Mortensen, Annalise

Hey everyone! I try to stay positive but I'm going to be honest, this week was a bit challenging. I've had a pretty consistent headache for the last trasnfer which is okay, but this week it was much worse than it’s been before. I always have my most memorable experiences when I'm going through some harder moments, and this week was one of those times! To keep it simple, the week had lots of bumps and pushing through. By yesterday morning, I was pretty worn out and almost at my limit. We had early morning meetings and lots to do before church, but thankfully Heavenly Father helped me keep it together and we kept going. Every week I look foward to taking the sacrament, but this week I was especially ready for it. I laid everything out in prayer and asked for help. Immedietly following the sacrament, things looked a little brighter. My bestie Becca gave her farewell talk, I saw a friend in the ward who was back from college, Cricket brought her boyfriend and his mom to church,...

Hi hi hi. This week went by super fast so I'm not really sure what happened. Good times and lots of laughing I'm sure. There's a service missionary named Sister Chesley who is waiting to go to her assigned mission (Canada) but comes out with us once in a while for the time being. She's the real life Moana. She was born in Maui and has some wild stories about catching pigs and cooking them. It was fun being in trio life with her and showing her how to do the mission thing this week!! I'd like to announce that Cricket is back on track and we've set a plan with her!! We had a few people come to church and some craziness going on with Sunday school...safe to say we should stick with the basic gospel essentials classes but good memories were made. I love verse 16 in Joseph Smith-History which says, "But, exerting all my powers to call upon God to deliver me out of the power of this enemy which had seized upon me, and at the very moment when I was ready to sink i...

Wowow it's been a long week. Really good and really packed! We had zone conference on Thursday which was awesome as always. We're starting a new thing where we set transferly key indicator goals along with our normal weekly goals so we can see our areas biggest needs as the weeks go on. I'm excited to see the impact it has on our mission and the work! Our new mission President for July was anncounced, and I'm excited to have two different ones but I can't imagine a mission without President Carter. You'd think after 2.5 years of serving he'd be ready to go home, but it seems like now that it's 2025 he's got even more drive and determination. We almost got eaten alive by someone's dog that was more like a wolf. A wolf dog. All you have to know is through the power of prayer and the grace of God, we made it out alive and made the owner a friend! The trauma was worth the teaching opportunity. Last night we met with our friend GC (God's Choice) f...

Holaaaa amigos. We just got back from the beach and that always makes me so happy. We didn't go on the sand of course but we found some rocks to stand on hahaha. It's been a short week with Wednesday pday but it's honestly felt so long.  All you have to know is this transfer is going to be awesome!! Sister Dudley has pickleball paddles and spikeball so we've been doing some apartment sports. We also have a comp goal of "apartment band" because we have two ukuleles and a piano. We'll have a concert that everyone can come to on the other side of the mission. Our friends are doing well! The holidays being over is kind of a win because they were all very busy. We had a few friends come to church and are excited to keep helping them feel the spirit! We were able to see lots of mission friends this week! Friday was MLC and yesterday I conducted the "temple music devotional" our mission puts on. Missionaries can come if they bring a friend or are partic...

We had to drop off Sister Brown at the temple on Thursday. I've never been sad at a temple before then. The Sisters in my zone picked me up and we were off to "thrio" life as Sister Christensen calls it. I slept at their apartment every night, but was boucning between them and the Hermanas every other day. No, I didn't learn any Spanish. My goal was to learn how to say a simple testimony in Spanish but alas, it didn't happen. I did sit through a few Spanish lessons and pretended to know what was happening though. Sunday was wild. I took the sacrament 4 different times. Is that even legal?? The Utah missionaries probably do it all the time. The APs said this was a one time exception where I could have a member be my companion, so my favorite Sister Porter picked me up and took me to church. It was the weirdest experience. Then she dropped me off at another building and I sat through a meeting with people I didn't even know. Needless to say I'm excited to ge...