It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas

Dear Family,

It has officially snowed here in Wisconsin! Whoot whoot! And it is sticking! I love it! So pretty! Really funny story though. Sister Homan is the designated driver and she is from California. She was here for last winter but has never driven in the snow. We were leaving an appointment 5 minutes late and we were supposed to be at a meeting. It is like a 7 minute drive to the house we are going so we text and say we are going to be 10 minutes late. There is probably 1 cm of snow on the ground at this point. It has been a solid 10 minutes on the road and Sister Homan had not gone above 12 mph and we weren't even half way there. She may have been slightly freaking out then she had me call the mission office and tell them she doesn't want to drive, so I did and they made me the driver and she immediately pulled over and made me drive. It was pretty funny! I was happy because I love driving and haven't done it in 7.5 months! Granted it is not going to last long. 

So we went over to the Tuckers house for dinner this week again, they are the ones with the ghost. The husband wasn't home this time so it was super creepy. When we were eating my back was turned to the stairwell where they had seen the ghost and half way through dinner everyone at the dinner table jumps and are all looking down the stairwell and said they saw something down there. Of course the rest of the night I am super jumpy. We were teaching our lesson and I kept just blanking everytime we heard a noise. It was pretty funny, I just couldn't handle myself. Then we came home to the wind howling and I just had a lovely remembrance of all my childhood fears :)

We had our last district meeting of the transfer which is always sad. It was fun though. Elder Robinson did ballet and he wants to be a professional dancer, I have heard he is really good. But he does the best awkward old man dance. Everyone turns their cameras on to video and the elders have an awkward random dance party, with no music. I have a pretty funny video of it for some future time. 

Thursday we went and taught Kevin with the spanish elders. Oh man, it was so funny. I think Kevin really enjoyed all the company, it helps that the Elders are just downright hilarious Kevin gave all of us name signs though! I have an official ASL name sign! How cool is that? Mine is a "T" sign brushing the chin. It is the sign for cute, but with a T :) I am pretty pumped. Sister Homan was ecstatic she has only been waiting for one for 3 years. You can only be given a deaf name by someone who is deaf. 

Saturday was pretty cool, the Elders had a baptism. Her name is Katie. So we did a lot with her because you need sisters helping a woman getting ready for baptism. She had to get baptized 3 times. It was bad the last time though because the witnesses passed it the 2nd time so she was already changed when we had to go tell her it had to be done again... But she still had a good time! She likes us sisters because she is feeding us this week. We wrote down her confirmation blessing and I am going to make it all nice and give it to her at dinner. We pray she will stay strong! But during the baptism we got our transfer texts, worst thing ever! Sister Homan AND half our district is leaving. They literally chopped every companionship in half! We were all pretty upset. Especially Sister Homan. She is going back to her first area which she is pumped about. I am getting a Sister Plante- I am not sure if that is her full name but the transfer board cuts her name off as. So I am just calling her Sister Plant for now, I am almost sure I am pronouncing it wrong. 

We found a ton of Christmas stuff in our closet this morning. Sister Homan was super against having Christmas before Thanksgiving but I think she has been enjoying the Christmas music I have been playing. We have a Christmas tree decorated and a giant blow up santa! I put them right next to my desk :) I love Christmas! Wahoo! 

Basically I love you all! I hope you have safe travels and great Thanksgiving preparations! Stay warm!

Love you more than I love driving!

Anne

Then We Must Go Pro!

Dear Family!

It was a good week! A long good week! Weeks are always long what am I talking about. So during stake conference this week Sister Cutler came up to me and we made plans to surprise Sister Homan. One of her converts wanted to come and take her out to lunch on Tuesday. So I totally tricked her (which is really hard as a missionary by the way because we are ALWAYS together, but I am really tricky). We were waiting at the library to meet someone when her convert Coralyn came in and she totally freaked out, it was pretty great. Afterwards we went to a lesson at Kevin's (the deaf less active). So we are starting to teach an ASL class this Sunday the 16th and Kevin is super excited to be able to get friends. Poor guy, he is so lonely. I don't know why but Sister Homan did not interpret most of what he said this time even though we had a member there who couldn't sign, but I still understood a lot! Then at the end he pointed at me to say the prayer and I said my first prayer in ASL! That was crazy! Sister Homan said I only really messed up once saying sorry instead of please, but Kevin got it. 

So we have a member in the ward who we went and visited. He used to be a ghost hunter. He is a super cool guy but man he tells us stories and it freaks us out! I don't know how I feel about some stories. He has a ghost in his house that bangs, and I have heard it and it's freaky but I don't know. So that hasn't really been helping me sleep at night because every time I hear something now I am scared it is a ghost, but I don't even know I believe in that! It's a funny conundrum. 

We went on companion exchanges and Sister Brewster came here. We went and visited a Hmong family 8:30 at night, and we had no idea they were going to feed us but they did! Oh boy did they. The make this noodle soup called fuh and we each got a giant serving bowl of it! Like 15 inch diameter bowl. HUGE! The kids just slurped it up like it was no big deal. Holy cow, it was so much food. I couldn't finish. I told them next time I would be prepped to do so. When we were going to bed I was putting my ointment on my hands and Sister Brewster just started freaking out. She asked all these questions if i had *insert some scientific name* All I know is I have a bad rash that will never go away. Apparently she has that too, it's a little different but she was super excited to have that bond with me. It was kind of funny. 

We had Zone Conference this week! Wahoo! That was fun because guess what! It was in Sun Prairie! It felt like home! I loved it! Some of the relief society sisters made the lunch so I got to see some people.I got to see Sister Davis! She is just wonderful. She is the one in the sadly blurry picture, but I love her so much I had to send it anyways! It was just the most delightful zone conference lunch I have ever had as well! So good! Sun Prairie knows how to cook! But we also got to see Sister Elkington too which was sweet. We have been able to see each other my whole mission! We are in different zones right now but it was a Madison combined zone conference. So this might be the last time in a while. 7 months though! That is pretty impressive! There was a training we had from the family history coordinators and he brought a death mask of Joseph Smith and Hyrum. That was pretty cool. We also had a training based off of one of Brother Fullmers techniques. he made a video of it and put it on YouTube. It is called "What is the Book of Mormon?" So we have used that technique a couple times in lessons. It is cool because it helps people understand how the Book of Mormon and Bible work together and that we are totally Christians and why we are called "Mormons" 

Friday we went and saw our investigator Miranda. She is the one who came to the Halloween party. She was on her kindle the whole time not paying attention. But her friend was there and he at first was starting to accuse us of not being Christians and that he wouldn't read anything but the Bible. So we then whipped out our maps and taught where the Book of Mormon came from (see reference to above video) and he just ate it up. He kept turning to Miranda saying "You really should listen to this!" So now he is really excited to come to church. He was telling us he has 15 minutes to read at school and can't play video games at home so he will definitely read. That was pretty cool!

At Zone Conference they played a video of part of Elder Uchtdorf's talk that he gave while I was at the MTC! That was cool! Apparently he adapted it and used it in the new mission president devotional this year. So we talked a lot about "Fear no Man" So of course we go tracting afterwards and kept that in mind. I don't know how we found this street but everyone on this street was old and mean, it was perfect! Let me tell you dad, I now feel your pain on 6/21. More so with daylight savings. It's pitch black by 5, which is just not cool. I don't even want to know what it will be like by winter solstice. That doesn't make for happy people either. So hopefully we get more member help as winter is starting! 

Saturday we had Super Saturday and there was so much fruit there! It was wonderful! I ate a ton, because it is not often we get fresh fruit. I think I hurt my mouth with all the pineapple. But it was so worth it! We spent some time getting people pumped up for our ASL class. I think there will be a pretty good turn out. We are trying to start fast because transfers are next week :/ So we will see if Sister Homan gets transferred. Or me but the likelihoods of that are very low. But her she goes home in 3 transfers so it will be interesting to see what they do with her. I feel like that snuck up fast! And Thanksgiving is in 17 days! Weird! Christmas is in 45! Weirder! I hit my 7 month mark! Weird. So much weirdness but it's in my bones :) 

How is your Book of Mormon study going mom? I am super excited to be in Alma. I was in Alma when we started so starting over wasn't all that I wanted to do but I got back fast! I will have to send you something awesome that will help with the war chapters. I am sorry to hear grandpa isn't doing the best. Go say hi and give him a hug for me! I am glad you didn't blow up dad. Good thing I prayed extra hard for you ;) I forgot Thanksgiving was at our house this year. Dang it. I will totally not be expecting some serious writing Sister Trent time and coloring pictures for her time. I mean who would do that at a family event where she is missing? 

Well I love you all a ton! I hope your week is superb! 

Love you more than the amount of Canada that seeps into Wisconsin!

Anne!

This is Halloween

Dear Family!

This was a pretty good week! We went over to the church to help set up for the ward Halloween party. Holy Cow, I have never seen an LDS church decked out so much, especially with Halloween stuff. They take Halloween seriously here in Wisconsin. I think they like it here more than Idaho. A lot of people decorate and like all the scary stuff. It was a sweet party though. We had an investigator come and bring her boyfriend and sister. It was funny watching them, they said this is the first clean party they have ever been to and enjoyed seeing all the kids dressed up. It was funny because the boyfriend is your typical gangster type with the piercings and chains and questionable clothing choices. The Elders thought he was dressed up for Halloween but that is usually how he dresses. But it was good. I found out one of the ward members graduated from Skyline! It is a small small world!

We raked some leaves this week. There are SO many. You rake them to the curb and the city has a vacuum that sucks them all up. So the roads are just lined with a bazillion leaves. We ate dinner with some sweet members this week. That was fun, Wisconsin is just full of some really cool people. It is pretty diverse. 

Our ward mission leader's wife likes us again, so that's good! She gave us several church ASL books and taught the Elders a lot of signs. They were having way to much fun telling each other to go into bondage. Silly Elders. 

On actual Halloween we went to the Bishops house and ate dinner there. They have a tradition of making gross looking food to creep each other out. Now I have to tell you, eating at the bishops house is a feast every time and they invite lots of people! So all their family was there and neighbors and TONS of food. It was super fun. I sent you some pictures it was pretty funny. At the ward Halloween party there was the cutest set of kids costumes. There were 3 families who each had babies between 1-2 years old. One child was Ignacio, the other Escalito and then Encarnacion. It was way too cute! Nacho had on a monk robe, fake mustache and a big gold cross. Half way through the party they took of his robe and he had the tights and cape. Classic!

Saturday and Sunday we had Stake Conference. Which is weird because my first Sunday out here was Stake Conference and I am in the same stake so I got to see all my Sun Prairie peeps! It was great to see them again! It was so cute, they had Bishop Hatch's son (from Sun Prairie) give a talk about baptism and he is just this cute little 8 year old. It was a great talk! He talked about choosing to be baptized because he now knows how to choose right from wrong and how important it is because Jesus got baptized! Too cute! Our mission president spoke as well talking about how we all need to be member missionaries and how we can do so. It was good. 

Today we went to a funeral for the former stake president. President Buchanan. Wow, it was good. I was biting my lip so hard so I wouldn't cry because I knew I would lose it. When he was bishop he started a tradition of when every time someone leaves on a mission all the men (is an Elder and all the women if sister) got up and sang "We'll Bring The World His Truth". So they had all the men get up and sing that to send him off on his new mission. Wow! So sweet and tender. I have never seen such a well attended funeral either. They had to use the overflow. That many people don't even come to church. It was a fantastic service. I also got to see Sister Schroeder there, turns out that is her step family. She is just my favorite so I was thrilled to see her! 

I can't believe it is already snowing there! I am waiting for the snow here. It hasn't come yet. It is cold enough though! I can't believe Sister Sorenson got released then called to the Stake! Oh man! She is one busy lady! You should tell her hi for me! I just love her, she was the best Sunday School teacher! We were so lucky to have her before the Relief Society stole her. I am glad BYU won dad :) I bet you are thrilled. Mom, you are so funny and not too old ;) I am so excited you put up the Christmas tree! That's my mom! We have one in our closet that I want to sneak up. I don't know how much my comp will appreciate it. I mentioned that now we can all put up our trees at members house after Halloween, oh boy did I get the death look! There is no reason we can't celebrate Jesus with Thanksgiving. We should be thinking of both things all year long!

Here is my epiphany of the week that is entirely mine, it partially is. We were at a members house reading the Book of Mormon and her visiting teacher came. We are reading in 2 Nephi with her and her visiting teacher got talking about the Isaiah chapters. Mary was knew Jesus was to be the Christ so she probably raised him the best she could. She probably tried to keep her home a cultivating learning environment. Jesus probably grew up reading or hearing about Isaiah and could have learned of some of his ministry and mission through his writings. He even quoted Isaiah to announce that He was the Son of God. He loved the words of Isaiah and in 3 Nephi tells us to study them. Could be just maybe one of the reasons He loved it. That could be totally wrong but I like the idea and it kind of gives a fresh outlook on Isaiah. So there is some food for thought!

Well I love you all and hope you stay warm and see lots of snow this week! Thank you for the package mom! It was the best and I was not expecting it! Thank you! I appreciate it a million!

Love you more than all the fishes dad has ever claimed he caught ;) 

Anne