Monday, March 21, 2016

St. Patrick's Day, hard week & I stay in Ocala! - Mar 21, 2016

Dear family,
I'm pretty sure this has been one of the hardest weeks ever. It seems when you get thrown one curve ball ten more follow. But before I tell you about my week I will just tell you my happy news! I'm staying in Ocala!!! Yay!!! I couldn't be more happy about that! After this transfer it will put me at 7 1/2 months here in Ocala and I get to be here for my birthday!! This is seriously the greatest place ever! Oh and I'm still companions with Sister Olsen. I'm pretty sure the only reason I am here is because I am training her.. But I'm going to pretend like there is someone here in Ocala who needs me!

So where to start with my week... Well, like I told you it has been the hardest week ever! It was seriously one thing after another. I already told you that I have that painful lump on the back of my ankle and it just keeps getting more painful and bigger. Well it has been pretty bad. 

On Tuesday we had interviews with the mission president And that is when I broke down and told the mission nurse about my knobby ankle. She looked at it and said that she would check with the doctor assigned to look over our mission. Lucky for me he is an orthopedic surgeon. Well after discussing my lumpy ankle with him we came to the conclusion that I have akelies tendonitis and have most likely torn some tendons in my ankle. Don't worry though, I'm fine and I'm hoping I caught it early enough that it's not as bad as it sounds.  Even though I did not go to the doctor we have come up with a way to help it. I am now currently living off of 1600mg of ibuprofen a day and I bought an ankle brace I have to wear constantly except to bed. I also am not allowed to stretch my ankle which means no exercise for me... Darn! and I'm suppose to walk as little as possible on it. Of course that is a joke because we are in a car share and most days we walk around 7 miles... But I'm trying my best to not walk on it. I am going to be doing this for a few weeks and if it does not get better I will have to go from wearing an ankle brace to a boot! So pray that it gets better because the ankle brace is bad enough! Haha I'm pretty sure I have experienced an answer to my prayers in a odd way. I remember not to long ago asking for help to get rid of my pride so I can be a better missionary. This must be Heavenly Father's way of stripping me of pride. Not only do I now have to awkwardly bike down the streets of Ocala in a skirt in the 90 degree weather with a stupid helmet on, I now have to wear a very unattractive ankle brace. Yes, this has been a very humbling experience for me. Haha so yeah that was problem number one for the week. I've basically been in lots of pain and it's been hard to do much. I feel so bad for Sister Olsen so I have been pushing it to the limits with pain because I don't want her to have a bad training because of me. But she has also been very understanding and patient.

So interviews went really well. It is always nice to be able to just sit down with President Craig and talk one-on-one with him. He always just makes you feel like a million bucks! So I have to have a bragging moment about interviews. So at interviews our role play was on doing a pamphlet lesson in 7 minutes. This sounds really easy but it is a lot harder then you would think. Well luckily I had a heads up on this because I am a trainer so Sister Olsen and I had been practicing them all week. So for this role play you had to give a 7 minute lesson to another companionship while the rest of the district watches and critiques you. At the end of the lesson they then tell you what y'all did well at and what you need to improve. Well I honestly was dreading this because every time Sister Olsen and I would practice we could not transition smoothly, she doesn't ask questions and most times she forgets to testify and often times just says dumb things. I'm proud to say some how we managed to teach the restoration in 7 minutes. We transitioned off of each other very smoothly, she didn't ask questions but I asked enough for the both of us. We invited our investigators to be baptized after we taught about Christ's earthly ministry and we even shared scriptures and testimony in our role play. Not to mention we double testified of each other and promised blessings! It was awesome!
I wish we could have recorded it so y'all could see! Everyone in the room agreed that it was the most powerful 7 minute lesson they had ever seen and when I invited to baptism they all wanted to be baptized as well! Ok, bragging done! Basically I'm just the best trainer and my little companion is getting better each and every day. Although none of our lessons ever go like that. She is still working on talking during our lessons but by the end of this new transfer we will be there!

So on Wednesday we had a interesting day. First we had service for a investigator that we always do service for. I've told you about doing service for her before. Well this time was just as bad. We get there and she tells us that she needs help cleaning up her yard again.. It was seriously in the 90's on Wednesday and I wore sweat pants! So here I am in this lady's back yard already sweating and she asks me to scoop her dog poop up.. Who does she think I am?? Haha sadly, I'm pretty sure that is the first time in my life I've ever scooped dog poop.. My companion just told me I grew up too pampered.. Haha after scooping dog poop she wanted me to clean out her dog pool.. Basically it was just a small kiddy pool with water that was so green.  I'm sure something was growing in it. So now I'm trying to not cry while trying to scoop out slimy green water and praying some how I don't get a fungus from it. Haha finally she had us build a bench! I'm happy to say I accomplished this and did it in like 20 minutes! Yeah, I'm basically pro! Haha 

After service we went to see a investigator named Brenda. Let's just say that was a scary experience. So I never like to see her cause she kinda lives in the ghetto. We get there and she starts to tell us how she is looking to move because she don't feel safe anymore. She then tells us how during the night she heard gun shots and then shortly after cop lights were everywhere outside. It turns out that someone got shot outside her house during the night...Um, why must people tell us these things when we are sitting in their home. Not to mention we are just two little white girls driving around in our nice car.. We totally stand out and everyone just stares us down! Haha so yeah, Wednesday was an interesting day. 

Later that night I found a really nice neighborhood for us to knock doors in because Sister Olsen had complained that all we do is knock in the ghetto or in trailer parks. Well she quickly came to realize that the rich people are not very nice. Let's just say we had a humbling experience again.  We got lots of doors slammed in our face and multiple people told us they were going to call the cops because it was a no soliciting neighborhood. Yeah, that doesn't stop missionaries! Haha I think I quickly cured Sister Olsen from wanting to find all the nice houses to knock. In fact I'm pretty sure that scared her because she hasn't wanted to knock a single door since. Of course being the best trainer ever I just force her to do it and tell her that I'm not going to say anything when the person answers the door. She usually thinks I'm joking until they open the door and I just stand there silent and make her start talking. Then I join in but I'm teaching her how to take the lead in things. I'm probably killing her!

My final exciting story/ worst part of the week happened on Thursday.  So it's been kinda rough lately because we basically have no investigators to teach and we are trying to find some but it's not going so well and I was just getting super frustrated and I had basically given up all hopes on Tonnie because we have been teaching him since October and he doesn't ever seem that interested in lessons so Wednesday night I prayed and asked what we should do about Tonnie.  Thursday morning we got a text from Tonnie which is huge because he never texts us! It said how he has been reading and praying and he has received an answer as to what he needs to do and he knows he needs to come to church every week and he is so excited to be baptized and then the last part said how he was so excited to meet with us that night.  Oh and he got a job! What?! Miracle right? So we have this awesome lesson and I felt like we needed to reteach him the restoration so we did, which was perfect because he said he felt as if he was restoring his life and the lesson was exactly what he needed to hear. Anyways, we are all just so pumped because Tonnie is finally making progress!

Ok jump to yesterday, so Tonnie and JQ came to church! It was awesome!! He is right on tract for being baptized in April 16! Ok here is the saddest news, so Tonnie and JQ moved and live in the other ward and now we have to pass them off to the other missionaries... So basically there goes our only investigator.. We still haven't broke the news to Tonnie and JQ.. It was a huge bummer!

So here we are at the start of a new transfer with no investigators what so ever and not even any good potentials.. But sacrifice always brings forth blessings right? The elders felt so bad for us they gave us a referral they could not contact who has basically already had all the lessons and wants to be baptized so all we have to do is plan a baptism for him but it's not the same as finding that golden person on your own.

That about sums up my week. It was a very long and stressful week! I'm so glad that it is p-day and I can just let all my stresses out by playing some volleyball! We've already had a good day! We got pizza and ate lunch as a district today. Most of our district is getting transferred out. It's going to be sad.

Tell Lilly thank you for her email and letter this week! I miss that girl so much! I'm so excited that she is getting baptized soon!

Love and miss you all!!

Love,
Sister Webb

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