We Aren't in Idaho Any More

Well this week was crazy. Very interesting. Tuesday morning we woke up and I looked at the phone and bam! A lot of messages about a tornado.... :) We slept through it. We called the Madison Sisters and they had to take shelter at 1 in the morning and there was a tornado that touched down in Madison but we were fine in Sun Prairie. Next day, I am sitting at my desk in the morning while Sister Packer is getting ready for the day and I looked out the window and noticed it is unusually dark outside. Almost nighttime dark and it is just pouring. The next thing I hear is Sister Packer nervously calling me into the room. We go out to our porch and there is constant lightning like right above us and the sky was green. It was so eerie. It did not feel right so we went and looked at our phone and sure enough we just got an emergency weather text telling us to take shelter immediately! The weather worsened in a blink of an eye, the wind was just howling and the rain was crazy! We scrambled and grabbed our scriptures and water and booked it! We are conveniently on the outside top floor of our building so we had to go outside and run to a laundry room in the middle of the building. We had to have been outside for less than 7 seconds and we were soaked! It looked like we'd been in a 20 minute shower. We had no basement and just hid between the washing machines. We were trying to call and text someone who knew what was going on! We were pretty freaked out and the sirens were blaring the wind is blowing and the lights are going on and off and here we are isolated from the world! We called the Madison sisters and apparently there was a funnel cloud headed right for us! Over all there were 6 tornadoes but it mostly did damage to the trees and nothing else. It kind of looked like a hurricane with that wind and rain. It died down real fast but to be honest we were pretty shaken up! In our prayer when we got to safety I could barely say it I was shaking so bad! We read the Book of Mormon out loud while we waited and we were basically yelling to block out the sound! We eventually called one of our friends in the ward and she told us everything that was going on and that we were safe and could go about our day like normal now. Haha! We were probably just a sad sight. 2 scared girls from Idaho! When we got back to our apartment I felt like I just ran 5 miles and cried all morning. It was weird. Not the ideal start to a day :) Most our day understandably fell through, everyone cancelled because of the tornadoes so we went and made pies with a less active which was fun!

Then that night we get a text from our bishop and a less active and recent convert in our ward that have been living together decided to get married! The next day! We were super excited and we made a lot of treats to help out! The next day we went to the store and were cooking all throughout our weekly planning and 2 pies, brownies, and rice crispies later we get another text saying the wedding was cancelled! It had to be delayed because of paper work. It was super sad, everyone was so excited for the wedding and the whole ward was pulling together. We were left with a lot of treats :) I must say I ate way too many! We gave most of them away though.

But a highlight from that day! We got a church headquarters referral which never happens. The last one we got was 8 months ago! So we go and find out his wife used to be a member and he is catholic and they aren't interested. Bummer right? 10 minutes later we get a call from his wife stating she is not a member anymore but would like to have us over for dinner sometime! That is cool! So we are going this Friday to eat there!
Friday, we go serve lunch but we go to the computer lab for an hour to go onlds.org and catch up with mormon.org and we now have a friend there Andrew who is an athiest. We have been talking to him for about a month now and we have had really good conversations. Friday though he just attacked like the core of our beliefs. Questioning everything and saying everything of man. It was crazy, you see it all the time in the Book of Mormon and we tried to answer his questions for a bit but he was just hashing our faith, not Mormons but our beliefs. I went silent and I was almost shaking with anger. How dare he make all these assumptions and how does he have the right to tell me to doubt. The image of Joseph Smith standing up and yelling, "Silence!" went through my head. He saw we were upset. We didn't say anything because that would bring contention but he apologized and tried to cover up for it. I am so glad for the steadfast testimony I have in my Savior. It was immovable in that moment. I knew what I stood for and I knew why I was here. I wish I could have punched him, it is a good thing I am a missionary other wise I would have. I'm not violent I promise :) I'm ok now, it just really shook me up!

It was kind of a rough week to say the least. But it did cause for a lot of soul searching and I sought for a lot of help and had to rely on the Lord a lot. I read a lot about hope and mercy. No matter what happens in this life, it will be but a short moment. And more importantly, it will be for my benefit. I am so thankful for my knowledge that there is more out there and we are striving for something so great! Eternal life with my family, both Heavenly and earthly. I know I can see my Father in Heaven again and dwell in a state of complete happiness! With that knowledge, I can find happiness in any circumstance I have now! Hope for a better day! Hope that my Savior will pull through and give me a hand! I know he helps me everyday, and I can receive that power and strength! I know that he has given us the Book of Mormon to show us the way! We were still blessed to see miracles everyday in handing our Book of Mormons! We handed out 13 this week and at least 1 everyday. It is the coolest thing and truly a miracle and a blessing. The Lord just wants to help us and he can bless us all he wants when we keep his commandments! I love this gospel!

Yesterday was fantastic and I was pulled out of the gloom! Church was amazing! Brother Schroeder gave a talk about fortifying ourselves with the BOM. This guy is a Marine and he has some amazing stories. He talked about because he had the knowledge of the Book of Mormon, when he was sailing the route Marco Polo took past Thailand pirates started chasing their ship and they defended themselves against them! How crazy is that! He told lots of amazing stories! I am excited to eat there this week :) Then we had dinner with the Davis family and it was SO fun! All 6 of us ate there and their kids were just a riot! We were all laughing so hard! It was crazy, they were running into doors and whatnot :) I loved it! And we had 10 minutes to tract, so first door we go to we only see kids. One opens the door and this little girl just runs out full speed and gives me a great big hug! Out of no where! I loved it! My favorite door yet! There are 6 little kids and we ask if there is a parent and their dad eventually comes out and he took a Book of Mormon and is super excited to meet with us again! Then we went to Katt's and unloaded on her and had an amazing gospel/science discussion. If anyone wants to discuss the theory of relativity with me and the gospel, feel free :)

It was a crazy week and I love it! I hope you all have a fantastic week! I almost cried when I saw my car going bye bye :( Sad day! I love her! I love you all so much! Give some hugs for me ;)!

Love,
Anne

In All Beauty

Well I need to go mom! I love you so much! Just a quick funny story I forgot! We were at a Christian music festival and there was a man and a daughter at a booth selling cards. I stopped and looked and he saw my nametag and said "Sister! You're a sister!? You are the youngest, most attractive sister I have ever seen!" Right in front of his daughter who had to be around my age :) I got a good laugh out of that one!

It was quite funny! I hope you have a great week! Write me ;)

Love,
Your favorite daughter in all her beauty ;)
Anne

Anne Goes a Conferencing

Sister Elkington and I

Representing Idaho Falls and Deseret Book

Note takin

Some of our zone

Happy Father's Day cookie! Enjoy them in your heart, dad!

I'm a missionary!

BOMs passed out jar! One by one!

Ella's Deli. You walk in and it is like happiness just pukes in your face! In a good way!

Lunch at Ella's Deli

There Can Be Miracles

Dear Family!

Wow! This week was AMAZING! I don't even know! Where do I begin! It was a mission/life changing week! I know for every missionary in my district, the course of their mission has been changed! So it started with Zone Training. So to be honest the Wisconsin Mission is not a successful one, it really hasn't been. It isn't terrible, but not great. To make the story short, we were shown the numbers for President Monson's mission. It was 300 baptisms 3 years in a row then over 1000 the next! We discussed what it was. It relies on us missionaries. We have to keep our covenants and change our attitudes. That is it! We talked about what would make every missionary better and successful then the bottom line was just to do it! We just need to follow everything that our President asks of us because he is inspired! So we now hand out a BOM everyday, and we don't just give it but we make reading assignments. It is the most inspired invitation and it works! We have handed out a BOM 6 days in a row now! 12 Books this week! So many seeds and so many new investigators! But the coolest part was when our District met together. There are 4 companionships here and we were setting goals for this transfer. A typical baptism goal would be like 1 or 2 for our district. But with this new determined change in each of us we felt each companionship could do 2. That is 8 baptisms! That is crazy high! But we all felt so good, the spirit was glorious in the room! Before we set the goal the 8 of us knelt down and offered our goal to our Lord. I was almost in tears, we all got up and we were beaming and just nodding our heads. I wish the veil could have been lifted for a moment, there had to be armies of angels cheering us on! I feel like we can really do this. I know the Lord will bless us for our faith and for our diligence! We are seeing miracles everyday! It has been crazy! It is all starting with these small and simple steps. Following our mission Presidents counsel to hand out a BOM. Everyday we miraculously find someone to give this book to! So we have found 2 families to teach this week which is huge! That is what we really want, families!

So now going through the week. Tuesday was zone training, Wednesday was District meeting. Wednesday we went and helped cat lady Marie in her garden and she had actually read the BOM! She has NEVER done that! So she read us a passage while we weeded and she told us what she felt about it! Such a tender mercy! AND she is bringing us a friend of hers to teach! We also placed a book and got a new investigator!

Thursday! That was a good day! A retired member couple had us all over for breakfast and made us french toast. We walk in and he said they keep track of how much you eat, so it better be a lot. Between the 6 of us 43 pieces of toast were eaten which included 39 eggs and 3 and a half sticks of butter. I only had 5 pieces and I was dying! 3 elders had 10 pieces each :) I can't even imagine! It was so fun though! Then we were walking around and found an old man named Dave out smoking :) We had a really good discussion with him and gave him a BOM and I think he will actually read it! Sadly he is moving but he knows how to get missionaries, we gave him several options!

Friday we had companion exchanges so one of the Sister Training Leaders, Sister Martin came and helped me in Sun Prairie. Fridays happen to be our service day where we serve lunch and we help out at the Museum. We made an atheist friend named Andrew here in the computer lab at the Colonial Club and he came and did service with us and he said he is willing to listen to us, he may not convert but he is open. That is all we need! We had to go tracting a little bit because we needed to place a BOM. We got lots and lots of nos when we saw this lady across the street walking her dog. So we try to be friendly, cross the street and say hi and she just b-lined the other way. So we just decided to stay on that side of the street and knock on that door and wow! Another miracle that happened from following your mission Presidents goal of talking to everyone! We met an amazing lady named Kiedra and gave her a BOM too and she was so grateful and she will read it! Sadly she too is moving to California, but we got her hooked up with missionaries there :) 

Saturday all of us had a breakfast appointment again with the Millers and they fed us like Kings! Waffles, fruit, egg casserole, cheesy hash browns, and sweet roles! Mmm! The had their kids over who are not members so that was really cool! Then we went and helped Harriet ice Fathers day cookies which was so fun! Then Andrew invited us to go to a Christian music festival. It was actually super cool and we placed 2 BOMs and I got a couple gifts for mom :) Then we went tracting because we wanted to hand out another BOM. We knocked on this on house and this black lady from Alabama came out and introduced herself as a pastor. We had a very interesting one sided discussion where she told us we were wrong and she tried to point us back to God. She also said she knew she was sent here from God to give us a message and she could see me as a prophetess....that was interesting as well. But the next house we found a family to teach! We are going back tomorrow to have a lesson with them! Also not to forget the coolest part. I saw my first firefly!!!!!! Wahooo!!! I have been waiting! Haha! I was sitting outside looking for them then I saw one flash and yelled "SISTER PACKER! SISTER PACKER!" She about had a heart attack but she came out and we saw another one so it was worth it!
Since Sunday was Father's Day our beautiful ward made pies for the dad's and there had to be at least 40 pies there! I had a delicious cream cheese one. We got the Stolls to come to church because of the pies so that was good! We had a dinner appointment with the 6 of us again last night! This one was good. You'll like this story. So the member who made this meal is from Jamaica so we ate goat! Yup! And I ate it! It had bones and fat and everything! I only had to spit out one piece slyly into my napkin :) But it was actually really good!

I love being a missionary! My testimony just sky rocketed this week! I have been wondering what the phrase "kneeling in mighty prayer" meant. I mean the people in the Book of Mormon ask for incredible things and these miracles do happen. It always seems to be led by mighty prayer though. After District meeting I got a glimpse of it though. That was a mighty prayer. Every day we are seeing success because we are doing our part and we know that God will keep his promise as long as we keep ours. 

Jacob 4:6
6 Wherefore, we search the prophets, and we have many revelations and the spirit of prophecy; and having all thesewitnesses we obtain a hope, and our faith becometh unshaken, insomuch that we truly can command in the name of Jesus and the very trees obey us, or the mountains, or the waves of the sea. 

 I love studying faith. I have been struggling with figuring out what it is and having it. But my mission President just encouraged me to pray to build it and that I can never have too much. We are seeing amazing miracles here and I know that is only because God's hand is in this work. Our work is nothing without him. I love being a missionary and I am learning more everyday what it means to be here! I love it! I hope you are all doing well at home! Keep reading the Book of Mormon, it really brings miracles and peace into our homes! I love you with all my heart! Keep being amazing!

Lots and lots of love!!!!
Sister Anne Trent!

Anne Adventures On

Yes, it is pronounced the way you think.  And it's awesome.

My sweet braid

Classic summer treat.

Es for fun

More missionary food pictures

Transfers lunch

Get Over Here, Get Out of Here

Hello Family!!!

Man! Don't you just love life! How can you not with this good weather! It only rained once this week! It was super pleasant all week! This week we helped again at the Crosse house showing kids how to darn socks. This time another lady was doing it with us and we ended up being her example of what not to do :) I don't know, I think I am a pretty good darner of socks! Turns Charles Crosse is somehow related to Joseph Smith so we are helping out the lady who is his descendant by helping her find her ancestors! Super neat!

We met with Alex again and she still is super strong in her testimony and she still really wants to be baptized, but her mom wants her to make sure and keep exploring. She is still doing great, we just need a miracle to happen with her mom. It is all good though!

We visited Harriet twice this week. She is just so good to us! It gets better with each visit, we are becoming pretty solid friends with her! We get some good laughs there! She loves teasing us about whipping us into shape and our futures. We help her out a little bit around the house then she feeds us many desserts :) So there goes all my healthy eating! We also visited ShirleyAnn I love her! She found out I played piano and she pulls me downstairs to her piano and I couldn't remember a thing :) All well! I told her I will come prepared next time! We also visited cat lady Marie and had a really good lesson with her! She is having a super hard time and we have to be careful so she doesn't start asking us for stuff but I felt inspired to share 1 Nephi 19:9 with her

And the world, because of their iniquity, shall judge him to be athing of naught; wherefore they scourge him, and he suffereth it;and they smite him, and he suffereth it. Yea, they spit upon him,and he suffereth it, because of his loving kindness and his long-suffering towards the children of men.

And she just started crying and she is going to invite her friend to come join us in the lessons! That was super neat. Christ went through everything for us individually and it is amazing when the spirit testifies of that, because it is true. He has such a beautiful and unwavering love for each or us.
Thursday we went and dug up a garden. That is right, I was being quite manly. We dug up a garden bed and moved the dirt to the front and dug up tree roots. I was super dirty, but oh boy it felt sooo good to work hard. I keep telling all these moms, when I get home I am going to be a much better daughter. I am going to help my mom and cook for her because wow it takes a lot of work! Mom you are the best! Dad, you are pretty cool yourself too :) Then we made delicious scotcharoos and oh boy. It is a good thing I have a skinny companion to keep me self conscious because there are still some in the pan, and there wouldn't be if I didn't feel so shameful every time I ate one :) Another thing companions are good for :)

Okay so Friday was good :) I got 3 funny stories, at least for me! We were eating at a members house and we finished eating and had to go. So me and Sister Packer start clearing our plates so we can take them to the kitchen when the 4 year old exclaims, "You can leave those there, you don't need to do that. That is what men are for!" As she looks over to her dad :) We all got a good laugh, him less than the rest of us :) While we were driving there I saw a beautiful red convertible camero and oh boy! It was gorgeous! I was freaking out when my companion said to me "Sister, I haven't even seen you get this excited over a guy!" I am a missionary, what can I say! It was good though, I have been drooling over cars lately. There is an odd number of nice cars out here, you hardly see junker teenage cars! Then after we went tracting when we knocked on this ladies door and we invited her to our chuch open house and she got super excited! She said she was looking for a church and was super excited! Her husband yelled from the room what bible do we read and we said King James and they were just thrilled, yelling praises to Jesus! People are super enthusiastic out here! Granted, they did not come to church BUT we were welcomed back so we are going to start teaching them this week.
Saturday we had our church open house which is crazy because we have been prepping for this since I got here and it is weird that it actually came! We had 12 non members come! At least 1 family and 1 woman are now going to take the discussions so wahoo! It was successful! There were sooooooo many cookies! I ate at least 10 and oh boy. I can't do that anymore, i am gettin old. Life is just good as a missionary!

I love being a missionary! It is amazing to see how Christ's atonement individually blesses each person. He ministered one by one and he still does. His relationship and love for us just blows my mind! He would have suffered what he did even if it was just one person who lived on this planet. He suffered for just you. And all he asks in return is to come unto him! If we truly love him, we will want to align ourselves unto him and the rest falls into place. I know our Savior lives and we will all live again because of him!

I love you all! Have a great week! You're awesome, keep it up! Have fun in the garden and enjoying time at home? If that is where you reside this week? Don't get too stressed out over work and stuff!

Lots and lots of love!
Anne

Nights, Lights, and other Random Wetness

Missionarios

Me remaking my picture that is hanging in your bathroom at home, you know which one :) 

My FAVORITE breakfast! Mmmm! So good!

5 min choco cake

We have become really good friends with one of the less actives in our ward, Harriet, and oh boy! She is taking SUCH good care of us! She taught us how to make Stromboli and jelly rolls and sent us home with half a cake. 2 boxes of cereal and enough ingredients for 2 desserts! This is ALL from her. She is too good to us!

This is the most you could see out of our window at any given time last night. The fastest we could go was 20!

Getting back in after 10 seconds in the rain storm :)

Crazy rain and lightning storms last night and this morning! When I send my card you will have a ridiculous amounts of videos of just rain :)

Life outside a desert

Companionship unity

So haha! Today was SOOOO fun!!! I'll tell you more about the rain but basically it rained for 5 hours straight last night then spurts all morning. So sports with our district this morning was super fun and we went "puddle" jumping :) These are our finally district pics, it has been a good district!

Oh, What a Beautiful Morning!

Dear Family!!

Our most sung song this week was probably "Oh what a beautiful morning!" It was beautiful, sunshiney and hot and humid all week! I hope you guys have been having fun travelling! It seems like quite the adventure! And now a wedding to plan for! I am so excited!!! I hope you remember me at the wedding somehow ;) We actually have listened to The Blueprint of Christ's church several times. We have a super intelligent investigator that we want to share it with if we can just pin her down :) If others thought of us as real people, most would listen to us, most would keep appointments and more would be baptized! But it is all good, we are very persistent and very good at making people regret giving us there numbers or the time of day ;)  No we really do love everyone and are just trying our best to bring them unto Christ.

Thursday we had Sister Goldwater and her companion stay the night with us so we could go to a 6 week training in Osh Kosh together. It was fun. Sister Packer is a great host and gave them our beds so we got to sleep on the floor and we had a very wonderful night full of snoring :) Then we woke up extra early and drove to Osh Kosh. It was a very good training! I got to see all the people I came out with and we all got to see how much everyone progressed. It is amazing how much you can learn in 6 weeks! I made it through a transfer! I hear it gets faster and faster with each transfer and I believe it! One of our goals is to be better at talking to everyone and our training really helped with that. We have a renewed desire to be the best missionaries we can be!

We went over to Harriet's house and she is awesome. She is teaching us how to cook and showering us with food! Wow! We did NOT go hungry this week. Except fast Sunday but that don't count!
Now for the not so great news...yay... Saturday night, things fell apart fast. We got a text from Alex's mom saying they can't go to church. 5 minutes later she asked us to get the bishop to call her. 10 minutes later we call Bishop and apparently Alex no longer wants to be baptized and wants to explore other religions. Yeah, my heart dropped. She wants to keep meeting with us but doesn't want to be pressured into baptism. So we meet with her again tomorrow and we will see how it goes. We hope it is mostly her mom because Alex has an amazing testimony! Wow! That girl is on fire! It will all work out in the end. So no investigators at church.

But! On a lighter note, missionary work is amazing and the it will never be stopped! We just keep going, this is the Lord's work and no unhallowed hand can stop the work from progressing! We went and visited Harriet after church again and she gave us a binder of recipes. She doesn't give those to anybody! Just her kids! Man we have a good work with her, there is a reason we were let in and have this relationship with her! So then we go to dinner with a member and it just starts POURING. Like more rain then air, it is crazy! We were like yelling so we could hear each other then BOOM!! HUGE thunder clap! You could feel it! It rained like that for a solid 5 hours and crazy lightning storm! We got drenched just running to our car! So when we got home we got in our Pjs and sat on our porch watching the storm and eating brownies and cereal :) It was romantic. Haha, we are pathetic! We have lots of fun together! Sister Packer was pretty concerned for our safety, I'm sure it wasn't the safest thing but it was amazing! Then when we went to play sports this morning we played basketball for a bit then went to see if it was raining still. It was sprinkling so we took of our shoes then ran in the rain and found this HUGE puddle and :) It was awesome! Best day EVER! I beat Sister Packer 2-0 in ummm "dunking" each other. I wouldn't say wrestling but yeah. Loads of fun. One of the Elders tried to do a slip and slide and it was hilarious. There was a belly flop. Over all it was a great laugh and a great stress reliever :) Almost peed my pants so you know it is good! Then we went inside and actually played a really good game of soaking wet basketball! I actually enjoyed myself! That is a first :)

So over all it was really good! I love being a missionary! I survived a transfer! Wahoo! I can do this! Of course only with help :) But man! We get to see people everyday that just have such an amazing faith! I wouldn't trade this for anything! I am so glad to be out here serving my Savior! This is his beautiful gospel of peace and happiness. With all the turmoil in our lives we can still be made happy through him! It is a beautiful gospel! I love it and I love my Lord, Jesus Christ!

Lots and lots of love!

Anne!