Sister Jessica Anderson: Happy New Year! :)

Hello family!

This week has been SUPER crazy and really long, but really fast at the same time. I'm just going to do it day by day this week: Tuesday- we headed for exchanges in Cody, spent some time there and saw some cool miracles, then we were off to Worland! Did some more exchanges there too and spent the night.

Wednesday- We went to the Worland’s district meeting and it was really cool! We learned about testimonies and bearing our testimony as often as we can, but nothing that is "memorized" or "the usual" testimony. To give our current testimony! I think it can be easy to get in a rut and say the same testimony and share the same experiences, but to think and ponder on where my testimony is at right now was really cool for me and really opened my eyes to bearing my current testimony more often. There is a quote in Preach My Gospel from Thomas S. Monson that says, "Regarding one’s testimony, remember, that which one willingly shares he keeps, while that which he selfishly keeps he loses.” I love that quote! It's SO true.

Thursday- tracting miracle! So we only had about 10 minutes before dinner and we really wanted to tract, this was Sister Peterson’s last chance to tract! We felt like we should go to 11th street, we only had time for one or two houses, so as we were driving down it I told Sister Peterson to tell me when to stop. Once she felt to stop it was cool because it was right next to a house that I had wanted to try the day before! As we got out and started walking toward the house we saw a lady outside talking on her phone, and we felt like we should go to the next house across the street instead. As we were walking up to that house the lady already saw us and opened the door and said, "aren't you two freezing?" We said something like, "yeah kinda, but it's not too bad!" And she invited us in for some hot chocolate! The first thing that she said when we walked in was, "so how is Joseph Smith doing?" We were kinda confused...haha we said, "well he's not alive anymore" turns out she was super confused on the things that we believed. She thought that Joseph Smith was our God and stuff, but we cleared that up and we practically taught the whole restoration while she was making our hot chocolate and the spirit was so strong as we testified and shared our own experiences of how we gained a testimony of the restored gospel. We ended up being really late to dinner, but it was SO worth it! Also for New Years Eve we didn't do much. We got to stay out until 10.

Friday- Sister Peterson got all packed up :( We got to the gas station before we headed to Billings, then we realized that we needed to activate our gas card, but we don’t have a phone at the moment, so we had no way of activating it and getting gas, so we drove around to some members and our bishop let us use his phone, so we finally got gas and we headed to Billings. That night we got to sleep in mission home! :) those beds are amazing.

Saturday- I got to go to the temple! Sister Peterson was the only sister that was going home this transfer, so I talked to President and he let me go with her! Aw I LOVE the temple. I wish we could go more often. Then the Billings sisters were there to pick me up and I said "see ya later" to Sister Peterson. :( no fun. She headed for the airport and ever since then I've been companions with Sister Van Ausdale and Sister Major in Billings!

Sunday- church! Church was great as usual. :) People are crazy with their pets here in Billings. One person we visited had 14 cats! I was really surprised I didn't have a sneezing attack! And their house wasn't that big and they would get angry with each other and have cats fights! They were pretty intense.

Monday/today- we are going to have a zone preparation day! It's combined with the two zones in Billings, so that's a lot of missionaries haha should be fun! :) Oh and transfer news! I am staying in Sheridan and my new companion is going to be Sister Bell! :) I've met her a couple three times and she seems awesome! I'm excited to get back in Sheridan, it's been too long!

I love you all! Thank you for all of your love and support!

Happy New Year! Love, Sister Anderson