Week full of miracles! - Aug. 10, 2015

Dearest family,

First off sorry this letter is so freakin long... I won't judge you if you get bored and skim through it but I am telling you you will miss out on lots of good stuff if you do! 

I am so glad to hear that ya'll had a good week. My week was good as well. It was full of many miracles! This week one of my goals that I am working on is to focus less on the numbers and more on miracles. And so far it has been great! 

I guess I will just give you the run down on my week. So on last Monday I told you I was able to go to the alligator farm! It was so much fun! The only disappointment was I wanted to hold a baby alligator and they didn't have any you could hold.. What kind of place is this? Haha but before I go home I will hold a baby alligator!! So after we finished up our p-day we went over to Sister Johnson's house and helped her with some service of cleaning her house. She has lived in her house for about six years now and never unpacked or set anything up.. We started in her bedroom with the closet.. It's amazing the treasures you will find in people's houses.. I basically played dress up all night long! Haha every crazy thing I found I would put on. Haha at one point I was wearing this green sweater and a cow boy hat and let me tell you, I looked like a rodeo royalty! Haha 

On Tuesday I had the lovely experience of driving to Georgia for the day! We had zone conference but they combined us with a zone in Georgia. The conference started at 8 am so we had to leave super early. To top it all off they were doing car inspections as well at the conference so we woke up at 4:30 to vacuum our car out and finish cleaning it.. Then we left by 6:00 for Georgia! I have slowly realized on my mission that I am not a morning person. I use to think I was until I met Sister Sorensen. She gets up all cheery every morning and will hum or whistle or sing and always wants to talk first thing in the morning, Well, I am the exact opposite. You should never talk to me unless I've been awake for at least an hour or I might eat your face off.. Haha most mornings I just try to focus on keeping my eyes open while exercising because if I don't I end up just falling asleep while trying to do my crunches. Haha anyways, back to my Georgia story.. I hope I get to serve in Georgia it is so different then Florida and so so so pretty! We had such a wonderful zone conference. President and Sister  Craig talked to us as well as the AP's. Most of our conference came from the book "Power of Everyday Missionaries" I have almost finished the book and it seriously is so good! I am so excited to get home and to be the cutest little member missionary and share the gospel with everyone! If ya'll haven't read it I would challenge you to read it and to take the teachings and apply them to you lives. President Craig talked to us about how sharing the gospel can be so simple and easy. He used some of the chapters in the book to explain. One chapter is all about just using Mormon words in your everyday conversations giving non-members a reason to ask you about them! We had to do lots of role plays using all the things we learned and it was actually one of my favorite role plays. I usually hate them! Sister Craig talked to us about obedience. It was so great! I love learning about obedience and studying it! I strive each and every day to be exactly obedient and let me tell you.. It's easier said then done! Sister Craig related obedience to our agency and it is so true. She shared many scripture story's of people showing obedience to the Lord. She talked about blessings we are able to receive as we are obedient. As I strive to be obedient on my mission I truly do see so many blessings! I want to be able to say at the end of my mission I did what I was suppose to do. Elder Holland said, this was the ground rule that Christ was laying down to the Nephites, and said he is guessing that is what he will say at the second coming. Obedience is the key! As we strive to follow Christ's example he set for us and be obedient to the commandments repenting when we need to; I know when the second coming comes we will be able to say, "I did what I was suppose to do." The pathway to perfection starts with the simple phrase, "Come follow me".  President Craig gave another great training on recognizing and following the promptings of the spirit. This is exactly what I needed to hear! I have been studying this topic for the past few weeks and I just loved it! Ok, well, enough about my amazing zone conference.. I could go on for ever about it! Haha 

On Wednesday we started our day out very excited and it turned into a very sad day. We were so excited that our investigator Heidi had finally made it back home and we were going to be able to meet with her. We,ll we text her to see when we could see her and she text us back and dropped us.. She said she is just too busy right now.. It was a sad day.. After that we decided to go on a dropping rampage with all of our other investigators. We dropped lots. We were left with only like 3 investigators... This is when all of our miracles started taking place! One of my favorite quotes from our zone conference was this "hard times are only an opportunity for miracles to take place." 

On Wednesday night we were walking to our usual dinner appointment at the Matzke's home when we decided to knock some doors in their neighborhood. We met a lady named Nancy who is from South Africa! She was so sweet. We had a great conversation with her on our common beliefs in Jesus Christ and then started in on the restoration! She was so interested in what we had to say. She told us at the end of our lesson that Jesus people are always welcome in her home and invited us back next Wednesday! It was amazing! Then when we were walking home we met this lady named Amanda. We started talking to her and she explained how she was going through a divorce and had to have all of her belongings out of the house by Monday.. We asked if we could do anything to help and she said no. We thought nothing of it and began walking home. Well on Friday night we got a call at 9 from Amanda asking us if we could come help her in the morning at a garage sale she was having to get rid of all of her things. We were able to get members of the ward to come help her as well as the elders. It was so great! We stopped by yesterday to see how everything was going and we were able to teach her the restoration and all about the Book of Mormon. She was so excited to hear all about it and with out us asking her she asked if she could come to church!! Such a miracle!!! 

So on Thursday we went over to sister Johnson's house and we did some more cleaning service for her. We were able to start cleaning her living room. We didn't get too far but we are slowly making progress. Later that night we decided that we would go try to visit this less active we had never met. Well we looked on the map of where she lived and began biking there. We biked and biked until we reached a dead end and realized that we had biked past her house quite some time ago..haha we are not the best at finding addresses with out out handy dandy gps. Haha well it started raining on our bike ride back so we decided it would be best just to bike home and tract some of our apartment complex. Man, no one was kidding when they said how miserable the weather can be in August.. It was so humid that night and so hot that I seriously could not stop sweating. Haha I thought something was wrong with me because I would wipe my face and within seconds have to wipe it again. I've never had that problem before. Haha it was gross!! 

On Friday we just had a great day full of laughing. Friday's are when we have our weekly planning so we spend most of the day doing that. It never fails that when I pray after companionship inventory we can't make it through the prayer with out laughing... I don't know what we always find so funny but we always laugh. Haha later that night we decide to visit some less actives on our list of people to visit. We stopped by one house and the man's wife answered and she was not too happy to see us. She chewed us out for five minutes about waking a baby up and then she told us that she was going to call the cops on us.. We did everything we could not to bust out laughing. The best part about it is her husband who we came to visit is a cop. Haha On a side note, Sister Sorensen has also found out how Hairy I am.. Haha we were standing at their door step waiting for them to answer when she looks at me and I think there is some bug on my face when she points out that I have a few blond hairs between my eyes that i missed when plucking my eyebrows. Haha she then starts talking about arm hair and wants to compare arms.. That is when she finds out that I shave my arms.. Haha by this point she just thinks I'm crazy when to top it all off later that night we are talking as we are planning and she looks at her feet and then says something about having hair on her feet. She asks me if I do and I tell her how I shave them. Haha I had to explain to her that I am a true Webb and I am one hairy person so I just shave everything. Haha she gave me a few awkward looks and we just laughed. Sorry for the random tangent in my letter about my hair. Haha

Ok so Saturday was seriously like the best day of my week!! We both had this feeling that we needed to go visit our former investigator Paula because we were never able to talk with her after she dropped us and address her concerns. So we show up at her house and we are both so scared but she was so welcoming. She invited us right in and we had dessert with her husband and some friends. Her husband plays the bass guitar so he gave us a few lessons on the bass.. We all got a good laugh out of that one! Haha and then we were able to sit down and just talk with Paula. She told us how she is still reading the Book of Mormon and there is just one thing she can't accept about our religion. We were so scared to hear what this was.. She tell us how she can't grasp the fact about modern day prophets. She explained how it just exact opposite of what she grew up believing. She told us how she has been praying about it though. We were so excited to hear this. She told us how she wants to come back to church with us and to have us come by again!! Yay!!! I was seriously on cloud 9!!!! Best thing ever!!!!! 

Yesterday we had quite the nightly adventure. Haha so we had decided to make some cookies at lunch time for some of the members in our ward. We decided to skip my training so we could go out and deliver them. We didn't have a dinner appointment so we just decided that we would skip dinner.. Well we get to the Shannon's house to deliver their cookies and it is about 7. They are a cute older couple in the ward and invite us in. So we go in and we start visiting and around 7:30 Brother Shannon asks if we had a dinner appointment or if we had eaten dinner.. Man, you just can't lie to people so we have to say no.. He was so sweet and instantly wanted to cook us dinner. So lesson learned, if you don't have dinner appointments just show up to members houses and they will feed you! Haha 

That is basically all I have been up to. This week marks my 3 month mark!! Yay!! Time is flying by! I can't believe it's already August and it is almost half over.. Crazy! The weather here is still super crazy. It rains almost every day.. Which is good because it is still blistering hot!! Haha do ya'll remember how crazy I was at home thinking it was always cold. I was always wrapping up in some blanket or complaining to turn the heat on. Well I think I am just as crazy here.. It is August and I'm still wearing sweat pants and long sleeve shirts to bed every night. I wear long sleeve cardigans to church almost every week as well.. Haha I guess I'm just crazy. 

Oh before I forget, this next week is transfers so my p-day will be on Tuesday next week. So don't get alarmed when ya'll don't hear from me on Monday. I am getting pretty worried about transfers. I don't want to be transferred yet! I've just become so attached to everyone here.. 

Oh and one last thing, I am still listening to the voice recordings ya'll sent me! I love them! Hearing everyone's voices has been great! I have not made it through all of them yet but my favorite one so far is dad telling my favorite campfire stories "the poor little tailor and the hook arm man!" Haha I am pretty sure they get worse and worse each year but I still laugh just as hard every time I hear them! My all time favorite part was the horn noises dad makes! Haha I'm glad ya did it again at the end! Haha that will never get old! It is seriously one of my favorite memories about camping! 

Oh I forgot to mention one last thing I am dreading this week besides transfers.. So I am in the ward choir because Sister Sorensen loves to sing and sings amazing! Well I have lucked out every time they have wanted us to sing in church.. Usually it ends up that Sister Sorensen just sings a solo. Well this week we sang as a choir in church and that went well.  They try to have a musical number every week here.. After church the choir director starts talking to Sister Sorensen and says how he needs to get her the music for the quartet for next week. He then looks at me and says, oh and by the way Sister Webb, your part of that.. Yes, I will be singing in church with Sister Sorensen, the choir director and a member of the bishopric.. They all can sing really good so I may just make a fool of myself.. Especially because I have been assigned to sing the alto part.. I don't know how to sing alto.. Haha this is going to be quite the adventure so prepare yourselves to hear all about it!! 

Well, that is about all I have been up to. We are going later tonight to dinner with Sister  Johnson at a place called Clark's fish camp! We are going to get gator tail and maybe some snake or kangaroo! I'm pretty excited for that! I will tell you all about it next week! 

I hope ya'll have a wonderful week! I love you! 

Love, 

Sister Webb