March 30, 2015

Sister Coleman, C, Sister Rudd

C got baptized!!! It was wonderful :) Leading up to it absolutely everything was going wrong, it was like the most stressful thing ever. But it didn't even matter because he got baptized and it all turned out great :) His whole family came, none of whom are members. They seemed to like it a lot and they're all really proud of him.There were over 40 people there, there wasn't enough room in the relief society room for everyone, people had to stand. It was so great to see everyone be so supportive and welcome him into the ward. Two members of the stake presidency also came, which was a lot of pressure haha. We taught the first lesson to all of them while they were getting changed. It was really scary!

The couple in the one picture are really good friends with C and his family, they're basically like his grandparents. Brother T was the one who baptized him, and they didn't want to wear their jumpsuits any longer than they had to, so that's why they're just dressed normally :) When they opened the font, C and Brother T were already in there and C just had the hugest grin on his face. He waved and everybody laughed. He's really a great kid, we're all so happy for him. On Sunday he was confirmed and got the priesthood. And we spoke in sacrament meeting. It's been a crazy but wonderful few days :)

And nothing else that happened this week is really very important compared to that. Although my halfway mark was this week. Ah! And we have seen a lot of other miracles. They gave us more miles for our car! Yay! We actually got a new car and we were so excited, but it's exactly the same as our other car. Maybe worse, the elders who had it left lettuce (we think it was lettuce...) under the seat.

Funniest moment of the week: A few hours before C's baptism we were riding and Brother T and C happened to drive by. Now the bike trail we were on is is nowhere near the road, but Brother T drove off the road and through the grass to come talk to us. We thought some crazy person was trying to hit me with their truck. And that probably wouldn't be super unlikely in Florida.

Oh! If you haven't seen the new Because He Lives video, it's at helives.mormon.org. It's a good one :) 

And for those of you ladies out there who saw the women's broadcast, was it not amazing? I'm so grateful for my family and that I get to be with them forever :) And I'm so excited for General Conference this week!!! How amazing to have it on the day that we celebrate the resurrection of the Savior. I can't wait! I'm so grateful for a modern-day prophet and personal revelation. And most of all, for Christ and His sacrifice for us, so that we can all live again. And I know that we can :)

I hope you all have an amazing week and Easter! And General Conference of course :)

March 23, 2015

This week I told someone that we were missionaries for our church and for some reason he thought we were government assassins or something? And he was completely serious. Yeah, it was weird. But pretty funny. Too bad we had to kill him.

Our stake conference was this week and it was super good. They had some converts bear their testimonies and it was really neat. One of them went back to prison for a year so that he could get baptized and another had the missionaries coming over for 47 years before he decided to join the church. It gave me hope that we just never know :) They also talked about the importance of councils, especially family councils. I'm grateful for this church where everyone works together and helps each other. I know that councils are the Lord's way, we're all here because of a Council after all :)

At stake conference President Cusick came up to us and said "Lake Wales is raving about you!" I don't know who was raving about us to him, but I guess that's good haha. He gave a really good talk about how every meeting is useless unless it changes us. He shared a story about how he got hypothermia as a child and talked about how we need to be constantly working and improving or we'll go spiritually numb.

C's baptism is going to be this week!! On Saturday Sister Rudd was like "guess what today is!" And he said "the day before the meeting tomorrow?" We were like "well yes, but it's also one week until your baptism!" And he was like "oh yeah!!" We're all so excited for him, he's really an awesome kid :) But we're a little worried because he's sick right now, so we're praying really hard for him to get better by Saturday!

Last night we had a pretty cool miracle. A member took us to go see someone and on the way back I accidentally told her to turn the wrong way, and we decided that since we were already headed in the wrong direction, we might as well go see this other family. The dad isn't a member and it was awesome, he's been asking his wife a lot of questions and asking her to take him to church with her. And now he's getting baptized! We set a date with him for April 25th! I'm glad that something good could come from my mistake haha :)

Also, my halfway mark is on Wednesday!! This is going by so fast! I'm realizing that I'll probably never entirely know what I'm doing, oh well :) The same goes for life I think :) I've learned so much about God and others and myself and life and just everything in these past 9 months, it's been really incredible. Hopefully the next 9 will be just as good, maybe even better! :)

March 16, 2015

Transfers are this week and, thank goodness, we're both staying! But now I never feel safe because I feel like we could be transferred at any moment haha. But this transfer has gone by so fast! 

We've set some more baptismal dates and found lots of new investigators this week. Not sure how many of them are actually going to progress though. But we met this one girl, D, who is really awesome. She's 16 and we met her in front of her house, and she told us she had actually been to mutual before with a friend. She came to mutual that night and walked all the way to church on Sunday. We felt so bad, she left sacrament meeting before we got to even talk to her and tell her that there were still 2 more hours haha. But in our first lesson with her we set a date for March 28th, which is only a few weeks away! We're hoping we won't have to drop her, cause she's super awesome, but she's hard to get a hold of because she's hardly ever home and she doesn't have a phone. And she's 16 soo... she's a little unreliable sometimes :)

We taught the young women's lesson on faith this week and it was really fun! The ward only has a few young women, but they weren't as rowdy as they usually are and they participated really well. Young women's is where I feel at home, I'm still slightly in denial about being an adult. Which I better get over soon because I'm approaching 20 way too quickly!

This week we've been working a lot with the less-active and part-member families in our ward. Our ward is really wonderful, but bless their hearts, soooo many of them are less-active. And many of the active ones used to be less-active or are on the verge of becoming less active. So we have a lot of work to do. Thank goodness this is the Lord's work and not ours. It's kind of sad sometimes, because so many of them have a testimony, but just refuse to do anything about it. There are several families where the husband isn't a member and the wife and children have been praying for years for them to get baptized. It's heart breaking.

Well that was kind of depressing, but overall I am still doing really well :) I'm so grateful to be here. The opportunity to be an instrument in the Lord's hands is incredible. I love this gospel and my Savior so much. Probably the biggest reason I love my mission is because it's brought me closer to Him, especially the hard times. I'm so, so grateful for the chance to serve Him full-time :)

March 9, 2015

So our car problem this week: lack of a car! We still have a car, thank goodness, we just found out that we don't have very many miles at all and our area is huge, so we've been doing my favorite thing: biking! It hasn't been too bad though, it can be really fun, this area just isn't very good for biking. And it's way hilly, so that can be rough haha. But I'm just grateful that it's not 90 degrees yet, Florida summers are KILLER!

This week it seems like bad things are happening everywhere we go. The drug bust happened when we went to go visit a member. We pulled into the trailer park and about 10 cop cars came in after us. We were like what is going on?? There was a helicopter and everything. We found the members we were going to see and they told us what was going on and that the guy who was being arrested was another member of the church, who we had actually also planned on going to see. So yeah, I'm glad we didn't...

A few days later some cops got shot right by the church, which is also right by our apartment complex. And it's actually in a pretty nice area. I think they were all okay though. Thankfully we weren't nearby, but our car was parked at the church. The member who drove us made her husband come to drop us off because apparently he's always packin' :) (I think most people here are...)

And don't worry Mom, we always try to be safe and I know the Lord protects us :)

C's baptism was supposed to be this week, but there's a bunch of drama with his family, so now it's set for the 28th. He already had his interview and everything, so he's ready! Hopefully everything will work out with his family, he's so awesome and so excited to be baptized.

Y, the girl from Japan, is awesome. We had a member who's preparing to go on a mission invite her to be baptized and she was like "Like in the future? Yeah, probably. I think so, yeah!" We still don't think she really understands, but she says she's been a lot happier and more positive since she's been meeting with us. She's adorable, we're hoping to set a date with her the next time we see her.

We have a few other investigators but those are our most solid ones. We meet lots of really kind, genuine people, so that's been great.

Some funny moments:

We had one guy tell us "Sorry no, I'm Mormon" Um, what?? Needless to say, he wasn't.

We were having a lesson with this other guy on the front porch and he kept telling us to hold on and he would go inside and call his mom and talk to her about what we said. He was like "I have never heard of this Joseph Smith guy. Never." And his face when we told him that we believe there's a prophet on the earth today was priceless. After he shut the door that time we cracked up, it was so funny. Then he came back and said "It's not true, my mom says it's not true. She's never heard of Joseph Smith either." But when we went to leave he was like "Wait, you didn't give me the Book of Mormon!" Apparently he still wanted to read it, so I guess we'll see haha.

Another guy we met (pretty sure he was drunk) tried to get us to fight with his Catholic friends, he kept saying things to them like "oh, you're drinking coffee? You can't do that!" That one was actually more frustrating than funny, but he thought it was hilarious. His friends were pretty nice and respectful though. Most religious people are that way, they're usually very nice and commend us for what we're doing. I've definitely seen how there is so much good in all religions, they're so close. I'm so grateful for knowledge of this beautiful gospel and for this wonderful opportunity to share it with others. 

And here's a really awesome scripture that I found this week: Romans 8:14-17 :) I'm also grateful for the opportunity to suffer, even the tiniest bit, with Him.

Love y'all, and I hope you have a fantastic week :)

March 2, 2015

Mission Conference from last week.

So, we've been having some car troubles this week. But not troubles with the car so much as troubles with the driver... which is unfortunately me. The other day I hit Sister Rudd while she was backing me! I know, isn't that terrible?? I feel so bad! But she's fine, she wasn't hurt or anything. She thinks it's pretty funny actually, but watching her fall over was not so funny! I told her that I am forever indebted to her. Thankfully she's very forgiving, I don't think I would be too happy if someone hit me with a car.

Second problem: I locked the keys in the car this morning! We were washing it and I set the keys down in the trunk and I though Sister Rudd saw me put them there but she didn't so she shut the trunk. We were right in front of our apartment and I put the keys to it in the trunk too, but THANK GOODNESS, I didn't lock the door when we were leaving. I'm really grateful because I was about to lock it but for some reason I didn't. (Yeah, now I know what the reason is. Thank you Heavenly Father!) So we could get back into our apartment, and after calling a lot of people, the bishop called the locksmith for us and he got their pretty quickly. But yeah, as if hitting my companion with the car wasn't enough.

Better news: C is getting baptized on the 14th! He's doing really well, he's an awesome kid. His twin sister isn't quite as interested, so she might take longer, but we think she'll join the church eventually too. But we're so excited for C, he's the best!

And we have a new investigator this week named Y. She's from Japan and is working at Weber, which is an international college they have down here. So she's about our age. And she's really good friends with some members of the ward. She came to church yesterday and said she really liked it, and hopefully we'll set a date with her this week!

We also got new iPads this week, which was exciting, but they're pretty much exactly the same, just newer. But it's nice because these ones are actually ours, we get to take them home with us!

Also, I don't think I mentioned this, but we are the only sisters in our district. Aaaaall elders. Sometimes it feels like we're the only sisters in the world. Lots of people have never even seen sister missionaries before. It's really different because in Tampa there were almost as many sisters as elders. It gets kind of lonely sometimes, we're like a rare species or something, which can be fun too :)

From last week's conference.

And my 8 month mark was this week! My mission is almost half over!! It is seriously flying by. I'm loving every minute of it! Or at least trying to, some minutes are easier to love than others :) But things are going really well, we had over 20 lessons this week which is the most I've ever had. And the people here are really wonderful and kind. Very country, but that's nothing I'm not used to ;) Although it is kind of surprising to me in Florida.

Anyway, have a great week everyone! The church is true, the book is blue! (Haha I heard that recently and thought it was funny). Okay, I'm done for real now, bye! :)