The dreaded Transfer calls are in..

AND IM STILL IN DUBLIN! wahoo! so lets start there. Saturday nights are when we get transfer calls and all day I was dreading that I would get called. there were a lot of signs pointing toward me heading out. so 9:00 came and I sat and waited by the phone. then it was 9:30. still no call. 9:45 still safe. I figured by 10 all the calls should have been made. 9:55. still no call. 9:58. the phone rings. Literally my heart stopped. Sister Ellis got up to look at the phone and turned around and said "its brother lechaminant!" (thats my ward mission leader) Man I answered that phone and wanted to shoot him. So we talked and then after I hung up we got a text from the zone leaders saying that transfer calls were in and that only Sister Wheeler was heading out. SAFE! oh man I am so excited to be staying here! We have our investigators wedding this weekend and then his baptism on the 9th and then Selmas baptism dec 7. YES! Plus sister ellis and I both have b-days within about 5 days of each other so we have big birthday plans! 

So that was transfers not for bullet points!

-Sister goodman was sick so I went on exchanges with Sister Wheeler. That was fun! 

-Sister Goodman took the ACT on saturday and to help her prepare we went to the church for personal study so she could "practice the tests at a desk" It was great because we turned on the heat. mmm nice and warm!  (though our landlady is turning the heat on for us but its still freezing in the morning!)

-Sister Mitobe our less acitve told us that she had been thinking about our previous lesson in which we talked about putting church priorities first then everything else would fall in place(the rocks and the rice in a jar object lesson) Then she still didn't come to church. oh well next week!

-We went to dinner with president and his wife and their daughter. we went to some place called Buca de pepos? anywho we ate in the "pope room" oh it was hilarious! all these missionaries in a room decorated for the catholic pope. never a dull moment with president! 

-while sis goodman was taking the act, sis ellis, bliss and I went and broke into the mission office. okay the AP's gave us the key. haha but I did set off the alarm to the institute building. haha oh man. 

-The stake had a halloween carnvial. the member we brought with us pretended to be our investigator. It was hilarious! 

-We went to the outgoing fireside last night and this adorable 10 year old convert got up and bore his testimony. it was soo cute! 

Today I was having a bad day and when we were at the store we ran into a lady from one of the pleasanton wards. She bought all of our groceries. It totally changed my day around. To all of you, feed the missionaries, love them and support them, it can make a world of difference to them! 

Well it was a great week, I hope all of you have a great week and I will talk to you all next week!

Thanks!

Annlie

PS Last night Sister Ellis totally biffed it on the floor in our house. It was hilarious. well I thought so. ;) 

Here we are again!

So here we are again! another week gone by! This week went by pretty fast actually. Even if last monday was very long. So as I had mentioned we went on a surise hike up pleasanton ridge last monday. That was early. haha We did the same thing about 3 months ago so It was fun to be able to see the way that I have grown and changed since then. Ways I have not changed however is that I am still just as out of shape as I was then. haha You would think I would have been in a little better shape after all of this bike riding! Oh well, one day! So here is the rest of the week in bullet point form:

-We did service with Nichelle on Tuesday, we painted a trellace? Spelling is probably wrong. We painted it white for her wedding. I am sure hoping that I dont get transfered because we get to help with the wedding and I am so excited!!!

-We also had dinner with the bishops family. Bishop also likes to watch NCIS and Castle. I like their family. hahaha no they are great, their little girl Annie is the youngest and the only girl with 3 brothers so I relate to her a lot :)

- Wednesday we saw Daniel! he is our less active neighbor who is addicted to nicotine and alchol. We got his records and he has met with bishop now and when we saw him he was 13 days sober! It was so neat to see the difference in him. He just seemed to much better. His mind was clear and I could just see the "real" Daniel. Its amazing what his desire to come back to church has done for him, because without it i don't know if he would ever have quit drinking! I thank the Lord every day that we happened to run into him because I have seen his life change in the past couple months!

- We had dinner with the longs. they fed us spagetti. I don't think I have ever been so excited to eat spagetti. It wasn't tacos or chinese! But then we had spagetti again last night. let the reign of spagetti commence...

- We also taught brandon the word of wisdom. He is so great.

- SELMA! we got to watch the testaments with her! Finally. hahah but it was in spanish. yep. that was fun. but it had english subtitles so its all good. It was great fun, kind of like a movie night because the berry's ordered pizza and stuff.

-We got to help Sister Beard with her yard and she crocheted us wallets. they are so cool! We also got to bike around dublin that day dirty and exhausted with backpacks full of clothes. then we went out to dinner and I put my left overs in my back pack. Yep I completely looked like  a hobo.

- Last night Marty, a single lady in our ward had us and brandon and nichelle over for dinner. Marty is awesome. Anywho dinner was great. I love brandon and nichelles kids! Nicole who is 12 thinks we are best friends. Fine by me! and their little girl Natalia wanted to come home with me. haha then she asked me to help her with the prayer. oh man she is so cute!

Well that was my week, I hope you all had a wonderful week. If you haven't go watch conference!

Just to end, I know this church is true, and I have come to love the atonement so much. I have seen its power work miracles in so many peoples lives and I am just so blessed to be able to be serving a mission.

Love you all!

Annlie

4 Months??

Man it has already been 4 months? Time sure flys when you are having fun! So this week has been pretty darn crazy! here are some nice bullet points for you all to enjoy :)

-Monday night we had dinner with a family in our ward and their deaf neighbors and we invited the asl missionaries. that was interesting. Now I have taught a lesson in english, spanish, mandarin and ASL. and I have understood none of them. LOVE IT!

-Tuesday evening we spent some time talking to our neighbor Jack in his garage while he very nicely fixed a broken drawer to our desk. He told us that he isn't religous but if he was he would be mormon. We will keep working on him :) But we got cold since we were outside so he let us borrow his jackets. I wore an $800 dollar leather jacket. that was some nice leather! Also he is like 80 and tap dances. he is hilarious! 

-We went contacting at the bart this week. Nate and Katie- remember how I loved the bart? haha well It was great we were handing out Mormon,org cards and one guy stopped to talk to us! too bad it was the 1st councelor in the bishopric. haha

-We also dropped by the Malones house, they are a potential investigator family, their 14 year old has cancer, she showed us her room that was done over. so cute! minus all the justin bieber stuff. haha

-We went to watch the testaments with brandon and nichelle. their tv broke that day. ALL I WANT TO DO IS WATCH THE TESTAMANTS! Is that too much to ask for? :)

-On saturday we helped a less acitve sis Mcmurdie with her garden, funny thing you can plant tulips this time of year and they will bloom in a couple weeks. but we also got to ride in her VW Bug. with the convertable top down. So fun!

-Sunday at church we had sis krommenhowk there, who said she was going to try to change her work schedule so she could come to church (YAY!) and we had sis king(thats always an adventure) and sister mcmurdie came too! We didn't think she would come! 

-Selma announced to the ward that she is getting baptized December 7th! Its official! so excited, I love that girl. 

-Then I woke up at 4:30 this morning for another sunrise hike. More on that next week. 

Over all a great week! 

I hope you all had a wonderful week and I just wanted to let you all know that I know that this church is true and that it can really bless our lives. So make sure you are all reading your scriptures, praying and going to church! :)

Love you all!

Annlie 

Fwd: PICTURES!

I also forgot that we went to the temple! loved it! and I ahve a new pet its name is sally. thats short for salazar. im sure you all can see what it is. we also had to trade in our car for a different one. this was the car sister ellis and I first got in on day 2 in the field and headed to dublin in. we decided to recreate our faces. haha

Here we are again!

Well here we are again another week gone by! No worries I didn't spend this whole week partying. It was another week of hard missionary work! Which means this email will be boring. haha Sorry! So a few highlights of the week:

-we have this elderly lady that we visit named Sister Beard. She told us that she would sew up any of our clothes that get ripped etc. guess I can't leave this area my whole mission! 

-We had dinner with a family-they are moving to henderson nevada which is way sad because they are great. I laughed because in ward council on sunday we talked about how our ward needs to be better at greeting people and getting to know each other and the ward council all said that our ward was great at it and sis goodman and I were like"sorry your not" haha so we told this family what the ward council had said and Brother Boop laughed and said we are horrible at greeting new people! so at least the missionaries arent the only ones seeing that we have a problem.

-we also had dinner with the knutsons-they have 3 sets of twins. never a dull moment. too bad I cant hold any of the adorable kids!

-Miss ruby was hilarious as always! she got us lunch which was wonderful. we dont have an appointment for this coming week but she said to call her! progress I tell you, progress. haha

-Sister krommenhock. so she is a less active that we havent gone to in a couple weeks hopeing she would decided to read the scriptures or anything for that matter. so we showed up and next thing ya know she is having us teach her friend the first lesson. I love that lady. AND the guy we taught has this american flag that is from 1884. it has the 13 stars on it! its so cool! hopefully I will send a picture of that!

-Are less active Daniel who we found lives up the street from us, well we met his girlfriend this week. She is great. we are so converting her. haha 

-oh we went to the lamberts- they are the ones with the big cat and so we get there and sis lambert was like you have till 8 because then john will walk in and say its time for survior out you go! 20 mintues later he walked in and we were like dont worry we are leaving! they are great though. 

-Conference!!! so good. Loved it all. also there was a talk called "his grace is sufficent" in last months ensign. you should all go read it. I loved all of confrrence! its amazing what you learn if you aren't sleeping through it... haha 

WEll I hope you all have a wonderful week, I know that this church is true and I have loved seeing the change it can bring in peoples lives. its just wonderful. 

Love you all, thanks for your support!

Annlie

ps. go watch conference if you haven't. I loved the saturday sessions!