I have finally eaten alligator!!!!!

Wowza kazowza what a week! They just keep flying by so fast. I can't believe transfer 5 is over... Good news! My lovely Sister Russell is sticking around for another transfer so we can party hard for another 6 weeks preaching the gospel and baptizing everyone! It's gonna be good. We hit our goal of having 3 people on date for baptism with 2 more hopefully in the upcoming weeks. We've worked hard and the Lord has blessed us. We did not have a baptism yesterday but the goal gave us and the ward the spark we needed to get the work moving forward, so ultimately it was very successful. A ton happened this week so I'll do my best to keep it brief and exciting.

~One word. Tabling. Oh my goodness it is extreme. Imagine 65,000 people. It's 93 degrees and there are 15 other tables. You're trying to proclaim the restored gospel of Jesus Christ but klondike bars are more appealing to 20-somethings. It's a little crazy. But we had Popsicles and Popcorn so we didn't come empty handed to this rodeo. We met some super cool people and got multiple return appointments with them. One guy messaged us and that never happens! Miracles.

~ Because of the craziness of figuring out how to table we have had zero time to clean. We get home and we just collapse. So our car and apartment was a disaster. Guess what happened this week? Random car and apartment checks!! We weren't notified about either! So at 8:00 in the morning my companion is in the bathroom and I get a knock on the door and the housing inspectors are here... oh boy..

~We saved someone's life on Thursday! We were driving home and there's this guy convulsing on the side of the road... We freaked out and pulled into the parking lot of a restaurant and call 911. This dude was definitely trippin on something. Luckily some other people stopped too and the police came and an ambulance and it was intense. But we got to do some major seed planting! 

~ We went and got to eat gator tail with our neighbor S-- and his family. Let me tell you, S-- is a hoot. He is the funniest guy I've ever met and he was SO excited to take us. We've been planning it for weeks. We went to this random little dive called Black Hammock right on Lake Jessup which is infested with like 10,000 alligators or something.. So those things are fresh! It was super good! We did our best to have gospel conversations but S-- got a little tipsy..haha...ha.. He said he also wants to take us with his family to Disney World and he was so upset when we said we couldn't go. One day! One day...

~ We met J-- from the Avalon park Elders who wants to be baptized. She is hilarious! She has some family who are members and has wanted to find her purpose in life and something that can be consistent for her. She's already read the entire first book of Nephi. She's also struggling with her manager at work. So when we asked if she'd been praying she's like "yeah.. that he gets hit by a bus" Lol!! The Elders sugested that she should try singing something when she starts to feel upset and she says "like what? Oops I did it again?" We couldn't take it. it was so funny. 

I'm so excited to see what this transfer has in store! I'm mostly excited to see the progress of these wonderful people. God is so good. I've also come to learn that in YSA you're not only here for non- members but for the members as well. This is a critical time in their lives too and if we can make them feel valued and strenghten their testimony we can help them be the leaders of the church they need to be one day. It always means so much when members tell us they appreciate us or write sweet notes. It gives me confidence knowing that even if we don't have 15 baptisms that we are still impacting people's lives. We are all helping each other on the road back home to our loving Heavenly Father. Reach out to someone today and make them feel valued! Thanks for making me feel valued!

We pushed a car in dresses...

Hello!! It's been a rather interesting week! Lots of stuff happened. Good stuff and weird stuff a like! Here are some highlights!

~ There was this guy who got stranded in the road so we got out and helped him push his car through an intersection haha! Well Ok... the guy and Sister Russell pushed the car... I turned the steering wheel. I know I'm a wimp. But we got his phone number!

~We took A- on a temple tour this week! It was very spiritual and we're hoping it gets him closer to recieving his answer. He's so close! He's praying about September 23rd. Send some extra prayers his way.

~We had 2 general authorities come to our zone conference this week. Elder Costa and Carpenter of the 70. They focused a lot on member missionary work which we're going to integrate! We've already started meeting with members and set personal, future family, and missionary goals with them. YSA is hard to get referrals but we are getting names and hopefully we'll get there soon.

~ We met some interesting characters at the gas station while we were visiting N-. There was a guy buying plastic wrap to wrap up drugs and Sister Russell told him that as a representative of Christ she was telling him that was a bad idea and then I gave him a card and told him to call us if he needs more Jesus in his life. Then while I was telling N- about the Book of Mormon this drunk guy comes in who was a prosecuting lawyer and starts going crazy and starts telling her weird things about the Book of Mormon. Afterwards we realized that Satan is super real. 

~ We also got N- on date for baptism on October 14th. She introduced us to her mom who was super excited to meet us and we taught them both the restoration and she told her mom that she was going to get baptized and we chose a date!! She is incredible we're so excited!! 

~ We had some pretty inspired knocking on Friday. An appointment flaked on us so Sister Russell was like "let's knock doors" and we never knock doors but the first door we knocked ended up being former investigators who wanted to learn about eternal families and the other people we talked to were non-active members who would also like the missionaries to visit. After that we decided we had talked to those we needed to talk to and moved on. The Lord definitely led us to his children! 

~Sister Russell let another lizard into the apartment. I made her catch it by herself this time. 

So some good things are happening! This week is going to get super crazy!! School is back in session and there will be 65,000 children of God on campus who need to know about his restored gospel! It's going to be crazy. Send some extra prayers our way that we won't get too stressed and that we'll be able to be led to the elect who are ready for his gospel. 

I want to challenge everyone to set some goals this week! Goals are a principle of heaven and help us achieve our full potential.

1. Personal goal to strenghten your relationship with God

2. Family goal, for your current or future family

3. Missionary goal to strengthen others and help invite someone to Christ

Baby frogs, baby dogs, cockroaches and a really nasty garbage can!

Wowza what a crazy week!! It's been a blast though. Me and Sister Rusell just party hard every day and work even harder. God has been good to us and shown us many many miracles. I'm so grateful for this transfer and for the joy that I've felt. Life is truly good. God is even better. Lets talk about some miracles.

~Tabling~ Ok I hate tabling when its summer semester lemme tell you there is no one! And we had been under the impression that we had to let people come to us based on council from president to previous sisters. Apparently we can be a lot more vocal which is good because I was dying just sitting there letting people pass by. But one good thing did come from it We had some members with us and one of them invited their friend K- over to talk to us. She chilled with us for like 2 hours and we just talked and got to know her and low key taught the Plan of Salvation. She has little religious background but agreed to learn more and she brought her boyfriend to the lesson and she comitted to baptism! She is super cute and so excited about the gospel! She is telling everyone about it and invited herself to church and took notes the whole time and is going to come to FHE tonight. She's the best.

~E~ So We were a little discouraged because we had been working super hard to find someone for the 26th and we didn't want to dissapoint the ward with no one. So we went inside and checked our phone and we had a voicemail from sisters in Fort Lauderdale. They have an investigator on Date for September 9th for baptism and he's moving to our ward a few weeks before that. I know he's not technically someone we found but we were just awestruck how minutes before we were distraught but then the Lord was like "trust me" and then he shows his amazing love and miracles.

~C~ She's a former investigator who almost got baptized but her family prevented it. We asked her out to ice cream this week and she said she knows that she needs to get baptized but is still nervous about her family but knows that she needs to have faith and that this church is true! So that was incredible. We think she's a lot more ready than she knows.

~K~ Another former who the elders told us to reach out to. She said that when we texted her she had just been thinking about the missionaries and it wasn't a coincidence that we reached out to her. She really wants to improve her spirituality and knows she needs to be baptized just doesn't quite feel ready yet. That will change ;)

~A- and S~ 2 other super cool investigators who have been progressing really well and keeping commitments and responds to their phones. Love that. Go YSA!

~Phone finding~ We randomly messaged 9 people who were in our phone as investigators and 8 of them responded. 4 of them said they would like to meet with us again. Of course... responding to texts is a little more shaky but we did get 1 solid return appointment! 

It's been good people. Life is great.

Bribe college kids with candy...

Hey everyone it's been a great week!! The work is coming forth!! I don't remember a ton of what happened but it's been good. We are still pushing forward with our goal of the 26th and the ward is pulling together. We've had a couple people approach us about the date and we got an awesome member referral. This guy brought his friend to FHE and had us teach him right there! sounds a little weird but it worked and he's super solid. You can always know a YSA is solid when they respond to your text messages.

We decided to get creative with our finding on campus. Basically we tell people we're doing a survey about religious beliefs on campus and if we can ask them questions for a piece of candy. And they say yes and we don't have to ask the get to know you questions we can just ask them super deep stuff like "What do you value in life?" and "Have you ever seen a miracle?" etc and people get super deep and then you can transition to the gospel super easy!!! Over the 3 days we did it and approximately an hour each day we got like 2 new investigators, got 8 numbers and talked to like 20 people. it was great!! We felt like real missionaries. I love being on campus.

Other than that... life is good! Me and Sister Russell are partying hard and working even harder. We have made a goal to eat healthier... hahahah.... because we definitely rewarded ourselves with gelato and cookies on saturday. And our dinners were like fast food every night... yeet. 

Hmm.. we talked to a guy that was buddhist/catholic/spiritualist? He said he's going to complain to God for 60 years for all the suffering he's had to go through unless God can shoot him down with a "one liner"

We catered our ZTM with Sister Russell's bomb pulled pork sandwiches. It was super good. Our Zone is pretty nuts.

We also got to take K-- on a temple tour and that was the bomb. It was so special to be there. I miss the temple so much. Never take it for granted!!!

I wish I could think of more that's happened this week but I'm drained. That must mean we're doing something right. I love you all so much and I hope to hear from everyone soon!! Let me know what's going on and what you're all doing with your lives.