the time. 

We've had a couple of other lessons this week, but not with anyone super solid. We are also working with a recent convert and her family, and trying to teach her husband Will. He's really funny, but also hard to work with. He's coming to church though every week so we hope that the Spirit will finally sink into him deep enough to where he's finally like, "I get it now!" So stubborn!

The highlight of the week was that we got to go to the temple! Our temple day for our zone was on Wednesday, which also became our P-day. Didn't have much of a P-day because it's over an hour drive to get to Columbus, but it was so worth it. I love the temple, there are so many blessings to enjoy there. I'll be at the temple a ton after my mission for sure. 

Love, 

Sister Petersen

Pictures: some "sights" I saw when we were walking through town on Saturday. They have these beaver statues all over, they usually are brown and are standing on a tree stump, but the one I have a picture of is "Biking Beaver" at a local military memorial... I knew I had to take a picture of that one for Dad!

I'm not in Columbus anymore.......

    

New Address: 

3702-A E. Patterson Rd. 

Beavercreek, OH 45430

Hey everyone! 

I got transferred! Again! At 13 months I'm in my 5th area! Sister King and I got out doubled-out of Hilliard, and our area got shut down (there were a few areas that got closed because more missionaries are going home). That was my third time getting doubled transferred with my companion, and my second time shutting down an area. Man I can never have a normal transfer, haha. 

As I've moved westward across the mission, I wasn't surprised when I was assigned to my new area in the Dayton East Stake- Beavercreek! I figured it was about time for me to get "exiled" to Dayton, and now I'm at the very edge of the mission, the opposite end of where I started in Zanesville. It was really nice to be in the Columbus suburbs for the past 11 months, but it's good to have a change too. Our area consists of part of the town of Beavercreek, and parts of Riverside (the ghetto section of our area) and Dayton. It's a lot woodsier out here, it will be great when the leaves come back. We're close to the air force base in Dayton as well, so there's a lot of military families here. 

It's been a good change so far, after my last 2 areas being some of the hardest places to serve in the mission. We actually have multiple lessons in a day- it's weird! I haven't been this productive for a very long time!! We just put an investigator on-date, and we have a few others along with a few less-actives that we are consistently working with. It's great. 

It's also weird how I knew so many people from the mission before even coming to serve here. I met someone that was in my ward at BYU, who's about to go on a mission herself, and met the mother of a friend I had in my mission prep class there. Craziness. 

Oh, and my new companion is Sister Fox! She's been out a transfer longer than me, and has been what I need this transfer. I feel like a greenie again and realize I really don't know a whole lot! I feel pretty lost when we're in lessons sometimes, haha. She's from Springville UT, but is originally from Thousand Oaks, CA! She's 23 and went to UVU before her mission.

Also, this transfer is only 5 weeks, which means that I would get another week at home before starting school again in the fall. So I probably won't come home mid-transfer, and just ride it out until the end. In that case I will be home on August 14th (sorry Mom and Dad, don't book any vacations!!!).

And I promise I'll send pictures next week... haven't taken any....

Love, 

Sister Petersen

Winter Adventures

Hey everyone, 

So it may be March, but winter isn't over yet! On the first day of March yesterday, it snowed all day and church was canceled. Go figure. I also got sick AGAIN, Sister King and I must be passing illnesses back and forth now. 

On Monday night, Sister King parked in a really bad spot on the side of the road and our car got stuck. So at 8:30 pm, I knocked on some random person's door (but hey, that's what we do), and got this lady to help me push out the car, after using her shovel to dig out the wheels and pouring cat litter everywhere to create traction. Aaaaaand it was zero degrees outside.

The other day while walking around, I had my glove off for not even 5 seconds before my hand started going all numb and tingly, and it stung. Frostbite warning???? Thankfully that day was filled with service and other indoor activities! 

The other random story of the week was that when we dropped by a less-active family's house, their boxer jumped on us on the couch, and was so excited that he peed all over our coats that we were wearing. Lovely! But it gave me a good reason to finally try washing my down coat, haha! 

But anyways, blessings still abound! When we went outside today, I was like, IT'S SO WARM OUT HERE! Then we called the weather line on our phone and found out it was 28 degrees outside. But I took off my down coat anyways and wore my peacoat instead. So maybe spring IS coming, haha!

Transfers are this week, and we feel that big changes are coming. Have a great week!

Love, Sister Petersen

More Snow

Hey everyone, 

It's been another cold week! But with the 8 inches of snow that came on Saturday, it warmed up to 30 degrees and it felt balmy! So nice and pleasant, haha. What a contrast to the beginning of the week when we were trudging through snow in 9 degree weather at 8 o'clock at night! But don't worry, I haven't gotten frostbite yet.

We taught Chase again this week, and he's feeling good about being baptized. Unfortunately he didn't make it to church this week because he got the flu. Everyone and their dog is sick in Ohio- Sister King was consistently sick as well the second half of the week. Saved us from being in the deathly cold temperatures though for a while! 

We had another musical missionary fireside last night, which was good. I didn't participate in the choir this time, but enjoyed it a lot. Tony showed up to this one too, and it's always to great hearing how the Westerville ward and its recent converts are doing. 

This week we were invited to come see Bethany, a former investigator who is really complicated and I honestly can't figure her out. She's known for giving a lot of missionaries anti-Mormon stuff in the past, and studies religion and the Bible intensely. She was nice when we came and visited her, seemed like she just wanted company. But she handed us each a copy of Spencer W. Kimball's "Miracle of Forgiveness", apparently she keeps extra copies on hand.... she also gave us an in-depth biography of Emma Smith. Being the Women's Studies scholar I am, I couldn't resist digging through it! But don't worry, I have thoroughly checked the sources and it's actually a very legit account, not anti at all! I'll be bringing that book home with me for sure.

Well that's it for this week! 

Love, 

Sister Petersen 

Snowstorms

Hey everyone,

This week was a little ridiculous. We actually had some teaching appointments set up, and EVERYTHING fell through last minute. Our service project for some members canceled last minute too. Even our dinner appointments canceled! The only thing that didn't cancel was our Friday night dinner- I don't even know anymore, haha!

But it was also a good week too, in a weird way. Last Monday night, we contacted a former investigator we hadn't met before, Andrea. She invited us in, and after talking to us for a while about how she'd gone to our church before and read most of the Book of Mormon, she said she wanted to be taught again, from the beginning. And asked if her sons and husband could join in too. And go to church. I was like, "wait.... what" and kind of just stared at her while Sister King set up the appointment for two nights later. That's never happened on my mission before! Unfortunately, we showed up on Wednesday and a note on the door said that last minute plans came up and she had to reschedule. We're currently trying to contact her to do so, should be able to see her again this week.

Zone conference this week was pretty good. We were forced to "break the mold" and completely relearn how to contact and talk to people. My main door approach from the past year has now been thrown out, that was hard! But it's good. We emphasized accountability and made goals of things to accomplish the next day, then on Friday had a follow-up meeting where everyone in the zone stood up and reported what they did. We were able to tract like crazy in a brief amount of time on Thursday and talk to 10 people at the door- lucky considering it was so cold that no one wanted to talk to us!

Speaking of cold, it has been COLD. SO COLD. It is currently 8 degrees outside, and snowing. On Saturday, we got this freaky snowstorm with all this wind- I recorded it on my camera, but unfortunately LDS Mail won't let me attach videos. But we were "blessed": Sister King felt sick all weekend so we weren't out when the storm hit. Especially since we were on foot that day, we walked in the morning, then came in right before the insanity. Just walking to the grocery store this morning, it felt like my face was going to freeze off within 5 minutes. 

Yesterday, some members showed us this thing that aired on ABC Nightline (maybe it's called something else, some sort of nightly news show), on January 27, that's about sister missionaries! I highly recommend looking it up, it was actually done pretty accurately. The member was like, "well of course those missionaries are happy, they're serving in Florida!!!" (while it was single digit temps in Columbus, haha!). 

Anyways, should be a good week (fingers crossed!). Talk to you later!\

Love, 

Sister Petersen

I Made it a Year!

Hey everyone, 

I have officially made it a year through on my mission. How weird. And that morning after we left the apartment, I realized I forgot to put on my name tag. Classic. And thanks Mom for the package, I liked your party sign, it made me laugh. 

Chase, the 9 year old boy we're teaching, was at church again and apparently loves going to Primary. We taught him the Plan of Salvation, which was pretty rocky because I've barely taught that on my mission and it can be a hefty lesson if you're not careful. But he's been really receptive and we think he'll end up getting baptized, maybe next month. 

Until the weekend, this place was a frozen wasteland. I finally slipped and fell on ice, banging up the right side of my body. But then it was 50 degrees yesterday and it all melted... then today is 25, and after a brief warm-up on Wednesday it will be at 14 degrees on Thursday. This is literally the most up-down weather I've ever experienced. I also was told at church yesterday that Columbus OH has over 80% cloud cover during the winter. I've been taking double-doses of Vitamin D, to say the least.

 

This week we have zone conference and a few other things, so my next letter will probably be more eventful. Have a great week!\

Love, 

Sister Petersen

We had someone at church!

Hey,

The biggest news of the week is that we have a real, live, investigator! It's Chase, a 9 year old boy who is the son of less-active parents. His mom heard from a member of having their kid take the missionary discussions to decide whether they really want to be baptized or not, and she liked the idea. It's been put off for a while because of the holidays and other stuff going on, but we finally went over and taught the first lesson this week and it went really well. And then Chase and his mom came to church yesterday for all 3 hours. I haven't had an investigator at church since September, so it was like, wait I can't sleep through church anymore? (kidding!!!) But it would be pretty cool if we reactivated the family in the process. 

In other news, I went on exchanges this week to Riverside, which goes into downtown Columbus. It was just nice to be busy and learn from a different missionary, I had a blast with Sister Ure. In the morning we went running in the snow and ice- I was dying because I had the stomach flu the week before and it's been a while since I've gone on a long run! And running in snow is like running in sand, definitely more difficult. But it felt great. 

We've been in a nasty cycle of snow/freezing rain/snow flurries/more rain that later freezes over. It was an adventure just walking to the grocery store this morning! And today there is a windchill that's supposed to feel like zero degrees. Oh man. Only one more day left before we get the car back, haha. 

Have a great week!

Love, 

Sister Petersen