November 6, 2017

November 6, 2017

     This week has been pretty great! I’ll just give a few highlights. We were able to meet with Theadore on Friday and he is doing super good! He was very happy to see us. He has been reading from the Book of Mormon and praying a lot. We were able to show him the stop smoking program and he is excited to start it this week! He is always super happy during our lessons and I know that he feels the spirit. He said that this is exactly what he needed. So we are excited about him.

     We also had zone conference on Wednesday at the mission office. We talked a lot about technology and Facebook. We were able to get a lot of ideas on how we can use Facebook to further the work. We are truly blessed to be able to use technology, it has already made a huge difference in our missionary work. I also had my departing interview with President Cooper after Zone Conference which went really well. We just talked about my goals and vision for when I return home. It was awesome to have an hour one on one with him.

     Halloween was pretty good. We spent most of the evening at a recent converts. Halloween is just one of those holidays that gets in the way of things as a missionary. It’s alright though. Not much else has happened this week. Just preparing to return home and making sure I have everything ready to go. I will email next Monday and that will be my last one before I come home. I’m excited to see you all soon! I’m so grateful to have served my Heavenly Father these past two years in the capacity that I have. It’s brought so much joy into my life. I can’t imagine what my life would be like if I hadn’t made the choice to serve. I know this is the Lord’s work we are engaged in. I’ve definitely made some life long friends out here. Thank you all for your support and prayers. I really do appreciate it. I love you all! Have another amazing week!

October 30, 2017

Hey everyone! 

      This week has been so great! We were able to go on an exchange with the Clearwater Elders on Tuesday which was awesome. I got to be with Elder Bledsoe in my area for the day. We met a lot of really cool people while we were biking to our appointments. One of them was a couple and the wife had met with missionaries a while ago, but had moved away so they stopped meeting with them. She was excited to see us and said she wanted to continue learning about the church. So we will see them on Wednesday! We also went out with a youth from our ward on Thursday night. We had a few lessons planned, but they all fell through. We said a prayer and asked that along the way we would be able to teach at least one person. We were walking back to the car and hadn’t seen anybody and it was dark. Just as we were about to get in the car we saw a guy sitting on his porch literally right past where the car was parked. So we went up and talked to him. He was super nice and we shared a little bit about the restoration with him and set up a time to come back the next day. Well the next day we had an awesome lesson with him! He was so excited when we taught him about the Book of Mormon. He even kissed the Book and was telling us thank you over and over. It was so amazing, I felt the spirit so strongly during that lesson. We will see him again this week! It was a miracle. 

      We had our quarterly Why I Believe fireside yesterday in Tampa. It is a meeting that everyone within the mission boundaries is invited to attend where recent converts share their conversion stories. It was pretty awesome, I love those firesides. I also got to see a lot of missionaries and members I haven’t seen in a while. It was great. 

      Those were the highlights of the week. It really was a good week. Oh also, as you may have noticed we are able to use Facebook for our missionary work now. I will be using it for missionary purposes only and will continue to communicate home through email and not Facebook. Just so ya know. I love you all and hope you have an amazing week! 

Pics-

A pumpkin a member carved for the trunk or treat

Pictures at a park we found on Lake Tarpon 

October 23, 2017 (Another week in the sunshine state)

Hey everyone! 

      

      So I honestly don’t remember what happened this week..it went by so fast! I’ll just give a few highlights. We have been meeting with William and John every day this week. We started them on the 7 day program to quit smoking and it has worked! They are both non smokers now! It’s been awesome to see their positivity through it and to see them overcome something they have been struggling with. We have been reading through the Book of Mormon with John and we set a date for him to be baptized in December! He is great. 

      We met a lady named McKayla on Saturday while we were tracting. She was super nice and was so willing to listen to us. It was an answer to our prayer. We prayed right before we went out to find at least one person before lunch that would listen to our message and invite us back. So we are going back next Saturday! I know that God hears and answers our prayers. 

      This week we had a huge change in our mission. We are now able to use Facebook for a tool in our missionary work. I’m not sure how I feel about it, but I’m excited to be able to learn how to use social media better to share the gospel. So if you see any changes to my Facebook don’t worry, it is me ;) 

      Not much else happened this week. It’s been a pretty average week of missionary work. I think I’ve finally accepted the fact that I am coming home soon. I didn’t want to for a long time, but I’m excited, and nervous. I’ve just loved my mission so much. It will be a good step forward. Anyways I hope you all have a great week! Remember who you are and what you stand for! I love you all. 

October 16th, 2017 (Just call me Gator)

Hey everyone! This week has been great. We had preparation day on Tuesday this week so that kinda threw everything off. We had a good day though, We are on car share with the Clearwater Elders now so we spent the day with them. I caught a snake in their apartment complex ha! Elder Pruszynski, my last companion, got me doing that. Don’t worry mom it wasn’t poisonous ;) we have also been on bikes this week. It’s been good because we have been able to talk to people as we bike. The only bad part is that we live like 6 miles away from anything so we have been getting a good workout every day haha. We got stuck in a bad rainstorm on Saturday. We were heading home for dinner and out of nowhere it just started to downpour. We were soaked! It felt pretty nice actually because it’s been super hot still. Biking is not too bad!

      We have been meeting with John a lot this week. He is the son of the recent convert who just moved into our ward. We have gone through the first few lessons with him and he’s really enjoying them. He keeps saying that he wants to be a Mormon and live the life of a Mormon. He’s awesome! We haven’t been able to meet with Michael or Vern this week, they have been busy. We met a guy named Nick who lives by John. He was pretty interested and asked us a lot of questions about what we believe. We left him with a Book of Mormon and we will see him again this coming week. Other than that it has been pretty slow this week. We face a lot of rejection here. It seems like 90% of the people we talk to “already have Jesus” as they say. So when we find those few people throughout the week it makes my day. 

      That’s pretty much it for this week. We are having a zone activity day today so that should be fun. Oh yeah! I almost forgot, I went on an exchange this week with Elder Peterson in St. Petersburg. It’s the south part of our zone. It was awesome! I served around him when I was in Valrico. We met some really cool people that day though. We met a guy while we were walking around in downtown who was super cool. We asked him what his name was and he said it really fast so we asked him again and he said, “Just call me Gator!” Haha it was funny. He was actually really interested though and asked US for a Book of Mormon. It was great. So yeah, that’s about it. It’s been a good week, I’m looking forward to the next one! I love you all and hope you have a great week! My challenge to you all is to read the Book of Mormon everyday this week. 

Pics- A Polaroid picture that a member took of us last night at a dinner appointment 

Snake!

Our meeting with Elder Costa!

October 10, 2017

Hey everyone! 

      So we didn’t get to email yesterday because we had a zone conference all day with Elder Costa of the Seventy. So today is our p-day instead. It was a super awesome meeting though! Elder Costa and Sister Costa were so powerful. He has been a General Authority for 24 years now. He has given many conference talks. He talked to us all about finding, teaching, and baptizing. He shared many experiences from his past. He has been a mission president two times. He was a convert himself at the age of 28 I think, don’t quote me on that. He had such a powerful conversion story and it really brought t the spirit. He was pretty funny too. The thing I learned from him is how important and powerful our calling is as missionaries. We should not be afraid to be bold and let people know that we have been sent from the Lord for them. It was great, I’m super glad that he came to our mission. 

      Other than that this week has been pretty good! We were able to meet with two men named Michael and Vern. We met them tracting and they were really nice and open to our message. We shared the restoration with them and testified that it was true. I know they both felt the spirit. Since then they have been reading the Book of Mormon and we will meet with them again this week! So that was exciting. Phillip also came to church this Sunday and he loved it! He is slowly progressing. We are still trying to figure out how to best help him. Ricardo has disappeared haha. We have called, texted and stopped by and we can’t seem to catch him. We are still working with William and his son John. William is the recent convert that moved into our area. They are in a rough spot, but the ward has been so good to them since they moved in. They have dropped off food, beds, furniture, and even some appliances. They literally had nothing when they came here. They are feeling the love from the ward. We found out John can’t be baptized till January because of some legal issues. So it gives us the opportunity to work with him a lot until then and help him gain a testimony. 

      The Gulf was super high this week for some reason, so there was a bit of flooding in our area. There is a river that comes into Tarpon Springs from the gulf and it was flooding the roads all around it. There were cars driving through it though, so we just followed them through. The water was probably 1-1.5 feet high. I’ll send some pictures haha. This morning we went fishing, sadly we didn’t catch anything. That’s just how it goes sometimes. We are probably gonna go next week too. So yeah, it’s been a fun week! I love missionary work and the spirit it brings. I know that this is the true church of Jesus Christ. Thank you all for your prayers and support all this time. Go out and treat yourself to some ice cream this week haha ;) love you all!!

Pics- 

Elder Kennelly took a picture of me fishing haha

Walking down an alley way at night, had to take a picture!

A sweet looking door we knocked this week

Flooding in the parking lot and road

October 2, 2017 (Transfer Week)

Hey everyone! 

      This week has been pretty awesome. For one we had general conference which was so good! We were able to watch each session with a different family in the ward. They love missionaries here! So that was great, they all fed us food too so that was a bonus. It was nice to be able to get to know them better too. I don’t really like picking favorites, so I’ll just tell you a few talks I liked. I liked Elder Rasbands talk in the Saturday afternoon session about how God does not work by coincidence, but by divine design and guidance. Also Elder Nelson’s talk in that same session about the Book of Mormon. It was very powerful and the question he asked, “how precious is the Book of Mormon to you?” made me reflect on how much it really means to me. There were a lot more that I liked too, they’re all good and like Elder Anderson, I encourage all of you to study these talks in the coming weeks and months. 

      As usual, we have also done a lot of finding this week and having lessons at members homes. We had quite a few people to follow up with this week as well from the previous week, but sadly none of them were home when we stopped by. We did meet some really nice people this week though. 2 couples in the same neighborhood let us right in to their house when we knocked on their door. They asked us all about what we do and were able to give Books of Mormon to each of them! We will go by this next week to see how they are doing and to teach them more. So that was pretty exciting. We were supposed to meet with Ricardo again, but he had to work a lot of hours this week, we’re hoping we can meet with him soon. 

      As my subject line says, this week is transfer week and we just got the call today as to what’s happening. Elder Kennelly and I are both staying in Palm Harbor! The only thing that really changed for us is that instead of being on full car we are now on car share with the Clearwater Elders. So we will get the car every other week. I really hope they find us a new apartment soon because we live 4 miles out of our area and that would make biking a lot more tedious than it needs to be. We will see what happens though! Oh, also a recent convert from Seminole just moved into our ward and he has a son who was taking the lessons and is getting ready for baptism. So we will start working with him and picking up where the other Elders left off. They are super humble, I’m excited to work with them! 

      Also, a super cool member family (the Cannons) took us out to dinner this week to a Japanese steak house. They cook the food right in front of you. There were flames and everything! It was awesome, the chef was doing all sorts of tricks with his spatulas and the food. So that was fun. I’m looking forward to this next transfer, I feel like some great things are gonna happen. I hope you're all doing well, I heard Utah is getting cold. We are still enjoying the heat and humidity over here in Florida haha. Have a great week everybody, love y’all!

Pics- 

1. Our district doing a jumping picture, pretty sweet if you ask me.

2. Another picture of the district.

3&4. At the Japanese steakhouse while the chef was cooking for us. 

Back to the Grind

September 25, 2017

How’s it going everyone?

      This week has been a pretty good one. Sadly we haven’t been able to do much more service after the hurricane. Most everybody has their yards picked up already and everybody we offer help to declines it. I was surprised how fast everything got picked up. Now there are just tons of huge piles of tree branches and stuff in front of everyone’s house waiting to get picked up. There were a lot of members from within our mission that went down to Naples this weekend as well as last to help with recovery efforts there. They got hit pretty bad down there so there is a lot to be done. We only had sacrament meeting yesterday due to most of the members being there to help. We got power back to the church building on Tuesday when we were there having district meeting. So at least we are back up and running!

      This week we have just been hitting the pavement all day everyday. We have knocked so many doors this week, and it has paid off! We only get maybe one or two people a day that will listen to our message. So we are having a bit of a slow start, but we are getting there. We have really been trying to get to know the members. We have been visiting them in homes and sharing messages with them and inviting them to use social media to share the gospel. We will see how it goes! We did get an awesome referral this week from church headquarters. His name is Ricardo and he met missionaries in Orlando at a funeral that he took someone to. They taught him a little bit about the restoration. So we called him and set up a time to come by Sunday before church. He was super excited to see us. He knows the Bible very well and he said that he is excited to read the Book of Mormon. He just wants to take it all in! He said he will read about 3/4 of the Book of Mormon by Tuesday and he will call us haha. He loves to read. So it will be interesting, I’m excited to work with him. 

      General conference is this weekend! I feel like we just had the last one a month ago. I’m looking forward to it though. Conference is the only time that you can sit for hours and watch tv as a missionary. It’s a nice little break from walking around in the heat all day, and we get to hear from our prophet, apostles and other leaders which is a blessing. I hope you all watch it and get something out of it. I encourage you all to come to conference with a question in mind and listen to the speakers. You will find your answer and you will feel like that talk was just for you! It works, I’ve done it. So yeah, that’s about all this week. 

      Shout out to my mom who had a birthday this week! I love you mom! 

  Well I really hope y’all have a great week and enjoy conference. Thank you all for your support and for praying for the people down here affected by the storm. They feel the Love! Love you all. 

Pics- Palm tree with cactus looking plant growing over it

Someone’s boarded up house haha

Sunny and raining, that’s Florida! 

A turtle we found while tracting, he was hungry!

September 18th, 2017 (In the Aftermath)

    This has been one crazy week. Since I didn't get to email a lot last week I'll write more about what we did to prepare and what not. The week before the hurricane hit was pretty crazy too. Our mission President told us to get everything ready just in case we had to evacuate. So I already had my 72 hour kit and everything, but my
companion Elder Kennelly didn't so we went out on Tuesday to get everything he needed. Well it was a pretty hard task because all of the water and canned goods at the stores was gone. The shelves were pretty bare. We ended up finding a store that still had some left though. Then we went to fill up on gas because we needed to have a full tank. Well that was a pretty hard task too because all of the gas stations were either closed because they've run out of gas, or they had a line going all the way down the street. So we had to wait in a
line for about 45 min just to get some gas, but we got it so that was great. Our leaders told us to avoid using the car this week so we could keep gas in the tank. So we were biking around on Friday in Tarpon Springs trying to contact people and going to our lessons and such when a cop stopped us on our bikes and told us we had to leave. We thought it would be for soliciting or something, but she said that the city was under evacuation for the hurricane. So we ended up biking home. Then we got a call from one of our zone leaders telling us that we were going to evacuate Saturday morning, which was the next day. So we made sure we had everything ready and prepared the apartment. They had us move everything away from the windows and off the floor about 2
feet. So we had everything all ready to go. We left Saturday morning to go to the Odessa stake center which is about 15 miles inland from our apartment. As we were driving I noticed everyone's houses. They were all boarded up around the windows and had sand bags in front of the doors and garage. This hurricane is the biggest ever recorded in the Atlantic, so it was good that everybody prepared well. We eventually got to the Stake center and got settled in to our different rooms. They had us keep busy while we were there. We cleaned the whole building, had district and zone meetings, had study time, and we even got to watch movies and eat popcorn. We all had to sleep on the floor, which wasn't the most comfortable, but I'm glad that we were able to
be in a safe building. The worst of the storm hit Sunday night. It was a category 2 when it hit us. So it could have been a lot worse, but there was still a substantial amount of damage. We left on Monday afternoon to go back to our apartments. The Clearwater Elders came with us because their apartment was still out of power. We were blessed and had power in our apartment. We didn't have any damage to our apartment either so that was another blessing. President Cooper told us to serve as much as we can so that's exactly what we did. We
got in our service clothes and went out to serve!
     It has been so much fun to serve people in the aftermath of the hurricane. We have had a few scheduled service opportunities, but we've also just been offering help to everyone we see and it's paid off! We have helped so many people this week. Mainly cleaning up branches that have fallen, raking leaves and moving sand bags. We were able to help cut down a huge tree that fell on our Stake Presidents home. Luckily there wasn't too much damage to his house, just a couple holes. There were a lot of us there so it went by pretty quickly. I'll send pictures of all this as well. As we drove around to give service we saw a lot of damage around the area. There were tons of trees snapped or fallen over, fences blown down and torn apart, billboards blown down, tons of business signs destroyed, cars smashed by trees, power lines torn down, building torn up and so on. It was pretty crazy. Everyone we helped was so grateful. It felt good. I'm glad that we were able to show our faith by what we were doing. Yesterday was the first full day that I wore a white shirt and tie. We have just been serving non-stop all week. I love it! I'm sure we will have many more opportunities in the coming weeks as well. Sadly we weren't able to have church yesterday because the building is still out of power. Many places still  don't have power, but it's slowly getting back to normal. We dropped off the Clearwater Elders yesterday because they finally got power back to their apartment.
     On a lighter note, we are going back this week to see a lady we helped clean up her yard. She was so thankful and wondered why we were so passionate. We told her it was because of what we believed in, she
was curious as to what we believed in so we told her a little bit and set up a time to come back and share more. It was so cool! Even though the storm caused damage, we are finding opportunities to meet and teach people as we serve. It's been great. Well, I hope that you all are doing great. Thank you all so much for sending your prayers to the people down here that were affected by the storm. It's helped a ton. I'm looking forward to continue serving the community in any way we can. I love you all!! Have an amazing week!