September 28, 2015

Whew! Time is flying! Sister Foderaro and I hit our 15 month mark this week. Only 3 to go!! I may only be 20, but I am definitely already seeing how the further you get into life, the faster it goes. Scary!

There was a triple 8-year-old baptism yesterday, just for 3 kids who happened to have turned 8 recently in the ward. I felt like I was in Utah :) I love baptisms, it was so sweet. I got to conduct the music and it was cool to see how many people came! The chapel was pretty much full. And it's the stake center, so it's a big chapel. Our investigator P came to see. She's doing awesome! She told us at the baptism that she went to her church and told them that she was moving on. She broke up with them, she must be pretty serious! She loooved that church. Of course it's sad too that she had to leave them, but she's recognizing that there's so much more.

We met this really neat lady this week who was having a hard time and told us that she knew God sent us. She has been wanting to find a new church and going through a lot of hard things. I love being sent to those who need us. Well they don't need us of course, they need the gospel. I feel so fortunate to be able to give them that at precisely the moment they need it. God's timing is perfect.

"More shenanigans"

Okay, disclaimer, this has nothing to do with anything. But we were pretty excited about it so I have to share. As a missionary you really have to appreciate the simple joys in life :) So anyway, the new iOS update is awesome (in case you didn't know, we have iPads). You can change the race of the emojis now! Most exciting part of my week.  Like I said, the simple joys :)

Kid moments:

A little girl who I've never seen before came up to me and asked if I was a sister missionary. I said yes and she said YAYY! and gave me a big hug. Haha I love being a missionary.

And a little boy who's normally really rowdy and hyper just came up to me and held my hand, I was honored :) I could hear all these ladies saying in Spanish "ooooh, look, he's holding the Sister's hand!" :)

And for all you ladies out there: Wasn't the Women's Broadcast amazing??? I loved it so much. Especially Uchtdorf's talk. He's the best :) I'm so excited for Conference this weekend!! I am so grateful for modern-day prophets. We have a living Moses on the earth right now! How cool is that? :) I love this gospel so much. I'm very thankful to get to share it with everyone I can :)

Sorry, as usual, for the random craziness. I hope you can make sense of it :) Have a great week everybody!!

"Our ward mission leader sang the song to Sister Foderaro 

about nobody likes me, everybody hates me, I'm gonna go eat worms, 

so she did."

September 21, 2015

This week has been A LOT better than last week. Hallelujah. The weather even cooled off for a few days. But now it's back to hot again. I can't wait for it to actually get cool. And General Conference is coming up, I'm so excited for that!!

Sisters Coleman & Foderaro

 The mission president and his wife from the North Carolina Raleigh Mission came home a few weeks ago and are in my ward here! So that's pretty awesome :) The members of this ward are so great. I seriously love this area. My last areas were kind of ghetto but this one is soo fancy. That also means that people tend to be less receptive, but we've still been meeting some pretty nice people.

The W are doing great, they're coming to church every week. H, the dad, even drives the oldest son to seminary every morning. They're so funny, in our last lesson H said "I don't know which is harder to learn, the gospel or English." We still have to have a translator for every lesson, they each only know a handful of words in English, the parents especially. But they're awesome, thank goodness everyone can understand the language of the Spirit.

"The other girls are a family from the ward.  We went to their
house to take gospel-related picture for them to post on Facebook."

We have this awesome investigator named P who we met a few weeks ago. At first she wasn't very interested, and told us she usually avoided Mormons like the plague. But the 3rd time we came back she had a lot of great questions and was so excited that we were teaching her all these new things she had never heard before. At first she was skeptical of everything we said, it was like an overnight change. I told her she was welcome at church if she ever wanted to come, but then felt like I needed to push more. I asked her if she would come this Sunday and she said "No, I need to go to my church." But she paused for a minute and then said "You know what? Yeah. I'll come." And she did! The ward was very welcoming to her, which makes a big difference. She said she enjoyed it a lot. At the end of church she was like "Nobody hugs here, are you allowed to hug?" And we said of course! And she gave us both a big hug :)

Scariest moment of the week: We saw the biggest frog. Ever. It was probably a toad actually. Now they have some freaky wildlife here in Florida, and I thought I had seen some big frogs. But I was wrong. This was like the size of a cantaloupe. We were knocking on someone's door and we saw something hopping on a bench on their porch. Sister Foderaro and I both thought it was a bunny at first. But when we realized what it was we were both like "Nope nope nope, I'm done!" I booked it out of there. As Sister Foderaro was coming to follow me, a cat, who was also on their porch, scratched her. She HATES animals. The rest of the night we were like "did we really just see that?" Needless to say, it was a very emotionally scarring experience for both of us.

"Girls kept wanting to take selfies.  haha"

Some funny child moments:

#1. We were having a serious meeting with our ward mission leader and his son came in. He let him stay if he promised to be quiet. A few minutes later, we noticed that his son was was staring at his foot, looking horrified. He simply said "My toenail is SO big."

#2. We were teaching a less-active family and their 8-year-old said "If God were here right now, He would tell you what good missionaries you are." Just out of nowhere. We were like aww, thank you! And she said "What? You are."

So yep, I think that pretty much sums up my life right now. Things are going great, I love being a missionary, I love teaching people about Christ :) It's probably the hardest, but also the most rewarding thing I've ever done. I love love love it :) Okay I think that's enough love for now. Have a great week everybody!!

September 14, 2015

"So in this picture Sister Foderaro, my current companion, 

is on my left and Sister Rhodes, my last companion 

is on my right. And they were companions right 

before I was with Sister Rhodes, so it's great fun :)"

This week has been kind of rough with us both being sick. And we also moved into a new apartment, which was a real hassle. The poor elders got our old... not so nice apartment. The new ones that we're in are brand new, and suuuuper nice. I feel like a millionaire (well, if a millionaire had to live in a one bedroom apartment). It's great :)

"We drew gospel related things with sidewalk chalk with a couple of families."

We also had a fireside last night with Glen Beck, it was pretty awesome. I got to see some members from Tampa 4 and Lake Wales, it was great! And I think there were more non-members than members there. We got to meet some really nice people and hopefully plant some seeds.

"This is Jesus on the cross, apparently."

And once again, I am out of time, sorry for how brief this is! But I love all of you, I love this gospel, and I love my Heavenly Father and His Son, Jesus Christ. I guess that's all you really need to know :)

September 8, 2015

Sisters Coleman & Foderaro

 First of all, sorry I didn't email yesterday. All the libraries were closed for Labor Day, so we're emailing today instead. But we were actually both sick anyway, so it worked out.

But anyway, my new area is Riverview! It's right outside of Brandon, and it's much busier than Lake Wales haha. I like it a lot, the members here are amazing!  And my companion is Sister Foderaro, who I actually came out with! She was in my district in the MTC and we also roomed together, so I know her very well. She's an awesome missionary, and we're having a blast :)

Transfer

I'm back to a district full of elders, so that's always fun haha. In my last district there slowly became more sisters, so maybe that will happen here too :) Not that elders aren't great, it just gets a little lonely sometimes :)

We're teaching a really awesome family named the W. Buuuut, they only speak Spanish. So we have to have members translate for all of our lessons. Why yes, W isn't the most Hispanic sounding name. The dad, H, is actually of Chinese descent. But all their lives they've lived in Peru. Lots of complicated things going on with that. But basically, they're awesome.

I see her green luggage in the trunk.
I'm wondering how she fit everything in. -Mom

On Thursday the young women were supposed to have a 5K and so we were going to run with them. But like good ol' Florida loves to do, it rained :( So they basically just ended up having a big party instead and we were in our running clothes. I can't even tell you how strange it was to wear pants. I never want to do that again. Ever. :) And I see why we wear skirts now, everyone kept thinking we were young women.

Cool experience: There's a woman in this ward that knows my grandma (Mom's mom)! When I introduced myself she asked me who my grandma was. She was soo happy; she hugged me and took a selfie with me :) Apparently they used to be in the same ward in Arizona and my grandma had a pretty big impact on her :) She has been trying to track me down my whole mission and now I finally came to her! It's really neat to see how the Lord truly is aware of all of us. I know that I'm supposed to be here, even if it was only for that :)

Sisters Lacott & Coleman
This is Grandma's friend.

Funny experience: An 18-year-old recent convert told us that for the longest time he thought the bishop's name was Rick. Everyone would always say "We're going to talk to the bishopric" and so he thought they were saying "Bishop Rick." Haha it was awesome. I finally realize that there are soo many things that we take for granted growing up in the church, sometimes it's nice to see things from a fresher perspective :)

But life is good! The gospel is true no matter where you go :) I love this gospel so much, and I love all you people :) I hope you have a wonderful week!