Monday, June 29, 2015

June 29, 2015



Chased by an alligator

They will teach anyone that will listen.

At Bok Tower



I probably won't have a lot of time today (as usual) because I spent all my time sending tons of pictures. But hopefully that makes up for it, since a picture is worth a thousand words or whatever :)

I hit my year mark this week! Crazy stuff!






My favorite little kid moment of the week: We were praying with a family we met and we asked the little boy what he wanted us to pray for and he asked us to pray for cake :)

This week we met the lady who's lived in Lake Wales longer than any one else. She'll be 99 in a few months. She can't hear very well, so whenever we'd say something her friend from India would yell it so she could hear. But his English wasn't the best, so he would change everything we say. He told her "THEY WANT TO PREACH TO YOU! THEY WANT TO DO A SERMON!" He was a funny guy, he kept patting me on the head and telling Sister Rudd "Oh, she's nice" like I was a puppy or something.




And I probably won't get a change to email next week because WE'RE GOING TO THE TEMPLE! In case you can't tell, I'm pretty excited :) We only get one chance to go on our missions and we just found out that we're going next week! We have to get up at like 2 am to drive almost 2 hours west to Tampa, and then back east past our area to Orlando, so that'll be fun haha. But I can't wait :)


Sisters Rudd and Coleman

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Yep, I'm out of time. Have a great week everyone! :) Love y'all!

At Graduation of Samoan friend

Leis from friend's graduation

Canon?


Monday, June 22, 2015

June 22, 2015

So first of all: my year mark is on Thursday! This is going by SO fast! Sometimes :)

We've been doing A LOT of tracting. They challenged us to knock 40 doors every day this week, which I didn't think sounded like that many, but it's super hard. You have to literally knock all day. Which is not the best, because the temperature has gotten up in the hundreds. But it's kept us busy. We have to be home every night by 9:30 and a couple of times this week we've had to run home to make it on time. One time was particularly fun. We were at Walmart, which is pretty far from our apartment, usually it takes us several hours to walk there. We were taking cover because it looked like there was about to be a really bad storm. We had to speed walk/run home in under an hour. But we made it! And it never even rained.



Then the next day there did end up being a really bad storm, we were stranded in Publix for a few hours. The weather is so unpredictable. The streets were all flooded and there were fallen trees everywhere. Yay for hurricane season. We met this cute little dog who started following us around. But it wasn't so cute after a few hours. He followed us all the way home on our bikes, across a lot of busy traffic. It was so scary, we're just glad he made it alive. But it was quite a few miles, he's very loyal. No clue whose dog he is. He sat outside our door at night and whined, it was so sad. But when we woke up he was gone. We hope he's okay :( Unfortunately, we're not allowed to have any pets.

"This is Rocky"


We had a really cool lesson with a new investigator named C. He's a member's friend, and the first time we met with him, he was really bitter and cynical, and didn't seem to really even believe in God. But now he's been reading the Book of Mormon and he told us that he thinks he might want to be baptized. So that was pretty neat. It's cool to see the Lord change people's hearts.

"Sign found on a door while tracting."

One of my favorite moments of the week: Sister Rudd meant to pull out a Restoration pamphlet for somebody we had just met, and she pulled out a Law of Chastity one. It was priceless :)




Sorry that was all basically about nothing, but I'm out of time again. Life is good. Hot, but good :)

Monday, June 15, 2015

June 15, 2015

Hello everyone! I hope you're having a wonderful summer, and that it's not too hot wherever you are :) Things are going pretty well down here in little ol' Lake Wales. Sister Rudd and I have been here for 5 months now, it's kind of hard to believe.

I don't know if I've mentioned this, but W. and G., two of our most solid investigators, are moving back to New York City soon.  Their parents stopped meeting with us awhile back since they don't speak a lot of English (and obviously, we don't speak a lot of Spanish), so we're really hoping they'll all go to a Spanish branch up there.

People think my height is hilarious, as always. We have an investigator who calls me lil' bit. Hysterical.
Okay, I admit, it actually is kind of funny :)
We got to go to a dance recital this week, that was pretty fun. One of the men in our ward did a dance with his daughters. He wore a tutu and everything, it was hilarious :)

We have a lot of new investigators, but I don't know how solid any of them actually are... so we'll see. Three random ladies did come to church on Sunday, we were not expecting that. That seems to happen almost every week, so we're definitely blessed there.

I've been realizing more and more how sad it is that there are so many bad things out there about the church. We've had so many investigators not want to learn anymore because they hear things that aren't true. We met this Haitian lady and she seemed fairly interested. At the end she said "yes, you can come back! Unless you're Mormon. I do not like Mormons." When we told her that's what we were she said "Oh. I did not know that. I'm really busy." That was pretty surprising to us, I don't even know how she heard about the church, much less what she heard about it, she wouldn't tell us. And one lady told us that she read online that Mormons have multiple wives, and that they'll tell you they don't, but they really do. Haha what is that all about? :) But people do say good things too, usually that they knew a Mormon that was so nice. So I know that we can have a powerful influence, more than we realize.


We had a neat experience that reassured me that none of our efforts our wasted. As long as we're doing all we can, we are planting seeds, even if we don't always get to reap a lot of results. We met a teenage boy named Jeremiah who asked us if we were Mormon. We asked how he knew and he told us we had talked to his friend a few months ago at a gas station and that he was in the car. Afterwards he asked his friend what we'd talked to him about and he was interested and started researching the church online (good stuff, thankfully). And after talking to him for awhile, we also realized that we had met his mom a few days ago, and we actually have an appointment to see her tonight. They don't want to leave their home church though, so we'll see what happens. But I know that the Lord's timing is perfect.

Monday, June 8, 2015

June 8, 2015






I don't have too much time today because one of the computers was being dumb and wouldn't let me send any pictures, and I spent far too long trying to figure that out.




But this week has been good! We went to the beach, which was really fun. Sister Rudd had some other sisters bring me a pie and the WHOLE MISSION SANG TO ME. I was so surprised! The party was on the 1st so I was not expecting it. I wanted to say "It's not even my birthday!!" And then everyone kept saying the party was for me haha. And I had a really good birthday! 

Happy 20th!!

Transfers are this week and Sister Rudd and I are both staying! This is her last transfer, so I'm officially going to be the one to kill her! (They call it dying when you go home because it feels like your life is basically over.) I've never killed anyone before, it's gonna be hard! :)

Sisters Rudd and Coleman

We went on exchanges this week and I went to an area called Gibsonia with Sister Kastanes, it's about an hour away from Lake Wales. It was super fun, I loved it! Things get a little monotonous sometimes, so it's really nice to mix it up. We got caught in a super bad rainstorm on our bikes and had to take cover at a busstop :)

Exchange with Sister Kastanes

We had a really neat experience this week with one of our new investigators. She told us how much peace she feels whenever we're around and how we're her angels.  She is the sweetest. She's gone through a lot of hard things in her life and is completely turning everything around. She's been sober I think about 6 months, and the day we went to see her she was about to give up. But us coming made her decide not to. I'm so grateful for the opportunity to do the Lord's work, and to be at the right place at the right time. I know that this is His work and His gospel, because there's no way we could do this on our own!

Ever wondered how pineapples grow? Wonder no more! :)

Monday, June 1, 2015

June 1, 2015



So I don't have a lot of time today because in a few hours we're going to the beach for a mission Christmas party. Yeah, I don't get it either. Apparently once a year is not often enough to celebrate Christmas.

And yes, I am turning 20 this week. And yes, I feel very old.


But life is still good, the church is still true. Things are hard sometimes, but I'm still so happy to be in the service of my God :) Love all of you, have a great week!