1 month down, 17 to go! - June 15, 2015

Hello Family! 

Let me first start off by saying, I have officially made it 1 month!!! Whooo! I had a kinda rough week.. Linsey thought she would be sad that I wasn't at her wedding but man did it really hit me on Wednesday and I got pretty down and homesick.. All I could think about was the wedding and the whole family being together. But I am better now! So let me tell you about all of my crazy adventures for the week.

On Monday i got to eat dinner with the Warner family. They are friends of the Barnes family so it was so nice to eat with them! We joked around and talked for a while it was great! It was nice being with someone who knew people back home! 

So most of my stories this week will involve eating so brace yourselves because that is mostly what I do. Eat and teach! Haha so on Tuesday we had dinner at the Ellis home. They are the sweetest family! They basically had a zoo at their house though! They had dogs, fish, a parrot, turtles, and then they found some bird outside that had a broken wing and they nursed it back to health, oh and they had snakes! Well they brought out this bird and asked if I wanted to hold it... I was terrified but I said yes. Haha remember a few months ago when the birds flew into our back door and I couldn't even open the door to see if they were ok I just watched them through the window.. Yeah i was just as scared this time! Haha but I am proud to say I held the bird and of course I made them get a picture of it so I had proof that I am not a baby anymore. Although I may have screamed just a little when I went to hold it and it started to move.. Haha 

That night we found a new investigator while we were out tracting! His name is Ben and he is a dentist!! It made my day being able to talk gospel and dental to someone! Haha 

Sister Sorensen sang in church on Sunday so we spent a few afternoons practicing her song at the Matthew's home. They are a sweet old couple in our ward. They joined the church about six years ago and are so strong in the gospel. Brother Matthews likes to ask us difficult questions to see if we know the answer, just in case an investigator asks us the same question. Haha he is a funny old man and jokes all the time. He is from Wales so he has an awesome accent as well. I had to laugh when I found out his name is Dave Matthews though. Haha while Sister Sorensen practiced her song at their house I played with their little granddaughter Paisley. We made crowns and played doctor and princesses. It was fun! 

I have not told you about brother Wink yet, he is our ward mission leader and he is amazing! He joined the church about 3 years ago and is so strong and dedicated to the missionary work in the ward! He is so involved in everything we do and is always so concerned about our investigators and all the less actives in the ward. It is so great! 

We had zone conference this week! It was an amazing meeting! I learned so much! We had a big talk on charity which was cool because I had been studying charity in my personal studies this week! We talked about understanding who we are and how by doing so can humble us and bring us to be more charitable! We talked about how we can better love others. I learned that in order to love others we must love ourselves first! This is so true! I have been working on loving myself more as well as continually striving for that love for those around me! There were two quotes I loved, 

"Each one of is is irreplaceable, God did not create us to fail!" This one helped me better realize the importance of just being me! God created me to succeed and I need to just trust him that I will :) the second quote says, " We never fall in love, we must create it!" -Elder Bernar. I just love this! I think I have gone my whole life just expecting to fall in love with someone but never realized that it takes effort and we must do our part in creating the love. Anyways it was an amazing zone conference and I learned a lot that I can apply to myself to come closer to my Heavenly Father and better serve the people here on Florida! 

We were able to teach Paula again this week! She is so amazing! I think I told you last week about our miracle with meeting her. Well this week we taught her the restoration and she was so excited to learn! We pulled up to her house and she was already waiting outside for us. She instantly told us how she had gone to lunch with her boss who was a member and he answered lots of her questions. She also said how he gave her a Book of Mormon and had written his testimony in it! It was amazing! I just wanted to cry i was so excited for her!! We taught the lesson and it was amazing! The spirit was so strong! I invited her to baptism at the end of the lesson and she said yes! She is going to read the Book of Mormon more and then we can set a date! She came to church yesterday and loved it!! She is so amazing and I can't wait to keep teaching her and seeing how the gospel is changing her life! 

So last night we decided to go visit this inactive sister in our ward. She goes by Sister Roberta, she is like 90 and the craziest old lady ever! I love her! She reminded me so much of Grandma Webb! Haha so we get to her house and she doesn't realize we are new sister missionaries. So she asks us what we have been up to so we tell her. We then ask her how she has been. She starts to tell us how her dog bubbles died yesterday.. She then is like "remember the one dog I had that was real cute and fluffy?" Haha we didn't have the heart to say no so we were like yeah we do! Haha she then starts to tell us how the dog had stomach cancer and died and then she starts show us this photo album full of pictures of the dog.. Haha and then to make things funnier she tells us how the dog is now in the process of being cremated! At this point it was taking all I had not to just burst out laughing! I was almost crying cause I was trying not to laugh.. Haha after that she was like "well, enough about me, what's new with you?" She asked us this question about 10 times and we just kept telling her the same answer. Haha she then got off on this tangent about how we shouldn't throw anything away because everything can be recycled and used for something. She then made us follow her to her covered patio where she had boxes full of light bulbs she was cleaning and painting and turning into decorations and Christmas ornaments.. Haha after that she showed us her birds and she kissed them and made me pet them and then asked if I wanted to kiss it.. Haha I kindly said no.. Haha then she took us into her bedroom and she starts showing us baby blankets she made. And pot holders she made out of scrap material and then she made these weird angel pins out of old ribbon.. And then.. She makes me pull this box out from under her bed and in it was toilet paper holders that she had made to look like creepy old lady mice.. Haha instantly she asked us if we still have ours at home... And instantly I am reminded of the first day I got to my apartment and went to the bathroom and there was this creepy old lady mouse toilet paper holder on the toilet and I had thrown it out to good will..cause it creeped me out! Haha I instantly felt bad and lied to her and said yes we had it and we loved it! She then pulls out this long stick of hair scrunchies she has made and asked if I wanted some. I said sure and took one.. That was apparently not good enough because she gave me two more! Haha and the whole time she just kept explaining that we shouldn't throw anything away because look at what we can make! Haha the whole time I was trying not to laugh! It really reminded me of grandma! Haha I wanted so badly to share with her all about grandma and how I had received many gifts from recycled things! Haha she is a cute old lady though and I can't wait to go back to see her dogs ashes! 

So some more funny stories for the week. I learned to never eat the lunch meat you find in the fridge... I was so hungry and we didn't have much food but I had some bread and I found some lunch meat ham in the fridge but I wasn't sure how long it had been in there because it was in there when we moved it. Well I did the sniff check and it smelled ok and it looked ok so I started eating it on my sandwich and it tasted a little funny but I ate it anyways. Bad idea!!! I got so sick from that!!! I thought I was going to die!! Nothing is worse then being outside in the heat, your stomach is churning and then you start to get what I like to call the poop sweats! Hahaha I had to hold it for an entire hour until we were able to get home from our lesson we were having outside in the 100 degree heat! I thought I was going to die! So lesson learned, never eat old things you find around your house! Haha 

Another story, so I had been using this hand soap in my bathroom for about a week and could not figure out why it was not lathering up every time I washed my hand.. Well it took about a week and one day I was reading the bottle as I washed my hands and realized it said hand lotion instead of soap.. Hahaha yes, I am truly starting to get blonder and blonder out here! And my hair is really starting to show it. It is getting blonder and blonder every day! Well I hope those stories made ya'll laugh! 

I am also starting to pick up on all of the southern talk. I now say: ya'll, and wooder instead of water. Haha 

So we have still been trying to teach Aleidon. It has been quite the struggle.. The language barrier is so tough and he doesn't like us to use google translate. So I have been studying up on my Albanian words lately. We went over this week and taught him and his family English! It went pretty good! Hopefully he will let us teach him again real soon! 

Heidi is still on track for baptism on the 28! So cross your fingers that she will still be ready! 

It is still super hot here and only getting hotter! This week it hit 110 degrees and everyone said that it will only get worse! I've been trying to jog in the mornings to wake up and it is just miserable. Not to mention I only have sweats to exercise in.. Haha 

Well that is all I have to say about this week.

I'm so glad to hear Linsey's wedding turned out amazing! I am still sad I missed it but the picture really helped! :) 

Have a wonderful week! I love you all and miss you all like crazy!! 

Love Sister Webb 

(Note from Carolyn:  Olivia sent pictures and descriptions this week but the pictures didn't come through.  Darn!  I sent a note to her so I'm sure she will send them next week.)