I Love Life

Well family and friends! How the heck are you? Shoot me a letter and let me know how things are going at home(4601 66th St. W. Bradenton FL 34210), sometimes I wonder :) I miss you all but I know that you are being taken care of as I'm out here serving our brothers and sisters in the Florida Tampa Mission. This week was Amazing!! for many reasons! I'm going to try to go in chronological order to not miss anything.. Monday we switched back to bike week :) love it! (sarcasm) it's scortching hot in this florida sun. I keep hearing, it'll cool down in August, just make it to august, now it's september, and on saturday I was informed that the last year it didn't cool down, not even at Christmas. so I'm in for a treat. Something about this Humidity makes my St. George heat desirable right about now! Well and maybe the fact that it's home and so i just love it heat and all. Tuesday I got to go on another exchange with my Best Missionary Friend out here, Hermana Birch. We're sisters to the core, I love her so much! So needless to say, we were quite excited for this little endevour! once we got in the car and drove off, we just let it out. Sleepovers don't happen in the mission, but exchanges are pretty close! We drove up to Sarasota, about 30 mins away from Bradenton and got right to work. We've been looking forward to the chance to teach together since we left the MTC, funny thing is our first lesson was a little awkward. Only because we've never taught together before. Despite the awkward it went really well, the sweet lady really accepted the book of mormon and wanted us to come back. she also fed us delicious homemade-of course-tamales! YUM. After that the day just got better, we had some spare time which calls for tracting. we went knocking in this Apartment complex and right away met this Hispanic Family, "we're catholic" we asked if we could pray with them, or share our message of the savior. They let us in. In hopes to make this lesson less awkward I told myself I was going to do my part, not make hermana Birch do all of the talking, I also had the impression that we were just going to do a harvest prayer and set up a return apt to teach them the restoration. As we began talking I noticed hermana Birch already covered the first two points of lesson one. Okay I thought, it's my turn, I started talking about the next point, how Jesus Christ established the church when he was on the earth. "si hay un Dios, y El es la mismo ayer, hoy, y para siempre, cree que el puedes llamar un profet otra vez en la tiera?" they shook their head yes. Of course he could and has!!! I thought. the conversations was perfect, we talked about many churches as hermana Birch explained the background on Joseph Smith, they were amazed, it sounds like today, they said. It lead perfectly in to Josephs Smiths first vision. As I recited it the spirit came in that home so strong. this mother and daughter just stared in amazement, shaking their heads. They knew it was true, we knew they knew it was true because we could all feel it. It wasn't hard to identify the feelings of the spirit after that. Hermana Birch bore simple powerful testimony. then like has happened before, in that amazing spiritual moment, the door opens, kids are noisy and we have to wrap things up. nonetheless it was one of my very favorite moments on the mission. We walk out side and hermana birch says "i'm so happy you just went right in to the first lesson, I had no Idea where I was going with that" i said "are you kidding me, you totally already covered two points, i felt bad, I thought that was my hint to cover the next point." I thought I was following her, she thought she was following me, but we were both following the spirit. I love exchanges and Learning from other missionaries. I love Participating in this great work. I love The spirit and when I know that the lord is able to work through me as I am worthy. Remember Ariesbeth and Her cousin and cousins mother in law Magali and Isable. They are incredible!! we had a family night with them on wednesday at Ariesbeth(the member) house. it was on faith and we were teaching. I was a little nervouse at first. I dont know why but after we shared a few scriptures and read a quote we asked the family to share their experiences of faith, what faith meant to them. It brought in a beautiful spirit and we finished up with a "trust fall" activity for the kids, you can't see me, but you have faith that i'm behind you and that i'll catch you, right? It was great. Thursday English Class!! Tres estudiantes!! wooohoooooo! just as we were about to cancel the class because we weren't having success, it picked up!! The rewards always come after the trial of your faith. They were three men who were really there to learn. They were patient with us :) we did some role palys (like we do in District Meeting) to practice the english that we had taught them. It was so funnnn! and they'll be back to class next week. the best thing is that on their way out of the building, hermana partida, the 2nd counselor walked them to the door and they were amazed by the photos we have of chirst! one of them snapped a photo with his cell phone. :) -potential investigators! I think YES!! after a long day of tracting Friday and saturday morning GUESS WHAT WE DID! We went to a baseball game. Mormon night Tampa Bay Ray's. it was Crazy!! It felt so weird to be at the game as a missionary, not gonna lie, way better than knocking doors though. Sadly I have no idea the score of the game, I was occupied by my fellow servants of the lord and we left early to make sure we were in on time :) our curfew was 11 on Saturday. CRAZY!!!!! I love you all, I pray for you daily. Here's a quote I heard this week that really made an impact on me. "the more your understanding of the atonement increases, the more your desire to share the gospel will increase. I'm studying the atonement this week. Have a fantastic week. -Sister Hafen