Happy Halloween - October 31, 2016

Hello family! 

Happy Halloween!! Time is going by faster and faster can y'all believe I only have 30 days left? Crazy right? So I guess I will give you a run down of this week. 

So Monday we had p-day. After our p-day we went to campus and did a 3-hour golden hour. Let's just say I'm getting more use to talking to people my own age. I'm trying to be the good senior companion and talk with everyone. So I kept asking Sister Anderson who we should talk to and she would point out someone and we would approach them. Well at one point she points at this super attractive muscular man and was like we should talk to him. My response to her was, "I can't talk to him.. he has muscles!" This week my goal is to strip myself of pride and talk with everyone. We will see how that goes! 

On Tuesday we had the craziest thing happen. So we had an experience that just showed me that Heavenly Father loves me! So I was kinda just struggling and kept feeling like I should talk to President but didn't want to be a bother. Well, on Tuesday morning we got a call from President who invited us over to have studies with him and then to do some service. Our service we did for him was to mark his scriptures. How great is that?? And then afterwards President and his wife took us out to lunch! They are the best! :) 

On Wednesday we had district meeting! I just love my district! We nicknamed ourselves Miracle Mandarin! After district meeting we had a lesson with a less-active and then we went to the university campus to do another golden hour. So lately golden hours have just caused me a lot of stress. So I prayed that I could open my mouth and talk to people and that we would be able to find a new investigator so we did our golden hour and guess what?! We talked to so many people and we found a new investigator!! Her name is Kimmy! 

Thursday we did service with the Mandarin sisters. It was a lot of fun. After that we did a golden hour for a while and then had a lesson with a recent convert named Nate and then went to institute and ended the night by doing another golden hour on campus. 

Friday we had weekly planning and that was long and painful! After that we did a golden hour on campus and then we went and had a lesson with Ashley Bumpus who is our baptism date! 

Saturday we had ward correlation and then went to the dog park and did service. We found this baby turtle there! Oh my, it was so cute and then we realized it was dead! Haha 

Sunday we had a good day. We went to church, I'm still adjusting the being in the singles branch. YSA is quite the adjustment. We had dinner with the Mandarin 1st sisters and then went and had a lesson with Ashley Bumpus again. 

Well, that about sums up my week! Today we had zone p-day and carved pumpkins and later tonight we have to be in by 7. Sister Anderson is going to dye my hair! Get excited for pictures next week! 

Happy Halloween! Love and miss y'all! 

Love, 

Sister Webb 

Pics - October 31, 2016

Here is a zone photo week took today at our zone p-day. 

This is a baby lizard that was in our apartment last night that we had to catch and get out. I've become pro at lizard catching now.

This was a lizard that was on our door the other day. Look how long his tail is!! Sadly he fell off and I may have shut his tail in the door and half of it fell off. 

Sorry there are only lizard pictures. We will take some good pictures this week to send home! 

YSA may be the death of me! - October 24, 2016

Hey family, 

I don't even know where to start with this email. It's been on crazy week!! But I'm happy to report me and my new companion Sister Anderson have survived our first week in the YSA branch! Seriously though, what a week! 

So I'll just jump right to Wednesday because nothing exciting happened before that. So on Wednesday we had transfers and I finally got to meet my new companion! I will be training Sister Anderson for the rest of this transfer and then someone else will come and finish training her. So Sister Anderson is awesome! She is from Surprise, Arizona. She is actually a cosmetologist! So, I'm super excited because that means I can have her dye my hair and cut it before I go home!! She is super sweet but really quiet. We have had quite a few awkward silent moments but hey, sometimes we all need a moment of silence. She reminds me a lot of me when I first came on my mission so it's been good to be able to help her. 

So after we had transfers on Wednesday we didn't have an area book because it hadn't been updated on our iPads so we blindly decided to go try to find UNF campus. Well let's just say that was an epic failure. My GPS is a bit outdated so we had some struggles. So we then decided that we had a note from the sisters that we had two appointments that night. So we headed to those. We get to the first one and it was for a lady named Saul. We show up and this man is outside who must have been her husband and said she was not home. So we tried the next appointment and she ended up having to work late. By this point it was about 7:30 so we decided to do a golden hour and do some finding. I wasn't sure how we were suppose to do that in the YSA so we called the elders. They told us that you don't knock doors in the YSA. You just go to campus and it is a gold mine. Well, we decided to knock doors and hope to find some one YSA age to teach. We manage to find this guy named Jose. He was surprisingly YSA age. That ended our first night together. 

On Thursday we had district meeting. After district meeting we once again ventured out to find the UNF campus. This time we used google maps on the iPad. Once again the freeway system of Florida threw me off and we got lost. So we ended up going to the mission office and having them look up directions. Sadly we still never made it to campus that day. We then did a golden hour of contacting potentials and formers who lived in Mandarin. Then we had dinner with a member from one of the family wards in Mandarin. He took us out for tacos he told us we could only eat if he could order for us. He ordered me chicken, pork and beef head. Then he ordered Sister Anderson chicken, beef head and tongue. I felt so bad so I ate my pork taco and beef head and gave my chicken taco to my starving companion because all she could manage to eat was her chicken taco. After that interesting dinner we went to institute for the rest of the night. It was fun! 

Friday we had weekly planning. Boy was that rough. Try not knowing the area and people you are working with and then having to explain what you are doing to your companion. After about an hour and a half I just gave up and made our entire week next week straight golden hours. After weekly planning we went to the mission office to pick up Sister Anderson's bedding. We then ventured out to UNF campus and finally made it there!!! Yay!!! It was a happy moment until we found out it was going to cost us 5 dollars to park. We decided that we would just bite the bullet and pay the 5 bucks. So we then spent the rest of the day from 3-7:30 at the college campus. We then saw some less-actives and called it a night.

Saturday was quite the adventure. We started our morning off by doing some service at the dog park with the elders. We were scooping up some mulch and spreading it in a play area. So as we were doing this we had a pitch fork to scoop it with and all the sudden we went to scoop and there was this giant red and black snake!! I wanted to die!! Luckily the elders were there and we killed it with a machete! It was crazy!!

So later that day we were able to knock some more doors. We had a few super awkward moments. So first off we knocked and this young good lookin' man opened the door and he was just standing there in a pair of underwear! Well, me being a super awkward missionary instantly stretched out my hand and went to shake his. By this point I realized that I felt super awkward and I was stuttering and all I could get out was  "hi, we are missionaries..." and then I just basically threw a card at him and said "call us, bye!" Haha 

Sunday was such a good day! So we get to church and we find out on Saturday night that we would be teaching Sunday school. So I plan a lesson because my companion doesn't talk and I knew I would have to teach by myself. Then we get in Sacrament meeting and the first speaker said "to be announced". Well, guess who was privileged enough to speak. You got that right, Sister Anderson and I. Then we taught Sunday school and then hung out at church and did our studies. After church we went and ate dinner with the Mandarin sisters. That was the best. 

Ok so here is when our final miracle of the week happened! So remember how we told you that we were suppose to have a lesson with a lady named Saul on Wednesday but then it fell through. Well Sunday we got this text from a random number and the lady said that her husband had met with the sisters last week but she was having some family problems and wanted to know if we could come by and see her. Of course we said yes. So we look up her husbands info in our area book and we get to her house to realize that it was the same house we had a lesson at on Wednesday with Saul. So we just assume Saul is this investigator's wife. So we go in and she is really upset but we were able to teach her and her 9 year old daughter the restoration and we set baptism dates with them!! After the lesson we went to put in her lesson to find out that the only Saul we had in our area book was a man. So wow, we found 2 new investigators and set 2 baptism dates in one appointment! It was such a miracle! I know that we were able to experience this miracle because we were diligent and obedient all week! 

So yeah, life is good! YSAmy be the death of me. I've never felt so stressed but so blessed at the same time! Hopefully this week will be a lot smoother and less stressful. Keep us in your prayers and pray that we will be able to find the elect to baptize this transfer! I can't believe time is running out! The reality is finally hitting and I'm not sure how I am feeling. I almost had a melt down this week but I managed to pulled myself together! Get ready for more YSA adventures next week! I love and miss y'all! 

Love, 

Sister Webb 

Pics - October 24, 2016

This is the best photo ever! So this is my mission family! My two daughters, Sister Olsen and sister Anderson are next to me. And then the front row is my grandchildren who Sister Olsen has trained! Our family is growing so big! 

Sister Tui and her new trainee Sister Foster and then me and Sister Anderson. 

We would have made such a good quad companionship! 

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 

Pics - October 17, 2016

Down trees make a great photo shoot! Sister Cengiz, Sister Clay and me 

Sister Clay and I were excited to do more service

This was our group of ward members who helped do service yesterday. I'm going to miss all of them. Luckily the YSA still covers the Hendricks Ave area

Had to take a photo before we could start working

Can you believe they let me use this thing? Naw, I'm only kidding.. I only got a photo with it. 

We decided to take a sister's photo after zone meeting. This was all of the wonderful sisters I had the privilege of working with this transfer. 

Hurricane?? I thought I was on holiday! - October 10, 2016

Hello family, 

To prevent anyone else from worrying about me I am doing just fine. I survived the hurricane! What a crazy week though!! It all started on Tuesday with the craziness. We were on a trade off and it was raining but we didn't think to much of it because it is Florida and it has the craziest weather ever. Well we go to see an investigator and they ask us about the hurricane and we are like, what hurricane?? Yeah, the joys of being a missionary and not knowing anything about the weather. So later that day the rain just kept getting worse and we finally get a text telling us there will be a giant mission wide conference call that night to discuss the hurricane. Well, of course we were not to worried about the hurricane because the last one was nothing. So finally on Wednesday we get a call telling us that because we live across the street from the St. John's River we will need to be evacuated. We were excited because they told us we would be going to live with Elder and Sister Cengiz! They are my favorite senior couple ever!! It was seriously like a weekend at grandma and grandpa's house but as a missionary! So we get there Wednesday night and they buy us pizza. They bought 4 pizza's and a order of wings for us. We ate that and with in 5 minutes they offer us more food. This is how the whole weekend went! Every five minutes Elder Cengiz would say, "Do you want a cup cake? What about some yogurt? Beef jerky? Chips?" Ok, you get the picture. Now, y'all know me and when I'm bored I could eat anything.. let's just say I ate it all. Every five minutes I was eating what ever Elder Cengiz offered me! Haha 

Thursday we went with the Cengiz to the mission office. That was real fun. Sister McGregor ended her mission that day and her mum and dad met us there and I got to say one last goodbye and meet her parents. They are already planning me to come stay with them in Australia! Thursday night we watched "Meet the Mormons" and placed bets on when the power would go out. I seriously forgot what it was like to just sit around and do nothing. I didn't like it. I was going crazy so finally on Thursday night we broke some rules and went out tracting in our parking lot. It was real windy but we took the umbrellas and went out. We actually met a man who was interested in learning more! His name is Vinny! 

Friday we were stuck inside all day because that was when the hurricane hit. My favorite part was when we got up at 6:30 and were exercising Sister Cengiz came out and said, "Good morning, Happy Hurricane!" It was nice staying with the senior couples because we knew exactly what was going on the whole time because they kept turning on the TV and watching the news.. yeah, basically I went apostate this week and wore sweats, took long naps, ate food all day, watched movies and then watched the news. 

Saturday morning we were watching the news when they show a clip of a place called San Marco that is just down the street from our apartment and it is completely flooded.. I think I almost cried! All I could say is that's where we live!! Our poor house is probably under water! Haha I'm happy to report that not too much damage was done. Just some trees fell down which left millions with out power. 

On Saturday we finally got the approval to go home. We went home and then went right out to do service! We cleaned yards from 12-8... I was exhausted! 

Sunday was probably the most interesting day. We got to church at 7:30 and the giant semi from the church was parked full of supplies so we unloaded it. Then at 9am we had a 30 minute Sacrament meeting combined with the Spanish branch, so it was in half English and half Spanish. After that we all started assembling wheelbarrows and then we went out to work again. We again did service from 10am- 8pm. We cleaned up a bunch of yards and it was awesome! We were able to help a bunch of non-members and members! I managed to walk away with a few bruises, a few slivers, and 1 bee sting. That was the worst part because my hand swelled up! Crazy stuff!! I'm dead tired and my body is so sore I can hardly move but, I have enjoyed every moment of serving my fellow brothers and sisters. 

Here are a few quotes that I found this week about service that I loved. "We are the Lord's hands here upon the earth, with the mandate to serve and to lift his children. He is dependent upon each of us." -President Thomas S. Monson

"When we reach out in love and service even in the smallest ways, hearts are changed and softened as others feel the love of the Lord." -Cheryl A. Esplin 

I know that both of these quotes are true. I have seen so many people's hearts softened just in the past few days and I can't wait to see the many miracles that await us here in the Florida Jacksonville Mission. I will just end with one scripture found in Matthew 7:25. It says, "And the rains descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat upon that house; and it fell not: for it was founded upon a rock." I know that the Lord was watching over all of us as Hurricane Matthew came blowing through but because we had a solid foundation and we heeded the warnings and followed the spirit I know we were truly protected. I leave these things with you in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.

I hope y'all have a wonderful week!  I love and miss y'all so much! I can't wait to come home next month!!  7 more weeks! 

Love, 

Sister Webb