Miracles, Elders & Trains... Story of My Life

*** This is the letter that Kori wrote the week she missed her p-day
To mom's chagrin, it took a LONG time to get here...

Dear Friends & Family,

By now you have probably heard what a weird week we had.
It was so odd not having p-day on Monday. I feel like our whole week has been off because of having p-day on Wednesday! Before I go on to this week, I want to tell you about our amazing week last week.

So this transfer has been wrapping up to a close and during our weekly planning on Friday, Sister Henry and I talked about things we have done well, miracles we have seen and things we can do better moving forward. One of those things was contacting and finding potential investigators-we have hardly found any one this transfer! We were starting to get a little discouraged, so we were praying for ways to find more people.
As we were planning the next days' activities (for Saturday), we realized that we had the entire day open! No appointments, no people to visit, just 10 hours to plan for and keep busy!

We looked through our area book and mapped out all the potential investigators that live in areas we never go to, or Dorfs that are super far away. We decided to have a companionship finding day, and use all of that time to take care of the people we have already found. We prayed for help to reach these people, meet our goals and find more! I will admit, I was pretty nervous on Saturday morning- 10 hours is a lot of time to fill. But before we left the apartment, we said another prayer asking for help to meet our goals. We found 10 potentials that day, go a new investigator family and we were able to be the answer to a members prayers!

The new investigator family is a very cool story. The "O" family comes from Nigeria and they were found by Sister Jenson and Sister Smart five transfers ago (30 weeks). But every time Sister Jenson and I would go by, they were really busy and seemed very uninterested. Sister Henry and I went by on them for the first time this transfer and they invited us in and FED us (food is always the true sign of a good lesson!). We gave them them an Einfuhrungs (introductory) lesson. He told us that his brother had just been baptized in Switzerland and how much of a difference the church has made in his life. He told us "I was never ready to listen to you and your colleagues before. But I want to know more about your church now. I'm ready to accept this gospel!! Wie Toll! Day Made!!

But the day continued to get even better. We went to a Dorf called Schallstadt, which we never go to because the train from Freiburg to Schallstadt doesn't run very often. We got there and had two hours planned to be there. Unfortunately, both of our potentials weren't home. Instead of getting discouraged that we had ridden all this way for two people who weren't home, we felt like there was a purpose to our being in Schallstadt that we just didn't know yet. So we stayed for a bit and went contacting. 

Maybe 10 minutes after we started dooring, we got a call from the "H" family, members in our ward. Bruder H asked where we were and what we were doing. When we told him we were contacting in Schallstadt, he got all excited. He asked what street we were on and said, "Stay right where you are, I'm coming to get you!" and hung up. A few minutes later, he shows up in his car and gives us directions to his house, which is right around the corner from where we were! When we got to there, his wife explained that she was very sick with the flu but had to teach primary the next day. She had called everyone in the ward who could normally cover for her, but everyone was on vacation and nobody knew our phone number or how to get a hold of us.
Sister H had prayed for a miracle, so that she could find someone to teach her class. Her husband called around to get our number, called us, only to find out that we happened to be in the Dorf where they live. It was such a testimony builder to me that everything we do, every step we take, is inspired of the Lord.

So you know now about our fun week and why I couldn't write on Monday. I can't believe how much work was needed to get the apartment ready for the new sisters.

I am super excited to be spending another transfer here in Freiburg. It is a great place to get to spend 4 transfers (24 weeks). And I know once I leave here, the time will only continue to pick up speed! So maybe I will never leave :)

I almost forgot to tell you, in our mission we do something called "personal touches", which are small little acts of service or gifts that we are supposed to do for others (the members, our investigators, our companions, etc). Well, the Offenburg Elders were trying to think of ways to help us get into the habit of doing our "personal touches" to our members. They decided that in order to get into the habit of serving our members, we first needed to learn to how to serve each other. So we did a "personal touch" game together in our district. We each got two names of people in our district, a "whenever" name (someone you could to a PT for whenever) and a "whoever" name (anyone in the district you wanted to personal touch, but you couldn't do this until you had already been PT'd). Once someone gives you a PT, you tell them the name of your whenever person. So it's just his never ending cycle of service and gifts and love and excitement! It was actually really cool. It forced us to really pay attention to how we could serve each other and it made you feel so good when you got PT'd. 
This honestly has been the most fun week of my mission- going about doing our missionary work but also taking time to serve the other missionaries int he district. We have such good Elders :) What are we going to do when they leave?

So Sister Henry and I will be together for another 6 weeks (so excited). Elder Stricklin is staying here until his release home (that's called dying in the mission) and he will work with Elder Kingrey. Elder Sumsion is going to Dornbirn, Austria. Elder Steed is going to Stuttgart International ward and Elder Davies will be getting a golden!! I'm excited for this transfer.

I hope everything is going good at home! Thanks again for all your love and support and especially all your prayers.
Love you all,

Sister Peterson

** Kori's companion told the story of another incident with crazy bees in her letter home. After reading Sister Henry's version of the story, I can see why Kori chose not to tell it- but it is a funny read.
You can read it on her blog, just click here.