Gilbert!!!!!

Well, this was a pretty crazy week for me, but a very exciting one. As you can see, I got transfered here to Gilbert, which I'm super excited about. For some reason my whole mission I felt like I would serve in Gilbert one day. So far, I love it! My companion is Hermana Parry, a greenie that's almost been out for 5 months now. She's super awesome and such a hard working missionary. We've been having a ton of fun together and enjoying ourselves. She's from Woods Cross, UT- my first companion from Utah! We cover the Spanish branch here and then have two other wards. We white-washed into one of the wards and we're super excited to be working with them. The members here are super awesome and really involved in missionary work. But there are so many of them that I kind of feel like I'm back in Utah sometimes. That makes the work both easier and harder. It will definitely be a challenge for me to have to figure out the best way to find new investigators here. I think we're going to have to do a lot of member work. Anyway, it's all just really good. For the spanish branch we had a Father's Day activity this last week and it was so fun to get to know the members of the branch. They are so wonderful and true hispanics. :) We have three awesome investigators with baptismal dates here: Angela, Yovanka, and Elcy. Angela is married to a member and has been going to church for about 6 months and is super prepared. Yovanka is also married to a member and is very enthusiastic about the gospel. She's also from the Dominican Republic. It's awesome to see a black person speaking spanish. She's super sweet too! And then there's Elcy. She's from Honduras and is living with her member sister and is getting baptized in about two weeks. The area here is a lot more wealthy than other areas that I've served in, which is super different for me. It's really great to be in the valley again because I've been missing being able to learn from President and Sister Howes. I've already had multiple opportunities to be able to see them this last week. And it's fun to serve with different missionaries. It's a big zone and I haven't served with any of these elders before, so it will be good to learn from them and get to know them. Here's my address for now: 5332 E. Baseline Rd. #1065 Mesa, AZ 85206 Well, it was really hard to say goodbye to everyone in Yuma. We got to visit a lot of the people before I left and it was amazing to see how many people I was leaving behind and how many people I had grown to love and been able to help influence. One that was really hard was to say goodbye to Tami. She just got baptized this last saturday and I couldn't be there. But she blew-up a picture of me and put it on a stick, so that I could be there. :) I hope it all went well. This week everyone has been asking me how long I've been on my mission and it's been super hard to tell them that I've been out for 16 months. I can't believe how fast time has flown by! I never want to leave Arizona and it's even making the heat bearable for me. I just love being a missionary and helping people and I am so happy with how things have turned out. I'm determined to work my heart out while I still can and to worry about the future later. Well, I love you all. Please write me soon! Here's a scripture I've recently read that I love: Hebrews 6:10-11. love, Hermana Anneli Hansen

On to Bigger and Better Things!

Oh my goodness! It's been a crazy last week. The whole week I worried about transfers and a few days ago I got this feeling that I was staying and that's what I've been planning on since then. We got transfer calls this morning and I found out that.......I'm LEAVING! It's so sad because I just love, love the people here in Yuma so much! But it's also going to be a good adventure to be able to have more experience and to be able to have another area on the mission. Also, another thing is that all Spanish missionaries will only have Spanish work now. So, that means that for the rest of my mission I will only be doing Spanish work, which I'm so excited about. I've really missed it a lot. Let's see what else happened this week. Brent and Tawnie have not yet chosen a baptismal date, but they are working on getting married before July 21, which is Brent's baptismal date. Also, Tami is doing wonderful. I'm so sad that I'll be missing her baptism this week. I'm really going to miss her so much. But since Hermana Staples will be staying, she'll make sure the new English elders take good care of her. Also, we've been Elysa and Joe, the people I told you about last week, are on fire! They've been reading the Book of Mormon and have really seen a lot of joy come into their lives from it. When we went to visit them this last week, they were glowing and so excited. They both had had experiences separately this last week with seeing the power of the Book of Mormon in their lives. They seriously are on fire and we're super excited for them. But, we won't be teaching them which is super sad. This week we decided to visit a lot of people that had been contacted by other missionaries that had never been taught. We stopped by this one woman, Daniela, and it was a huge blessing. We had a simple lesson with her and she really opened up to us about some really serious things that have happened to her in the past. She's had a crazy hard life and she really just needs the gospel so much! We also had an awesome activity for the Spanish branch. It's a little hard to explain, but I'll do my best. We told everyone that we were going on a trip to "Hawaii" in a plane and we had everyone show up at the church. We decorated one room in the church to be the plane and it was awesome. It looked like a legit plane! And then we had 3 other rooms decorated to be each of the 3 kingdoms of glory. During the flight we had some problems with the flight and it "crashed" and it was like we were dead. We were able to take all of the people through each kingdom and talk about each one. In the last one when we talked about the Celestial Kingdom, the Spirit was there very strong. We had decorated the room in all white and I don't know how, but just to have us all their talking about it, we really felt the Spirit and a few of the branch members bore their testimonies. It was amazing! Although it is so sad that I'm leaving, I'm so excited that Hermana Staples gets to take over the area. She's such a capable missionary, but she's not very confident in herself and now she has the opportunity to see her potential. I love her so much! And she has seen so much success here in Yuma, so she'll be able to finish out strong and enjoy the end. And she's so happy that she's not missing any baptisms because a lot of her baptisms that she's had she's missed because of transfers. I'm so proud of her and I just love her so much! I feel a lot of peace about this change, but it's going to be sad to leave everyone. Well, that's all I can think about sharing from this last week. There's a lot to do, so I better go, but for now, write me at this address: 1871 E. Del Rio Tempe, AZ 85282 love you all, Hermana Anneli Hansen

Hace calor!

It has been a very inspiring week for me. We went to the TEMPLE! It had been 5 months since I did a session in the temple and I needed it so much! When I was in the temple I felt so much peace and kept praying that one day all the people that I've taught, less-actives, non-members, and recent converts can all be able to feel the peace of the temple and to stay true to those covenants. It was really wonderful experience for me. That night we got to stay with Hermana Farley and her companion, Hermana Escobar. It was so wonderful to be able to see how Hermana Farley has grown on her mission and to be able to catch up with her. We really haven't spent that much time with each other since the MTC. The next day we had a Sisters Training in Tempe. All the sisters came and we had some trainings from President and Sister Howes and from the Assistants. Every single time I go to Tempe I feel like I get to be inspired so much by the assistants. They are always such good missionaries, some of the best in the mission and are trying so hard to improve themselves. It was so inspiring to me to be able to learn from them and from President Howes. He gave a powerful training about being disciples of Christ and remembering who we are. I think the mission life can be really hard on our self-esteem at times as sisters, but President Howes helped us to remember that even if we're not perfect at everything, we have the Atonement to help us improve and we must remember how important we are to God. We also cleaned this super messy house for an investigator of some of the sisters in Tempe. Her house was really bad, but we were able to help her a lot. We were an army of about 30 people and we got a ton done. It was a special experience to do something for this woman that she would never have been able to do herself. There has been a lot of talk of transfers this last week, even though we still have a week and a half until they come. Since our zone has stayed the same for so long, I think that everyone is expecting big changes in the zone. Hermana Staples has only one transfer left and she doesn't want us to get split up. I am really torn about what I want to happen. I absolutely love it here in Yuma and have fallen in love with the members, but with only 2 transfers left, I would like to serve in another area, so that I have more than 2 areas my whole mission. Sometimes I can feel what's coming on, but I'm really not sure what will happen this time. I'm trying not to think or worry about it and to just be okay with anything, but it still comes up a lot in conversation. We had some great lessons too. We talked about the importance of marriage and family with Brent and Tawnie. We were bold with them and committed them to pray about getting married within the next few weeks. They thanked us for pushing them because they know that they need to get married and that they need to keep the commandments. It was an awesome lesson and I think we really gained their trust a lot. Tami is also doing super well. I don't know if I told you, but she's a crazy marathon runner and has run a marathon in every state and more. This weekend she had planned to run a marathon and we talked to her about keeping the sabbath day holy and she committed very strongly to it. She knows that it is super important and wants to keep the commandments. She's amazing and kind of committed us to run a marathon with her one day (on a Saturday of course). We just love her to death! We had a great lesson with a less active man named Jose. He has been inactive for years, but a long time ago went through the temple with his wife and kids. As we talked to him about his conversion he realized what he's been missing out on for so long and committed to start on this path back to church. He offered a very powerful prayer at the end of the lesson. It was a special experience. We also started teaching a new family, Joe and Elysa. They are amazing. They are prepared for the gospel. They have friends that are members and have had a lot of interaction with the church and have been interested in it for a little bit. We found them because Elysa approached us outside her apartment one day. When we taught them the Restoration and about the first vision, Elysa was very inspired. They are super awesome, but are going to be out of town a bunch during the summer, so we pray that we can still teach and influence them. I have also been able to spend more time with the hispanic members in the branch lately and I love it. They are close to becoming a ward and they are super motivated and excited about it. They are such a special people and I wish we had more Spanish work so that we could spend even more time with them. We keep praying for more Spanish investigators. Well, that's about all I can think of to say today. I hope all is well with all of you. Also, I still have a good 3 months on my mission, so don't let the letters stop just yet. :) Happy Summer! I am actually loving the heat here this year. I'm not sure how, but the Lord is helping the heat seem bearable to me. It's wonderful! love you, Hermana Anneli Hansen