What a week of excitement!!! - June 27, 2015

Family!

What a week... I hope all is going well at home. I am kinda jealous that I won't be able to go camping this week with ya'll... Crazy right? Me sad that I can't go camping.. Haha. Well let me tell you all about my week. 

So, to start let me begin by telling ya'll about my wonderful biking adventures! Haha last week I had mentioned that I needed to get my bike fixed. Well we called Brother Wink who is the ward mission leader and asked him where a bike shop would be so that we could take my bike in. We explained to him that there was something wrong with my brakes but I was not sure. He told us not to worry he would come by after work on Monday and fix it for me. He seriously is the nicest guy you will ever meet. Well he gets to our apartment on Monday and i show him my bike and he looks at it and says, "you didn't tell me that the entire brake had broken off the handlebar... I don't think I can fix this.." Haha oops! I had no clue what was wrong with it! Haha so he tightened up the back brake and I have been riding with only back brake all week.. What an adventure that has been trying to stop in the pouring rain! Haha I am still really shaky when I ride my bike so I almost run into fences all the time or fall in the ditches.. Haha it basically rained all three days that we had our bikes and not only did it rain but it poured rain!! It was a huge adventure trying to ride in it! Not to mention in a skirt or dress.. Thank goodness for biker shorts! Although I may need some better skirts to bike in.. They were a little to straight and made it quite difficult to get on and off of my bike. We just looked awful all the time because we are always dripping wet! Haha my butt has never been so sore and I've never been so hot and tired in my life! One of the members told me he was going to buy me a little hand fan so I could cool off! Haha   Ok enough about my biking adventures.. I hate biking but it's getting better everyday and we are seeing so many miracles from not having a car. 

So now on to the bugs... Haha lets just say, I hate bugs!!! This week we have caught about 3 cockroaches in our apartment, the first one we just stuck a glass vase over the top of it because I didn't know how to kill it and then the second one we sprayed with all purpose cleaner and the third one was on our blinds and it disappeared and is just wandering in our apartment some where!!! So the one that was sitting under the vase all week was my responsibility to kill... I was hoping it would just die over the week.  I even smashed one of its legs off hoping that would help.. Nope, it was still very alive this morning when I checked. So I got my all purpose cleaner out that had bleach in it and I lifted up the vase and started screaming and spraying cleaner like a mad women! Haha Sister Sorensen recorded the whole thing so I will send you video of that! Haha  

My next bug story, ok so we were cleaning out a closet on our covered porch and we saw this giant bug under something... We were to scared to do anything else so when Brother Wink came by on Monday to fix my bike we begged him to go and kill the bug for us or at least look to see if it was a bug! He went in and he came back out seconds later and said "if that's a bug I am scared to kill it because that thing is huge and is going to get stuff everywhere!" Haha he made us go get his phone so he could get a picture of how big it was before he killed it. Well he came out a few minutes later laughing and asked if we wanted to see it.. He pulled out a giant plastic ant from his pocket! Haha yes, the bug we were so scared of was a plastic ant! Hahaha. I also took a picture of that so ya'll could see it! 

So on Tuesday we started our car share with other sisters. And on Tuesday they had the car and there was something wrong with it so they had to take it to the shop so to make a long story short they left their apartment keys on the key ring at the car shop so they got locked out of their apartment. We got to have s giant sleep over at our apartment that night! It was fun! We blew up our extra air mattresses. It was so great! 

We are still teaching Heidi and had a lesson with her on Tuesday! It went great! We talked about the Sabbath day and keeping it holy. We invited her to church this week and she committed to come with us! I feel so bad though, yesterday was church and we didn't see her there and when we got home later that afternoon she text us and said that she was late to church and could only stay for the first meeting and she hoped she made it to the right church cause she got lost... Haha so I hope she made it to the right church as well! She still has her baptism date set for July 12 so keep praying that she will be ready in time! We are so excited for her! 

Erica is our other investigator with a baptismal date. It was set for the 5th of July but she has not been to church yet so we are going to have to push it back a little bit..

We had sad news yesterday when we got a text from our favorite investigator Paula and she dropped us... :( she said that she just had some different views on things and didn't know if this church was for her. We invited her to come to lunch with us this week so we can talk everything out. We think it had a lot to do with the Supreme Court passing gay marriage and the churches views on that.. But we will see.

We taught our other investigator Bill Bell this week. We read with him in the Book of Mormon and started talking about he gospel of Jesus Christ. He said that he wanted to come to our church some time and check it out! It was amazing!!  We are never to pushy with Bill because he tells us every time that he only wants to learn and will never get baptized but each lesson he changes more and more and is willing to do more and more! It has been great! 

We are still teaching Aleidon and his family. My Albanian is still coming along and they are starting to be more accepting to our visits and lessons! Yay!!! 

So on Wednesday night we had dinner at the Matzke's home because we eat their every Wednesday night. Before we went to dinner we were able to do our golden hour of tracting in their neighborhood and we have been praying for new investigators. Well we met a guy named Travis and we were able to share the restoration with him and he expressed how him and his wife have been looking for a church to attend with their children that has a good youth program and is not all about the money.. Sadly we told him we knew of no church like that.. I'm just kidding! We were so excited to tell him all about our church and he was so excited! He invited us back for another lesson and is planning to come to church some time! :) 

We had a great lesson with Brother Thompson in our ward. He is one of the less actives we have been working with. We read in Alma chapter 36 with him and talked about how we all need to have a true conversion to the gospel whether we are converts to the church or not!  We also talked about the atonement and how wonderful it is and how it is such a blessing in our lives. We talked about guardian angels and this was my favorite part! As we were talking I just keep thinking of all of the angels I have in my life helping me each and everyday and I know that Grandpa Evensen, Grandma Webb and Angie are all my guardian angels looking out for me and helping me out on the very tough days! It was such a great lesson! Oh and I learned that his brother is about the same age as dad and hey served in the same mission! Dad do you happen to remember an elder named Troy Thompson!? :) 

We had another miracle happen this week when we went to drop another one of our investigators.. The Lord really know what he is doing when he inspires you to go and visit someone. So we have this investigator named LeAnne and we met her the first few days I was here and helped her with some service by helping her make a bunch of shirts. Well anyways we had not been able to contact her or meet with her since. Well on Wednesday night we got this impression that we needed to go and to visit her and if she didn't seem interested we planned to just drop her. Well we knocked and a man answered the door and invited us in. He was so nice. It was her boyfriend. He offered us dinner and we explained we just ate. He gave us some water and then he gave us each this giant bowl of watermelon and then he made us toast with bananas on it and then he gave us crackers and then he gave us orange juice! Haha he told us he just wanted to make sure we were getting fed! I have never been so full in my life! We seriously had just come from dinner at the Matzke home like 10 minutes earlier. Anyways we had the best lesson with them and we talked about how we were on bikes so then Eric went to the back room and came back with these metal water bottles for us! They are seriously the sweetest people ever! 

Ok my final story about someone we taught this week. So there is this man in our apartment complex and we saw him like 2 weeks ago out walking his dog and parrot.. Yes, you heard me right... He walks his parrot! Anyways I made Sister Sorensen pull the car over cause I wanted to talk to this crazy looking man! So we stop, pull the car over and we start chasing the man down the side walk.. Now who looked crazy? Haha well we had a little lesson with him and he invited us to come back and teach him more. Well we forgot to get the apartment number.. Haha so we know what building it was or at least we thought we did so last week we started knocking random doors looking for him.. We had no success. Well this week we were coming home from district meeting and we saw him.. We both jumped out of the car and chased him down again. We were able to teach him another lesson and this time he offered to let us hold his parrot! It was so cool! He really is a true hill billy. He is missing half of his teeth and he walks his parrot and dog for fun.. Haha anyways, I held a parrot this week! It was really exciting! And we were able to get his apartment number this time so we can go back and teach him! 

We had trade offs this week. It was great! I got to go to Hendricks and spend the night with one of the sister training leaders! It was such a great experience! The people there are so different from the people here in Mandarin but I loved it! We saw some miracles and we were able to teach lots of lessons! It was great! 

Yesterday I had the opportunity to go up to St. Vincent's hospital where one of our sisters in the ward is. She is really sick and has been in the ICU. She had an oxygen mask so we were not able to really talk to her so we decided to sing her songs.. We decided to sing "There is Sunshine in My Soul Today". She instantly started crying and then wrote on a paper explaining that when she has been in so much pain though all of this that was the song she would sing in her head to help her get though it and we just sang it to her out of the blue! It was such a neat experience to see how we touched her life and made her day! 

On Saturday we got to go to a training meeting and I was able to see Sister Rigby! She was my MTC companion, if you can't remember. It was so great to see how she is doing! And then we went to a fireside on Sunday night and she was there as well! It was great! I love her so much! I hope we will be in the same area sometime soon! Or if we get lucky we will get to be companions again!!  

Ok one last thing! I have officially been approved to drive a mission vehicle!!! Yay!! Watch out Florida because I am going to be driving real soon!!!! Haha 

Well I think that is all of my fun adventures for the week! I am so glad to hear that everything is going well at home! I love you all and keep each and everyone of you in my prayers! I hope that my prayers are being answered and you guys are seeing many blessings in your lives! 

I am so grateful for this gospel and what happiness it brings to my life! I am really starting to love my mission more and more! I know that the church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints is the true church here upon the earth today. I know that Joseph Smith was a prophet called by Heavenly Father to restore it back to the earth. I know that the priesthood was restored back to the earth and what a blessing it has been in my life. I never realized how great it was to be surrounded by worthy men who hold the priesthood until now! It has been so great every time I have needed a blessing to know I am surrounded by men who can give me one. I know that Thomas S. Monson is the prophet on the earth day and that he truly does lead and guide us. And if we listen to his counsel we will come so much closer to our Heavenly Father and his son Jesus Christ! I have a testimony of the atonement and what a blessing it is in my life. I am so grateful for my brother Jesus Christ who so willingly took upon himself the sins of the world and that he suffered bled and died so that I will be able to repent every time I make a mistake and that there is a way that I can return to live with my Heavenly Father again! I am so grateful for the knowledge to know that families are forever and that I will be able to be with mine for eternity! I have a strong testimony of the Book of Mormon and what a blessing it is in our lives if we will just take the time to read it! I never read the Book of Mormon much before my mission, in fact, most of you know, that I had no clue the stories that were even in it. As I have been reading every day on my mission I am learning so much and gaining such a strong testimony of it! I truly know that when nothing else will be able to change people's hearts the Book of Mormon will! I love this gospel and I am so grateful for my chance to serve my Heavenly Father for the next 17 months! I am growing so much and I love just watching the gospel change people's lives! I challenge all of you to grow a little closer to your Heavenly Father this week. Whether it be reading the scriptures, serving someone, going to church and learning something new, or even just kneeling down and having a heartfelt prayer and conversation with him. I know that if you will do this you will feel of the love that he has for you and you will have that desire and hunger for more! I leave these things with you in the name of Jesus Christ, Amen. 

I hope ya'll have a wonderful week! I love ya'll so very much and miss you guys like crazy! I forgot to mention I got the package this week and I loved it so so so so much!! I ate all of the Oreos within the first like 24 hours.. Haha I wasn't sure if I could drink 40 dollars worth of milk, Mom.. So I bought some hair dye instead! Haha I already wore one of the scarves and sweat to death in it. Haha I loved the exercise shorts they work perfect and keep me so much cooler! There are a few more things I am requesting for the next package.. Anything with chocolate in it.. I have been craving chocolate all week and I am too poor to buy any.. Haha I also want Power of Everyday Missionaries. It is a book you can get a Deseret Book! Please send it to me! Also if you ever want to send the flavor packets for water bottles.. they are nice so I don't have to taste the nasty Florida water.. Haha also thanks for the letter Mom. Both the stories you shared really helped me! I love the pioneer story you shared it is one of my favorites and it just reminded me that I can do this. And that I can do tough things no matter how hard things get I know if sweet little Bodile Mortenson could survive crossing the plains and dying while trying to serve everyone than I can totally survive a simple mission no matter how toughI think it is. 

Anyways, I love you all. Transfers are next week so my p-day will be on Tuesday. So when I don't email Monday don't be alarmed! 

Love,

Sister Webb :)