End of March already??

Well first off here is a bday shout out to my awesome dad who is now 60! Youre welcome dad :)

So this was a good week! Sister Smith and I are settling in together just fine, she also loves bahama breeze, charming charlies and Celine Dion. Pretty much we are the same person. hahaha So a few things that happened this week (sorry this might be short again the time keeps sneeking up on me!)

-Monday we had dinner with the bishops family. they are so amazing! really they  are the best. also they have indoor pool. and for FHE we went to the kareokee party they had. no singing for us, we stayed in the kitched and made cookies :) rough life, I know.

Tuesday we went and saw this adorable old lady whose brother had just died. she broke my heart and made my day at the same time. She made me miss all of the older people we used to see all the time in Dublin! we also had a lesson with our amaizng investigator Mary. She is in the YSA and is hilarious. she is totally freaking out because all of these things about the church are making sense to her and so she has no idea what to do. hahaha I have decided that her favorite line to say is "God Wins!" why yes he does. :)

Wedneday was full of lessons and random service. Oh we were helping move this company and so we had 10 missionaries there and the guy in charge was like okay so its 1030 now, hopefully we can get this done by 2! Im looking around thinking oh buddy it wont take that long. haha and hour and a half later we were done. got to love missionaries!

Thursday was good! we officially set the date with the Mabinis for their little girls to get baptized on april 19th! they are so excited!

Friday we had our investigator Alexia. she is awesome. and crazy. and awesome. haha

Saturday was great! we had our investiagor destry who rocks and also the broadcast!! I loved it. if you all didnt see it, go watch it. also I cant wait for conference this week!

Sunday was also great. as always.

Well Im off, have a wonderful week!

Annlie

Fwd: Pictures!

Look I made a friend at the beach! her name is lizzie. I wanted to keep her as a pet but alas that is against the rules. 

Here we are again!

So this week was interesting. hahaha My new comp is Sister Smith and she if from Vegas Baby! she also likes Celine Dion so I am sure we will get along just fine. haha It was actaully a good week. stressfull but good. We were able to get a baptismal date set up for this boy thomas that I have been teaching which was amazing because his mom wouldnt ever let him get baptized so now we are all soooo excited!!! We also set up another baptismal date for the Mabini Girls who were going to get baptized in march but their dad wants to baptize them and he wasnt quite ready. So that should be for april 19 and we are soooo excited for that as well!!! and then we had this random girl come up to our recent convert taylor and ask about the church so we now have a new investigator who is sooo getting baptized. She wants to go on the ysa temple trip and she hasnt even taken the missionary lessons. That and she asked Taylor to take her shopping for more dresses. SOLID! We just had a really good week. Sister Smith is doing great, she is learning the area fast and is adjusting to the fact that she is here now! It takes a while to set in that you actually can live in monterey. Most of us spend the first month or so staring at the ocean and saying "wow this is real life" or "wow I actually live here" its awesome. hahaha I am afraid that this is a really boring email and that I feel as if I should have more to say but some how I seem to have forgotten what we did all week. Oh Us and the elders spent all of friday and Saturday arguing that one of us should call president and see if he would let us watch frozen with the YSA. Yeah none of us gave in. So no frozen for me. YET! hahaha I am determined to see it. especially since its the only thing people talk about these days! haha

Well I love you all, sorry this is boring, have a good week!!

Annlie

Changes

Well first sorry folks there wont be a recording attached to this email. Life got a little crazy this week. which Is why I much also apologize for the fact that this email will probably suck. pardon my non missionary language. 

So where to start?

So pday last week was awesome! we went to big sur and then to carmel beach. Yes rough life I know. beautiful and sunny! 

Tuesday was just plain out hilarious. so there we are sister Neff and I contacting and all of a sudden we are talking to this girl and she is like "hey I would love to talk, do you have time now" us.. Sure?
her "awesome I live right up the street come on!"

us. ummmm okay.. please dont kill us... so we went into her house and then she gave us food. I made sis neff try it first to make sure it wasnt posioned. haha So anywho her name is joy and she is pretty sweet! so we will be teaching her now! but then we left to go back to the car and we got cat called at by a guy with an accent in his car. and then Sis Neff contacted a girl who totally hit on her. hahaha never a dull moment in monterey. 

Then at volleyball sis neff and I rocked it and totally taught 2 lessons to some of the girls there. somehow I had to fit in the book of mormon between comments about anime.... oh well!

wednesday was cool, we helped the elders move a guy in their ward and he totally lives in carmel valley which is BEAUTIFUL!!! I really like the ocean but man those mountains felt like home! 

We had another awesome lesson with our investigators the Mabini Family, they rock. the little girls should be getting baptized in april. Oh I also hit 9 months. Totally celebrated by stopping by the nestle tollhouse cafe. yes I should not have eaten what I did. 

thursday and friday we had a lot of lessons and then saturday came and it all went down hill. So the day started off fine. we helped a lady in carmel move some more, which was awesome and then we did some gardening and then things got bad. so right before dinner we got a phone call from the mission pres that Sister Neff was getting emergency transfered and that we needed to be up in san jose sunday night. Yep lets just say that dinner did not go smoothly. Nor did either us have any idea what to do. So she said goodbye saturday night and sunday and last night we headed up to the mission home. We both pretty much cried the whole way up there. Im not going to lie, I had my issues with her at first but we really became good friends and we made an awesome team so niether of us were thrilled with this whole situation. but alas here we are. So we slept over at the mission home. and then switched comps this morning and said goodbye. She is headed up to pleasanton. Which i told her would be amazing!!! because it is!!! but it still sucks. My new comp is sis Smith and she seems amazing but I am not thrilled to be running this area when I thought I would have sis neff here for at least 2 more months. but so is life so this week should be an adventure! pray for me if you would. hahah 

love you all and have a great week!

happy saint patty's day!

Fwd: Pictures!!

here is some pics from the baptism!! 

Home!!!

Guess what everyone?? I got to go home this weekend!!!! 

This is the part where all of you say to yourselves "what? Sister Stevenson, you are on a mission, you are not supposed to be going home!" Well everyone its all good I didnt go home to Utah I went home to Dublin!! Yep thats right I got to go to Dublin! :) you see a mission is like a mini life. you are born somewhere, you grow up somewhere else and then you die somewhere else. So I was born in Dublin. now I am growing up in Monterey. One day I will die somewhere. So I got to go back to my childhood home of dublin.  My excitement still cannot be contained. So we will get back to that story in a minute. 

So lets start back on monday, PDAY! dont worry, we didnt do anything too exciting, just played volleyball on the beach. ;) haha It was the last pday of the transfer so a lot of the zone got together so that was a lot of fun. Then after pday we went to FHE with the YSA ward and played minute to win it games. I totally got an oreo from my forehead to my mouth without using my hands. It only took me 20 minutes and like 500 trys. haha But I did get it! 

Tuesday was also good, we saw Nael, he is from Jordan, he was so funny! he made us arabic food, which wasnt bad but man I cant eat as much as he wants us to. :/ oh well I survived. Then that evening we had Taylor, our YSA recent convert and she is amazing! she was like, so when are we done with these lessons? I want to go play missionary with you! She rocks, she wants to go on a mission this fall! But then that night is when things got good. so we were changing clothes to go play volleyball with the YSA and sister DeLaMare, my last comp from Dublin sent me a text and was like guess what? So I responded what? and she said "Nichelle is getting baptized this saturday at 4!!!" Needless to say I about dropped dead. really. AAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Okay I am back. so volleyball was pretty much a waste of my time because all I could think about was how the heck I was going to get 2 hours north of monterey on saturday. 

So now its wednesday and we had some good lessons and sat in the sun for a minute and had navajo tacos for dinner... thursday was crazy... friday I was stressing trying to find a ride.... and then bam Amy Lee who just got back from her mission is an amazing person and told us that she would take us up to dublin. I oh her big time!! Oh also on friday we saw our cute investigator couple, well she is a member but he is not, they are so cute! So any who saturday came and we went down to Carmel to help a lady move. she is awesome. She works at the senior center we volunteer at and we told her we would help her move. pretty much she loves the missionaries and showed us her guest room where we can stay when we come back. :) So sorry all I will be in Carmel for a while... :)

So then on to the baptism! So I dont recall if you all remember (probably becasue I dont ever see you all... ) so any ways, Nichelle is the wife of my recent convert brandon. They awesome couple we got married back in november and then Brandon go baptized a week later. Well Nichelle is amazing. She grew up in the church but made some not so awesome decisions and went the other way. But in the recent years she has been trying to come back and now finally she was ready for baptism. She is amazing! she is totally an example of how the atonement can save all of us. So back to the baptism, we got up to dublin, which was wonderful. I totally felt like I was going home! and the hills were green!! GREEN! not brown! it was so weird. So then we pulled into the church and there was brandon and nichelle and sister Goodman. I ran out of the car and over to them. I could have hugged them all day. and Handshaked brandon because he is a guy. haha 

So then sister G and I walked in and Saw bishop hair and it was so good to see him! and then it was funny because he was like, so could you two go check on the font, thanks! I looked at sister G and said, well its like we never left! :)

So the baptism was amazing! Nichelle was just glowing and brandon got to baptize her and I might have cried. up ill admit I got a little teary. and it was so good to see some of my dublin people! MArty, and Leighanna and the Neffs and Bishop, and bro Ambrose and Sister Davis and all of the people that I love! Oh and sister Delamare and sister Fui and pretty much I love dublin and I could stay there forever. Not that Monterey isnt great but really, dublin just rocks! 

So anyways, I eventually had to say good bye and then we went out to dinner at the Corner cafe in pleasanton and then drove home. It was wonderful! And now this email is really long and I need to go. Basically the church is true and Dublin rocks. okay So does monterey. haha

Love you all!

Annlie

Ps. I hit 9 months this week. Crazy!!! I must say celebrating it with Nichelles baptism was the greatest halfway present ever. :)

I cant think of a good title...

So this week was good!  Pretty busy, so thats always nice... It was the last week of the transfer, can you all believe that I have been in monterey for 6 weeks now? I cant. the time flew by! Both me and my comp will be staying here for the next 6 weeks so bring it on! 

as for the adventures of the week lets see...

Oh Pday! So we totally went to the beach. I could live there forever. Our whole zone came so that was a lot of fun. we played in the sand, and played sports and I took lots of pictures and ran from the water and maybe gotten slightly wet. on accident of course. :) 

So then we had a good evening, we went to FHE and played a game called "Who am I" basically you have a piece of paper on your back and then you have to guess what is on there. I had plutonium on my back. so not fair. needless to say I was initiated into the YSA ward. haha

Our District Meeting on tuesday was really good. It was our Zone Leader Elder Horlachers last one since he goes home this week. He talked about the atonement and using it in our lives everyday. it was really good. 

Wednesday was a miracle day! It was raining so of course I was not happy and then all of our lessons cancelled so it was 3 and we had done nothing and the all of a sudden we ended up with a ton lessons! Active mbrs called and wanted to see us, we had 3 street contacting lessons in an hour and man it was awesome! and it even stopped raining! 

We also had a wonderful lesson with the Mabini Family, their girls are going to get baptized, originallyt his month but we are going to push it back to april. But anywho, the parents are members that have been less active and Bro Mabini is amazing! he told us how he has been drinking coffee since he was 8. and like 3-8 cups a day. and he just quit cold turkey so that he can be ready to baptize the girls. He is amazing! So neat to see how the gospel can change lives!

We also have a new investigator named Destry, he just married a mbr and wants to learn more so we are excited to teach him! 

Overall it was a good week!

Fun Fact: George Slaughters cousin is in my ward!

Also not to end the email on some bad notes but I did find out last week that A girl I taught in dublin that had cancer died last week. She was amazing and fought so hard but I know that she is on the other side happy and healthy now!

Also i grew up knowing not to do drugs. Then I came on a mission and saw what drugs really do to people. So Kids. Stay in school, and dont do drugs. :)

love you all! have an amazing week!

Annlie