... and now there are Three!

Dear Mom,

     I am so sorry I didn't get to email on Monday! We moved our Pday to today because we were getting ready for Sister Erdenetsogt to come in. I was surprised that you didn't show up in the Austrian airport or the mission home to search us down :)

Love Sister Peterson 

*** Little does Kori know, I had started looking at next day tickets- 9 days is too many to wait to hear from this beautiful kiddo!

Dear Friends & Family- 

    It is so strange how our lives get so routine. One little change seems to really throw everything for the week askew! Having P-day (prep day) on different days is always the weirdest thing! We couldn't have our P-day on Monday because we were CRAZY BUSY setting up the apartment and getting ready for Sister Erdenetsogt to come in.

A warm welcome for Sister Erdenetsogt

  

We decorated Mel's apartment too

     Sister Erdenetsogt got in yesterday, she came in straight from Vienna where she had been living. We are super excited to work with her!

Three Beautiful Companions

     I have no idea what will happen next transfer (next transfer is on 9 January). We are thinking that Sister Wunderli will move on to a new area and I will stay to finish up Sister Erdenetsog'ts training.

Making the apartment feel a little more like HOME

     Sister Erdenetsogt is awesome and I am very excited to get to know her. My only concern is that I am going to have a hard time teaching Sister Erdenetsogt about the importance obedience to the mission rules. She didn't go to the MTC, which means she came straight from normal life to here! She has no idea how anything works, and Sister Wunderli either doesn't know about certain mission rules or doesn't like to follow them. I am definitely hoping that they both don't end up HATING me after 3 weeks because of how much of an 'obedience freak' I am. Hey, I like and need all the blessings of the spirit I can get, and being obedient is the only way that I know how to get them!  I think we are all excited to see how these next 3 weeks will go! It will be fun to see how a companionship of three works out-

I finally made homemade knodel

   

... and they were delicious

     You asked me what makes a good trainer?? This was a hard question because I tried to come up with a nice, powerful answer. But the only answer is NOTHING!! You are asking the girl who got a Golden right after she finished training herself; I had been in Germany 12 weeks when Sister Henry became my first "child". I actually would like to know how the President Miles determines that as well. You learn how to be a trainer as you train, maybe it's a lot like being a parent- you just try your hardest, learn what your golden needs and what types of things work best with them. Even though this is my 3rd golden, Sister Erdenetsogt needs different things than my other Golden's, so I have to relearn how to be a trainer all over again! I appreciate your words of encouragement, and I promise I definitely am grateful and humble that Heavenly Father trusts me with His new Sister Missionaries. Is this how you feel being a parent- just so humble that Heavenly Father trusts you to be the first support and example for your children?

Sister Powell & I on Tausch (exchange)

We made bon bon's

     This week has actually been a weird week in general. We were told that we are allowed to go to the theatre and see the movie 'Silent Night' with our investigators and less actives. A member here in Austria actually directed the movie, and it was filmed right here in Salzburg. It was an amazing movie!!!  It was a bit weird to go to the mall and be in a movie theater...but it was good and definitely well worth the adventure. I definitely encourage everyone to go and see it!

At the movies with R

We definitely stand out when we are all together at the movies :)

     The Didenhovers (the senior missionary couple here) took us out to lunch last week after helping us organize a few things for the apartment. We were looking at the menu and saw that one of the meals came with Zwiebel Ringe (onion rings) and so Elder Didenhover ordered that meal, thinking that he was going to get nice, crispy onion rings. Instead, he literally got chopped up onions. He was really looking forward to some good ole' American greasy, battered, thick onion rings- needless to say, he didn't touch them :P 

   

My spicy Thai dinner

We found a Subway

     It is kind of fun to work in a companionship of 3, especially since we all have different native languages. I looked around during personal study today, and we were all reading the same thing (Preach My Gospel) but I was reading English, Sister Wunderli was reading Hungarian, Sister Erdenetsogt was reading Mongolian, and then when we come together we read in German.  Oooh, languages!

     Sister Erdenetsogt actually already speaks amazing German, she was studying in Vienna for a year before she came here. Normally, with my companions what we have tried to do is speak English in the apartment and German when we go outside. It has always been hard to remember to speak German outside the apartment because it has always been easier for me to speak in English, but now its hard to remember to speak English in the apartment, because German is just easier for all of us! We are a pretty funny group.

     It has been a pretty intimidating thing to be Sister Erdenetsogts trainer...She was in Vienna studying for a year, which is still in our mission boundaries, so a LOT of the missionaries know her and love her. The week leading up to her coming to Linz, we got a lot of calls and texts from missionaries all over telling us to take good care of her. Yikes, if I mess up at all, the whole mission will know! 

Photo- bombed at the Mall

Baby,,, it's cold outside

     The office is holding all of our Christmas packages hostage! Well, until Saturday at the Christmas conference, so I will probably get the package there. Thanks for sending a package to Sister Henry and Woods, I am sure they will love that :)  I told sister Powell about the cute little Facebook mom group and how I get letters and packages from random moms I have never met, and she got super jealous. Teehee I have you to thank for that (actually, she needs to Thanks all the amazing moms of the Alpine Mission Missionaries- they are an amazing group of moms & dads)!

A delicious dinner

... in the kitchen

     Probably one of my favorite things about reading the scriptures is that I notice something different every time I read them, no matter how much I have read them before. I was reading this week in 1 Nephi 11, when Nephi asks to know the meaning of his father's dream. What really stuck out to me was 1 Nephi 11:9-23.  If you have some scriptures, take a few minutes to read through those.  Notice how the first time the angel asked Nephi about the tree, Nephi didn't know what the tree meant.  Instead of telling Nephi directly what the meaning of the tree was, the angel SHOWED Nephi what it meant. Nephi saw the virgin Mary, and then he saw the birth of Jesus Christ. Just imagine for a moment about what Nephi must have been feeling after witnessing the birth of our Savior, the peace, the love, the spirit he must have felt. After seeing and experiencing these things, the angel asked again if Nephi knew the meaning of the tree. This time, Nephi was able to answer and say 'Yes, the tree is the LOVE OF GOD.'  Christmas is coming up, and it is so easy to forget the true spirit of Christmas.  Take a few minutes to remember the baby Jesus that lays in the center of all of our nativity sets, and think of what Christ's birth means for us.  If we really want to feel the love of God in our loves, all we have to do is get to know Christ. 

     With that thought, have a great week, and merry Christmas :)

Liebe Grüße,
Sister Peterson