Mortensen, Annalise

Surprise it's Wednesday. Our pday was switched because we got to go to the temple today!! I miss being able to go to the temple whenever. We're assigned a day every other transfer. This week was one of my favorites so far. The hard parts made it even better which I'll talk more about later. I went on an exchange with Sister Thomas (the new Sister in our zone) and it was awesome! Two little missionaries hanging out all day. She goes home the same transfer as me because I'm assigned 13 so we're in this thing together. We had zone conference and San Clemente had interviews with President/Sister Carter, so I got to see them a lot! Have I mentioned they're the greatest? Wow okay Sunday!! This sounds dramatic but it could've been my favorite day on the mission so far. We had a lesson with a marine named Wetterman on Saturday (which he brought his friend Williamson to) and they both showed up to church the next day! Braden, a marine we taught two weeks ago, also sh...

I'm going to be honest this week was a blur. I'm questioning if it even happened or if it was all a dream. Good thing I write in my journal... brb  Ah yes so we met this guy in the parking lot who was pretty chill but had his own faith and wasn't interested in learning more. He gave us his girlfriends number though (always always ask for referals) and we've been having lessons with her!! Her name is Luna and she's super cool. At our first lesson, we asked her to read 3 Nephi 11 before we met again and she'd read all the way to 16! An angel on earth. During finding one day, we prayed and asked Heavenly Father to have the spirit guide our feet. We were walking along, trying to let the spirit guide, and came right up to this lady. She ended up being a member but said there was a ysa girl playing her guitar in the tunnel (which was pretty far off from where we were) that we should go talk to. We went and she was SO COOL!! Got her digits and gave her a Book of Mormon...

I know everyone has been really excited to hear about transfers so... I'm staying!! YAY. There's another trainee coming into our district so I won't be the very newest missionary but I kind of enjoyed being the rookie like Lightning McQueen. On 7/11 we went to get free slurpees of course and they were out. I don't know why I didn't learn my lesson from last year because we went to like 4 places and all were out. Note for next July: go at 8 am. Apparently there's a concert at the pier every Thursday night and we went finding there so it was packed. There was a chica nicely bashing with us when the band played "you're so vain." It took everything in me not to sing "And all the girls dreamed that they'd be Ben's partner." Camp Pendleton!! Coolest thing ever but a little sad looking. Almost like a dystopian movie. We went to church and I loved talking to the marines about what they do and how they found God through hardships. I think ...

Yesterday was one month in Cali and later this week will be two months as a missionary- pretty crazy if you ask me. Where to begin... Camp Pendleton is a marine corps base that's about 30 minutes from here. Usually only elders go since there are more male recruits but last week there were a ton of females at church so guess what?? They told Sister Hill and I that we'd be going YAY!!! We drove down on Tuesday for a meeting to get a pass that lets you go on base, but after waiting around for a while, we realized said meeting was actually the next Tuesday (tomorrow). Stay tuned for how it goes this upcoming week. We had 3 exchanges this week so it was a little crazy. One was with some Hermanas all the way down in Escondido which is the bottom of our mission. The exchange was in a Spanish area so I was just a gringa hanging out. Ate some yummy member food and practiced my holas. Our 4th was quite uneventful but we still had a good time. My family was in Lake Powell so I might'v...

My weeks must be off because there's no way it's been 8. That's why this is week 7.5 wooo  We went on a hike of sorts by the ocean for our district activity last Monday and saw so many dolphins! They were surfing and jumping the waves- very jealous. We met someone named Hannah on the pier. She's so cool! She came to institute and absolutely loved it. Zoe is also doing well. We had another bible study with her and are hoping to start teaching the lessons soon... On Friday, Sister Hill went to mission leadership council which is like 7 hours long so I was in a trio with the sisters in our district. We had so much fun- they're awesome! I had my first member meal with them because we don't get a lot of those in ysa work. SO GOOD. The members were very cool and have a little dog that reminded me a lot of Toby. This weekend was a ysa conference so we got to attend a lot of it! On Saturday, we went to the first part of the activity and basically just played 9-square fo...

Ello. This week has been so good!! Shoutout to my favorite uncle Doug who dropped off some goodies at the stake center for us. He can testify that San Clemente is so pretty. I'm very grateful to be here! On Monday we had a lesson with Ellie. She had two huge dogs in a cage who were barking like crazy so we said she could take them out since it was distracting... that was a mistake. One of them came full sprint at me and licked me right on the mouth then proceeded to lay on me/try to lick my face the rest of the lesson. I was half mortified half crying laughing. Sister Hill was being very serious to keep the spirit there but if you know me you know once I get laughing I can't stop. I had to bite my tongue to stop from bursting out while the tears rolled down my face. Safe to say there won't be another lesson at her house. Our friend Zoe is progressing the most right now. She's so cool. We had a bible study with her at a park overlooking the ocean and it was awesomeee! We...

What a week. I've never had so much new information and experiences thrown at me in a single week but it's been awesome! It's a mission rule that we aren't allowed to touch the sand, but fhe on Monday was at the beach so we got permission to go!! We had a new convert lesson right before fhe, so the 3 of us sat on the sand, stared at the ocean, and taught about the gospel of Jesus Christ. So pretty and spirit filled. San Clemente is beautiful and being in a ysa area is lots of fun so I'm soaking in every second! Since Sister Hill is an stl, we've had lots of meetings especially this first week of the transfer. It's amazing to me how a group of 20ish year olds can be so focused and so dedicated to doing something that requires a lot of sacrifice. Basically I love missionary work. There is so much good that comes from it. I started a "what I'm learning" journal and there's many things already that doing this work has taught me. Zone conference...