May 20, 2013

Happy Monday from Berwick, PA! It is SO humid today! I look like I am sweating 24/7 because the air is so wet. I will never get used to this! This week was full of interesting experiences. Most significantly, the baptism we had scheduled for Saturday (Tanner's birthday! Happy b-day shout out to him!) was cancelled.  It was a hard situation for Sister Roberts and I to be thrown into an area with an investigator scheduled to be baptized the next week. Exciting, yes, but a little crazy.  I made a promise with Heavenly Father when I left on my mission that I would never baptize a less-active member. When we got here so close to Christine's baptismal date, I just felt uneasy because we had no idea how prepared she was. To me, I would rather not baptize a single person on my mission than baptize someone who isn't prepared or converted to the gospel. It just isn't worth it. So we met with Christine every day this week and tried to make sure she was prepared for baptism. The elders had taught her well and when we reviewed all the lessons with her, she seemed (key word) to have a solid understanding. I remember mentioning earlier in the week to Sister Roberts that I could picture Christine in white but I just couldn't see her in the temple, but didn't think much of my comment. On Friday, we met at the church and Christine had her baptismal interview with our district leader. I felt a little weird coming into her interview though. I had asked her those exact questions 3 times this week but still felt unsure about how she would do in the interview. Well she walked out and Elder Yates said he had to make some calls. The decision was made that based on something she was still working on, her baptism would need to be moved 2 weeks. Christine was pretty mad and stormed out of the church and told us she wasn't coming to church again and didn't want to set a new date. Her reaction explained a lot about her testimony and understanding of baptism. We all walked back into the church and Elder Yates started to get emotional and told us that he wasn't sure why she couldn't be baptized, truly, but that he had a spiritual experience during her interview and felt like she should wait. He said he felt bad that she is so upset and it was a hard thing for him to do but he knew that was what needed to happen. On Saturday we stopped by Christine's house and talked to her. After asking her a few questions she told us that she didn't think she needed to be baptized again but that "the boys" told her that and she was just doing what they said. We learned that she really didn't have a testimony of the Book of Mormon or the restored gospel, she was just doing "what the boys said". I was in awe. I am so grateful that the Spirit told Elder Yates no. She was NOT prepared to be baptized and it would have been a really hard thing for her if she had been baptized on Saturday. As of right now, we aren't teaching her anymore. We are going to "take a break" for the summer and try teaching her again in the fall. I am surprisingly grateful for the experience we had this weekend. It was spiritually and emotionally hard but I have come understand the seriousness of baptism in a whole new light. I am not on a mission to baptize people, I am here to help them become converted to the Gospel of Jesus Christ, which will result in baptism! All the missionaries spoke in church yesterday and I had the opportunity to speak on strengthening less-Active members and how we can bring them back into the gospel. President Hinckley said "There is absolutely no point in missionary work if we do not hold on  to the fruits of our efforts." NO POINT! I am recommitted to never baptizing a less-active member of the church. In Berwick, we have an opportunity to work with a lot of less-active members. I know that we can find so much joy by strengthening Christs "Lost Sheep." I am excited for the work that we have ahead of us. I am also excited because we found a new apartment!! That has heat and hot water! We don't get to move in until June 1 but knowing there is an end in sight at our humble shack is encouraging. I love you all so much!! Have a wonderful week.

Sister Andresen

May 13,2013

I was right! I was transferred to BERWICK! I live not even 5 minutes away from the Susquehanna River, about 2.5 hours away from where the Priesthood was restored! HOW COOL IS THAT! It was quite the interesting experience getting here and getting started. Before I left State College last week, all the missionaries spent our P-day taking pictures at the Penn State sign and the Nittany lion which was fun. We got to spend the night in Pittsburgh again which was a blast and transfer meeting was great! My new greenie, Sister Roberts, is pretty great too. She is from New Mexico. We get along great so thats good too. Because our area is so rural we get a car. I drive brand spankin new 2013 Chevy Cruze that we affectionately named "Tom." :) Get it? Get it? Anyways. Tuesday we drove all day to get to our area, we are actually the farthest east our mission goes. We are closer to Philadelphia than Pittsburgh. Kinda crazy! The city we live in is called Bloomsburg. The city of Berwick is pretty dangerous and so we dont ever go into that part of town. The elders cover Berwick and we cover a smaller, slightly less-scary town. The apartment we currently live in is over 10 years old. The Elders have been in this apartment before us but moved to Berwick so they got a new apartment and didnt tell the mission office how horrible this apartment is when they moved out. S we got here and I was trying to be a good sport, but it is a pretty bad apartment. We dont have hot water, we have holes in the floor that we could pretty much fall through, the walls are in horrible condition, NONE of the doors shut and its in a sketchier part of town. I kept thinking as we were walking around our apartment "I AM IN AMERICA! I AM IN AMERICA!". I finally called the mission office the next day once we saw it in the sunlight and they were totally disgusted at the elders for letting it get that bad. So they are moving us ASAP. Last night a family in our ward brought us blankets and stuff because we didnt have any and they were pretty shocked we were living in this apartment. They offered to let us live with them but because they live on the edge of our ward boundary it would take all of our daily miles just to get into town! But we are making the most of it, I will have some fun stories to tell my about my mission now I guess. The mission office said they will have us out by the end of the month, so we are praying hard they find a place sooner than later. Pray for an apartment to come up for sale! Bloomsburg is a neat town. Its WAY different than State College, to say the least. People here are super....humble...... :) but super receptive to us. Everyone around here knows the Elders so they are all excited to see Sisters. Sisters were taken out of the area about 10 years ago so they all are grateful to see us. We have an appointment at least once sometimes twice a day, which is about a 100% increase from State College. The Elders had an investigator named Christine that was transferred to us. She is actually getting baptized this Saturday! We met her this week and it was quite the experience. I have finally come to see the true side of Pennsylvania. Christine lives in a tiny, old apartment with no Central lighting or air. We pretty much sat in the dark, on boxes and buckets and got to know her. She weighs about 350+ lbs, has no teeth, has an interesting odor, and LOVES GOD! It was so fun to get to know her and hear her life story. People from Bloomsburg are some of the coolest people I've met. Its so humbling to see how little they have and how happy they are. We are excited for Christine's baptism this week, look forward to pictures about that next week! The church here is super young, so attending Sacrament Meeting was a new experience for me. The talks were a little less.... "structured" and the people looked a little more casual, but it was cool to see how devoted they are. Our Chapel is in the middle of nowhere. Seriously, fields on either side for as far as they eye can see, so getting to church is a big deal for these people. Yesterday was so great to be able to Skype home! IT WAS SO GOOD TO SEE YOU! Everyone sounds like they are doing great. It was fun to be able to talk face to face with you guys, I havent seen you in almost 5 months! I love you all so much. It was so fun to be able to hear all the fun things you have been up to. And it was good to see mom is doing much better. I can't wait for Christmas :) Things here are a bit different, this area is different but I am so happy and I know that Heavenly Father has me here for a reaon! I love missionary work and I love being able to serve the Lord. Have a great week!

Sister Andresen

The first picture is me trying to "ride" the Nittany Lion. Its a big deal to take a picture on the Lion before you leave State College. CHECK!

The second picture is of me and my new companion Sister Roberts at transfers. Check out our sweet ride in the background!

May 6,2013

And.... I AM BEING TRANSFERRED!

Can you believe it? I am going to leave my birthplace and greenie area. WAAH! President called this weekend and told me that I will be doubling into a new area, training. AKA a really wild thing. So I will be opening a brand new area with a brand new missionary. Pray for me :) Its been so weird saying goodbye to everyone here in State College. I have come to love this area and the people so much! This week started out pretty fun because I got to see Brint and Gage Dietrich! They came to State College to visit Brint's family, the Fogelsangers, and so they had us over for dinner! It was really fun to see some faces from home and chat about how things are going back in the Muller Park 8th ward! This week I had some really cool experiences to finish off my time here in State College. On Tuesday, all the missionaries in my area (10 missionaries total) fasted for Mom. When we knelt and closed our fast together the Spirit was so strong! I have faith that fasting brings miracles and I am so grateful for the opportunity we have to fast. There is such a great support system in missionary work. I was so amazed at how supportive and loving everyone has been to me and how willing everyone is to help. When I asked if the other missionaries would join me in fasting for mom, they were all grateful for the opportunity to serve mom and our family! Mom, I know that blessings are coming your way! I have been praying really hard to be able to see some of the ways that my example as a missionary has affected other people in my area and this week Heavenly Father allowed me to see a few ways. In our area, we ride the bus. The most effective way to spend our evenings is usually bus contacting and so the bus drivers see us pretty frequently. Every time I get off the bus I make sure to say thank you to the bus driver and wave. Some of the drivers dont care, but I always feel better knowing they know I am grateful. Well Friday night we were getting off of a bus with a driver that usually doesn't respond to us when we say anything to him. As we were getting off I said thank you, as usual, and the bus driver looked at us, and then gathered all his courage to talk to us pretty much and said "I would like to tell you something." Then with tears in his eyes he said, "Tomorrow is my last day of work and I want to let you ladies know that in all my years, you are the two nicest people I've met. Thank you." WOW! I had no idea that he cared or noticed and that it made that much of an impression on him. The next night we continued bus contacting. At one point in the night the bus was totally empty, with just us on the bus. I was trying to decide if we should get off or not but something just said "It's okay. Just stay on." So we did. A few minutes later the bus driver goes, "So are you "sisters" Mormons? I don't know much about the Mormons!" Jumping on this opportunity, we proceeded to have the 1st lesson on this empty bus with the bus driver! I shared the first vision even! I left a copy of the book of Mormon with him and shared a pamphlet of the restoration I had in my backpack. When we were getting off he looked at me and said "Sister, I've been itching all week that you would hop on my bus. I try to have the light of Christ in my life all the time and I can see that in your eyes every time you get on the bus! I wanted to figure out what it was. Its the Mormon!" I was so humbled and grateful that I was able to have my prayers directly answered. I am so grateful that Heavenly Father knows His children and knows what we need. I have loved being in State College and will miss it a lot. Yesterday was Stake Conference, broadcast from Salt Lake. After the meeting (which BTW stake conference here is still smaller than our ward meeting back home! WILD!) I was able to say goodbye to a lot of the people I was able to serve. Everyone was super encouraging and supportive and let me know I'd done a good job here. Something I have always hoped would come from my mission is lasting friendships with those I served and I already can tell I have many Pennsylvania "Families" I want to come back and visit. Tonight I get to drive the Elders van again to Pittsburgh for transfers tomorrow! I love driving mission cars! :) We get to spend the night with the Sisters in Pittsburgh again, which I am so excited about. I love the missionaries in my mission! I seriously feel like we are all Sisters, not in a lame way! I will try to mail a letter tomorrow with my address as soon as I know where I am going!! So exciting! President told me I am staying on the East side of the Mission. The 3 areas he is opening on the East are Berwick( the farthest East our mission goes), Shrewsbery (pretty much the last city before you hit Maryland) and Camp Hill (by Harrisburg, where the mission home for the Harrisburg mission was before it was dissolved into the Pittsburgh mission). When I saw the list of areas I kind of felt like I was going to Berwick. The closer it comes to transfers the more I feel that way. President wont tell me where I am going, so I dont know. But if I was to guess, the feelings I have had the past week or so would say Berwick. But we will find out tomorrow! I LOVE YOU ALL!! This week has been wonderfully spiritual and I am so grateful for the blessings of the gospel. I am so excited to Skype next Sunday! I have no idea how that is going to work with total strangers in my area, but I'll have the Spirit butter some one up so they will let me bum off their computer to talk to my family!! SEE YOU SUNDAY! :)

Sister Andresen

New address... Again!

Sister Andresen has moved again. Because there was mold in her previous apartment. Gross!

Current address:

513 Market Street Apt 2

Bloomsburg, PA 17815