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

I'm With Sister Pollock!!!

Hey everyone,

So transfers were on Thursday, and it was the last transfer meeting with the Nilsens, which was kind of sad. When the Assistant said, "In Westerville 1A, Sister Petersen will be receiving a new senior companion, Sister Pollock," I was like, NO WAY!!! Sister Pollock was one of my sister training leaders in my last zone, and I was pretty tight with her and Sister Burton. I was surprised because this is actually her last transfer before she goes home. She's my same age, she just came out right after the age limit was changed for sister missionaries while I waited a year, haha. 

So basically it's been a blast with her, and she's probably my favorite companion thus far. She is just what I wanted for this area as well, as she's a really good teacher and very bold and upfront with people. At the end of last transfer, I was feeling pretty stagnant- my teaching skills were awful, my door approaches started to be terrible, etc. So I'm pretty excited to learn a lot from her and become a much better missionary. We're also similar in a lot of ways, and we've been getting up at 6 to exercise instead of 6:30, so we can get a real workout. I also wrote on our meal calendar "No desserts" towards the end of last transfer, which is actually what Sis. Pollock did in Newark, because I'm done with being fed too much sugar and whatever. What's funny is that her first night here, the family we had dinner with gave us an entire chocolate cake to take home with us, but we handed it off to the elders because what were we supposed to do with that?!

We've done a mix of things over the weekend. We went to Fourth Friday, which is an event in Westerville on the 4th Friday of each month where street vendors and community organizations set up booths and whatnot. There were actually a TON of people there, so we were able to talk to some. We have also had some interesting encounters with investigators and less-actives, but I won't put the details of those incidents in this email. However, Teri is realizing that she is able to quit smoking (the secret: grapefruit juice). Steven is being ridiculous though, and wants us to come visit his church. We just don't know if he gets it. 

The biggest slap-in-the-face for me as a missionary is that I can put in all this effort, dedication, and hard work, and still not be successful. We did everything we could to get 3 people to church yesterday, and showed up with cinnamon rolls and bacon at this family's home, but no one even answered the door or phone, and it was obvious that people were home. It's a hard pill to swallow, and I have to remember how I can personally be successful, since there are things that are simply out of my control. 

Other than that, Sister Pollock and I are having a great time. Tomorrow though we have to take our car in to get the bumper fixed. What's funny is that this happened a year ago in Zanesville, where Sister Pollock was also trained, and she was the one who scraped the bumper! The car just never got fixed because people got transferred and whatever, but our vehicle coordinator was nagging me so much that we are finally getting it fixed. Karma is real though, because Sis. Pollock is definitely paying for it now, haha. We'll be walking and hitching rides from people the next two days. 

Have a great week!

Love,
Sister Petersen

I Love Westerville!

Hey everyone!

Transfer calls were today and I'M STAYING!! Woohoo!! Seriously, the past couple days I have just fallen in love with this ward and would've died if I had to leave already. However, Sis. Baldridge is leaving. Slightly anxious about a new companion, we'll see what happens!

Last week we had Specialized Training, the last training with the Nilsens before they leave. It was so bittersweet. Most of it was a Q&A session where they answered questions about anything and honestly, they ARE AWESOME. I'll miss them a ton, and I'm really excited for the transfer meeting tomorrow since it will be the one they leave from. 

A couple miracles this week. First, Teri is cutting back on smoking, and really wants to put in the effort to change. Also, she's the funniest story teller; I wish I had recorded her acting out the story of her daughter's graduation party, because it's totally something I would listen to on a bad day to make me laugh! Secondly, Steven showed up at church when he originally said he wouldn't have time (he still needs to leave the Lutheran church though...). We gave him a ton of pamphlets to reread everything that has been taught to him, because we were wondering if he was actually understanding everything with the slight language barrier. 

I love love love the members here. They are just so awesome and I'm so grateful to be able to work with them longer. One of the pictures I attached is with Sis. Buxton (we have an unofficial Sis. Buxton fan club, haha). On Saturday, we also helped a family in the ward move in to a new townhome. We were actually out knocking doors when the ward starting driving in, and we didn't have anything else to do, so we moved some stuff in. It was funny, because we hauled in one of the couches in our skirts, and the men were like, "No seriously sisters, you don't have to!" 

It's been soooo rainy here lately, even completely down-pouring, but I like it a lot. Tons of lightning storms too, which that's a little unfortunate because it keeps me up at night. It's also been rather humid. But really, Ohio is so beautiful right now!!!!! 

Today we had a zone fun day, and played softball. I actually wasn't too bad, considering I haven't played in who knows how long! But right now, I'm emailing in my filthy P-day clothes, because we don't have time to change or clean up until we get ready to go to our dinner appointment tonight. It will be crazy getting Sis. Baldridge all packed up in time! 

I'll email you soon again, on Monday!

Love,

Sister Petersen

Westerville Update

You can write Whitney @ whitney.petersen@myldsmail.net or her current address is:

 

4302 Executive Pkwy #223

Westerville, OH 43081

 

She would love to hear from you and I hear she is really good at writing you back!

Hey everyone!

So we'll see how this email goes because I forgot to bring my journal and am trying to remember what even happened this week! To start off, we had another crazy P-day last week, with a zone fun day. We showed up with our mini missionary and 80+ water balloons, just to be told that Pres. Nilsen had just vetoed the water balloon fight. Not sure why, but somehow all of our balloons were used up during the games we did. 

Having a mini missionary follow us around all week was really good for me, and put me in a leadership/role model position that I haven't been in yet as a missionary (picture attached of our trio companionship). She refused to role-play during companionship studies, and I realized how much I've grown and no longer despise role-plays as much! I have also done some of my best role-plays and have been more bold and confident on doorsteps and in lessons, as noticed by my companions. On Thursday evening, Sis. Baldridge went to the Columbus Clippers minor league baseball game to sing the national anthem with a group of missionaries, and was gone for the night (so not fair that she got to kick back and have fun that night while I still worked myself into the ground, but whatever), which meant that I got to DRIVE that night and be the senior companion. It was awesome, and we found 2 new investigators that evening. 

On Tuesday night we had dinner at the Davis', and Janel's family came! It was so awesome to see her again! I attached a picture of the two of again, it was a great night! I am also continuing to get to know the members and I just love them! I refuse to leave Westerville for a while, haha. 

Sooooo about Steven. First of all, he's hilarious in his text messages to us (especially with broken English), but that's another story. We brought him to a baptism happening at our church building on Saturday morning. Afterwards he told us how powerful the Spirit was in the room, and that it pressed down on his head when the person was baptized. For the first time ever, I understood everything he said. A couple hours later, we met with him and a member at Inniswood Metro Gardens for a recap lesson of the Restoration, then extended a baptismal date. Crazy thing is, the date we chose is his birthday. He was unusually quiet through the lesson and I could tell he was uncomfortable with making the commitment, because he still attends Lutheran and is unsure about leaving the people he knows there. But he totally knows the LDS Church is true, just by how much he's felt the Spirit!! And he's always saying how the Spirit is really powerful with Sis. Baldridge and I. We gave him two BoMs, one in Vietnamese and one in English, so for now we are praying that he will continue to feel the truth of the message and make the decision to be baptized into Christ's church. 

Love you!!!!!!!

Sister Petersen