Called to Serve Him: Days feel like years...weeks feel like minutes

Hey y'all, ;)

Here comes the rolling update from your favorite Sister in the Sunshine State!

Honestly I don't even know where to begin, I am sorry about last weeks email being so very short. Sister Saxton decided she wanted to go play ultimate frisbee with some of the other missionaries. So we did that and then I quickly made a French Silk pie and then Pday was over.. So sorry for the email.. Hopefully the pictures made it more bare able. ;)

This week was really fantastic! I was sort of in a funk for the 1st half of it, but Wednesday I settled myself down. Thankfully Sister Saxton is wonderful! And was really, really patient while I was having a hard time. I really love her; she actually took on the "funk" after Wednesday.. been a little stressed and overwhelmed. She has been such a wonderful trainer and I am beyond grateful for her. She is an amazing example of love and patience and she is an amazing listener.

She also is setting an amazing example of loving LA work, for which I will be forever grateful. LA work is hard for me; I feel like I usually don't see progress and it frustrates me, I also feel so sad seeing people choose something less than what they could have.

So this week: Monday we took Beckie (turns out we've been spelling her name wrong..oops!) the pie and stayed for just a bit to visit with them. They are good people and I love them. <3 <3 That evening we went and visited a part member couple, they are so cute and like my adoptive grandparents. They have 3 dogs and love to feed the Sisters. It is adorable. <3

Tuesday wasn't all that exciting. We had Celestial Farms, not sure if I've told y'all about it, but it is amazing! we go over to do service every week (it's within biking distance). It's a farm owned by one of the Dunn Ave Sisters, Sister Crider, and it is amazing! She does daycare and summer camp, so whenever we go over she has around 80ish kids running around. It's pretty exciting for her and keeps her beyond busy. Sister Saxton really loves to feed the horses so we've done that quite a few times. We also feed the donkey and Nugget (a rescue horse who has dwarfism, he's so cute.. But really skittish. Had very bad first owners). And other than that we just did LA work and tried to do some finding.. Neither had much luck. :\ Wednesday was our Zone Meeting. I learned many good things. And I want y'all to know that it is so important to be quick to observe. It affects how able you are to respond to spiritual promptings. We also discussed the Learning and Leadership pattern, it's a little hard to explain but my favorite part of that training was the reminder that The greatest leaders are the greatest followers. Christ was a the greatest Leader because He was the perfect follower of Heavenly Father. Our ability to be exactly obedient makes our ability to lead stronger. It was really awesome! We also got pizza for lunch, so no complaints there. :P That evening we taught the Beckie and Thomas and Jasin as well as a cute LA couple the Langs. And our beloved Sister Roberson came with! Yay =D She is one of my favorite members. She tries to come out teaching with us once a week, and she's always game to drive and to help with as many lessons as we have. She's also a convert and a 5 year reactivation. And she and Beckie get along so well. It's really nice to see. :) I love that this Ward loves our gators so much. Overall it was a great night and the Langs loved seeing Sister Roberson, they committed to come to church! Yay!!

Miracle!

Thursday I was free of my funk! YAY! (Prayer and tears help a lot sometimes.. Just let it all out!) We also had my final follow up appointment. I am officially all better! Yay. Sister Peterson, another favorite Sister, drove us to the doctors and it was really nice. She is amazing! He husband is in the Bishopric and I love them both. <3 We also went over to visit Sister Jolley, one of my very favorite ;) She is fantastic and so funny. She served a mission in Romania, yeah. She has some amazing stories. We were just checking on her and when she found out we hadn't been fed all week she insisted we stay for dinner.

I love her! Then we left and tried some potentials, nothing... So we tried LA's, nothing. But don't worry we stayed chipper. =) Being fed and spending time with Sister Jolley really brightened our mood.

Friday was planning AND ice cream day! (So Sister Saxton and I always get IceCream of some kind Friday night, to celebrate another weekly planning session done and all the good things that week, it's

delightful!) We also went over to a members, Jamie's (another favorite... Seeing a pattern yet?), house to do service and then she fed us dinner. And it was Mac n'Cheese! YUM! Love it when members last minute feed us. She also invited us for dinner next Tuesday (her birthday so guess who gets to make another pie? Yippy). Then Jamie came with us to a lesson with the Mannions (Thomas, Beckie, Jasin and

Breanna) It was amazing!!! They weren't ready to be baptized this week so we dropped their date with the intent to help them choose a new one at our lesson, it was a little concerning. They have really struggled with the smoking. But our lesson was so spiritual, we discussed the healing power of our Savior and how He can help us overcome our struggles. We then invited them to choose a new date, to help we had a kneeling prayer about it which Thomas said. It was such a sweet humble prayer. He then chose a new date. August 5th! (Not even that far away!! Beckie was surprised he chose one so close.. But I know without a doubt it was the spirit!) As we discussed how they can be ready for that date we committed them to quite smoking this week. They said yes and just yesterday we got a text from Beckie saying that Thomas only smoked 1 cigarette all day!!! Miracles! I know they will be ready for baptism by Aug 5th, but if y'all could keep 'em in your prayers I'd appreciate it. :) Saturday we visited Harry and Opal. They are way cute! Such a snarky couple. I love them. It was a good visit we gave Harry a large print Book of Mormon and he read from it with us. And we're going over this week to do some service and get some lunch. YUM! Our evening was really funky. Sister Saxton was just having a really hard time, so we went to Panera for dinner. After we ate I got a cinnamon roll and we split it. It made me crazy happy! Then she took a few minutes in the car to feel better. Bless her heart. We tried a few people, but nothing felt right so finally I listened to a prompting I'd been having about visiting a LA couple, Kurt and Janice, and we went over.

I was really positive. We had a nice visit and an awesome really spiritual lesson. They are an adorable couple, very hippie! I made the mistake of going over with my brace on (my wrist had been bugging

me..) and so now I have home remedies out the wah-zzo. Haha, like for

example: a cream to put on it, a magnet bracelet from Kurt to wear until Janice makes me one (with crystals because apparently those help too), something about tumric and ginger and apple cider.. Not sure.

But it was hilarious and so sweet!!

Sunday was amazing! We had an awesome Sacrament meeting. It was singing testimony week. Basically people bare testimony and then we sing. It was great! It is something our African-American converts really love. And honestly I thought it was awesome!! Then we had Ward council. And later we visited a LA sister at the hospital with Sister Smith. And then we had some miracle visits! It was a really awesome day and I loved it.

Zone Picture

Yum, it was delightful!

Enjoying our cinnamon roll. <3

Welcome to FL, where you can walk into a store dry and come out 45min later and getting soaking wet. (Also the bracelet you see is the one from Kurt.)