What a Way to End the Transfer

Hey everyone, 

The weather warmed up enough that the rest of the ice and snow melted, so we were able to go back out on bikes after a couple of days of walking (I slipped on ice about 20 times, but never fell!). A ward member also came by to fix my tire- he couldn't find anything wrong with it either, but after I put in some of that "slime" stuff that is supposed to seal any damage, and getting my tire blown up again, my bike has been fine. 

Still pretty slow work. We had interviews with President Daines on Thursday, and he asked me about taking out a set of missionaries in Hilliard because our area is so small and neither us nor the elders have enough work to do. Transfer calls came today, and to my surprise, our entire district is staying except for one sister. Which is weird, considering how President Daines likes to transfer people all the time. So Sister King and I will still be here another transfer. 

I have adjusted better to the ward though, and we both gave talks on Sunday. We both got pretty rave reviews too, apparently. That was good to get to know the members a little more. 

So yesterday after biking in the morning, I was feeling pretty achy and laid down for a while. A few hours later I felt pretty nauseous and then suddenly came down with some sort of 24 hour stomach flu, no idea where that came from. It was pretty bad and I have never been sick like that in my entire life, and it was terrible timing with transfers this week. So we called over a couple of priesthood holders in the ward late last night to give me a blessing, which worked! Faith and priesthood power are real! 

Though my fever and chills went away, I still have a massive headache and will probably go back to bed soon. Praying I survive!

Love, 

Sister Petersen 

Brrrrr!!!!!!

Hey everyone, 

So this week was a cold one! It snowed all night on Monday, so waking up on Tuesday was a great surprise! I was on exchanges that day, so one of my Sister Training Leaders, Sister Wagstaff, and I just walked around all day through the snow. Good thing, since I got a flat tire for the fourth time the night before, even after buying a new tube, and our air pump is broken. So it was okay that we couldn't bike. 

For the first time in my life, I shoveled a driveway. That was some good service for a member. Also for the first time in my life, I pushed a car out of the snow (our car). I've had someone push my car out of the snow and ice in Provo last year, but when Sister King tried to pull a U-ie on a country road and we went into the snow on the side, I got the opportunity to do so (thankfully some hunter guys pulled over in their trucks and helped me push the car, haha). 

Also, one night we went to Jeni's ice cream, since Sister King had never had it before (it's really good ice cream, look it up), and 10 degrees is officially the coldest weather I have ever eaten ice cream in. But then again, ice cream is good all year round, to be honest. 

The work is certainly slow when it's 8 degrees outside (and one day it was one degree!!). People are like, "it's cold, go stay warm!" and they shut the door. One "investigator" told us, "Not now, it's too cold, come back in the summer." What the?!?! If your wife is home, we can teach you inside!

But something else fun about the week is when we went to do service at a member's house and then ended up making bread with her. We were sent home with all this bread dough and a container full of home-ground whole wheat flour (I've missed that!!). We baked one of our loaves the other night, and it turned out to be amazing, I think it's the best whole wheat bread I've ever made! 

We actually taught two lessons this week, which is the news of the transfer as far as our missionary work has been going, haha. We had a good lesson with a recent convert, and we taught the first lesson to a less-active/part member family after they had us over for dinner. That went pretty well.  

Anyways, we give up the car again this week, and we'll see how I survive when temperatures go down again. Today is not bad at all, but overnight we're getting a ton of freezing rain. Should be exciting. And go Buckeyes! The digital billboards around town have been saying thing like, "Go Bucks! Pluck the Ducks!" And in Kroger today, there was a display advertising frozen duck meat, saying, "Roast some duck for the big game!" Haha. 

Love you all!

Sister Petersen

Pictures: 

#1: View outside our apartment/townhome. Our car is the white one on the left. 

#2: Ready to shovel some snow!

#3: The town of Hilliard (and its really cheesy slogan....)

Getting colder......

Hey everyone, 

Happy New Year! I'm still working on what my New Year's resolutions should be, especially as I'll be home later this year. Today is my 11th month mark, almost a year! Woohoo!

We biked it for most of the week, and a couple nights were very cold, but then not so bad. The first night, my water bottle froze (picture attached), and another night, we rode by some lakes that all the Canadian geese were just standing on because they were frozen over... too cold for riding a bike? Yeah, probably. Today got MUCH colder though, it's 16 degrees outside during the middle of the day. And we should have several inches of snow by tomorrow, it's been snowing here and there. I have no idea what I will be doing here tomorrow with one of the Sister Training Leaders on exchanges. 

However, I was so thrilled to be getting a real workout that I was biking like a madwoman this week, leaving my companion in the dust on several occasions. Definitely turning into Dad.... 

The first night biking, Sister King was still recovering from sickness from the previous biking week, and it was cold enough where she couldn't even breathe. Literally dying. That happened on-and-off throughout the rest of the week, and when it poured rain ALL DAY on Saturday, we didn't leave the apartment because she was still pretty wasted. So there's not much to say for this week. 

Today we had a zone activity and played volleyball. It was SO MUCH FUN. I was killing it, everyone on my team was like dang Sister Petersen, and then they were like, "Oh right, she's from San Diego, that makes sense then." Haha. 

Sorry for being lame and not taking many pictures... I'll send more of Hilliard next week, I promise! For now, you get to see my water bottle and my desk (it's the most elaborate picture wall I've done yet on my mission, haha). 

Love, 

Sister Petersen

Christmas Week - Part 2

Happy New Year everyone! (almost)

Christmas was pretty nice, I'm surprised I wasn't homesick being in a new random town the past couple weeks and whatnot. There was no specific instruction given for the morning, so we got to just hang out and open all of our packages. Thanks everyone for the cards and wishes! And yes Mom, the sweater and skirt fit perfectly, it was SO AWESOME to have new clothes! Members took care of us here, we received a ton of stuff from them too. The family we ate Christmas Eve dinner with gave us each a bag that was FULL of Ghiradelli and Toblerone chocolate. We stuck it all in the freezer, so our diet doesn't consist of just chocolate every day, haha. But oh my goodness, if I'm given apple or pumpkin pie one more time, I may die. Never thought I would be burned out on pumpkin pie especially, haha. 

For the rest of Christmas, we were invited to lunch at a non-member family's home who likes the missionaries, and we're going to see if we can teach them in a few weeks. Then we got to Skype home (it was SO nice!!!!!!! So much fun), and ate ANOTHER holiday dinner/meal (the third one in 2 days). The rest of the evening was spent taking treats (we cleaned out most of the cookies in our apartment, haha) to all the less-active families in our area. 

After our all-day mission Christmas devotional/party, P-day, Christmas Eve, then Christmas, it was a little depressing to go back to the regular grind of things! But we met a potential investigator's boyfriend (???), Chris, who took a Book of Mormon and is really interested to read it and find out more. Aside from that, not much has happened in the scheme of missionary work with the holidays and Sister King being sick all week. 

I was a *little* disappointed that there was no White Christmas, but perhaps there will be a White New Year? The temperatures just dropped in the past day or two, so it could totally snow. The sun is actually out though today, which is a miracle. I've never experienced so many dark and gloomy days in my entire life!!!

Have a great week!

Love, 

Sister Petersen]

Pictures: 

#1: All the missionaries that have served in Lewis Center this past year, with the Carter family. This was from last week at the Christmas Devotional.

#2: The cookies I decorated at our district activity last week. And yes, one of those is a Ninja-bread man. It's a real thing.

Christmas Week

The picture was taken by a ward member that loves the sister missionaries -- she has a front table with pictures of all the ones who have passed through her home.  Awesome!

 

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Hey everyone, 

It's finally Christmas this week! The great thing about that is that our mission-wide Christmas Devotional was yesterday in Dublin, and it was SO much fun to see everyone in the mission! We mostly listened to a ton of special musical numbers and performances, had a white elephant gift exchange, and a big fancy lunch that was organized by the Lewis Center ward. It was so awesome to see some of the ward members I left! Unfortunately I forgot my camera today but we took some pictures with the Carters of all the missionaries that have served in Lewis Center this past year, I'll send them next week. For the last hour of the schedule, we put on the musical devotional program and I sung in the choir (imagine that!). It felt awesome to be surrounded by such great "family" out here, since this is my first year not being home for Christmas!

Not too much else to report on in Hilliard- we were on bikes, and we're lucky to get the car on Christmas Eve, so we can visit a lot of people this week. I finally got over being sick, but then a day later Sister King got really sick, so not much has been done the past few days. It got really cold again last week, but now I'm questioning if a White Christmas is even possible- how depressing is that, since this is my one opportunity to experience that! But it's been REALLY dark and gloomy and I've only seen the sun twice in the past 2 weeks. 

Something funny though is that I've met a couple people here who know a lot about San Diego. One of the members we had dinner with, Brother Lewis, served in the Carlsbad Mission, but served in Scripps Ranch, Miramar, and Fallbrook (he knows the MacDonalds!). And I found the Lundberg's son, who is Brother Young in Hilliard. During ward council he was like, what- I lived in the Penasquitos 3rd ward! So that was cool.

Can't wait to Skype home in two days! Be on by 12:10 Pacific time!

Love, 

Sister Petersen

"Hilliard: Real People, Real Possibilities"

Oh hey.

So the big news of the week is that Sister McCarty and I got doubled-out, meaning that we were BOTH transferred out of Lewis Center. I was slightly surprised that I was leaving, but in the few days leading up to it, I knew I needed to go. However, we were disappointed that we wouldn't be in comfortable Lewis Center for Christmas, and that we would miss Laura coming to church on Sunday. We had never had ANYONE at church, until 3 days after we left. But we heard that Laura came with her 9 year old son, Jonathan, and we're hoping they get baptized at some point!

In the final days of Lewis Center, I had two flat tires, two days in a row. A member had patched up my tube the first time it happened, and gave it back to us the next morning. When we were out later that day, we had been out 15 minutes and my tire was flat again. Our ward mission leader and his wife picked us up since he has a truck, and we figured out that there was still the TINIEST splinter in my tire that had re-punctured the tube. The day had a better ending, as we made buckeyes with a less-active family and had a good lesson with Laura (which ended up being the last). 

I've been out for 10 months and I'm already in my fourth area. I was sent to Hilliard, another suburb of Columbus, on the west side. It looks like a mix of Westerville and the lower part of Lewis Center. I was kind of praying that I would be sent to the ghetto after serving in Lewis Center, but it was not meant to be (yet!). It's another car-sharing area and we get on bikes starting tomorrow. We currently have no investigators, which is not new to me, but there have been several baptisms here in the past several months, so there's hope. This ward is full of OSU medical and dental students and their young families, but also older people too (we actually have people to visit and give service to!!!!). My new companion is Sister King, who is the cousin of my trainer, the first Sister King. She's been out only a transfer longer than me, and is from Arizona/Utah. How crazy that I get two Sister Kings as companions....

The past week has been quite a whirlwind. I arrived in Hilliard sick (again) and exhausted, and it just felt like the weirdest transfer of my mission. What was incredible though is when we took a recent convert, Jo Ann (this super sweet old black lady, wonderful!) to the temple for her to do baptisms for the dead, guess who I saw? Steven! The Westerville sisters brought him to do baptisms for the first time as well! It was the coolest experience! After he did baptisms, he was just beaming and the Spirit just radiated from him! It's good to know that he and Tony are being stellar new members. 

Yesterday we had an all-day meeting with Elder Perkins from the 70, which is why P-day was switched to today. It was very inspiring and was everything I needed to hear. Of course it was also great to see half of the mission as well. 

Love, 

Sister Petersen

Pictures: All of our stuff lined up and ready to be transferred! Moving the bike was a pain, especially because our Hilliard member who took us home brought her kids and a recent convert, and no bike rack, so we really had to get creative. Also, I originally left behind the Christmas tree you sent me, BUT, the new Lewis Center sisters brought it to me at the big meeting yesterday, hooray!

Bikes..... adfjkl;jklafh!!!!!!!

Hey!

Mom and Dad, I can tell you actually remembered it was transfer week, hence why my inbox is almost empty today (not to guilt-trip you or anything, haha). HOWEVER, for some strange reason, we were actually told to go email today even though P-day isn't until Wednesday this week. 

Unfortunately, when we pulled our bikes out of the garage today that Tim and Linda are letting us use, my front tire was completely blown out, which makes no sense since it hasn't moved for over a week. We actually had places to go this afternoon so we didn't have time to figure it out, but I'm assuming I'll need to go get a new tire, who knows where. Words can't even describe how ticked off I was, I may have scared Sister McCarty a bit, haha. Luckily we pulled rides together instantly to move us around today for our various activities and appointments. 

Last week had its ups and downs- we had a great lesson with Laura, but most of the time people were pretty rude to us. Laura is so amazing that she committed to go to church this Sunday, when she seemed hesitant at first. She also told the member that we brought with us that she was having a bad day when we first knocked on her door, but she felt the Spirit and so she kept inviting us back. Incredible.

We had a humbling experience this morning. Our Relief Society president took us up to see a recent convert whose family has been struggling with various tragedies and situations. We sat down and filled out a food order for them and the ward leaders are finally seeing how bad their situation is. The ward is really wealthy, but there's that little corner of the area with the trailer park where this family lives. It was a year ago that Taylor, Hayley and I went to work at the bishop's storehouse, and it was cool to see how that is actually implemented in someone's lives that I know. The Church has really got it together.

We've spent more time with the members this week, going around to talk to them about the "He is the Gift" initiative, and committing them to "share the gift" by sharing the video and giving out the pass-along cards. We also went to the ward Christmas party the other night, which was fun. They did something different this year and had a "family dance party" for the last part. It was actually really successful and we met a few non-members as well. But when they played, "I'll be Home for Christmas," Sister McCarty and I looked at each other like, WHYYYYYYYYYYYY?!?

Good news is, we got a ton of emails regarding the Christmas season, and I will get to Skype you on Christmas!! Woohoo!

Love,

Sister Petersen