My worst nightmare just came true... - October 17, 2016

Hello family,

So I had this nightmare the other day. I had this dream that I only had six weeks left of my mission and then I got called to whitewash train a new missionary and then the worst part of the dream was, I was called to serve in the Mandarin YSA!! What a scary dream right? It's been a few days and sadly I've realized that it was no dream I had, this is reality! We had transfer calls on Saturday and President Lee has asked me to train a new missionary for my last transfer and we will be serving together in the Mandarin YSA branch! I'm not sure how I feel yet.. still in shock from the call. I have prayed my whole mission to avoid the YSA wards. Heavenly Father must be needing a good laugh. I've learned that when you finally get the hang of things he likes to make you stretch and grow even more. The YSA covers basically all of Jacksonville.. so I have a huge area to learn in the next 6 weeks and I have a little baby I have to get trained before I go home. I'm so excited for this new experience and I can't wait to meet my new companion on Wednesday! Wish me luck and keep me in your prayers that I don't make a complete fool of myself while trying to talk to people on campus about the gospel.. 

Nothing too exciting happened this week. On Tuesday we had zone meeting. I gave my final training as a sister training leader. It went really well. I gave it on effective planning and using the teaching records when planning for our investigators. I had a lot of mixed emotions during that zone meeting. It was my last one before I go home. After zone meeting we had our last trade off. I went to Dunn Ave with Sister Saxton. She goes home tomorrow. It was a fun trade off. We mostly did service for members who still had down trees from the hurricane. My arms we so sore from chopping tree limbs up. 

Saturday we spent all day doing service with our ward. We did 4 houses and it took us from 9am-4pm. I was exhausted. We had to chop down large trees at all of the homes and we made the mistake of not packing a lunch so I may have gotten hangry.. y'all know how I get when I don't get to eat food! Now just add how I get when I am asked to do yard work and manual labor and that was basically how I was feeling! After we did service we went out and knocked doors for about 2 hours because we are on the hunt for some new investigators. 

We then had an awesome lesson with Jenny and then another lesson with Sharetha and her family. We taught them the law of chastity and that was an interesting lesson to teach a family.. 

Sunday we had shortened church again. It was combine with the Spanish branch again. They just did sacrament meeting and had testimony meeting with it. It was interesting because every other testimony was in Spanish. After sacrament meeting we went out again and did more service. Once again we did service from 10-4pm. Luckily we had lunch! One of the non-members we went to help bought us all pizza. Talk about feeling apostate on your mission. I feel like I haven't been to church since before General Conference. We have done clean up every Sunday since the hurricane and then I was eating Domino's Pizza on Sunday! I'll be happy when we get back to the normal schedule! Doing service yesterday was really good. We had a group of about 30 of us out cutting the trees down. It only took us about 2 hours to cut down 3 trees in a persons yard. Of course we had about 6 chainsaws going at once and everyone else was just hauling the branches off as quick as they could cut them. 

After that yard with the 3 down trees we went to a civil war cemetery and cleaned it up. They had about 5 down trees. It was sad because the trees had fallen on some of the graves. This job was a lot harder then the first because the cemetery was surrounded by a giant fence taller then me. So we had to lift the tree limbs over our heads in order to get them over then fence and to the curb. Yes, my body is feeling the pain and I was exhausted. 

After service yesterday I walked in the apartment door and collapsed on the floor and had to take a nap before doing anything else. Later that night we went out knocking again. We also had an awesome miracle! So we went to contact a media referral who requested a bible. We gave her the Bible and invited ourselves into her home to share more about the Book of Mormon. We were then able to apply our trainings in zone meeting which was awesome! It was like a district video lesson! We asked if we could eliminate all of the distractions, we then asked if anyone else was in the home. I said the opening prayer and we invited her to say the closing prayer and she agreed! We then used the "how to begin teaching" bullet points in Preach My Gospel. We taught the entire restoration. She said the closing prayer and we set a specific return appointment and we are going to bring a member back! Bam! That's how it's done! It was an A+ lesson!! 

Other than that I have not done anything to exciting this week! I will definitely have some exciting stories for next week! I'm sure I will get lost a few times. I am just super awkward around YSA age people so I know that will give some funny stories. So be prepared for some good laughs next week! 

One thing I have learned this week and grew a greater appreciation for was the church's humanitarian relief program. I am so very grateful for every member who donates to this. It amazed me to see the church in action from the hurricane. Last week we had a giant semi truck at the church full of supplies and this week they again had another truck come with even more chainsaws and supplies. It made me realize how simple it is for us, as members, to donate to this fund and it won't even phase us financially. But when a disaster hits, and we need help, the supplies and means necessary to clean up were right there for us. 

I was talking to my investigator Jenny. She is from Haiti and she said her family was left with nothing. They don't even have food. It broke my heart but then I know that the church is out there helping them as well! It amazed me how organized the stakes and wards have been through this hurricane and now through he clean up! 

I hope y'all have a wonderful week! I will let y'all know who my companion is next week and I'll send home a picture of us. But that will probably be the last picture I send home. So y'all better cherish it for the next six weeks til I finally arrive at home! I miss and love y'all so very much! 

Love, 

Sister Webb