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

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

Saturday is a Special Day

Dear Family,

This week was just fantastic! Goodness! I don't know where to start or wat I didn't tell you on Thursday! Christmas was great! 

Monday we only emailed then went back to work for the day since we were going to the temple on Friday. So we walked around for several hours from place to place and handing out He is the Gift cards to everyone we saw. It was good, we handed a ton out. Lo and behold an hour after we did that someone called us back! That never happens. But, we missed the call and just got a voice mail and didn't understand it. And we didn't call back. This Sunday I was cleaning out our voice mails and a listened to it again and I realized what it said. This guy wanted to know more! So we immediately called back, he was still hard to understand but we did set up an appointment to come and see him! So that is sweet! A first for me! Call back. And then for dinner we went to the botanical gardens for a sweet light show! It was so magical. I can't even imagine what it would have looked like with snow. And no, we didn't have any snow at all this Christmas. In fact the day after it was 50 and sunny! It may have been my first not white Christmas. We also saw live reindeer! That was cool! 

Tuesday we went to a Christmas Zone Meeting in Madison. I opened my gift of Truman Madsen's talks on Joseph Smith early and we listened to those on the way. It was a fun meeting to see everyone and to have a free meal. But that is honestly all I can remember of that day. This has been a long week. I can't believe that was even this week. 

On Christmas Eve we started off by walking around downtown and handing out He is the Gift Cards again. That was fun and interesting. Then we went to Sister Buchanan's and she prepared several gifts we could go out and deliver. One of the people we went to lived in an old Victorian house. He is an artist and there was literally something painted every square inch of the house. It was incredible! I have never seen anything like it! I need to go back and take pictures. I can't even describe it. That was fun. We picked some people we thought it would be good for and enjoyed our afternoon. She wanted this Christmas to be different since her husband just passed away. So then we came back to her house when all the presents were delivered and ate some delicious Papa Murphy's pizza. Which it has been like a solid 9 months since I have had that. We had the veggie pizza, it was super good. We went and helped a member go and clean their apartment that they rent out for a while. Then we went to the Paulsens! It was so fun to be with a family! They were just way to good to us! We got an awesome Christmas Eve dinner just full of traditions! Their little girl had lots of fun with us. I got her to give me several hugs and squeeze as tight as she could! That felt good! Everyone needs a good little kid hug every once and a while. They gave us all huge stockings just full of gifts. It was so sweet of them. We acted out the nativity and just had lots of fun. After we learned some acupuncture! That was exciting! It was only for the truly brave in heart! I was the 2nd person to put needles into my arm so the pride of all the Elders was on the line. Not all of them did it though! I sent you a lovely picture attached :) We then sang some Christmas hymns and just had a good time! Sister Plante and I ended the night by doing a Christmas devotional. I thought I would have trouble sleeping but really that hasn't been a thing lately! 

Christmas morning we woke up and opened presents! That was fun! Thank you for all the wonderful things that you sent me I love each one! Everyone was so good to me I have no idea how I am going to send a thank you card to everyone. Wow! We then went to the Lebeck's to Skype! That was fun! It was so great to talk to all of you! Or at least to look at all of you! It was fun! I can't believe we only have one more time left! That is just strange! But thank you for all joining! It warmed my heart and I will be able to make it through the next 5 months! We went to another members house and played games. We each got to pick one and I picked Dominion! That was super enjoyable and reminded me of fun times! My jaw about dropped when I saw that one. Then we went to dinner at another member's home and had Christmas dinner. We accidentally showed up 30 minutes early so I entertained the little girl and kept her out of the kitchen and was super helpful. That is what her mom said but I was just having fun playing with her and her awesome toys. We were best buds by the end of the night. Basically I just tried to get my kid fill for 2 days! They also provided us with some presents. People were just too good to us. 

Friday was another big day! We got to go to the Chicago temple! We woke up brighter and earlier than usual to go! Let me tell you, it is a lot prettier in person! I think all of us missionaries were slightly shocked, pictures just can't capture it at all. It was so great to be back there. After we met the temple President and he blew our minds, so I am going to have to wait and ponder until I can go again and see. It was good after so long! After we got there we saw a van full of missionaries pull up from the Chicago mission for their zone conference. It was crazy. 

We drove back through Lake Geneva which is super rich man's place. Supposedly it is the largest and clearest lake. That is where that huge picture of the mansion is from. We also saw places with gas at 2.12! It's crazy!

I decided all the miracles happen on Saturday. We tripled our lessons for the week and just had miracle after miracle. We met Hope who is having a hard time with her mother's death. So we taught her the Plan of Salvation. She just loved it! She is going to start the Book of Mormon and come to church next week! We are meeting with her again tonight to teach her the Restoration. It will be good. Then we just got in contact with a lot of people who had disappeared. We also got a referral! It was just a great Saturday!

Really it was a great week! I loved it! I can't believe how much happened. I will have to tell more stories in 10 months because I can't write it all. But I did get to finish the Book of Mormon this week and Jesus the Christ as my gift to Jesus. It was so great! I feel like I know my Savior so much more. I can hardly believe let alone comprehend the magnificent love he has for me and every child of God. I am so grateful for Him, the greatest gift of all. Through him all things are made possible and all things are made right! He is the great refiner and through Him we can all be changed and feel his love. I am so grateful to be on a mission. I am learning so many things I could have learned no other way. It is life changing!

I hope you have a Happy New Year! This will probably also be my first year (in remembrance) starting the New Year sleeping! Changes all over the place! Drive safe! I love you so much!

I love you more than all the cheese consumed in Wisconsin! ;)

Anne

It's Christmas Time!

Dear Family,

It has been a fantastic week and it will be an even better week this week! So much to look forward too! I don't even know where to begin. I guess I will try to go in chronological order. So this week we went to go and visit Krista. She came to church 2 weeks ago and we haven't really seen her since. Apparently it's a busy time of year. The sisters have been going to her house since May and we haven't really been able to teach her much because she never lets us in and she is always "busy". This week she let us in! And her kids were there too! They are so cute! They are 8 and 9, Chris and Destiny. So cute. Chris he gave us batteries for Christmas and Destiny took a Papa Tom's Christmas card and altered it so it was to us from her. We taught Krista where the Book of Mormon came from and how it can help her, she said she is now excited to read it! When we were leaving Destiny said "Thank you for your company!" I don't know what 9 year old says that but it was dang cute!

Thursday we gathered with some ward members in Clinton ( a small town we cover) and went caroling at a nursing home. We sang in the cafeteria 2 songs then walked down the halls and sang. After a couple minutes the people were asking us to come back to the cafeteria and this old lady hauled us back there. Elsy, the old lady, then asked what key we were singing in and she sat down at the piano and busted a tune! Holy cow! It was incredible! We preceded to sing every Christmas hymn, she was so incredibly good. So after I asked her how she knew piano so well. She used to play professionally at churches! She knew the piano like the back of her hand! I felt like I ran into Bach or something. After I went up to an old man who had been singing along and had just loved the whole thing. I shook his hand and wished him a Merry Christmas, then he saw my name tag. "Oh! I know your church! I love your church! I have been investigating it for 30 years!" What?? He then tells me all about how he was going to the Beloit ward and loved the Madison stake and went to conference there and just busting out all this church lingo. It was crazy! I asked him if he still had a Book of Mormon and he has read the whole thing and loves it. We are going back there. A Christmas miracle! After caroling we went and had a "bonfire" and roasted some s'mores. It was a great time. 

Saturday we went out tracting with very little success. The Packers weren't playing but apparently there was a game that was vital to there salvation. So most people won't answer the door. So after a very cold 1 and a half we finally found someone! His name is Rob and he was all nonchalant until we started talking about where the Book of Mormon came from. He said he totally believes Christ visited others. He said he would probably read the whole thing this week. We will see how that goes! We then went to a less actives and found a pretty awesome nativity. They had Micky and Minnie as Joseph and Mary, Boo from Monster's Inc. as the baby, Green Lantern, Batman and Superman as the 3 wise men. It was sweet. 

Now for the big Kahuna awesome day! Sunday! No one came to church but I just love Christmas Sundays! But after church we had a big fiesta with the Nielson clan. It was 4 families. One of them had bragged that he can make better Cafe Rio than Cafe Rio does. Oh boy it was good! I would say it perhaps was better than Cafe Rio if my taste buds haven't been deprived of Cafe Rio for the last 9 months. But we gladly took the leftovers home with us. I also made a delicious creation! At the dinner before when Brother Nielson had bragged about his cooking skills we dreamt up a really good brownie. For some reason we called it a tootsie roll brownie even though it has nothing to do with that besides the shape. We imagined a brownie in the shape of a tootsie roll with chocolate chips dipped in caramel then dipped in chocolate. I thought I would be funny and make it for our party. So I couldn't really figure out how to do that. So I made it like cake pops. I crumbled the brownies into a bowl and mixed it with caramel, rolled it into balls and dipped it into milk chocolate. They were good. Really good. The best part was seeing people reactions eating them, the wide eyes and the praise escaping from their lips. I felt pretty proud of myself! Anyways, sorry if you are drooling now. I will get back to what we did. We were also able to see a recent convert who we haven't seen in 2 months. That was a miracle. Her new boyfriend might actually be the one dragging her to church, so kind of a good thing.

That night we went back to someone we had done a survey with, Michelle. We were almost starting to believe she was a figment of our imagination because there has been no life in that house for 3 weeks, not that we did tons of drive-bys or anything. We are not creepy. But last night there was life! And she opened the door! She had read a little of the Book of Mormon and said it seems pretty good so far. We asked if there was a time we could come back and tell her more. She told us now would be good and to come in. We both sat down deer in headlight mode. I think it was just kind of shocking to both of us. It isn't good when you keep turning to your comp because you don't know what to say then she looks at you because she doesn't know what to say. It was rather funny, that will be an embarrassing moment to watch up in heaven! So after a very choppy we-have-no-idea-what-we-are-doing-but-we-will-do-our-best-to-open-our-mouths moment we transitioned into the Plan of Salvation and from there it went great! The Spirit took over! And by the end she was crying and we invited her to be baptized if she got an answer if it was true. Then she sat there deer in headlights mode and said "what?" Sister Plante repeated the invite. She then asked if she needed to be baptized again, we said yes. I was totally waiting more an MTC prepped horror moment, hard question with high likelihoods of offense but she said yes! So we will go back and set a date after Christmas. The only bad part about Christmas, waiting. So that was a HUGE miracle. Yeah!

Anyways other exciting news this week! Tomorrow we finish the Book of Mormon! Wahoo! Thank you for doing that with me mom. it means a lot. Thank you for reading too dad. I have an awesome red and green reference book to the atonement. I had no idea the Book of Mormon was so full of the atonement. Everything really does revolve around that wonderful gift! We get to go to a Christmas Zone Training Meeting tomorrow to discuss what we have learned, eat cookies and laugh! That will be fun! Oh and tonight for dinner we are going to the Botanical gardens for a light show and to see live reindeer! I am PUMPED! We didn't know this place existed until one night we were out driving in the middle of nowhere when BAM! This magical place appeared in front of us! So pictures to come. Then of course Christmas Eve and Christmas! I get to hangout with you guys! See your beautiful faces! I will be doing it about 12 my time, you do the math! That way there will be no confusion. Also dad, it was your favorite day of the year yesterday. Shortest day and from here it only gets better. Then on Friday, drum roll please, I get to go to the temple!!! First time in 8 months! I am stoked! So basically it will be the best week. We are going caroling with the Elders and just basking in the Christmas Spirit! Thank you for all the cards and gifts everyone has sent! i am just feeling the love! I love all of you SO much!

I love you more than all the Christmas presents in the world!

Anne