Another Week!

okay well another week has gone by! some things from this week we taught our investigator selma again. she is amazing really. she was like yeah and christ will speak through you to tell me things that i need to hear that you might not know. I looked at her and said yep im pretty sure you should be the missionary and I am just going to leave now. haha she is wonderful! also we met with miss ruby! so fun, we hadn't met her for 2 week and when i asked her what happened in to joseph in the sacred grove she totally rememebered! and then I asked her if she believed that there could be one true church on the earth today and she said no. back to square 1. haha but when we first met her she said she would never go in a church and she agreed to do a church tour with us this week so thats progress! also Sister Mitobe came to church again. and her son was going to come with but ended up not being able to but he wants to come next week! yay! also Sis tutt is a less active that I finally met this week and we did some service for her and then she came to church. I basically started crying seeing as she said that she wouldn't come to church. it was great.

So some changes have happened here, they redid the ward boundaries. Im not thrilled. they took some good families away from our ward and they took camp parks which is the military base which has our investigator family the pahias in it. they were soooo close to baptism!! we are hopeing that the elders will keep them commited. they also took the bart system away from us which means we have no where to street contact. we are supposed to get 140 street contacts a week and we can barely get 100 and now we will get like 20. whatever its fine. haha oh but I got to meet an egyptian family! technically the other sisters I live with were teaching them but we did splits and so I got to meet them! so cool! I loved their accents. and they really liked our church until the realized how different it was from theirs. haha they couldn't figure out how we were so conserviative. oh well we will see what happens with them.

Oh and Nate and Katie I found where you lived! We were going to visit a less acitve yesterday and I was half asleep in the car like I always am and all of a sudden I am looking at these apartments and I was like yep this is where the lived. I saw the pool and I rememeber swimming in it and cute little ashlyn when she was a new baby! Yes it was serious deja vu. I also met Claudia Ambrose, she said that you(katie) were serving in young womens togther so that was fun!

Well that was pretty much my week, sorry this email isn't amazing its just crazy trying to email everyone in an hour!

Love you all and thanks for the support!

Annlie

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1 Month!

Dear Family and Friends,

Well as of last friday I have been out 1 month! Crazy right? Yeah it feels like 6 months. I now understand how Carson can see that he has 7 months left and still feel like thats forever. haha But thats okay!

First off Happy Late B-day to Megan C. and Happy coming b-day to Katie and Ryan and Megan R on the 21st!

Next it has been a crazy week. Lets start off with my pets. The ants have unfortunatly not been very friendly lately. I think they may have gotten the hint to stay outside. The blue birds on the other hand love us since we are starting to give them left over fruit. As for homeboy our black widow, well we discovered that homeboy is actually a homegirl and after giving her a bath with bleach she looked a little cold last night so we decided to start a fire in her hole to warm her up. Sadly the fire got a bit bigger that planned and both homegirl and her babies died. So sad... But hey no more black widow! I guess I will have to see if I have any more entertaining pets next week!

as for lessons this week, we worked hard but a lot of people were out of town. We met with Selma again and taught her about the temple which she liked but she just doesn't feel ready for baptism yet so we will keep working with her! Ruby was out of town on saturday and well she watches tv all day mon-fri so we couldn't come over another day. (my kind of lady!) But we went on splits on wednesday which was terrifying because I didn't watn to go by myself but I did! So me and Brother/Sister Lechaminant (the ward mission leader and his wife) Headed off to find some people to teach. Yeah no one was answering, so we tried Sis. Mitobe who is an inactive that hasn't been to church in 5+ years. We have tried her before but never gotten in and so I was like well guess we can see! But she let us in! and we talked with her for a good hour or more and I invited her to churhc as she came! though Sis. Lechaminant went to pick her up and I have a feeling that she might have refused to leave unless she came... But hey whatever works! So that was fun.

Also mom and Dad I got your package thank you very much! I also send a letter that had some rambling about packages, I don't need any of that right away its just ideas to send.

Oh we had dinner with a family in our ward and she is super mom. she has twin daughters that are 13. (one looks just like ashlyn) and then twin girls that are 5 and then a 2 year old and then 7 month old twins. (boy and girl) Man thats a lot of twins!

So more info on the member we live with. She is a single sister who attends the mandarin branch. Well sort of. apparently she is less active. Our district leader was like "housing the missionaries, going less acitve. Bold statement" needless to say we quote that all the time. She is really nice but very odd. haha Only thing you really need to know is that "water is the worst enemy" That pretty much sums her up.

Also biking this last week. Bad... I had some fun asthma attacks but it all worked out. We are in talks to maybe get another car but President brought me up a new bike on saturday that helps me stay sitting up straight better and I think its really going to help. My mission President is so awesome!

Well that was pretty much my week. How are things at home? How was the lake? I was really missing that last week! I believe the homeshow is now over? have the kids headed back to Georgia?

Love you all, have a good week!

Sister Stevenson

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Week 2

Dear Everyone,

Well this week has been full of adventures. we were able to teach our investigators more, Selma is perfect. Really. We taught her about tithing and fast offerings and she was like "well if I have 2 dollars and its not enough for me but one of my friends needs It I will give it to her because I know that the lord will bless me" Umm would you like to go teach our other lessons? she just isn't ready for baptism because she feels like she doesn't know enough of the BOM Stories even though the has a testimony of it. she has been in Utah the past few days so hopefully she will come back all excited, if not we will keep helping her! Well we would help her anyways.. haha As for Ruby we made it through the first lesson! she is still hesitant on some things, such as women not holding the priesthood and a few other things but she wants us to come back so that's always good.

We also had the chance to visit with some of the less active members in the ward, a lot of them are older ladies and they are so sweet!

Earlier this week I got to have dinner with a couple who knows Nate and Katie, from the sounds of it they sent you a pictures of me, they were so nice!

Also bikes. Yeah. on Saturday we rode bikes all day. Man I am still sore! But my tan is coming along nicely! So watch out all of you in Utah I am going to come back tan!

I hope you all had fun at bear lake and had a good 4th! I was really mission the Lake but the 4th here was good too. We went to the ward breakfast and then off to district meeting and then we had a planning meeting. We bbq'd us some chicken, man it was good. Then we went over to a families house for dinner. We were supposed to just eat but their grill wasn't working so we were over there till 9. it was a lot of fun. haha But luckily we have this great view of the valley so we drove home and watched fireworks until bed time. Dublin is one of the only places in this area that can light off fireworks so there was a great show!

Oh while contacting on the streets we got mooned. that was fun.

Also I need to tell you all about my pets! So first there are the ants. They come hang out with me every morning as I eat breakfast and then I give them a bath with windex and sweep them back out side to play! (Im not sure why they aren't getting the hint to stay out side) Then there are the Blue Birds. They come out while I am studying and want food. But I don't give them any. poor things. My favorite pet is the one that says goodbye to us everyday as we leave. He crawls out of his hole as we leave and then crawls back in. He wasn't there today though which has me worried seeing as he is a silver dollar sized black widow. Yeah... So this could be fun..

So those are my pets! Yeah I think I will stick with cats and Dogs.

oh and my mission president is getting strict on fingernail polish. NOOOO!! So yeah I think I have one color that I brought that's okay. Nope Mother even your color you got me is out. Depressing I know.

That was pretty much my week, It was a crazy on and I am having trouble remembering what else happened... So this shall have to do!

Oh but I told you my address wrong, the zip code is different so here is my real address:

Annlie Stevenson

11975 West Vomac Road

Dublin Ca 94568

 

Also as for recordings I am still figuring this whole lifestyle out so I will eventually get to sending those as well!

Love you all and thanks for your support!

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I'm Here!!

Well everyone I am in Cali and today is my first P-day! So as for my area well unfortunately its not on the beach, in fact I haven't seen the ocean which is overall depressing BUT some people would say that I am in the best area of the mission. Or at least Nate and Katie would. Yep that's right I am in Doublin!! Crazy right? So Katie send me all the people you know! My comp is Sis. Oborne from Alpine Ut and when we sat down I looked at her and said so what area are we in and she was like "Doublin" and I got all excited and she was like have you heard of it? I sure have! So I am thrilled to be here, even if there isn't an ocean. As for my comp she is awesome! She has only been out 6 weeks but she was in the MTC for 6 weeks because she is actually a visa waiter for Brazil. So Nate instead of learning Spanish I am working on my pourtuese! haha We live in a members basement and its really nice. It doesn't have a large kitchen, as in no oven but we have a skillet and grill with a stove top on it so I can still make mac and cheese. But looks like no cookies, muffins or frozen pizzas. Guess Ill have to eat healthy... :) So me and sis Oborne acutally live with two other girls, Sis Johnson who is a trainer and sister training leader (she is in charge of training the whole mission) and her new comp Sis. Ellis who happens to be my fellow district member from the MTC! (the one from Hawaii) So I was thrilled to have her because we are both clueless to what we are doing. Me and Sis oborne are over the Doublin ward and the other two are over the Tri-Valley singles ward. Which leads me to my next point. Cars. We have a car. BUT we are in a car share. Which means some days we are on bikes.

I road a bike on Saturday all the way from Pleasenton to doublin. Oh and those record high temps? Yes it was 106. Lets just say there for a few minutes I was really missing the Utah Snow... But I survived and we most likely won't have to do that again! Oh and I don't have to buy a bike because our mission president loves the sisters and just gets bike for them. Its great. :)

 

So on to adventures of the week. We have some crazy investigators. WE have a 18 year old named Selma who is a complete sweetheart she knows everything and she loves it, she just isn't ready to be baptized because she feels like she doesn't know enough. But the entertaining ones are Sister King and Miss Ruby. Our mission is a little different, we don't to trackting we do a lot of service and we focus on less actives a lot. So Sis King is a less active who is crazy. really. At one point she was telling us how at our age we are perfect. So we tried to throw in through the atonement we could be and she said no you are perfect. Then she went off about seeing a jewish rabi and who knows what else. But she is really funny so its all good :) As for Miss Ruby she is the awesome Black lady who isn't a member and likes to bring up how the blacks couldn't have the priesthood but hey she lets us come back every week so maybe something will strike with her! But I love how we call her Miss Ruby, it makes me think Im in Georgia.

As for other adventures our apartment doesn't have air conditioning which means it gets hot and well there are ants. Everywhere.  We went today and got some ant traps so hopefully that will help but if anyone has other suggestions that would be wonderful! WE have probably killed 1000's of ants by now. I mean we had them in our microwave this morning! An unfortunately this apartment is new so we are lacking furniture and storage so pretty much there are ants crawling in my clothes. Oh well it could be worse! Also there are spiders everywhere! I mean there was a spider web on a truck that had seriously been driven within the same day. Oh well!

So those are my adventures of the past couple days, its going to be a busy week but we have some fun things planned for the 4th! (fireworks might be included) Ill you all know!

Well I love you all and hope all is well at home! enjoy the air conditioning and swimming pools for me!

Here is my address- it will probably be my address for 4-6months so feel free to send mail there! Also packages, forget the junk food, send peanut butter and granola bars and nuts and fruit snacks and other items I can eat on the go :)

My address:

Annlie Stevenson

11975 West Vomac Rd

Doublin Ca 94508

 

Love ya!

Sister Stevenson

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One Week Down!

Dear all of you who are reading this,

 

I have made it one week! Wahoo! Lets just say thats a miracle in itself because there for the first few days it took everything I had not to say okay just kidding I think I'd rather just go back to school! haha Everyone kept telling me that you just had to make it to sunday and I kept thinking right... but by monday I was good! Well sort of. Let me start back at the beginning of this wonderful time at the MTC. So the rest of Wednesday went fine, by about 3 I got hungry and really tired seeing as I hadn't slept or eaten much in the week before I left. So dinner was awesome, we had fried chickedn and mashed potatoes. Yeah mom yours are much better.  after that we did this large group investigator thing, I don't know it was wierd but helpful. My district is amazing! here are some things about them:

My companion is Sister Cordova, she is from Arizona and we get along great! She is a lot better at teaching than me so its been nice to learn from her but we also agree and think a lot a like so no fights! The other sisters in my district are Sis. Sotelle from SLC, sis. Ellis from Hawaii, (awesome right?? ahhh!!) Sister Bender if from Ohio (they are all going to san jose with me) and then there is Sis. Child who is hilarious, when we went around saying our first names she was like "my name is Alphonse" we all died. its really Sara by the way. Then there is Sis Roberson, and Sis Orr. They are all going to Arcadia California. The elders are Elder Hendricks, and Elder Tolpa, and Elder Buckanan an Elder Schwendiman. They are are hillarious, Schwendiman is basically a Tom Christenson so I just laugh at him all the time. We all get a long great and I totally love it! Unfortunatly I don't room with my district, all of the girls are in one room and Sis Cordova and I are in the next room with some other girls who are really nice but really dramatic. If I hear one more thing about a boyfriend... :)

So lets talk about food! They feed you non stop here. and a lot. I see Elders get like 4 plates. Holy crap I can't even finish one plate. haha  I just want normal food!  But they have really good cookies and cake and donuts! Basically the deserts are good. And the fruit they have  a lot of fruit so I eat that a lot.

I will say the MTC is a whole new experience its been tough and teaching people is tough and man over all  I am not one of the people that like it here. Its fine and I can live until next Wednesday but anytime we can go out to the fields or we got to go to the Marriott center last night I just start jumping for joy. Im not a fan of the whole "On campus prison type place" Yeah... But Ill survive. I have really good teachers though and I am starting to feel good about teaching investigators. We did this TRC investigator appointment yesterday and I loved the lady we taught! I have no idea if she is a member acting or if she really is an investigator but I loved it! One pair of Elders in our district thought differently because they got kicked right back out by their investigator.. haha oh well good learning experience!

I have also got to see a lot of people I know in here! I had no clue I would know so many girls! I have seen Hillary Webb, and Nicki Hadley and Tayler Barrett and Camille Jasperson and Kelsi Wall and Blair Higbee and Becca Packer and Cami Bernards and I even found Natalie Belnap today! (yes I know you probably have no idea who half these people are) I also have found a few from SUU that I had met! So much fun!

I also got to take a quick 20 minute nap on Monday. yep life was great.

So as for devotionals and such, they have some really good ones here, Sunday relief society was great and Last night we had a wonderful devotional at the Marriott Center. they have to walk us all down there now for all the missionaries to fit! Crazy! Also we get to go down there for the World wide broadcast this sunday with Pres. Monson, they are keeping things pretty hush hush as to what they are going to talk about but I am excited to go! If you can watch it look for me I will be one of the missionaries NOT in the choir. :)  haha I will probably have a white or blue shirt on too. Well I think my email is going to try and kick me off in a second, we are supposed to have an hour but its only registering 30 minutes so I better send this before I loose it!

 

I love you all and will hopefully send more in a minute,

I miss you guys so much, Happy late fathers day, and thanks for all that you guys have done for me!

 

Love Annlie

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Sister Missionary

Well here we go! I am off to the MTC! I am going to try to keep this blog updated with my adventures in San Jose! I love you all and will see you in 18 months!

Dreams

Well this post is a few weeks late but hey better late than never right? It's also going to be long, sorry. Over MLK Jr. Weekend I was able to go to Las Vegas with my mom, I was so excited, I had only been in the airport up until that point and I couldn't wait to really see Vegas. Sad I know, I currently live 2.5 hours away and I have never been there, but what can you do? So after work on Friday my mom picked me up and we headed down. People probably thought I was crazy when I got there because it was oh 45 degrees and I took of my jacket and enjoyed the warm air, which was warm seeing as Cedar had been -17 early that week. Needless to say the daytime temp of 60 was heavenly.
So that was pretty much Friday at which point the real fun began. We did some shopping for school and stopped by our favorite Jewelry store, Charming Charlies and the most wonderful restaurant Bahama Breeze. I was introduced to these places by my sister n' law because they are by her house in Georgia. Unfortunately neither of these chains are located in Utah so when I saw they were in Vegas I of course had to stop there.
After that we headed to the strip. I found it so fascinating. I mean the Forum Shops? I still have no idea how to get out of there. Plus we walked right past Reba McEntire, awesome right? We spent Saturday and part of Sunday walking up and down the strip, I loved it, my mom was worried about corrupting me but I loved the little cities inside each hotel and architecture of the buildings. The Luxor was my favorite, one of my life long dreams is to go to Egypt and well that hotel is the closest I'm going to get for a long while. One Day.
The Best part of the trip was the main reason for going of course! I have this slight obsession. Most girls my age obsess over Justin Bieber (Jandi), One Direction (Anna) or others like that. Me? Nope. I'm obsessed with Celine Dion. Yes that's right so if you hate her you might as well stop reading now. I have loved her for years, ever since my bff Anna introduced me to her music back when I was probably 6 or 7. I always dreamed of seeing her when she was in Vegas years ago but I knew there was an age limit and that I was way to young. Then when I was 15 she came out with her Taking Chances CD, and shortly after it was announced she would be going on tour, right around the time of my 16th birthday. So I started begging my parents for tickets. A couple months later for Christmas I got my wish. I had 2 tickets for Celine at the delta center just a couple days after my 16th birthday. I was thrilled. Really, I almost cried. I also got a computer that year, and I was more excited about the tickets. Strange I know. So I had to wait almost a year to see her and unfortunately right before her concert in SLC she got sick and had to postpone the concert. Due to other events and such I was unable to attend her rescheduled concert. I was devastated. But my dad promised that he would get me to see her sometime. So 3 years later for my 19th b-day I was given tickets again for her Return to Vegas Concert. We scheduled them for June, but due to a new job I couldn't go and we switched the tickets for January 19, 2013. By this point I felt like I would never see her, nothing was going right. So when Saturday the 19th came I still wasn't believing that I would be seeing her. When I finally sat down in Caesars Palace, it hit me. I was freaking out. I had dreamed of this for so long and it was finally here. When they opened the curtains and she was standing there everyone stood and clapped. She hadn't even sung yet and she had a standing ovation! Well that's when the tears started. I know I'm pitiful. I didn't cry in Les Mis or any other show you should but I cried for Celine Dion. Whatever I don't care. Her concert was amazing. I could have listened to her forever. She was funny and wonderful. I was on a high for days after.
However something strange happened. I have loved her for 75% of my life and spent 25% of that waiting to see her in concert. Then after I had seen her I sort of felt empty. My dream had come true, and I wasn't quite sure what to do next. It's like in Tangled when she pauses before the lanterns go up. I was at a point where all of a sudden I had to find a new dream. So after a few days of reveling in the memory I learned to move on. My new dream? Meet Celine Dion. Or make it to Egypt. One of the two. Preferably both. Hey they are called dreams for a reason!

 Now enjoy some pictures!

Also enjoy this wonderful video of her singing during her concert.