Florida (pronounced "Flarida" by the natives) is full of fun surprises. This week it was rain! On Tuesday,
we had zone conference about 20 minutes away in Niceville and we had
the windshield wiper on full speed as cats and dogs were pouring from
the sky. What an adventure to drive in! There have been a lot of funny
mini storms this week. The thunder is usually super loud and sometimes I
feel it even when I'm in the apartment. But conveniently it hasn't
rained while we've been biking yet! One day this week, we were standing
on someone's porch to see if they were home, and it started pouring like
crazy, and in the four seconds it took to get to the car, we were
almost soaking wet. :) And then you leave the neighborhood and it's not
raining anymore! Or give it a few hours, and the sky is bright blue with
huge white clouds. Oh man, have I mentioned the clouds in Florida?
There are the biggest, whitest, most beautiful clouds here that I've
ever seen. They remind me of God's presence and power in my life every
day.
Jim and Vicky are doing awesome! At our
first lesson this week, we taught the Word of Wisdom. After I said the
things that God has commanded us to not use or put in our bodies, Jim
said, "Oh thank goodness, I thought you were going to say potato chips!"
:) He said he's been keeping the Word of Wisdom without knowing it. He
said that he used to drink coffee every day, but last year, he just
decided to stop drinking it, for no particular reason. He just decided
to stop. And years ago, he quit smoking. Yay Jim! We also had a heart to
heart with Jim about praying vocally. We got to the core of what was
keeping him from praying out loud, and he said he still felt
uncomfortable, but he knew he needed to. We talked about how mother
birds push their babies out of the nest so they can learn how to fly,
and that once he just jumped outta that nest, he could start flying. We
talked about how Satan doesn't want us to do things that will bring us
closer to God, but that when we do those things anyway, like praying out
loud, we're punching Satan in the face. :) Sister Stephens loves to say
that. He liked that, so he promised he would work on it and that he
would say the opening prayer of our next lesson.
Well
that next lesson came around and he said "Sorry, I'm still not
comfortable praying out loud." But after we talked for a few minutes, he
said okay, that he would say the opening prayer. It was such an awesome
prayer! He said it felt good to finally say it. He and Vicky have so
much faith. I love them!
Other awesome happenings from this week:
There's
a guy from our ward who was visiting Utah and asked if we wanted him to
bring back anything for us. I asked if he would bring us back a Utah
Truffle bar and that we would pay him back. He ended up bring us eight
truffle bars and refused to let us pay him back. It was such a good
little piece of Utah.
One day Sister Stephens
and I were biking back to the apartment and we passed a guy walking the
other direction on the sidewalk, but only said hi instead of stopping to
talk to him like we should. Well, missionaries are to talk to everyone,
and we knew we had to talk to him. So we turned around and introduced
ourselves to him. His name is Isaac and he has five kids and is
interested in coming closer to God. He was happy to set up a time that
we could come over and teach them! We're teaching them tomorrow and I'm so excited!
We
taught Melissa and Nicola again and taught them about the Restoration.
They believe that what they're learning is true, and accepted the
invitation to be baptized on August 27th! They're awesome! And Nicola hasn't said as many weird things lately, and she's trying to quit smoking!
Roderick and Akeria's baptism is this Saturday!!!!
:) I'm so excited for them! Also this week, we're doing two day
exchanges with the sisters in Crestview, so I get to be with Sis. Cook
(she's one of the sister training leaders) for Tuesday and Wednesday, which should be fun.
Talk to y'all next week!
No comments:
Post a Comment