It's so fluffy I'm gonna die

Dear Family!

This week went by fast. Sister Plante and I plan on setting up our own flood cleaning company. We are getting really good at it. We do our service at "House of Mercy" which is a homeless shelter for women. Well we are sitting there all calmly when the residence start yelling that there is water leaking out of the city. So we ran upstairs and the toliet was overflowing and the upstairs was badly flooded. So we turned off the water and called the manager. Which she then told us the worst thing. To make the residence clean it up... Oh boy. They are nice people who live there but boy they have attitude. Of course they refused to do it. Water is still leaking from upstairs and started to ruin things so we go clean the big puddle upstairs so it wouldn't leak down stairs but we didn't clean downstairs. I don't know why we keep getting floods. I think I will forever own a shop vac. I need one. Everyone needs one! 

So we taught Hope again this week. It was a really good lesson. We got to answer a lot of her questions and answer some concerns. We retaught the Plan of Salvation. You could feel the Spirit. So we brought a member to come a couple days later and she wasn't there! It's always difficult going out with members. I feel fine with people reject me, but when we get rejected with a member I just feel so bad. So if you ever go out with missionaries, be ok with rejection! 

So we brought the Elders and a member to our lesson with Kevin, the deaf less active this week. It was a good lesson. I had this whole plan on the Anti-Nephi-Lehis because he talks about how hard it is to read the Book of Mormon because it isn't in his language. So I start telling the story and he already knew the whole story! And before he had claimed to never feel the spirit but he told us he does when he reads! I think I communicated just fine me feeling about that just with my face! Haha! He knows more then he has let on. I gave him a lot of looks and I am pretty sure in the lesson he was told at least 10 times to come to church. For some reason I can be super bold with him. Probably because of the language barrier. I have to say what I mean, plus half of it is facial expressions so I really just show my feelings :) I do feel like I am getting better at signing! I was able to translate for the 4 people we brought. The Elders and Sister Plante all asked for name signs. There is now only one Elder who hasn't met him and gotten a name sign and he is pretty jealous. But the best part is, Kevin came to church!!!!! Wahoo!! We were thrilled! And his interpreter showed up too! (sometimes she doesn't). There was a new family that spoke in sacrament meeting and she came down after and started signing to Kevin! Sister Brabocion, she surprised us all! She has a deaf sister! A lot of people came and talked to Kevin actually! It was good. Now he can't use the no friends excuse! I had to interpret in Sunday School though. That was interesting. We basically just ended up having our own lesson. The teacher, Brother Lebeck tried teasing me and asking me questions but I couldn't really talk I was just in the mode. The whole rest of the day I was just in a different world it felt like. My mind can't switch back and forth too fast! Anyways, there is that! Exciting stuff. 

I made a really good pizza this week. So I have made quite a few pizza rolls on my mission, but then I discovered I like pizza better and the dough for that is the same price. So I have been getting creative and I made THE pizza this week. I got the thin crust and I put Alfredo Sauce on it and chicken and 3 kinds of cheese. It was SO good!! I am a big fan, and quite brilliant! If you want yummy goodness too you should try it. Also Yoplait yogurt has a caramel coconut flavor. You need to try it. 

I had a really good study this week on the family proclamation. I was reading a line from it that just stuck out to me.
"Successful marriages and families are established and maintained on principles of faith, prayer, repentance, forgiveness, respect, love, compassion, work, and wholesome recreational activities."

If a prophet of God is telling me what to do to have a successful family I want to do it! So I broke down each principle and wrote how I could apply that in my family or a family. It was really good. Plus it has kind of confirmed all that I have been studying in my priority studies. The gospel is true! 

Well I love you all lots! I hope your week is awesome! 

I love you more than I love my brilliant chicken alfredo pizza!

Anne

The work will go forward!

So this week started off not too swell, it's probably because it just was so good last week. But it's all good now. So we thought we would help Hope take baby steps and come to a church tour so we would feel comfortable. We set one up and invited her, she said yes. Then we got a text saying she couldn't and needed some time and a step back. Of course we are in shock and trying our best to stay optimistic. We waited a few days and went back. Turns out the Elders had shown up right after we had and she felt pushed. But she still wants to meet and come to church and get baptized! We are just going to have to slow down a notch. 

We have been having referrals just rain down on us though. I do not know what is going on. I love it, but it is crazy. We haven't been able to contact too many this week though. Some actually have jobs! We don't know how to deal with that. One we met, Elizabeth. She is quite the character. 

We played volleyball twice as a ward this week. It was super fun. There is nothing quite like a ward coming together. I just love the church. It is a great place to be. I made a once in a lifetime hit though! I hit the ball a little too hard and it went directly to the ceiling but ricocheted right into the net for a perfect swoosh! You could even hear the swoosh!

I really don't know what to write you about too much this week. We did a lot of less active work and contacting people we haven't seen in a while. Nothing extraordinary happened though during the week. 

Sunday though as I am sure you were all aware there was a big football game. Tracting would have been the worst idea in the world yesterday. But we really didn't have anything to do. We had 0 appointments. We went to church almost ready to beg invitations out of people. After church God just poured out the blessings. The members filled our whole day! We also had candy and cookies blessed upon us at church too! It was a blessed day! On our way to our first appointment I had the funny thought that this was God's way of protecting us, it would have been dangerous to go out :) The first house we went to fed us lunch little did we know though, they were having a Packer party. So we were just kind of put into the back room with some food and a puzzle. It was rather funny, we did get occasional visitors taking a break from the excitement of the game. Then we went to our ward mission leaders house and practiced a little signing until the Elders showed up and they played ping pong while we shared a spiritual thought. The bishop invited us to Clinton to have dinner with them. A nice steak dinner. He then asked us to visit a old lady who just moved into the ward and we went and saw Peter, the 32 year investigator. 

Gas here is 1.89! It's crazy! We filled our tank for $18! Then at the Kwik Trip they were selling divine $1 pork sandwiches. I felt like I was in the wrong decade! Since when were things cheap? That was funny! I also really enjoyed your letter mom! We have had quite the empty mailbox since Christmas. I am working on writing thank you notes for that. It is a slow process. I hope no expects a thank you before July! 

It was a good week even though I don't have too much to say about it. I have been learning a lot about prayer this week! It has been wonderful. If we put ourselves in the right mindset, are sincere and pray by the spirit it can be a wonderful communion with God. I am so thankful for prayer!

I love you all more than Wisconsin loves their precious Packers!

Anne

The rains came down and the floods came up

Dear Family,

This week was crazy! Good crazy! Perhaps the best week so far! So we started off with a really good Zone Training. I think we all had to get back on our feet after our awesome atonement study. It took a lot of our study time and we all felt lost without it and all that spiritualness. So it was kind of lets dust ourselves off and find a new sacred study for each of us. We also kind of did a refresher on all the new tools we got this year and got reminded to use them all. We have a whole new arsenal. They call it the 1-2-Whip approach. It was fun. But now I have a sweet new study. I reread and study Julie Beck's talk from Women's Conference that mom sent me. It is all about our purpose and how we need to prioritize to fulfill it. So I am doing a new study on my mission not just as a missionary but what I need to do to live with my Father in Heaven again. I was going to add Christ mission as part of my study. We will see. I wanted to buy colored pens before I started marking my scriptures so I will have decided tomorrow. Priorities is something huge I have learned on my mission and I want to make sure I have them solid and in place before I go back to reality. I won't ever have this consecrated time to be this focused again. So at least I can make a reference guide for future me!

Wednesday was a great productive day! We went and saw this sweet old lady who is less active only because she can't get to church. But she always cheers up our day. We went and taught Krista and her kids the plan of salvation. Her kids just loved it and were better listeners and contributors than her. We aren't really sure what to do with Krista. She is just kind of falling apart and won't do anything. Destiny, her daughter, just loved the plan though. She will remember it when missionaries knock on her door in 10 years. Something crazy that has been happening lately is we have been getting referrals right and left. I don't know what we are doing right to be getting all of these.

We got a mormon.org self referral. Self referrals are the best, they are the only referrals I have heard that work. Also typically people request just a Book of Mormon or a Bible but Meg asked specifically for Sister Missionaries to visit her! So we went and taught her about the Book of Mormon and got to know her. I walked into her house and oh my goodness, I thought I walked into Molly's house. She is just like Molly. Her front room is decked out with Marylin pictures and old stuff. She is so funny! She is sarcastic! It's great. Wisconsin people don't do sarcasm but Meg does! She is great and we are teaching her the restoration tonight! She wanted to know more because her cousin is Mormon and she admires how she lives her religion, not just at church. Wahoo! Golden. Then we went and taught Hope too! She is incredible. Every time we see her we can just see her in white 3 times. Her baptism, the temple and the celestial kingdom! Also on Wednesday we, meaning I, did a U-turn and totally got stuck in the snow. Pretty bad. But because of my beast like abilities I was able to push our car out! I rock. So did Sister Plante for pushing on the gas. It was fun.
Thursday was also really good. It's been really snowy so we helped shovel some drive ways. Boy am I thankful for all the warm things you have sent me! They have all helped! We shoveled Beverly's drive way and she gave us cookies and hot cocoa after. It was so worth it! We also taught Kevin. I think signing hurts my brain. I am getting to the point where I know a lot of vocab but I need someone to teach me proper structure. But our lessons still go really well and Kevin understands. I got him and ASL Book of Mormon so now he has no excuses not to read. I got me the kids ASL Book of Mormon. Best buy I have made. That has helped a lot they sign slower and simpler words. We ate dinner at the Thompson's. When you go to their house you have to make a food request. They will only make what you tell them to make. So they made me chicken cordon blu. It was delicious! Now Christmas is official. Now here is where the crazy stuff happens.

We have one church key between all of us missionaries. We had it and the Elders needed it. So we were going to meet in the church parking lot to exchange it. We got there and were sitting in the parking lot when all the sudden the alarms start flashing and going off. It's after 9 and our curfew is at 9:30. We don't really know what to do so we call the closest member from the bishopric to the church and it happens to be Brother Thompson. Basically when we hang up three firetrucks pull up. We then let in the firemen into the building and it was just flooded. We also had the key to the room they needed in to turn off the water so we got to trudge through with the firemen to show them where and to give them the key. I felt pretty cool and I was very thankful for my waterproof boots, yes they work. The sprinkler head in the library had popped off and was spraying everything. We stayed until after midnight helping suck out the water with shop vacs. It's the first time I have seen midnight on my clock in 9 months. Holy cow, my body is not used to that! I thought it was ironic that it happened exactly 9 months after I left. 4/8 I was up late nervous about leaving on my mission and 1/8 I was up late on my mission doing what missionaries do :) So that was an exciting ordeal.

Friday was a rough day just because we were so exhausted. Thankfully we had service and weekly planning and nothing to strenuous. We did surprise visit a less active family, the Gardners and invite Sister Gardner to a lesson with Hope. We both felt like she was perfect for her. They accepted and fed us! So nice! So the next day we went to Hope's with Sister Gardner and taught the gospel of Jesus Christ. SHE brought up baptism and so we invited her to be baptized on February 7th and she said YES!!!!!! Wahoo! Sister Gardner was perfect and testified at all the right times! The spirit was so strong! It was just wonderful! We are so excited! You can already tell Hope is improving her life! I can't wait to continue to see the gospel work in her life! So keep her in your prayers! Extra!

So basically it was just a wonderful week. Sister Plante and I are so tired but so happy! We hope we can catch up on everything today! The gospel is real and it's true! I love it! And I love all of you!
Love you more than all the snowflakes!
Anne

Layers. Lots and Lots of Layers.

Dear Family,

It was a good week, but I can't remember what happened! I do know it was good though. Thank goodness for records! So Tuesday was a crazy day. We had the Sister Training Leaders come and do a blitz with us. Sister Jardine was filling in for 2 weeks and she served in Janesville a couple months ago and came to strengthen the less active recent converts. It was great for her to come because several of them just haven't talked to missionaries since she has left and now one of them is talking to us regularly! That was the first half of our day and then when we got back to our house after the STLs left we realized we had used up all the rest of our miles for the month! We happened to choose to do that the day it started getting cold, we are so good with timing. So we walked around the rest of the night trying to find people. Randomly we decided to cross the road and as soon as we got to the other side this man came out side to take his dog out. We GQ'd it and asked if he had heard of the Book of Mormon and he had heard some not very true things about it. So we explained the map to him without drawing it and his eyes just lit up! When we asked if we could give him one he got really excited and said he would definitely read it! We are going back tomorrow night to follow up with a member! He seems so cool! His name is John. That was a total miracle! 

So Wednesday we didn't drive anywhere and walked to all our appointments. I am sure grateful for all the winter stuff I had! The hand warmers work great! I felt fine except for my face! It was good to walk around. We were pretty cold and we may or may not have stopped at members along our route to "use the bathroom" or just to feel our faces again. It was good though. We went and helped a member paint an apartment she is putting up for rent and that was fun. It is quite therapeutic to do something that requires no brain power and thinking about what to say next. Then our sweet bishop's wife came and picked up all the missionaries and we spent New Years with the Nielson clan again! It was so fun! There were so many kids! We did a count down at 8! Sister Nielson the Younger, the one with all the kids, gladly took us home to escape the chaos. We stopped by another members house and sang our made up New Years songs. 

Thursday we woke up to a beautiful New Year full of new miles! We can drive again, thank goodness! It was a great day! We saw Hope again! She is so prepared. We taught her the restoration and she said she will pray. She really wants to know the truth. We are praying she makes it to church this week. She will know if she just gets up the courage to come! Also we have had a referral for somebody named Grace for 4 months. We just could not find her. I have knocked on her door some many times, I almost didn't think she didn't exist. But Thursday she was there! She really wants to know more and we set up a return appointment for tomorrow. She was so cute, just thanking us so much for coming. We finally saw Kevin too! Oh my! That was some serious brain power teaching in ASL after a month of not using it. We did a language study that morning thank goodness! I wrote out a lesson plan based off of Elder Kelbingat's talk "Approaching the Throne of God with Confidence" Then I re-wrote it looking up what words had signs and changing it so I could sign it. It was a great lesson because I felt prepared. It was hard though because I would be teaching, not knowing what else to say and I would look over at my comp but she doesn't know how to sign, but it all turned out. I should be getting an ASL Book of Mormon for him this week. He was going to come to church but we had a big storm right before church so he didn't want to brave the weather. Next week. I feel like I improved a lot in my signing by preparing that much. I don't know how I did this though, in the middle of the lesson I totally volunteered to interpret for him. I didn't even realized I said that until I got home and I had a wide eyed moment. Lets hope the spirit was the one that said that because that means I will get help. The gift of fingers ;)

I hope you guys are feeling better. That's too bad you got sick over your vacation. But that is good you did so much at Jake's! Sorry I forgot to tell you I wasn't getting transferred. So you can continue to mail me! You are good untilFebruary 18th. I have been loving this New Years time!  It is getting pretty cold though! This is the Wisconsin I heard about! I will just wear lots of clothes! 

I love you guys! I am loving the work, it just feels good to serve the Lord. I am grateful for this time! I can't believe I hit my halfway this week! Weird!

I love you more than layers I have on ;)

Anne