Hello All!
First of all, Happy Birthday to Coco! I cant believe she is 13! I remember Sara and I talking in the car on the way to the hospital about who gets the title "Big Sister" because to us, clearly only one of us could have this title. I think Sara probably won.
This week was... WILD! I had so much fun. WE had a zone training at the beginning of the week this week and President Topham informed me that next transfer I will be... TRAINING! Can you even stand that?! I have been having a panic attack all week. I cant believe it. I will go from being trained to training instantly. With the increase in missionaries President told me to expect to be training for the rest of my mission and to get my training in now because I wont have another chance. Humility at its best. I am praying every night that a get a Sister that just wants to work and to let Heavenly Father do the training and me be there. I am going to use the next 6 weeks to prepare as much as I can because March 27, Ill be training! AHHHH!!
We had a super fun week. We have been trying to contact less-active members in our branch and area this week and every time we go out it turns into an adventure. One evening we tried to contact a family and ended up at this abandoned cabin thing. There was this broken, hilarious bike that we were playing on and got some funny pictures. We found this farm place too and there was a frozen lake, boat in it and all. Pennsylvania is full of fields and farms, I learned that by experience this week.
We had a great lesson with our investigator on Thursday and she committed to be baptized!! Because she lives about 45 minutes away it takes some extra planning to get to her lessons but if all goes according to schedule she will be baptized the first week in March!! I am so excited for her and to see the growth that she is having. She is 19 and a student down in Huntingdon, PA. I just adore her and love teacher her and watching her start to recognize the Spirit teach. This week we taught her the Plan of Salvation. After we went through the lesson she looked at us and said "I love this. It makes so much sense. Can you teach me another lesson too?" Sister Carter and I looked at each other and tried to pick our jaws up off the floor and taught her The Gospel of Jesus Christ. She is just wonderful and I am excited for her to be baptized.
This week we celebrated Chinese New Year with the Elder's recent convert, Jane. I am not a huge fan of Chinese food so this was hysterical. They made dumplings for us, like 100+. I dont really like dumplings but it was like a special thing they made for us so I choked down the dumplings then thought I was safe. False. Then Jane made us "Hot Pot". Brace yourselves for this. It is this spicy, SPICY broth stuff that they put cabbage and seaweed and lamb and these weird noodle things and these Chinese root things and other stuff in. Its a pretty big deal to have "Hot Pot". Jane said that families dont have it, its a special meal to eat with special friends and she was honored to have us. I couldnt tell her I didnt like Chinese food, she was honoring us!! So I ATE IT!! I ATE HOT POT!! My mouth was on fire and I was humming hymns to myself the whole time I was eating it trying to distract myself and keep from gagging. And she just kept refilling my bowl. "You like? You like?" "Yes, Jane. It is delicious." Oh my heck. Sister Carter was so proud. Everyone should be so proud of me! Missionary moment at its finest. I still cant believe I survived. But I did. And we went back later and had an "American" celebration with hamburgers and root beer floats. Jane and her friends were such good sports but they really didnt like our food, so we are about even.
We also got to have a Mardi Gras party with a member family this week. I think real Mardi Gras is Tuesday but they wanted us to celebrate true New Orleans style since they were from there. We got beads and ate "red beans and rice" and had a "fat cake". They like hide this plastic baby in the cake and if you find it you get good luck. Weird. I didnt find the plastic baby but I think it was beceause I was praying I wouldnt.
Things are going just great for us here. We had 5 people show up to the ESL class last week and it sounds like there will be an even bigger turn out this week. I know we are going to get more investigators. We are out and about every day.
We found this shopping cart on the side of the road and I decided we should turn it into a finding activity. So we are going to decorate this shopping cart and put copies of the Book of Mormon and other materials in there and ask people if they would like to go "shopping for Salvation". I think it is genius. At least people should think twice about what we are "selling".
We will see this week! I love you all! The Church is true!
Sister Andresen
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