Gallivant as a Noun

Dear Family,

I don't even know really what to say about this week. It was interesting. We had a district meeting on the law of chastity, that was fun... We did find a new investigator this week named Tom. We met him at the begininng of the week and then taught him near the end. When we got to his lesson it was cool because he said he didn't feel like the Book of Mormon was false. Halfway through the lesson his son came out and said "Dad, the food is ready!" The dad started laughing because that is how his son saved him from the Jehovah's witnesses but he said he wanted to hear what we had to say.

So we went with one of our recent converts (who got baptized at BYU-I btw) to go help this old lady. She was on the 6th floor of an apartment building and is moving to the 2nd floor and just waiting to die. It sounds sad but she is pretty okay with it. She smoked for 50 years so she knows it's time. But anyways she had us clean her old apartment because she couldn't. She warned us before hand that she had Hepatitis C. Not good stuff, so we were really careful and had doubled gloves. We didn't have any cuts so all was good. But we had to clean the toliet and of course all of us being teenagers we were arguing over who had to do it, Sister Homan ended up doing it. After Jacob posted on facebook that we had cleaned an old ladies toliet. We had correlation that night so we were at our ward mission leaders house and his wife asked us what Jacob meant when he posted that. So we told her we had cleaned a ladies toliet who had hep c. She freaked out, hardcore. She made all her kids get away from us and had us sit in a corner and no one could give the sisters and handshake. She then went on a huge search on google to see if she was in any danger. She ended up coming to the conclusion that she wasn't. We didn't know what to do though, it was pretty funny because her husband was just laughing. She then spent the rest of the time upstairs. Fun times.

We went to dinner at the bishop's daughters house. It was great, they have 4 crazy kids that were just wrestling and teasing and beating each other up. And one point we heard a thunk that sounded pretty brutal when the kid walks in and tells his mom, "Mom, Jacob just hit me reeally hard in the head. It hurt, but not too bad. But it is all ok because I am ok!" Then gallivants back on in to wrestling. It was so funny, I have never seen a kid do that. Usually they cry or try to get someone in trouble. Nope, he just wanted his mom to know he was ok.

So Friday we held a fireside. Our mission has implemented a CD to help members be effective missionaries and it is called "The Missionary Next Door" So we held a fireside based on this CD and spent a lot of time putting everything together. We had 14 families helping. It was supposed to be awesome. Half the people dropped out less than an hour before and some others didn't even show up. Some people came, but then it was mostly put on by the missionaries and no one wants to hear from us. Well the lady who made the CD, her dad was there President Hassler. He is in the mission presidency. He told her we worked hard and it was good but we were kind of upset with how it turned out. The lady called us and talked to us, that was pretty cool. She is like a mission celebrity, but yeah.

So really not to much happened. I am glad you guys are doing the Book of Mormon challenge. I finally caught up the other day! It is pretty neat. I enjoyed 2 Nephi a lot with the focus on the atonement! It was super red and green! But today we hit Jacob 5... I still gotta finish :)
Well I hope you all have a wonderful week! I love you loads!

Love you more than there are cows in Wisconsin!
Anne

Meet the Mormons

Dear Familia!

This week was pretty dang sweet. So we had zone training this week and we got to watch Meet the Mormons. It was pretty sweet. You all should have seen it already because I know it is playing in IF and in Utah, I don't know about Nevada. That was pretty fun! First movie in 6 months! I enjoyed it, it was a nice treat for the missionaries. Also at zone training they had Brother Fullmer, the awesome Book of Mormon guy from Sun Prairie, come and teach the missionaries about the Book of Mormon! It was so sick. Everyone was in awe and I just felt pretty cool because I already knew him and already knew most the stuff he was teaching, I'm not prideful at all. Anyways, it was a super good meeting and we didn't have to do any role plays which made it even cooler. 

We went to a members home who have been having a hard time wrangling in their kids and we did a little FHE, well they brought their little friend. He is a super polite kid and super awesome. He is 10 and he can break dance and rap and he knows a TON about the bible. We played Simon Says at the end of our lesson and all the kids wanted to take a turn so when it was his turn he was having them do all these dance moves like the coffee grinder and head spins. It was super funny. We also totally forgot it was one of the Elders birthday so we ended up building him a sweet cake.

Tuesday was a really slow day because we didn't have our usual meetings. Then a miracle happened. A referral from the Madison Elders called us and wanted to know if we could bring the Elders over to move her washer and dryer. So all 6 of us show up at her house 10 minutes later and the Elders move her washer and dryer/ almost die down the stairs. We shared a little message with her and invited her to church. She said she would if we could find a ride for her and her 3 boys. We of course say yes we will and go along on our merry way. Turns out it is really hard to find a ride for 4 people. Really hard. We'd gone through the ward list several times and made many phone calls and it is 8 Saturday night. Finally someone calls us back and who can give them a ride. During that phone call 3 other people try calling to say they can! Awesome! Everything thing went through and her family came to church! She has a 16, 13, 2 yr old and one on the way. It was hard to keep the 2 year old entertained during sacrament meeting, we may have had a little marker incident. It all worked out though, they stayed for all 3 hours and afterwards they all said they really enjoyed themselves and can't wait to come back! Super exciting! The bishop told us after that the boys had been really involved in priesthood too! So pretty solid! don't think anything is more stressful than having investigators come to church! I am always so worried. It is like when you show somebody your favorite movie and just sit there and stare at them the whole time to see if they liked it.

We also had Kevin, the deaf member come to church and Sister Homan interpreted for him during Sunday School. It looked pretty dang hard. Everyone was talking super fast and it looked hard to keep up. We had a lot of less actives come to church actually. Gospel Principles was pretty full, which is never is. 

We also met someone else awesome this week. So we went to contact a referral the Elders gave us. He opened the door and introduced himself as a Satanist........awkward..silence... then my comp asks what that means. Then we taught him the restoration and he loved it! He stopped us like 3 times to ask questions about our church and he was just eating it up. Finally HE just asked if we would mind if he came to church! Hallelujah! We taught him the next day too and he totally would have come to church but he got food poisoning, he is definitely coming next week though. So all that is fine and dandy! He seems to be super solid. He believes in God and he believes God is going to win in the end. That point of view got him kicked out of his church. He really wanted to be Christian at one point but all these churches were super mean to him and kicked him out. Not ours!

So yeah sweetness of a family coming to church! That is a first! I have never taught a family, I am uber excited. The gospel is meant to bless families. And as our awesome President Cutler always says "Exhaulted life if family life, God's life it family life!" It's so true! God is just waiting to bless us and families are where we see the most blessings! 

Love you more than all the colors in the trees!

Anne!

...Since Easters

Can I just call this week CRAZY! So Monday was just full of a lot of goodbyes as well as Tuesday. It was go go go. I only cried once and that was saying goodbye to the Stolls. That was rough. He of course says the closing prayer and he is crying so of course I start crying. Dang it all! Then I saaid bye to a lot of families in the ward. I also spent quite a bit of time packing. But I can proudly say I did not have to send one thing home! And I dare you to find another missionary here that can say the same! Granted, I need to send some things home. But it isn't because I got too many packages, because there is no such thing and I will take all the packages one desires to send me. But because members have given me a few gifts and I just have a ton of books which are not mission approved. I think one suitcase was mostly books. But I fit everything including bedding into my suitcases. So bravo to me! Transfers were super easy. So everyone who is going to be transferred in the zone meets at the same building then members drive missionaries to 1 of 5 transfer buildings and you just go from there. Because janesville is still in the Madison zone We drove to the building, talked a bit then I got in Sister Homan's car and went home! left at 8:30 from Sun Prairie and got to Janesville by 10. Our apartment is HUGE! Apparently the Sun Prairie apartment is one of the smallest apartments. I didn't know any better so I thought it was perfect. You could fit my old apartment into this one twice. We have a big living room and a whole kitchen and a spacious bathroom that you have to walk across to get to places. Two bedrooms. We sleep in the same one. The other room is Sister Homan's closet because she lives out of her suit case, the real closet in there is the community closet with a bunch of free clothes. Everyone who has passed through here though has been like a size 0. So no free clothes for me. And I already have all of my stuff unpacked and put away ever so nicely. Folded in the drawers and hung up in our bedroom closet. It is kind of nice that Sister Homan doesn't use the closet or the dresser because I get to use all of it. I can be organized and I am not cramped on space. The closet is about 4x as big as my old one. And I love our new car! It doesn't feel like a big bulky, jerky brick. But nice and sleek! I keep going on about our apartment because it is sick. I told Sister Homan she is just going to have to deal with me talking about it for another week. 

Let me tell you, replacing Sister Elkington is some hard shoes to fill! She was here for almost 8 months, the people love her. They work with a lot of less actives here. Wednesday night we teach a BOM class with the Elders at the church for parents waiting for their kids at mutual, at least that is what I assume it is for. That is who goes. Oh and I hit my 6 month mark! Wahoo! I thought it was the 8th so I didn't realize that I had hit it :) But whatever. Way to fast, I still feel like a newbie. Sister Homan has been out 13 months and she feels like a newbie. I will always feel like one. Sister Homan came out with Sister Morales AND was her comp in Gresham! How cool is that! She has been comps with the 2 people I know! 

Friday we went to a less active and she taught me how to knit! That was fun! Most less actives just need a friend, thats it. Someone to take interest in them. It's kind of sad that that is all it would take for someone to come back to church but no one will be their friend. Then coolest thing ever! We are teaching a less active in the ward who is deaf! And Sister Homan signs! So we can understand each other! And he is starting to come back to church (hopefully) he says he will. We are going to work on starting a signing class in the ward so he can have some people who will understand him. AND Sister Homan is teaching me ASL. And I must say I am doing pretty well. Let's see what she has to say. She says "You are doing great and you are learning very fast" So there you have it. I can fingerspell and sing a couple songs and say families can be together forever. Also to help me learn, I am learning our missionary scriptures in ASL. I have D&C 30:27 and the missionary purpose done. It was neat to teach Kevin because you could feel the spirit so strong! And I could understand him! Granted not communicate with him, I got kind of nervous. But next time I will have more to say to him! 

We are helping the Elders plan a wedding for their investigators so they can get baptized. It is pretty funny helping them. They are clueless. We went and raked for a really long time and we have blisters and sore hands. It is great though because it will prep us for shoveling this winter! I would much rather build up racking then shoveling heavy snow! It was great to have my first Sunday here be fast Sunday! They asked me and the new spanish elder in the ward to bear our testimonies and introduce ourselves. It is always the weirdest feeling for me to be in a new ward, It feels weird that I am the missionary. That I am the one the little kids look up to and sing about. I hope I can live up to their expectations. 

I love Janesville! I love the people here! I am excited to serve the Lord here! I hope to be a part of building up his kingdom here and finding prepared people to be strong valiant servants of his. The Millers in the Sun Prairie ward said something amazing before I left. They said they were talking about downsizing. We of course said oh thats a good idea, a lot of people do that. Then they said no, we want to so we are spending as much time on the house and cleaning as we could be serving and doing missionary work. Wow! That took me aback. I hope I can be that dedicated when I get home. To keep this relationship I have with my Savior and always strive to put him first!

I love y'all and hope you have a great week!

I love you more then leaves we've raked!
Anne

Conference time is a good time

Oh boy! Such a long crazy week! I am just going to go off my journal because I can't put it all together.

Tuesday. So we have passed this guy out smoking on his porch like 3 times and we both felt like we should talk to him. We did and it was awesome! We taught him about the Book of Mormon and set up a return appointment! We also had a lesson with an investigator we haven't seen in 2 months! That was cool! 

Wednesday, it was cold! Summer is gone! We went to mutual with the youth and they couldn't play mafia because that is appropriate. So they changed the characters and called it gadianton robbers. It was a pretty sick idea. Probably too many people but I kept the paper because I am so playing it again. We also visited Sister Pink. She is just a doll! I love her so! I am going to miss her. But she writes me every week so it is all good. We also taught Marie who we do service for. We taught her the restoration and she was super receptive. We invited her to baptism and she politely said she isn't ready yet. You never know until you ask. But I think Sister Weaver would agree in saying it is probably the best lesson we have taught together. Boy you can feel the spirit when you talk about the first vision out in nature and hear the birds singing and the leaves rustling in the breeze. Wow! 

Thursday. I made food! I made enchiladas and we went to Sally's and ate them! It was fun, she has been so sweet to me. We also went to see a referral from a couple months ago and she was so nice to us. She used to be a member so she likes the missionaries, just not our message. We ate dinner at the Sellars and it was so good and we had hot chocolate and no bake cookies. It made my tummy happy! It was the perfect fall dinner. I sure have appreciated the long skirts you sent me this week. They are just perfect for the cold wind.

Friday we did something cool. We helped an older lady in our ward with family history. She is a convert so we got the names of her parents and siblings all ready to go to the temple so she can be sealed to her family! How neat is that! We went and helped Sally's friend Marge clean her windows. She had a fancy window washing pole thing, it was lots of fun. I might consider doing that for a living. 

Saturday. We went to the Schroeders for General Conference. They are the funniest couple. They are like to children in love. Wow. Playing airplane and everything. Awkwardly greeting us at the door. I hope I am that cool when I get married. We got the transfer text while at their house. It came an hour late, I was just slightly dying. Conference was SO GOOD! It is so neat that the speakers got to speak in their native tongue! So monumental! Wow! All the talks were just so good! I loved Elder Uchtdorf's on light. For the afternoon session we went to the church. That night we had like 35 minutes to tract. We had a plan to go tract on a certain road. We went and stopped where a lot of lights were on and there were cars. We stopped where 5 houses looked like there was life inside. Out of that 5 we taught 4 doorstep lessons, 3 took a Book of Mormon and 2 set up return appointments with us and we got a Spanish referral for Madison. It was a HUGE miracle! We finally met our weekly goal with lessons taught and BOMs handed out. So cool! 

Sunday. We went to Harriet's and Jim had made us breakfast and they had bought us pumpkins to carve. I feel like their adopted child. She is my mission mom, she has just taken care of me. It was cool because we got to watch conference with her and Jim was Ok with it. She had a lot of questions which was good. We went and helped the Stolls set up general conference on their ipad. They have only watched part of a session because she was sick so they didn't get around to it :/ But I taught him how to catch up. Then we went to the church to watch the last session and a ward member ended up having us over to watch it in their home. It was so nice. Last conference I was leaving in 3 days to come here. This one I am leaving in 3 days again to go some place new! I better be careful of my subconscious will associate general conference with leaving places. It kind of made this weekend seem slightly surreal. Then we went to the Miller to pick up my dress that she fixed (I may have ripped a dress :) And they ended up feeding us. It was nice to see them one last time. Then we went to our ward mission leaders house for desert and a farewell. 

I am going to Janesville which is actually Lacey's last area. I am replacing her! How cool is that! Janesville is doing really well and I am super excited. And the best part is I will be close enough to Chicago to go to the temple! Hopefully my companion hasn't gone yet! Wahoo! I am so excited, we will see how that works out. I miss the temple a lot! It is going to be hard to say goodbye to Sun Prairie! I love the people here! I haven't cried yet though. It is probably good that we didn't have church on Sunday. It will be especially hard to say goodbye to Harriet. Well my time is running short. I love you all so much! I hope you enjoyed conference as much as I did! 

Love you more than the falling leaves!

Anne

Rolling, Rolling, Rolling

This week has been CRAZY! It feels so good! My wonderful sister Lindsey sent me jump ropes this week! Oh boy! With a really hard (shouldn't be) routine. We did it everyday for 3 days. We were walking like pirated with peg legs. Both of our right calves just killed! We were just hobbling down the street pathetically. Then lo and behold, first day of autumn hits and BAM! Allergies. It was ridiculous! Nothing worked and I was just a sad looking/sounding wreck. Then of course all the snot build-up basically makes me sick. I was sneezing all night and cuddling with a roll of toilet paper surrounded by tissues strewn about. I know, it's a gruesome scene. The members took good care of me giving me many meds and remedies. It is a good thing you sent emergen-c. I was loaded up on that stuff just trying so hard to get better. So I really was a wreck for a few days. Hobbling and sniffing about :) But it is okay, I got through it fast. It was slow in the moment but looking back, I was fine.

Now for the good stuff, Tuesday we had our quarterly interviews with President Cutler. It was awesome! I asked him for a priesthood blessing at the end and oh boy! Wow! Just wonderful and perfect. I know the Lord definitely watches out for each of us and is mindful of everything. We had a lesson with a guy who had slipped Sister Weaver his phone number. We had it at the church and brought Sister Schroeder. It actually turned out really well. He actually seemed interested with learning more and not just flirting with Sister Weaver. Then we ate  with the Schroeders the next day. Oh boy! They are so funny! The Elders always say they feel awkward going there but I don't know why. It's probably because they don't get sarcasm and dry humor as Sister Weaver and I do! We had a member get us some chocolate cheese this week! That was awesome. that is what the picture is of. Thank you Wisconsin.

I am running out of time so I am going to have to cut some stuff out. Saturday was another running around day.Going going. We had a really good lesson with the Stolls because we were really bold with them. We figured out that they aren't actually asking to know if the church is true. So we promised them if they write down 3 questions, take them to the Lord and watch conference (all with sincerity) that they will receive an answer. Brother Stoll came to church on Sunday, partly because it was the primary program and who can miss that? It was so good! I love our ward, they are so neat. 

Saturday we watched the women's broadcast. Sally came to the potluck before hand, she wouldn't stay for the whole thing though. I went with a couple questions because I thought I better try out what I promised the Stolls would work. I went, had my 3 questions. I watched it, waiting. I thought it was over after all the women spoke and I was upset because not one of them had been answered. Then President Uchtdorf spoke and all were answered in like a minute! It was awesome! It totally works, I highly suggest it!

But this week we were really bold and were the missionaries we should be. We were talking to everyone, making those awkward street crossings to talk to people. Bearing testimony by the spirit. I love being a missionary and talking to people. I know we haven't had any baptisms in this area yet but I know we are being successful. We are doing what we need to be doing and it just feels good. The best feeling as a missionary is laying down in bed, exhausted, knowing you worked hard and you did all you could do. I hope you are all doing well! I love you guys so much and I am thrilled with the missionaries you guys are being! Thank you so much! 

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I love you more than food in our fridge!

Anne