What do you call an aligator in a vest?..... an investigator.
Hello Hello from Florida! Hope yall had a great week. It was the 4th
of july this week, which is my favorite holiday usually, but not my
favorite holiday on the mission haha. ok, So here is the stories for
the week:
For exercise in the mornings sister Hirst usually goes down stairs and
runs the length of the apartment and the stairs and after my morning
stretch I run the length of the apartment upstairs (you have to get
creative when you dont want to go run in the humidity cause you breath
and its like drinking water) so either monday or tuesday I was running
back and forth and when i went to turn around I stepped on my foot
wrong and twisted it... I was so mad because we had to stay in because
of my sickly-ness last week and I was NOT about to stay inside again
for anything. So i just ignored the fact that my ankle hurt and we
went out tracting and walking for hours anyways. Well, that was a bad
idea because at the end of the night my ankle may not have been an
ankle anymore, it was a cankle. Sister Hirst looked at it and yelled
"oh my gosh you have a tomatoe on your leg!" So the 4th was spent
tracting for like 4 hours with little 20 minute breaks taken here and
there to ice my cankle. Plus no one was home for the 4th, and it
poured. So it is officially not my favorite holiday on a mission. BUT
on the upside, my cankle has resumed ankle status and I got to go back
to running on it this morning, which was great. MY exercises for the
last week have consisted of lots and lots of ab work outs and laying
with my leg elevated while memorizing scriptures.
We also had a pretty bad rejection this week. We were out tracting and
we knocked on the last door and we said we were missionaries there to
share a message of jesus christ and she was super friendly and even
invited us in. She introduced us to her whole family and then said
"what church did you say yall were from? Baptist, methodist,
prespeterian?"... "church of jesus christ of latter day saints...
Mormons..?" I have never seen someone expression change so fast. She
went from being super happy we were there to pure TERROR. She was
terrified that she had let two mormons in her house. We tried asking
her some questions letter her know we are not scary or weird or
whatever but she just kept saying "im sorry, you have to leave. you
have to get out. sorry" and she shooed us out of her house without
listening to anything we had to say :( that was rough.
We met alot of really nice catholics this week. we also meet some, but
most of the people we meet are some sort of protastant religion. They
were all very encouraging and had great things to say and great
questions. I am always so grateful when people are polite even when
they dont want to hear our message or keep learning from us.
If you have never lived in a humid place before, its crazy. People say
that somedays you open the door and it will hit you in the face. I
came to understand that this week, it was especially humid the last
few days and I went to get out of the car the other day and as soon as
I opened the door my glasses fogged up so I couldnt see. I had to take
them off until I got back inside to let them de-fog.
We got to teach the Priest quorum sunday to help them prepare for
serving a mission and we taught them about scripture study because
every missionary wishes they had better study habits before they
served. It was great! I am so grateful for the book of mormon and for
the scriptures. I love reading from them everyday and seeing the
connections between each of them to more fully understand the gospel.
I know now how important it is to 'feast upon the words of christ'
because they truely do 'tell you all things which you should do' they
answer my prayers over and over and it is often times through the
scriptures that God speaks to us. If you dont read them everyday,
start now. Especially the Book of Mormon. What a great book we have to
learn from!
I love you all!
Sister Webb
"In gratitude to God, Enjoy the wonder of each day." -Bethal Baptist Church
Welcome to July. Weird. Tropical Storm Debbie seemed like she was gonna give us some trouble, but at last she did not. We got a text from president last monday at about 6 that said the storm was getting bad and it was here to stay so we needed to get into our apartments and stay there until president told us we could leave. we asked him how long as he said it might be close to two days. but it ended up not being bad at all in our area more like a Floridian spring shower. But then I ended up getting sickly Thursday and we had to spend two days in the apartment anyways and I tell you what- being inside for 2 days while I was sick was TERRIBLE!!!!!! After almost a year of working super hard everyday I felt like the laziest person alive to be laying down for that long. I got a blessing from the elders and it said to be patient in getting better. Good thing he told me that, because I kept trying to go do things and we'd go out for an hour to go see a member or something so I could feel productive and we'd have to come back home for me to sleep some more. Then I thought i would be good as new when i woke up, and that was not the case... So we got a few things done friday too, but We had to keep coming in for me to rest. Saturday felt great to be back working again.
We had two AWESOME lessons yesterday. We went to go teach Gerdasia who is 10 and she had 4 friends over when we showed up so her mom said they could either sit in and be quiet and listen to the lesson or to go play in the other room. We told them all it would be a good fun lesson so they all stayed and we ended up teaching 5, 10 yr olds about the apostasy and the restoration. I had made a fun object lesson that is a puzzle the illustrate the apostasy and explain how it all happened. At the end we asked if there were any questions and of the girls said "I forgot what you said that big word meant" and so we asked if anyone could tell us what an apostasy was and one of the other girls said "Tts when people become bad and because they are wicked God takes his prophets away". It was a really fun lesson to teach. When we were leaving they kept saying, we always want to come here on Sundays so we can have fun and learn! It was so CUTE! we have to do something creative for all our lessons because thats how gerdasia learns too.
The other lesson was with a girl named Tyamiami. She is LEGIT!!! We were filling up our car with gas a couple weeks ago and got in to pull away and saw them off to the side and felt like we needed to go talk to them so sis Hirst grabbed a family proc and we went and gave it to her. she read 1/2 of it standing there and said she loved it. We told her we wanted to come teach her more and she was really excited. So we set up an appointment and as luck usually has it she had to cancel a couple times because of crazy things happening (curse you SATAN!) but we FINALLY got to teach her yesterday. The lesson was so good. she said she is looking for a church because all growing up she didnt feel right about the church she was going to. She said she has gone to others too but they just never feel right. So she said she would come to church this sunday with us and read the book of mormon and let us teach her again. I am really excited she seems really promising.
We took one of the laurals out with us tracting this week cause she wants to serve a mission and it was her first time. She got up and bore her testimony yesterday and it was so sweet. She said something like "I got the chance to go out and tract with the sisters, and even thought we got rejected alot... actually by everyone, and no one answered their doors, and no one wanted to learn It was great to be able to go out and share the gospel with people." It was so sweet :)
I love you all and I hope that you are all doing well.
The gospel is true and God loves each of us!
Have a great week
Sister Webb
"Exercise daily: run from the devil and walk with god"
Hello Hello!
Another week gone by, and i can hardly believe it. Its almost July. To celebrate I will start off with a joke I read on a laffy taffy that someone gave to me while we were talking to them at the bus stop... (answer will be at the end of the email) Why did the clock die?
This week was crazy. First off, as a couple people mention... Tropical storm Debbie is in the gulf headed at the pan handle. what does that mean for us? LOTS OF RAIN! Its pouring out there! nothing major has happened no power outages or evacuations.... just lots and lots of rain, which it does feel much different than any other week... it always rains here and when it rains it comes down in buckets.
I dunno what to talk about this week because we had alot of downer moments, but I like to try and stay positive. On the worst days we played a game all day where we just listed off all the things we were grateful for to keep our spirits up... it works, so if you even have a bad day just start thinking about all the blessings you have been give and it will turn your frown right upside down.
Just to give you a little snippet if you are at all following the gators I talk about, Cheryl Dropped us this week :(. she had agreed to come to one of the 5th ward baptisms with us and we got a text Saturday morning from the sisters saying that the baptism was canceled (really just postponed). so we called her to tell her that we wouldnt be picking her up anymore for it, but asked her if maybe we could come over and have a lesson for us. She told us that she wanted to take a break and figure things out for a while but that she wanted to stay friends and keep in contact. Dropping investigators (or them dropping us) has so many similarities to breaking up a relationship. Just another real life application that can be drawn from the mission life. I am way sad because I have never felt the spirit as strong as I felt in her first lesson (maybe not never... but pretty close) and I know that she felt it too, so those ones are always much harder to let go of.
Also saturday our favorite member missionary Brother Clark passed away from a massive heart attack. He was the greatest person ever. His wife sometimes had to tell him NOT to do missionary work everywhere he went (she said sometimes it wasnt appropriate). We went over to their house last week to get ideas from them on how to get the ward excited about member missionary work and he told us all his great stories and the way that he give pass along card to everyone... he said like a month ago he was in the middle of down town salt lake eating at the new mall and he was giving pass along cards to the workers at the chicken place he was working... he ended up giving away 3 book of mormons right across from the SL temple. I would have never thought to try to talk to anyone in SL.. .cause were in utah everyone is mormon. Its sad that he is gone, BUT lucky for us we have the plan of salvation to go on and no need to be sad because hes on the other side rockin the spirit world with his enthusiasm for missionary work.
on the upside: I had alot of cool spiritual promptings that ended up being awesome when we followed them. I felt like we should go see one of the ward members, which was weird because we didnt need any member lessons for our numbers but we went to visit and she had just had a huge missionary moment that day when her teacher in class started talking about mormons and she got to teach the whole class about what we believed and there were a couple people that were interested so she needed some book of mormons... then we showed up.
Another one that made our day: we play this game in the car... its like the perdittle game (where one headlight is out) but instead we call it lamanites. So if both headlights are working its a nephite (we dont call those ones) if one headlight is out its a lamanite, if a secondary light is out (like the brights etc) its an ishmalite and if there is a break light out its a amalakiahite. we also added the motorcycle/scooter... thats a rameumptum. When you see one, you call it and hit the celing. So we always talk about how awesome it would be to see a biker gang go by and this week we were sitting at the stoplight and there were EIGHT RAMEUMPTOMS in a row. we were so excited to hit the celing saying "RAMEUMPTOM, RAMEUMPTOM, RAMEUMPTOM, RAMEUMPTOM, RAMEUMPTOM, RAMEUMPTOM, RAMEUMPTOM, RAMEUMPTOM,"
We've been sharing a lesson with alot of the members on the importance of testimonies. we have a basic outline we use each time but it has been really cool to share it with each person and see how the spirit has directed the lesson and to see the different things we share each time. It has been a real testimony builder for me that the spirit is directing the lessons even when its not a really strong prompting to say something.
Thats all I got for you this week. The answer the the joke: "it was his time"
hope everyone has a great week!
Sister Webb
"Faith is the courage to face things as they are"
Every week I say that I am going to keep it short, and then when I look back at it... its not that short at all. haha so this MIGHT be short, who knows though, once I start typing it just keeps coming.
Transfers are this week and usually I wonder what is going to happen, but I haven't even thought about it at all in the last couple days and that is probably because this is only the second transfer that nothing has happened to me. The spirit is so diverse to me. I have noticed that God prepares you for everything in your life, spiritual or temporal, but only if you are listening. This is just one of those examples. The two transfers I havent moved or gotten a new companion I havent thought about them at all, but the ones that a change was coming I could feel it. I know that is so meaningless and small but I know that if there are things that we need to do or changes that are going to be made it our lives, God prepares us for them through his spirit. What a random thought.... ask my companion, I am full of random thoughts. Everyday I ask her really random gospel things that have no importance to my eternal salvation but are fun to think about and everyday she just says.. "Wow... that is a great question. I dunno"
This week was outa control. First off Wednesday was the craziest day of them all. We were leaving the church after spending some time getting to know the mormon.org website a little better (by request of the president) and we were stopped at the stop sign when out of no where a biker collided with our car. I swear it was straight out of a movie, the biker flipped off her bike rolled up on the windshield. We both screamed and it was super scary. but she was fine. She had a little scraping on her hand and that was it. The car has a few dents and scratches but we got off pretty lucky. We were both shaken up and it made us 1/2 hour late to our appointment with Diane, but that was ok she still let us come... the lesson still went really really well and Diane committed to stop smoking (or at least try) which is huge for her because shes been addicted to cigarettes since she was 11. Its going to be tough for her, but she wants to do it!
So besides that the first 1/2 the week was slow. We had zeros across the board for all our goals up until like saturday...NIGHT. (thats a bit of an exaggeration but seriously... we were trying so hard with no fruit) We joked that we need to start setting a 'seeds planted' goal so that at the end of the night we can see a number for all of our hard work. But we kept praying and working and being obediently diligent and God always answers prayers and he came through again! We spent the whole day saturday finding. We walked like 10 miles and have blisters and 100 misquito bites between the two of us to show for it. But it was so worth it because we had alot of really cool miracles happen. First off was a kid named John. We walked a huge loop of some of the busier streets in our area to go contacting. we had gone about 2.5 miles and we were almost back to our car when we passed a bus stop and I felt like we needed to stay there for a minute. I couldnt decide if it was because I was tired and my feet hurt and I wanted a break or if it was the spirit, but either way it sounded like a great idea. So we sat down and not 2 minutes later up walks a kid who is 18 years old and is also waiting for the bus. I felt a huge prompting that we needed to talk to him so we struck up a conversation and he started asking a whole bunch of questions. He was awesome he had just gotten out of jail for drug abuse and was searching for god and how to put his life back on track. We taught him about what we do as missionaires and about the book of mormon. Again as we were talking I felt the prompting that I needed to give him a BOM and our number right them because the bus would come soon and it would be too late if I waited. So i stopped him mid sentence and said "just incase the bus comes soon, I want to give you this and invite you to read it and to pray about it because it will help you so much and bring you closer to god and help you to find truth" (or something to that effect) and 30 seconds later the bus came. We got his number and hopefully we can meet with him sometime.
The rest of the day was spent just going from place to place without any real success besides planting seeds and the last thing we did was to go see a less active lady. She was kind of on the way home from where we were at so we could have driven but we felt like maybe we should walk. So we took the car home and back tracted to her apartment on foot. We got there and she couldnt talk, so we invited her and her brother to church and headed back home. On the way we were starting to feel a little discourage because we had spent hours trying to find investigators and had none. Sis Hirst said a prayer that someone that needed the gospel would be placed in our path on the way home and low and behold, God answered our prayer instantly. In the parking lot that we were passing was a man and he was far away. Alot of the times if they arent right by us to talk to we just pass them by, but we had just prayed for people so we turned around and headed towards him. We didnt talk long but started out with our usual "hi were missionaries from the church of Jesus christ of latter day saints.... "and he just smiled and we asked him if he had every talked to missionaries like us before and he said no, but he was still smiling. So we told him a little about the restoration and gave him a pamphlet and a book of mormon and asked him if he would read then made the promise that it would help him with whatever he is going through in life. His response surprised me a little because we had only been talking to him for a couple minutes he said "I know. (so sure of it) I think this is exactly what I need right now" we set up an appointment to teach him next weekend. Then we kept on, happy to have just one new investigator for the week when we passed a couple. It was almost too late when both of us turned and started talking to them at the same time (we do that alot). The girl is someone that just found god in rehab. She had been cutting herself and hated herself all her life but finally figured out the spirit and how much god loves her so she craves anything spiritual. We gave them both a book of mormon and set up an appointment to teach them too. After we gave them the BOM she said "yall have really touch me, and so i want to give you something back... can I sing for you?" So on the corner of a busy Tallahassee street she sang Amazing grace to us. It was so appropriate for that situation and for our day.
...yep, see what I mean this is so long already. I cant stop once I start typing.
One more story: Yesterday the spanish elders passed on two of their investigators to us because they are both leaving. Its a mom and her 10 yr old daughter. They have been learning for a while and come to church every week and the daughter wants to be baptized, so we gained two SUPER solid gators yesterday too! God is good.
I am so grateful for my mission and for all the precious experiences I have every single day to come to know and understand just how much our Heavenly father loves us and how he places the spirit in our lives to help us and to teach us and to show us the way. I have noticed alot in my studies over the last few days how much the scriptures talk about coming to know the father through prayer and that if we pray all the time that satan will not have power over us. I know that to be true. If you want to know God, talk to him and then listen for when he talks back. When things begin to go wrong in life its because have forgotten that relationship to the divine and allowed satan to influence us ever so slightly. Daily prayer is KEY to staying on the straight and narrow.
I love you all!
Have a great week
Sister Webb
picture: Daughters of one of the less actives... the back packs are bigger than they are. SO CUTE!
