Letter # 34

Dear Family!!
 This week has been so bittersweet! We had our last Zone Conference with President and Sister Summerhays! I knew I was going to be getting two Mission President's coming into the mission. I was so excited about that :) people told me it is great serving with two Mission President's and that's it's a huge privilege being able to see how they run it differently and what they focus on. However, I did not think it would be this hard to see them go. I've been able to serve with them for almost half my mission and have enjoyed every second of it. They are such a sweet couple, they have so much love for all the missionaries and this work! I have loved serving under them. I look up to them so much. President Summerhays is just the sweetest thing ever! I've loved getting trained from him and doing interviews with him. I am able to feel of his love for each of us and of the gospel. I know I'll grow to the love the Cusicks just as much!!

At the Zone Conferences we have the missionaries that our going home soon give their departing testimony. It is so different when you know the missionaries going home. It's so sad when you've gotten close to them, and see them prepare to leave. i just couldn't help but start to crying. I'm such a girl!!! I am just still not good with all the changes... and then when President and Sister Summerhays got up there to speak; it became real.  It is going to be just so different. To top it off we sang God with with you till we meet again... that's when i lost it. By the way; thanks Melissa! (I end every letter to her with that... "God be with you till we meet again!") I love that song but I can't really sing it on a mission without crying anymore! It was great though because we were able to give hugs and handshakes (to the Summerhays) Sister Summerhays told me she was so proud of me and that she loved me and she thought I was doing a great job... just when I had gotten myself together again! Ha ha. It was a great day; definitely bittersweet. However, I love my mission now!! And I'll continue to love it!

  

Sorry I was in more of a rush than usual. Sorry that my letter is so short; maybe the pictures will make up for it :) Love you all!!!!!

 I love you so much :) God be with you till me meet again :)

 Sister Sharon Andersen

 Preparing for the Tropical Storm... Tee-Pee Mattress's

 Sister Calder and Sister Andersen after a Beach Baptism

 Poppin' TAGS!

 BEAUTIFUL view...

 Jumping for JOY! Another one baptised!!

 Scenic View

 So pretty!

 Just after a bike ride in the rain!

and being SILLY scared in the bathtub...

 

Letter # 33

Dear family!!

Well, happy late fathers day!!! sounds like daddy had a good one which makes me happy. glad that you got my present :) sorry it's nothing huge but i wanted to send a little something...and it kinda worked out that i was confused about when fathers day was hahaha   cause that way you for sure got it on time :)

And i don't have Carly's email so could you please pass the message along :) PLEASE THANK HER for bringing over dessert, she's pretty much the best!! i love her!! Carly thank you for taking care of my daddy :) you are and will always be the little sister i never got :) LOVE YOU!!!

So this week wasn't exciting as last week...but it's kinda hard to compare to being on lock down and all :) we talked about 72 hours kits again at district meeting, so your mind can be at ease mommy :) my 72 hour kit is fully stocked and ready :)

Funny thing, though, that day we had another tornado warning haha but i guess that's the norm. the elders just keep telling us "Welcome to Florida".  thanks elders!! ..but luckily this week we're on car so we could still go out and work. but it's starting to get pretty crazy...summer coming :) here the weather is always changing. so you just always have to be prepared..it might just start down pouring out of nowhere.... all the members say it's pretty regular. it hits in between 3-6 everyday. so it's just going to take some getting used to.

I loved the rain before i came out :) and I'm trying really hard to love it out here......it's so weird tho cause you'll put on a jacket before it's pouring down rain, but then you start sweating because, guess what, it's still hot and humid outside :) it's so weird. but i love it!! i love Florida!!

So the only real update is on Dawn. she's the one i told you about in the last letter. she was led to the church by frogs :) well we're having to move back her baptism to the 29 :( cause we're trying to figure out her living situation. she's living with a family right now and we're trying to get her settled on her own. but we're excited about meeting with her. she's really making huge changes in her life. it's just amazing to see people change right before your eyes. and see all that Christ can do and does do for each and everyone of us.

I'll keep you updated on that; hopefully everything works out. oh yeah, we're also planning on going out with Jessica this week which i'm excited about!!  because of the ward split, i don't get to visit her anymore and only see her for every once in awhile. but she's allowed to go on visits with us, which she gladly loves to do :)

Mary -- i haven't seen in months :(  she hasn't been coming to church lately. the other sisters update me sometimes on how she's doing. she's in a tough situation. her sister doesn't approve of her coming to this church.  They're very strong catholic. but i hear she's doing the best she can

But that's about it for the week . i love you guys so much!!!!! and think and pray for you always

Sister Sharon Andersen 

~ (For the rest of you, Carly brought over a couple of pieces of very chocolate cake last night -- since she knew that Sharon always used to make desserts for us every Sunday.  So nice of her to think of that!)  

(And the present that Sharon sent me was an alligator pin.  I wore it as a tie tack to church yesterday.)

Extra Pictures!!

Just some random pictures :) First one is a picture after the Coult's wedding recepiction. Yes we found a frog and caught it! :)They are everywhere after rainstorms. and by the way they are really fast!

 

The next one please send to hayhay... tell her a gator got me :) It was really my bike that got me but she doesn't need to know that... (I just want to see if she will fall for that :) ~She totally fell for it; she said I bet the gator thought her leg was a long duck neck and was hungry! LOL. Hailey also asked if I thought Sharon was still alive after the gator got her, and I said "She sent us the email and the pictures so YES... She survived a gator attack!" and then Hailey said "Thank goodness I would be really mad at that gator if he took my sharshar!" LOL 

 

The next one is also from the wedding... It was beautiful! They did a great job (just in case you were wondering... I still want my wedding on the beach :) I was thinking San Diego Temple)  I had an idea I did half the heart and once Preston get's to Texas he does the other half... I saw it on pinterest. I thought it might be cute. Now you just have to talk him into it :)

And the last one sums up our last couple of weeks :0 Summer is officially started and we have gotten caught in a TON OF RAIN STORMS... it was just down pouring rain! :/

Letter #32

Dear Family!!

No emails?? I'm guessing maybe mom is trying the dear elders.com thing? IDK (=I don't know) Well I have not got it yet. :( Well anyways... this has been a crazy long week :) I wrote you a little bit about it in the letter I sent home. I am not sure if you got that yet but...  

Monday was our usual P-DAY... and Sorry again that my letter was so short :( I totally lost track of time reading Preston's Letter :) I was just so happy to hear from him and we were kinda rushed because the whole zone was going to Costco! (The things that missionaries do for fun!!) The Costco trip together... it is so fun doing stuff as a District and Zone! It is especially fun out in public because we get a lot of stares :) Sorry if I tell you everything about my week in this letter because I think I said the same thing in the letter I sent... I guess we will see if that happens.

Tuesday we did service again. :) Mom ~ I am pretty much a master at raining rooms not and laying glue on the floor for tile:) (I am not sure what she was trying to say in the last sentence) We already reached the 500 hours needed for that family. Mya and Dima- they are a very sweet Russian family that got baptized about a year ago that live in the ward. Right now we are continuing to go and help them. We are trying to meet new people and maybe find a family we can volunteer our time too. We hope that our service to them will help them to be interested in learning more about the church.:)  

Wednesday- we had our District Meeting. We meet with a couple of returning members. (President Summerhay's does not want us calling them less active anymore. I am trying to get into the habit of calling them "returning members".) It is a very positive way to look at it :) 

Thursday- the most crazy day of the week!! I wrote you a hand written letter because we were on lock down!! We were not allowed to leave our apartment :/ It was so crazy!! So we have this white weather box in every missionary apartment. It goes off if there anything we need to worry about, because we can't watch the news. So on Thursday morning it went off!! (At 1, then at 3, and then again at lunch!!) It sounds like a fire alarm. I was already awake because of the rain but it for sure scared me!! It is funny though because the day before at District Meeting and we were going to go over all the stuff we need to do. We got an "In Case of an Emergency " packet thing that tells us what to do. Sister Clader and I were kind of freaking out, but we felt prepared and that everything we went over was inspired! So we got a text during our morning studies to stay inside until 11 am. That was when the watch was over.

We were trying to not freak out; then we got another text telling us we could not leave our apartment until further notice! That is when we really started freaking out! We started going through all the steps trying to find a safe spot. We got our mattresses to try to see if they fit into our bathtub... and they didn't!! So then we went into out closet with them and got our helmets and 72 hours kits ready to go. 

We were really freaking out so we called the Elders in our ward and they put us at ease. They said that it wasn't that bad. We also had members checking the weather for us and keeping us updated. Then we just we're having fun with it taking video's and we also made a forts and watched The Testaments. Besides being completely freaked out and having to cancel all our appointments it was pretty good day. :0 There was a tornado spotting in Cape Corral which is about 20 miles North of us; It is in our Stake boundaries though.  

Also, for some reason we thought it was Fathers Day this Sunday!!?? At least I know daddy will get his present on time this year! :) I sent a letter and just a little something for him! 

However;  that was not the most exciting part of our week... get this!!! One of our investigators committed to be baptized on the 22 of this month!! And it will be on the beach!:) I don't know how much I told you about her. Her name is Dawn,  she is in her 40's and she just walked into church one Sunday and said that the Lord had lead her there. She has got a kinda tough life and she enjoys walking; it helps her think I guess. One day she was walking it was after a rain storm and she was chasing a frog and it lead her to our church building :) The Naple's building is kinda hidden in the back and can be hard to find :) So the frogs lead her to our church:) She's a little different and kinda quirky but she is great!!! We also found 3 new investigators this week!!! Pretty good crazy week :) I am running out of time and I kinda wanted to send you some more pictures... 

LOVE YOU GUYS!!!!! PLEASE keep me in your prayers!:) and forward Preston's letters!! 

I love you guys so much!!!!!!! 

~ Sister Andersen 

LOVE THESE PICTURES!!~~

Letter # 31

Dear family!!

This has been a pretty good week! I don't know what happened or changed, but Sister Calder and I seem to work together better than EVER! We also seem to understand each other more. :)  We just are different. That is one thing I have learned out here; how to get along with other people. It is really neat to meet different kinds of people and see how everyone has their own story. I've really learned how to work with other people and get along with people that I might not have gotten along with before. :)

 

This week was interesting with transfers :( Transfers are never fun. I'm still not good with change. It's hard saying good-bye to everyone and having new people come in. Every missionary adds something new to the District and Zone.

 

This transfer was really hard... We had to say bye to one of the favorite sisters I've meet out here.:) (Actually probably my close second right after Sister Westberg :)  So p-day last week was bitter sweet.  We had a really fun time. We all hung out at the church, and played volleyball and ate a ton of junk! It was hard to say goodbye... but it was a good end. We did the same thing as last transfer; all the sisters got together and had a goodbye photo-shoot which is super fun! :) I want to keep that tradition going. :) It was just really sad; because the sister was not getting transferred -- she was going home. She hurt her leg out here on the mission and it just wasn't healing fast enough/getting any better. I understand, it's hard to rest when on a mission cause you just want to go do the work. She is going home for a short time and planning on returning hopefully SOON :)

 

On Tuesday and Wednesday, we got caught in some pretty crazy rain storms!:) Looking back now, it was fun... but at the time we were just cool and tired :) So this week we have been trying to work on visiting the less active members. We haven't had much success. :( However we have found 2 new investigators which was really nice :) They seem great too!!! One of the sisters we met just walking around with Sister Brandley :)  Her husband passed away a couple years ago and we loved sharing our testimony on being able to see him again. I'm so thankful for all the knowledge that comes from this gospel :0  I love this church!!  And know it's true with all my heart :)  I LOVE YOU ALL!!! 

Sorry, short on time.  Love you all!!!

~ Sister Sharon Andersen