Spring

Hey,

This is going to be the shortest email ever because I'm almost out of time and I don't have much to say! But this week was really good! We just walked around and contacted some people, didn't do too much teaching though. It was cold and rainy for a few days, but it's been really nice here and there too. 

We had Stake Conference yesterday, and it was a broadcast from Salt Lake City. Elder Andersen and Elder Hales talked about how much the Church has progressed in Northeast America in the last 50 years. We have over 20 missions and 9 temples with a few more coming! The Northeast is a great place to be. 

The pictures I attached are of some spring flowers- when trees bloom here, they actually have these huge flowers come off of them! I never saw anything like it until coming to Ohio, it's really pretty. The other picture is of Sister Fox and I walking around one afternoon with these leaves on our noses- if you peel back these certain leaves/seeds, you can stick it to anything haha. 

Love, 

Sister Petersen

A Baptism!

Hey everyone, 

Isaiah got baptized on Saturday, then on Sunday was confirmed and also ordained to the Aaronic priesthood. Though really, this was the easiest baptism ever. Sister Fox and I literally just showed up, put him on-date for baptism, and were like, "this is your thing, you choose how you want this all done" because he's been taught by a few different missionaries and never made it all the way to baptism. Guess he was ready now! Everything went great with the baptism, and he's doing well. 

The other thing that happened this week is I went on companion exchanges to Springfield and stayed with Sister Bromley. Springfield is this old town half an hour away. It's full of these old Victorian houses that are literally crumbling, some of them were really cool! However, we saw some of the scariest people I have seen in my whole mission. Definitely some humbling circumstances there. 

Enjoy the baptism pictures! 

Love, 
Sister Petersen

 

Living in a Horror Film

Hey, 

This week was pretty eventful. We've had more service opportunities recently, including setting up for a wedding reception and then spending half of our Saturday moving a member's neighbors out of their house. The wife, Jennifer, was amazed at everything we and the elders did for them, and Sister Fox and I got to answer some of her questions and give a brief Restoration lesson as we were fed lunch. She wants to come to church and has sooo much potential... then we realized that she is moving to a house that is only a couple blocks outside of not just our ward boundaries, but mission boundaries... we don't know what will happen with that yet. 

Isaiah passed his baptismal interview and should be baptized on Saturday. Our fingers are crossed as he literally just quit smoking 2 days ago. We have also found two new investigators this week, which has not happened to me since I was in Westerville- that's a really long time! One of them is Nick, a father with two little girls who is going through a divorce. We came by on Tuesday to teach a first lesson in connection with the "Because He Lives" video that we introduced to him. He gave us a tour of his house, because it was built in 1906 and has a historical plaque on the front since it's one of the first homes in Beavercreek. It had 3 stories and was really cool! The staircase to the third floor was secretively hidden in what looked like a closet in a tiny room on the second floor. Fun stuff. 

The other new investigator is a older man named Joe. We had also given him a Because He Lives card, and had a return appt. We wanted to teach the Plan of Salvation because his wife passed away from cancer and he seemed receptive. We brought a recently returned missionary and he invited us in to sit down on the couch in his living room. Within the first two minutes, I noticed a bug on Sister Fox's shirt, and flicked it off. But I recognized it right away as a bed bug (other story, one of our other investigators, Robert, has a bed bug infestation so we had a member look up pictures of them for us so we could recognize them)(we haven't been over to Robert's in a while...). So then I looked behind her at the couch we were on.... AND THEY WERE EVERYWHERE. Bugs were ALL OVER the back couch cushions, and holy crap I got SO squeamish as Sister Fox obliviously went into the Plan of Salvation. Then Joe had to take a phone call, and while he was talking on the phone, I turned to Sister Fox and whispered, "BED BUGS.... LOOK BEHIND YOU." Then the both of us, along with the member we had, were all fidgeting and squirming as we found bed bugs crawling on US. Sister Fox tried to keep going and make the lesson brief, and Joe was surprisingly receptive and feeling the Spirit as bed bugs WERE CRAWLING ON HIM. He looked like a creepy crypt-keeper or something. It was weird. We were only in his house for about 20 minutes and felt bad about cutting things short, but we said we had to go. Outside his house we were lifting up our clothes and pulling bugs off of each other before getting into the member's car. Sister Fox and I immediately stripped down, threw our clothes in the washer, and took a shower when we got home and were majorly panicking. After that, we sat down to finally get around to our weekly planning, and Sister Fox found a bug on her arm and freaked out. I vacuumed the entire apartment as my companion was almost crying. 

The good news is, we (along with our apartment) are clean! We have not seen any more bed bugs. However, Sister Fox has bite marks up and down her body- I think I was only spared because I was wearing tights and my arms were covered with a cardigan. That is an experience I never want to have EVER AGAIN. I have had other things happen in lessons, such as children throwing their pet rats on my lap while teaching the First Vision, but this was absolutely repulsive. 

Anyways, here's my only picture for the week- Sister McCarty finished her mission and is home now- this is us the day before transfers. 

Love, 

Sister Petersen

Possums and General Conference

Hey everyone, 

Wasn't General Conference so good? If you haven't seen it, go to lds.org RIGHT NOW. I was amazed at how all the talks were just so spot-on, and answered questions that I came prepared with. Because of Conference, I feel more of a desire to understand the Savior and the Atonement more, and to recognize the Lord's hand in my life. There are many other things that stuck out to me, but it's too much for me to type out right now. General Conference weekend is always nice, and Sister Fox and I spent all four sessions at the church building (see attached picture for Conference selfie, haha). 

The miracle of the week is that Isaiah is back on date for baptism. The other week he had dropped us and didn't want to be involved with the church anymore, but later it turns out he just offended by something, and his desire to move forward has been restored again. Just goes to show that the adversary will always try to push us down because he doesn't want good things to happen in our lives, especially for Isaiah to join the church. We shared the talk, "Cast Not Away Therefore Thy Confidence" with him, by Jeffrey R. Holland. If you haven't read it, look it up. 

The funny thing from this week is that we played a prank on the elders for April Fool's Day. When walking along the side of the road the day before, we saw a dead possum completely intact. That evening, we ran into a member who told us prank stories from her mission, and Sister Fox wanted to run with one of those ideas.... so the next day when we got the car back, we picked up the possum and put in a box outside the elders' apartment, with a note that said "Take care of my baby" stuck on it! Oh my gosh that thing smelled SO BAD, Sister Fox was gagging as we drove with all the windows down! The funny thing is that a Restoration pamphlet flew into the box when we drove over, but to our surprise the elders didn't know it was us! They thought it was this one crazy lady or some anti-Mormon person, and told the Daines about it when our district leader was on the phone with President, hahaha! We broke the truth to them later, and now everyone in our district is making all these possum jokes. I attached pictures for your viewing pleasure. :D

If you just got totally grossed out, look at the picture of the golden-doodle puppy that I held at a member's house a couple weeks ago! The other picture is one of all the sisters in our zone, after zone meeting on Wednesday. 

Have a great week and review those Conference talks! We have definitely been blessed with modern-day prophets and apostles to lead and guide us today!

Love, 

Sister Petersen

Not a bad week!

Hi,

It's a been a pretty decent week. We kept busy with various things, including doing service for some members by filling up and tying over 300 balloons for a party they were having (but thankfully, they had an air compressor to blow them up!). We also met some new people. On Saturday we met Robert, who is 45 and dying from liver problems due to alcoholism. We sat in his mother's old home in the REALLY run-down neighborhood of our area as he cried and cried to us. His life story is pretty sad. Moral of the story, don't drink or do drugs. We talked a lot about the Atonement and invited him to church- and miraculously he came! 

However, we weren't actually at church when Robert was there- we had planned on taking a returning less-active member to the singles branch. That was fun, I miss being in a singles ward, though some singles wards/branches can be pretty weird! 

Something that I've been learning the past few months is that we really can't do it all on our own. I can't do the area on my own, can't work through my weaknesses on my own, and can't finish my mission on my own. In a lot of what I studied this week, I kept receiving the message that we all need to trust more in our Heavenly Father and let go of what we can't control and give our burdens to Him and our Savior Jesus Christ. They love us so much and that love is always there, whether we feel that we deserve it or not. Yes, we need to develop self-reliance, but being self-reliant also means that we need to learn how to work with others and trust in God. 

I am feeling blessed though.... because some members just gave us a treadmill for our apartment this week! Woohoo!

Love, 

Sister Petersen

PS: We had a zone activity today, here's a picture of us. I'm back with Sister McCarty, I've missed her!

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