Letter #54

Dear Family,

This week has been so long. Real LLOONNGGG. Partly because we ended up "on bike" again :( haha~ somehow it all works out :) 

We meet a ton of cool people biking around so it all worked out! hahaha. It really helped because 

our 'teaching pool' has turned more into a 'Kiddy pool' haha.  We are still keeping pretty busy working with a lot of returning members and recent converts. However, most of our investigators have either; 

1)Gotten really really busy all of a sudden! IE: Matt. He has gotten really busy, and doesn't return our phone calls. He is also never home. We kinda felt him slipping away. :( We had a really great lesson on The Word of Wisdom at our WML (Ward Mission Leader's) house. The spirit was strong, and we committed him to live by the teachings of the Word of Wisdom. He committed to cut everything out cold turkey! He was even going to go to the doctor and a specialist to help him stop. Now we haven't heard from him in weeks, and he hasn't been to church! :(  We are trying to work with him, TRYING being the key word :( 

2) Going out of town... Miguel. Have I told you much about him? He is going out of town for like a month and a half to visit his wife for the Holiday Season. 

3) No longer in our area or boundaries. With us getting new missionaries, we had to split up our areas a little bit.  We are having to give some people we were previously working with to the new Elders :( So once Miguel gets home, we will be handing him off to the Elders along with the Kelby Family. :( They are the sweetest part-member family we have been working with. (they have the gross dog with a huge tumor ;/ hahaha)  We had to break the news to them last week, and they were very sad! :( Brother Kelby asked us "So is this the last time your coming over?" Sister Kitchen and I just wanted to cry! :( They said they will have to come to church now so that they can see us! (maybe it is a way to get them back! hahaha) I guess we will see, we told the new Elders to take very good care of them... or else!! hahaha 

So we biked around a lot this week, and we were just talking with everyone! You can meet a lot of interesting people that way. That's for sure! hahaha. It has been really great. The new "to the rescue program" has helped us be super focused on the less active members. It is nice doing some finding there and it beats knocking doors! hahaha We are pretty excited about the change. Now we have different people to teach! We got the car back on Sunday which we were very thankful for! It is funny how after we have been on bikes for a little bit we always thank the Lord in our prayers for the car! hahaha Not having one for a few days makes you thankful that's for sure :)  We now have the car again full time, but we plan on still biking so we can constantly to meet more people. Having to bike in Spring Hill is the worst! (because like I have said before; it is very hilly.) It is the sink hole capital in the state also is what we have heard. There are no sidewalks so we are biking right next to cars, which isn't always fun. We get honked at a lot! I'm a little bit more used to it since I was biking in Naples. Sister Kitchen thought she was going to die! hahahah Story of the week was we biked 9 miles to an appointment!! It was on a road where the cars we're driving 50 mph! :/ It was a great lesson that we got to give! We might start teaching her less-active boyfriend :) Everybody needs to gospel!

I love you guys so much!!! I also miss you too! I am glad to hear you got my pictures, I hope you enjoyed them!  I LOVE YOU SO MUCH... and I think and pray about you always!!! 

God be with you till we meet again! 

Love~ Sister Sharon Andersen 

P.S. I'll try to send pictures next week :) love you!!!