Miracles, zone conference, and hurricane Ian

 

Large Plates 

Exchanges, service, zone conference, and hurricane preparation 

It's been a great week! Miracles are happening here in Horizon West! And yes, I'm still very busy. It has also been a crazy week haha.

We started the crazy week off by exchanging with the Portuguese Sisters serving in the Millenia area. I got to spend the day with Sister Hagedorn and man! She is so awesome! She has only been in the mission for 2 weeks and I loved being able to feel her energy and excitement. That's what I miss most about training. Having a companion who has been out for a while is super nice, but greenie fire is hard to replicate. 

We did a service project at 4roots, an organization here in Orlando that focuses on giving people healthy produce instead of your standard non-perishables. The lady running the project was so sweet and even sent us home with some produce of our own! I'll add a picture of what we made using her recipe–it doesn't look good but it tasted good!

Then, me and Sister Hagedorn spent the day in Ocoee, one of my favorite places in the mission. I don't know why that is, but I just think it's a fun place to be in! A lot of it is pretty run down, but it isn't too sketchy. It definitely has some unique vibes though. See pictures!

While in Ocoee, we got to have a chat with Carolina! She's someone my friend Davis baptized back when he was in this mission years ago. It was really great to get to know her, and it was cool to finally meet someone who had that mutual friendship! She's a sweetheart and I hope to visit her more often.

We also had a few videocall lessons that day, each of which went really well! We got to do one in a park and get some fresh air and some vitamin D, and the other one was with Hernan! He finished first Nephi!!! Everyone please pray for him so that he can keep progressing in the gospel and have a desire to be baptized!

That was most of what happened on my exchange with Sister Hagedorn, besides the super sketchy gas station bathroom. I'll add a picture of that too. But yeah, that was day 1 of a crazy week!

Day 2 was just as busy! We started off the day with a Zone Conference!! I love Zone Conference so much. I always walk away from it feeling so much more excited about missionary work. Plus, I get to see all of my best friends out here in the FOM. It's crazy how close you get to people who were once total strangers. At Zone Conference, they told us that some general authorities will be visiting our mission in a few weeks! They invited us to study the Abrahamic Covenant, the Baptismal covenant, the marriage covenant, and the oath and covenant of the priesthood. So, if any of you have any good resources I should study, please let me know!! 

After Zone conference, we started another exchange! I went with Hermana Featherston in the Valencia area. She is about to go home! It was kind of fun to have a back to back exchange with someone so new to the mission & then with someone who is literally about to go home. The Valencia area is awesome! There's a chance I'll serve there one day! 

We also had a really great lesson with Mayra and her family! It was mostly just with her at the beginning because her daughter Sofia was sleeping and her husband was getting ready for work, but we did get to chat with all of them before we left! We also might start teaching some of their extended family this week. They're really cool and love what we teach them. They also have friends that are members in another ward! Please pray that they can have Sundays off soon so they can come to church with us!

Last but not least, Florida is in a State of Emergency!! Kind of crazy, kind of exciting! Hurricane Ian is headed right for us. Where I'm living, we shouldn't be impacted too much, but much of the coast will be heavily affected. About 50 missionaries from the coast are evacuating inward, so we're getting roommates today, and some of us will be sleeping on the floor for the next few nights until the storm goes away. But don't stress about it! We're super safe here and everything is going to be fine. We aren't too worried about it. We've prepared everything we need to and we'll make the most of our situation. We might have some big service projects coming up here soon! And we'll probably have some extra study/exercise time if/when our power goes out. Honestly I'm pretty excited! Not that hurricanes are a good thing, but it's cool to be a part of one, because you don't see a lot of that in Utah haha. I'll tell you all about it next week! 

Small Plates 

The Abrahamic Covenant and falling in love with the Old Testament 

This week I've been studying a lot about the Abrahamic Covenant. There is definitely a lot to learn about it, and there will always be more to learn. But it's been really cool to just dive right in and finally understand some things I have never understood. I've always loved the idea of loving the Old Testament. But I'll be honest, I hadn't fallen in love with it yet. That was the book that got skipped when I was in Seminary, because they introduced the Come, Follow Me program. I also haven't been very good at studying the Old Testament with Come, Follow Me this year because (here comes another excuse, I know) I have about a million other things I have to study for and only an hour to study. 

So, what I'm getting at here is that I need to repent and make time to study the Old Testament. I'm in the process ;)

This week, I've spent a lot of time in the 5 books of Moses and in Joshua. And wow. There is so much to love! Maybe I'm just late to discovering this, but the Old Testament is awesome! I won't go into the details of what I've been studying for the sake of my time and yours--but there is a lot to discover. 

And more intriguing than what I'm discovering is how I'm feeling while I study. As I study about the scattering and gathering of Israel, I start to understand why our Prophet talks so much about it. Although I don't understand it entirely, I can feel that it is important. 

I can feel that I want to–that I need to–know more. And that I need to do more. 

Our prophet has said, "the Lord is hastening His work to gather Israel. That gathering is the most important thing taking place on earth today. Nothing else compares in magnitude, nothing else compares in importance, nothing else compares in majesty. And if you choose to, if you want to, you can be a big part of it. You can be a big part of something big, something grand, something majestic!"

I know this to be true. I know that we are all on this earth, at this time, for a reason. It's up to us to use our agency and choose to be a part of this. I can promise by experience and by faith that the joy that comes through doing His work and His will– well, there's just nothing like it.

Burnt hot dogs, fantastic lasagna, Zone Conference and finding lost members!

 Large Plates

Burnt hot dogs, fantastic lasagna, Zone Conference, and finding lost members!

Wahoo another great week! For Pday last week we went to Disney Springs which is basically just a shopping place. I'm super cheap so I didn't buy anything but it was a good time! And it was such a beautiful day so I got to be in the sun and walk around a bunch which I loved. Afterwards we went to have a BBQ and the Elders totally burnt the hot dogs and we didn't have any condiments but that's okay! We all had fun haha.

On Tuesday we had Zone Conference!! Love it! I got to see some of my very favorite missionaries who I have missed so much since transfers! Also the Ashcrafts are seriously the most amazing people on this planet so it's always good to see them and learn from them. 

We had a bunch of member meals this week which is fun because we get yummy food and we get to know the members better! I seriously love the members of this ward so much. They're all just so nice! And they're great cooks too. I had some of the best tacos, arepas, and lasagna of my entire life this week. Especially the lasagna holy cow.

Also we had another lesson with Liduvi! She's the one from that one time we went knocking and she was the first door and she let us right in. We video called with a member while we were in the lesson and the two of them got along so well and were able to share their testimonies with each other and it was super awesome! I'm very excited for Liduvi.

We also had two kids in the ward get baptized this week! MJ and Nicky! They're both super sweet boys and come from awesome families. MJ is bishop's kid so we know him pretty well (and we have definitely borrowed his nerf guns for pday) so it was awesome to go and support him!

We've done quite a bit of knocking this week, which is fun! I came up with a fun way to track what we're doing and make it all more efficient so I'm pretty excited about that!  Also we had a miracle knocking this week! See small plates;)

Another mini miracle we had this week was with a member. We were visiting a sister in the ward to see if she still lives there because the ward records are super out of date. We got there and it ended up not being who we were looking for but their mom/neighbor is also a member and has been having a hard time lately cause her daughter passed away at the beginning of this year. We stopped by the moms house and she just completely opened up to us and wants to come back to church! 

Small Plates 

The meaning of the word Miracle

This week we went knocking at the same place we found Liduvi. She was such a miracle and every time we go to that apartment complex I can't help but think of how cool that experience was. And of course, some part of me hopes that the first door we knock on will be answered by someone who is as ready to hear the message as she was. 

But this day, we knocked for almost two hours and pretty much got rejected the whole time. It was hot and I was getting tired and my feet were hurting from standing on the concrete for so long. We knocked a few doors on the second floor of our second building, and we were about to walk to the next door to try our luck there. 

Before we got there, the door opened and a young woman walked out. Her arms were full as she carried a huge box of what appeared to be clothes. We asked her and the man standing in the door if we could help them. They both said no.

She started walking towards the stairs with the box that was clearly too heavy for her to carry. And he closed the door behind her. As she turned away from us, we noticed the tears on her face. Today was clearly not a good day for her. We didn't want to bother her by asking again, so we hesitated to follow her. She walked further away from us but we decided to go over to her one more time. I said "can I just help you carry that down the stairs, and then give you a hug?" She gratefully accepted my offer.

I helped her carry it down the stairs, and it wasn't easy. That box was super heavy, full of what must have been all the clothes she had at what used to be her apartment. There's no way she could have carried it on her own. 

We each gave her a hug by her car and just took a minute to tell her we know her Heavenly Father is so aware of her and He has a plan for her. And that everything was going to be okay. 

We didn't get her contact information. We didn't even get her name. And she doesn't know ours. But we helped carry her burden. In this case, both literally and spiritually. I helped her carry a box she would have gotten hurt trying to carry alone. And more importantly, we took some of the emotional weight off of her shoulders and promised her she would be okay. 

Sometimes miracles look like they did with Liduvi. The spirit tells you exactly where to go and what to say and He leads you to a person who has been perfectly prepared to hear the message of this gospel. 

Other times, the miracle looks like it did for us that day. We stayed knocking for a long time in the heat, with little success. I don't know about Hermana Morris, but I was certainly ready to call it quits. But the Spirit kept us there long enough so that we could be there for her. And we knocked at just the right pace, or rather, the doors were shut in our face fast enough that we made it to her door at just the right time. 

And for what? So that this sweet girl could know that her Heavenly Father loves her, in a moment where the one person in her life who's love mattered most to her didn't love her back. 

Heavenly Father really does love us so much. 

And He's so poetic too! I don't know if it's just me, but it seems like he always strengthens my testimony and my gratitude through contrast. He made me grateful for my sight by taking it away for a time (long story). He's made me appreciate joy because of the times in my life where I was most sad.

And he's taught me the meaning of the word Miracle by showing me two totally different kinds of miracles in almost the exact same place. 

Some miracles feel like you're living in a movie and it seems there's just no way they're real. They're almost too good to be true. And other miracles come with a lot of hard work. And sometimes you don't recognize them until you sit down to write your weekly email for your mom to read, and it hits you. 

God gives us miracles in every moment of every day. Big and small. But every single one is a miracle.