7-1-13

Annie’s Letter

First of all

-yes I am in Knox county, that is so cool! In Knox county Mt. Vernon is the only "Big" town. Then there is also danville and centerburg (the geographical center of Ohio) and Fredricktown. But I don't know if any of those were around when he was here, but that's super awesome! I'll definitely keep my eye out for family! :-)

-Natalie, I sent dad pictures for the cardboard cutout. I still can't believe you wouldn't wait for 3 months so you could have the real me instead of a cardboard one ;-) haha.

-next transfer is July 25.

So, the mission is officially split as of today! Crazy! It's so exciting to see the work progress so much, so quickly! The difference in the OCM is so incredible comparing now to when I got here 15 months ago. And the changes from since President Nilsen have been here have been intensely crazy! They are coming up on 2 years on the mission, this month! I'm not gonna lie... I'm glad I'm in Columbus because I get President and Sister Nilsen my whole mission :-) yayayaya! So let me tell you about the insane week this has been!

Monday, as you know, we went to hell. Tuesday was a normal day, working hard! Wednesday Sister Arnell and I left Sister Nalls and Sister Meredith for the first time. We came to Delaware on Wednesday for an exchange with Sister Jensen and Sister Stump. Sister Nalls and Sister Meredith did so great! It was a little rough at first, but they work through it all by themselves and just did a stellar job! Found a new investigator, taught stellar lessons...it was just great! Friday was another normal day. Again, we had some stellar lessons! We have some great investigators that we are working with. Our poor investigators get whip lash I think becasue there are 4 of us so they never know who is coming to teach them. It work out better this way because when we are on exchanges it's Sister Nalls and Sister Meredith anyway so we just all teach everyone. it's a little crazy, but we like it. One really cool thing. We had a lesson with an investigator, Jordan, on Friday. He will be moving to Toledo tomorrow, which we are super sad about, but he has a job up there so that's good. We weren't sure how it would go up there with getting the missionaries to him and if he would talk to them... he was sad it wasn't going to be us. Anyway, after his lesson on Friday he was saying the closing prayer and he asked that the missionaries in Toledo would be able to find him. Warmed my heart :-) So Saturday we were talking to Sister Nilsen in the morning and ended up leaving on an emergency exchange back to Delaware. So we were here all day Saturday and Sunday and we will be here until tomorrow morning. Then we have mission leadership council tomorrow pretty much all day, so we will get back to Mt. Vernon around 5 tomorrow night. and then the sisters from zanesville will be coming on Wednesday until Thursday morning. So pretty much Sister Nalls and Sister Meredith are on their own for a whole week. We are really just so proud of them. They are incredible missionaries. They were definitely the right ones to be called to Mt. Vernon with all of our craziness. They are just stepping up to the plate and rolling with everything that is given to them. I am so thankful for them. :-) Such amazing missionaries :-)

Coolest thing. Here in Delaware they are teaching a little girl, Brienna. She is deaf. So we got to meet here on Wednesday and I got to sign with her, I'm super rusty but it was fun. She told me about her cat, the black one. The orange one is NOT hers. And she told me about how tinkerbell is her favorite fairy. It was very fun :-) Then on Sunday she was at church. One of the ladies int he ward asked Sister Jensen if they signed when they taught her, she said no, Brienna's mom interprets. But her mom wasn't there. So Sister Jensen volunteered me to go to Primary with Brienna. So Sister Arnell and I went, I told them I didn't know much and I was really rusty, they said that's fine. So we went and the lesson was on the 3 kingdoms of glory. We got through it! It was so much fun. Brienna has an attitude! She was teaching the other kids the signs for Sun, moon and stars and she would call them out when they were screwing around. It was so funny. Then we went with her to sharing time. There was a 3rd hour meeting for all the adults so the kids watched the Testaments (LOVE THAT MOVIE!) so we stayed with Brienna and it was just so fun to get to sign with her! The Lord definitely helped me, all things brought to your remembrance. TRUE PROMISE! It made me want to learn more! Someday I'll definitely have to do that. :-) That little girl is so special. I am so grateful that I met her and that I have enough signing knowledge that I was able to communicate with her. She really enjoyed having someone other than her parents to talk to. We really never know how the Lord is preparing us and what situations we will be in in our lives. It's SO COOL!  We will be coming back for her baptism on July 20! :-)

ALSO, the last amish family is going through the temple on July 27 and they invited us to go! We are so very excited! :-)

Well, that's all for this week. Love you all! 

Annie