Thursday, May 2, 2013

APRIL 15, 2013: Springtime in Pennsylvania!

Hello All!!
Spring finally hit Pennsylvania this week! We had a horrible, like ive never seen rain like this in my life horrible, rainstorm earlier in the week then we woke up the next day and everything was GREEN!! Its not super warm but its not freezing and it looks so beautiful outside. People are a lot nicer with the weather being better :) Finals are in two weeks at Penn State so everyone is flipping out about studying and stuff so its hard to find people to teach, and then everyone leaves for the summer the first week of May so things will get interesting here. I learned how to tract this week!! It is so fun! I actually love it (most missionaries hate it). The Elders took Sister Ferrin and I out tracting because my next area I'll probably have to do that and I didn't want to look like more of a fool than I needed to in front of my next greenie. It was a little rough at the beginning and I let my feelers get hurt a couple of times by the door slams and rude comments but then I remembered when I went to Las Vegas for the Mitt Romney campaign. People were super rude to me and I was alone at those doors! I decided to try to see how long I could get people to talk to me and just encouraged them to vote instead of telling them to vote for Mitt and most of them accepted literature about his campaign and our conversations ended a lot cheerier. :) So I applied that to tracting. I just made it about God loving them and then once people realized I was nice (and a human) they took the card (or book) and when I left, our message was received much better! Sister Ferrin and I went tracting solo later in the week and we got a few potentials and I gave out all of the copies of the Book of Mormon I had with me that day! IT WAS AWESOME! We had a cool expierence this week too. We got some mail for Sister Romero that is now serving in Pittsburgh so we texted her to ask her what her address was. Out of nowhere she asked "Have you talked to Xiwen lately? I have had her on my mind a lot" Xiwen was an investigator Sister Romero taught 6+ months ago and was dropped right before I got here. I never was sure why we weren't teaching her anymore and her teaching record didnt state why she was dropped. So we said that we had no idea how Xiwen was because no one had talked to her since last year. She told us we should call her and just see how she was doing. Xiwen's number was in our phone so we gave her a call and just said we were new and wondered how she was doing. Xiwen was so excited and told us she got sick and then never heard from the sisters again and asked for a lesson the next day! We were freaking out! So we taught Xiwen the Restoration the following morning and she loved it! She has already been taught that lesson but seeing how confusing things have been with her we just wanted to start from the beginning. It was such a blessing Sister Romero was prompted to tell us to check on Xiwen because she is so ready to hear the gospel! It was a pretty cool experience for all of us! This coming week we are trying to get as many people as possible to teach before finals hit. Its going to be an adventure! Working with students has been interesting and has made missionary work way different than what I thought. I love working with people my age but it also makes it hard because most peoples priorities are super selfish "I just need to focus on school" "I've got to do blah blah blah" "The weekends are my time" (yeah someone told us that). But it also makes it easier to find those that are prepared. I am excited to see what will happen in the next few weeks with finals and such. I love you all! Missionary work is the coolest. I've never been this happy in my life!! I am so grateful for the experiences I get to have on a mission, the good and the not so good. We were talking with the Elders the other day and one of them said "I really want to marry a returned missionary. Before you go on your mission you have a testimony, but when you have every fiber of it stretched on your mission it becomes active. I want my wife to have experienced the way its felt to have that happen to me. The hard times and the good times of a testimony I've had and you can only have on a mission" I've started to feel my testimony being streched in ways I didn't know it would, or could be. My relationship with my Heavenly Father is stronger than it has ever been. I know that this is Christ's restored church and the ONLY way to find happiness. It doesn't mean that every second we are happy or only good things happen to us but it gives us the eternal perspective and the way to find eternal happiness. And I am so grateful I get to share that knowledge and testimony with the people here in State College. I love you all!! Thank you for your support and love. Have a great week!
Sister Andresen

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