Anne Goes Double Digits

Dear Family!

Wow! Life sounds so crazy! It sounds like you are doing great work as relief society president! Busy busy busy though! I guess you won't ever get to go with dad to byu-i. I am glad you had a kid to sit with in church though. This week has been great. I finally had the courage to start the Book of Mormon in ASL. It seemed like just a big task! 17 discs and 60 hours! But I did! It is incredible! I understand a lot more than I thought I could. 

We have a wonderful investigator named Tina, she is so sweet. She told us that she had read a little bit of the Book of Mormon, later we found out that little bit is clear through 2 Nephi. 2 Nephi! Can you believe that! She read the whole thing and loved it! She even marked passages. We were in shock! She is just doing great! We just have the struggle of getting her to church! Isn't that always the problem. We have some great recent converts and less actives we are working with though that ARE coming to church! It is kind of incredible! This being Sister Caramia's first ward, she sometimes get upset or frustrated that more people aren't coming but oh boy! It is quite miraculous. We really have a good ward. Almost everyone is a convert in this ward. 

Sister Caramia randomly turned to me in the middle of language study and asked "How you say 'I would like to order a hamburger" I about died! It was just like the Pink Panther! I explained to her why I was laughing and we sat there staring at each other going back and forth with the whole "er" "or". It was just like the movie. Hamburger! :)

This week has just been all over the place. I can't believe that it is Monday again. We have been so busy yet I have no idea what we have been doing! Isn't that a conundrum! Sundays are always the craziest. We had 2 investigators at church and a lot of less actives! It was fantastic! But it is always a frantic Sunday taking care of everyone! Sunday night we were in charge of a BYD about the Book of Mormon and missionary work. That was fun! I drew the Book of Mormon map to help the youth explain the Book of Mormon to their friends. Then we had them do role plays, which of course youth don't like because they are the worst but it was still fun. We made lots of cookies and treats for the activity. My peanut butter cookies were a hit. I will have to make them for you when I get home. I am pro. 

I got an awesome package from Harriet in the Sun Prairie ward this week. She made me cookie and sent gifts! It was so sweet of her! I just love her! She is the best! I can't believe I am in my 3rd area. Now when people ask me how long I have been out the say I don't have much time left! Yes I do! Almost half my mission! I am one of those missionaries that I saw when I first came out and just stared at with wide eyes. "You have been out for ten months?? I have only been out 10 days! How??" I love being a missionary. It is really fun especially here in Milwaukee. We are going to have to start riding the buses soon. That will totally be a different pace of missionary work. I am going to have to learn this area fast! 

I am so grateful for all of you! I love you so much! Thanks for all the love and support! This is the Lord's work and he has a great plan!

Love you more than I wish it was warmer!

Anne

Coraggio! Mama Mia!

Dear Famiglia!

Oh boy! This was an exciting week! Wow! I don't even know where to begin! This will probably be all over the place! I will start with my new companion because she is probably the best part. Sister Caramia is the nicest human being I have ever met. She is a missionary from temple square and is just here on her outbound mission. She is from Italy! It is crazy! We have language study everyday and I am helping her learn English! She is really good at English but has a heavy accent that everyone loves, I think it helps us because more people want to talk to her. It is a great conversation starter. She is so wonderful! She loves EVERYBODY! I think her most common phrase is, "So, so, so happy!" She loves chocolate, as do I, we work well together. She absolutely loves you already mom! I tell her what you made, or sent, or did for me and she always says, "I want to know your mama! She sounds so wonderful!" I have been thinking in an Italian accent though! Every time I introduce myself to people I start talking funny and then they think I am foreign too! She is 23 years old and she is a nurse! And just the best! But she has only been here for 3 weeks so we are kind of starting over in this area.

West Allis. Wow. It is quite different. Technically it is the size of Janesville but it is like Janesville on steroids. We cover Milwaukee too. We actually live in Milwaukee. We cover up to the sketchy part of the city. That is city branch, we don't go there. But our ward is wonderful! Most of the people are converts and are just so friendly. We have a TON of less actives but they are great less actives if that makes sense. We have like 7 coming back to church which is incredible! They are amazing. The traffic here is crazy! Not always the traffic actually just the drivers. I think after this I will be able to drive almost anywhere. Usually this is a busing area. The sister before me hurt her ankle so they got a temporary car, we won't have it for long. I think they will let us keep it until it gets warmer because the mission office LOVES Sister Caramia! Everyone does, you can't help it. Then we will ride the buses. The mission office is in our area and we live really close to President Cutler. They go to the same building as us so I have already seen him 3 times since being here. It is crazy to be in the center of things. I haven't been here since my first day! Lots of memories! 

So back to my week. Tuesday I got my cavity filled! That was fun, my face was numb most of the day. It was ok though because the first appointment we had was with Kevin, so I don't have to talk. He promised to keep coming and I promised to keep learning sign language. Which is really perfect because now we have language study time. Most of it for Sister Caramia is filling out a booklet and I just correct it. So I have about 5 hours a week I can study sign language! We found a deaf church too so we know there are deaf people in the area! Also I finished packing. That was crazy. I really have NO idea how it worked, but somehow it did. This is probably the last time I have to worry about fitting everything because in the transfers, May 6th I can send all my winter stuff home and I will be in the safe zone. I don't think I will have to worry about it because Sister Caramia leaves in 1.5 transfers. So we will be together hopefully until she leaves and then I will introduce someone else to the area. So I don't think I have to worry. 

We left Tuesday night for Milwaukee because Sister Plante is training. We stayed at Sister Packer's apartment! It was crazy to see her again! It was like a dream! We got to stay at transfer point and eat with the new missionaries and the leaving ones. 25 left! Our mission is shrinking. It was great though! I finally get to see the couple missionaries, they seem so fun.

I love our new apartment. It used to be the Elders apartment so it has a pull-up bar and weights. It is a good size too! I will send pictures next week. It is just a fun apartment.

We have been just trying to get to know the people we are working with. Meeting investigators, less actives, potentials, members. The nice thing about both of us being new is we can use it as an excuse to meet people. It is even better with Sister Caramia because as soon as we introduce ourselves they like her accent and let us stay. 

We had a semi-less active member bring someone to church yesterday. The Elders informed us that he used to play for the Packers, oh boy were they excited and oh boy are they trying to let us teach him! That was pretty cool, he made good comments in Sunday School. We had a lot of people show up to church. This ward just rocks! They actually do their home and visiting teaching! It is the best thing ever! I think that makes the difference. We can actually get less actives to come because of that. 

The Elders gave us a referral for someone in our apartment building, we knocked and it wasn't who were looking for. It was a very nice African family that of course bonded with Sister Caramia and invited us over this week for African food. We are going to eat dinner with our neighbors! That is a dream! I have always wanted to know our neighbors better! We have a ton! There are 68 apartments in our building. It is crazy. A maze, you could get lost. We did! 

For Valentines a member had us over so Sister Caramia could make an Italian dinner for her son who was going to propose to his girlfriend that night. We ate SO much food that day! It was great! Mostly :) It was with the Capps actually! They are from Idaho Falls too! They were pretty excited to see me. There home had a big picture of the IF temple which made me feel at home.

We had so much happen this week I can't write about it all! I gotta save some stories for home! Sunday school we had a really good lesson about the creation. At the end we all said things we were grateful for that God created and I had an epiphany. Everything everyone said they were thankful for made them feel good, it made them feel happy! That is just a testament to me that Heavenly Fathers purpose really is to make us happy! He created all these wonderful things for our happiness! It is just all a testament and witness of his perfect love for us!

I love being a missionary! I love this gospel! I love my area! I love my apartment! I love my companion! She is the most wonderful Christ like person! And I love YOU! I love my family and friends! You guys rock!

I love you more than I wish we had your weather!

Anne

It's a New Day!

Dear Family,

Well now! Saturday we had bishop's breakfast and we were all waiting for the transfer text. Oh man it was nerve racking and everyone there was waiting for it. The dreaded news! I am leaving Janesville! I think the hardest wait is finding out where you are going. So needless to say we rushed to the library this morning to check our emails for the transfer board. Sister Plante is training a new missionary and I am going to West Allis! Which is actually where I had my first tracting experience on my mission! I will just be busy packing! And also saying goodbye to members. I really don't want to make it a huge ordeal so we are really just going to a few people's houses and most of them invited us over to feed us so it is perfect. It is always sad to say good bye but I am curious and excited about what new things West Allis will bring. 

So Monday night was awesome! We went tracting! And we picked a really cold night to do it! Haha! We didn't come to prepared either, we didn't layer up enough. So we decided to do one more house then go somewhere else. We knock on this door and a cute old lady with her walker comes to the door and introduces herself as catholic. She was very nice though and she said we could pray with her before we went. She then noticed Sister Plante did not have gloves on and told us to come in while she got her some gloves. She comes out with these awesome bedazzled gloves with rhinestone skulls and hearts. She took them and we prayed with her and figured this meant we were supposed to go the the end of the street because we were warm again! So that night we taught 4 lessons, gave 2 Books of Mormon away and got a new investigator. It was sahweet! I love tracting! 

 Tuesday we had interviews with the mission president, that was good! He is a great man and an inspired leader. Wednesday we had exchanges with the Madison sisters. I went to Madison for the day. It was a typical day. Most people cancelled on us. It was fun though! It is always fun to see different areas. Here in Janesville they had a good day finding people.

Friday we went and saw a less active in the ward. She just loves us and she made especially for me some pumpkin bread! Oh boy was it good! I love when we get homemade stuff! Which speaking of! I got the best package ever this week! Your valentine's day package! Homemade deliciousness inside. Mmmmmmm. The cookies were so good! I ate them fast just for you! Sister Plante loved the valentine's cookie. I forgot how heavenly they were! Yummy! I loved the shirt too! I must say I look pretty fine in it! 

Sunday was great! I was really worried Kevin wouldn't come because we didn't get a chance to see him this week and invite him. But he came! It was good! And the ward is starting to show off their signing skills! They are setting up multiple translators and just taking charge which is good since I am leaving. I was really worried about him but I think he will be in good hands. I told him he need to come now and have patience and the blessings will come. I always just give him the look, "you know what you need to do and you need to do it" With the raised eyebrows! It was good. I am seeing him one last time. The ward will take good care of him.

Well I don't really have much more to write about. It was a good week and now I am seeing miracles of packing. Everything is fitting somehow. I had no space last time and I might this time. How that works I don't know. In the words of one of my favorite people, "I guess it is a God thing"

I hope you have a great week! I am sad the ward is split. I will come back to different people. Change happens! We will change together. Me in West Allis and you with the Village People! ;) 

I love you more than your homemade cookies!

Anne

Where two or more gather in my name there am I in their midst

My Dear Family!

This week was interesting. It was a wonderful growing experience. It was hard, but those are the best weeks aren't they?

We will start with a funny story first. So Tuesday night we stopped home before our dinner appointment to grab our grubs for ward volleyball that night. So I am sitting on my bed and Sister Plante is in the hallway grabbing her clothes from the dryer. I can see her and we are just talking having a good conversation when all the sudden she stops talking. She is frozen looking up above the door....Oh no. Her nervous "Sister Trent..." Told it all. Spider. Not any spider but of monster proportions. I don't want to come out of the room because I would have to come within in to close of a distance to this spider. But I did, I ran out of the room and I glanced up and kept running. I didn't have to look at it long to know that I didn't want anything to do with that spider. I've killed spiders on my mission but I refuse when it's bigger than my fist. The body wasn't too big but it's legs. Oh my goodness. They just stretched on into the great expanse of eternity. I am almost shaking thinking about it. I got to hurry so I don't dwell on this! So she sat mesmerized by it and I sat out of sight not wanting to have anything to do with it. We discussed many ways to kill it. Every way. All we knew is we couldn't leave this thing in our house. Much yelling and screaming later we attacked. I came at it from the farthest angel I could with steady streams of Lysol to either drown it or move it so Sister Plante could reach it with the vacuum. The worst happened though! It fell!!!! I bet you can imagine the screams! Sister Plante found it and sucked it up! Oh it was terrible! It took us 40 minutes to kill this thing. So naturally we were late to dinner. We told them what happened and they sympathized with us and enjoyed the story. We haven't told the Elders though because I cannot imagine the pranks that would commence. 

So this week was just typical rough missionary life. Cancelled appointments, investigators falling apart and nothing going according to plan. Hope is not getting baptized anytime soon. I think she will it is just going to take a while, and that is ok. We had a lot of less active this work but I just felt gross. Just gloomy. It was bad. Then after a stressful Saturday morning and afternoon with little motivation Sister Plante and I had a well needed discussion about how terrible we were feeling. That is what companion inventories are meant to be. We were both frustrated and just not feeling it. So we went and got a frosty cancelled a couple less active appointments for the day and went tracting. It was the best thing. Not that we were successful tracting but we just needed to do it. It was good and we both feel a ton better now and are going tracting for an hour and a half tonight. Now that may not sound effective to most but we need it. We one investigator and just a ton of less actives. We have to find so we can teach. And we are going to find! 

So Sunday morning we are both just ready for church! It's fast Sunday and we get to go take the sacrament! We are all getting ready and excited when the phone rings. It's the bishop, church is cancelled. What?.. We were so, I don't know what we were because we just really didn't know what to do without church. We both needed it. Plus it is super bowlSunday so we were hoping we could get member appointments instead of tracting. We made plans to go street contacting but in a middle of a blizzard, no one would be out. We had no idea what to do. Plus we really wanted the sacrament. President gave us permission to gather somewhere with the Elders and take the sacrament. So we decided to go to the church after studies. So it was just the 6 of us and we had our own little meeting. It was so good. We sang an opening song, had a message, sacrament song and then had the sacrament. We sat for about 5 minutes after it was passed to just ponder and pray. I was brought back to a childhood memory. When I was little I used to think that during prayers that if you kept your eyes close angels would come. You couldn't open your eyes because they would disappear. Oh man, that is what it felt like. Angels were in the room, no one can prove me wrong because you can't see them if you open your eyes :) Just one of the best spiritual moments. The Spirit was so strong. All I could think of was the scripture when two or more are gathered in my name there I will be in their midst. Oh boy, and it was great for silence too! No other kids or people making a sound. Then we all got up and bore our testimonies. I can't even express to you how great that was. 6 ragged missionaries, we all look great but boy you could tell we had all just felt so worn down. But because of our Savior's sacrifice for us, because of his atonement, we were all able to be healed through that sacred sacrament that represented Christ's gift to us. It was just wonderful. It is wonderful. That is the atonement. He is there always to strengthen and uplift us. I am so glad we had that opportunity to still partake of the sacrament.

So there you have it. It really isn't that bad of weather I think. I don't think I will ever be satisfied with the winter. I think I just want to see what it can give me :) I just love snow and I think it needs more snow! We got like a foot. I don't think it was enough to cancel church but it was snowing all day and our ward is probably over an hour driving distance from one side to the other. I have fun playing in it! 

I hope you all have a wonderful week! Tell grandpa and Liam Happy Birthday! I am just forgetting everyone's. Sorry, I will celebrate them eventually! I forget my own parent's birthdays. I only know my own, which is coming soon ;) Stay safe and warm! 

I love you more than I love having a warm car!

Anne