Food! - June 21, 2015

Some of the crazy food I had to eat this week.. It was noodles with potatoes, crab, chicken (at least that's what I am hoping it was) and hot dogs.. It was really interesting and I had to gag it down! 

Bird! - June 21, 2015

Here is the cute little bird that I held! I may have laughed and cried and screamed a little as I tried to hold it but I managed to hold it! I knew my momma would be so proud of me!

Olivia & Sister (Sherry) Warner - June 21, 2015

This is Carolyn's friend Sister Warner! She is so nice and fed us dinner this week! Carolyn this picture is for you! I thought you would like it :) 

1 month down, 17 to go! - June 15, 2015

Hello Family! 

Let me first start off by saying, I have officially made it 1 month!!! Whooo! I had a kinda rough week.. Linsey thought she would be sad that I wasn't at her wedding but man did it really hit me on Wednesday and I got pretty down and homesick.. All I could think about was the wedding and the whole family being together. But I am better now! So let me tell you about all of my crazy adventures for the week.

On Monday i got to eat dinner with the Warner family. They are friends of the Barnes family so it was so nice to eat with them! We joked around and talked for a while it was great! It was nice being with someone who knew people back home! 

So most of my stories this week will involve eating so brace yourselves because that is mostly what I do. Eat and teach! Haha so on Tuesday we had dinner at the Ellis home. They are the sweetest family! They basically had a zoo at their house though! They had dogs, fish, a parrot, turtles, and then they found some bird outside that had a broken wing and they nursed it back to health, oh and they had snakes! Well they brought out this bird and asked if I wanted to hold it... I was terrified but I said yes. Haha remember a few months ago when the birds flew into our back door and I couldn't even open the door to see if they were ok I just watched them through the window.. Yeah i was just as scared this time! Haha but I am proud to say I held the bird and of course I made them get a picture of it so I had proof that I am not a baby anymore. Although I may have screamed just a little when I went to hold it and it started to move.. Haha 

That night we found a new investigator while we were out tracting! His name is Ben and he is a dentist!! It made my day being able to talk gospel and dental to someone! Haha 

Sister Sorensen sang in church on Sunday so we spent a few afternoons practicing her song at the Matthew's home. They are a sweet old couple in our ward. They joined the church about six years ago and are so strong in the gospel. Brother Matthews likes to ask us difficult questions to see if we know the answer, just in case an investigator asks us the same question. Haha he is a funny old man and jokes all the time. He is from Wales so he has an awesome accent as well. I had to laugh when I found out his name is Dave Matthews though. Haha while Sister Sorensen practiced her song at their house I played with their little granddaughter Paisley. We made crowns and played doctor and princesses. It was fun! 

I have not told you about brother Wink yet, he is our ward mission leader and he is amazing! He joined the church about 3 years ago and is so strong and dedicated to the missionary work in the ward! He is so involved in everything we do and is always so concerned about our investigators and all the less actives in the ward. It is so great! 

We had zone conference this week! It was an amazing meeting! I learned so much! We had a big talk on charity which was cool because I had been studying charity in my personal studies this week! We talked about understanding who we are and how by doing so can humble us and bring us to be more charitable! We talked about how we can better love others. I learned that in order to love others we must love ourselves first! This is so true! I have been working on loving myself more as well as continually striving for that love for those around me! There were two quotes I loved, 

"Each one of is is irreplaceable, God did not create us to fail!" This one helped me better realize the importance of just being me! God created me to succeed and I need to just trust him that I will :) the second quote says, " We never fall in love, we must create it!" -Elder Bernar. I just love this! I think I have gone my whole life just expecting to fall in love with someone but never realized that it takes effort and we must do our part in creating the love. Anyways it was an amazing zone conference and I learned a lot that I can apply to myself to come closer to my Heavenly Father and better serve the people here on Florida! 

We were able to teach Paula again this week! She is so amazing! I think I told you last week about our miracle with meeting her. Well this week we taught her the restoration and she was so excited to learn! We pulled up to her house and she was already waiting outside for us. She instantly told us how she had gone to lunch with her boss who was a member and he answered lots of her questions. She also said how he gave her a Book of Mormon and had written his testimony in it! It was amazing! I just wanted to cry i was so excited for her!! We taught the lesson and it was amazing! The spirit was so strong! I invited her to baptism at the end of the lesson and she said yes! She is going to read the Book of Mormon more and then we can set a date! She came to church yesterday and loved it!! She is so amazing and I can't wait to keep teaching her and seeing how the gospel is changing her life! 

So last night we decided to go visit this inactive sister in our ward. She goes by Sister Roberta, she is like 90 and the craziest old lady ever! I love her! She reminded me so much of Grandma Webb! Haha so we get to her house and she doesn't realize we are new sister missionaries. So she asks us what we have been up to so we tell her. We then ask her how she has been. She starts to tell us how her dog bubbles died yesterday.. She then is like "remember the one dog I had that was real cute and fluffy?" Haha we didn't have the heart to say no so we were like yeah we do! Haha she then starts to tell us how the dog had stomach cancer and died and then she starts show us this photo album full of pictures of the dog.. Haha and then to make things funnier she tells us how the dog is now in the process of being cremated! At this point it was taking all I had not to just burst out laughing! I was almost crying cause I was trying not to laugh.. Haha after that she was like "well, enough about me, what's new with you?" She asked us this question about 10 times and we just kept telling her the same answer. Haha she then got off on this tangent about how we shouldn't throw anything away because everything can be recycled and used for something. She then made us follow her to her covered patio where she had boxes full of light bulbs she was cleaning and painting and turning into decorations and Christmas ornaments.. Haha after that she showed us her birds and she kissed them and made me pet them and then asked if I wanted to kiss it.. Haha I kindly said no.. Haha then she took us into her bedroom and she starts showing us baby blankets she made. And pot holders she made out of scrap material and then she made these weird angel pins out of old ribbon.. And then.. She makes me pull this box out from under her bed and in it was toilet paper holders that she had made to look like creepy old lady mice.. Haha instantly she asked us if we still have ours at home... And instantly I am reminded of the first day I got to my apartment and went to the bathroom and there was this creepy old lady mouse toilet paper holder on the toilet and I had thrown it out to good will..cause it creeped me out! Haha I instantly felt bad and lied to her and said yes we had it and we loved it! She then pulls out this long stick of hair scrunchies she has made and asked if I wanted some. I said sure and took one.. That was apparently not good enough because she gave me two more! Haha and the whole time she just kept explaining that we shouldn't throw anything away because look at what we can make! Haha the whole time I was trying not to laugh! It really reminded me of grandma! Haha I wanted so badly to share with her all about grandma and how I had received many gifts from recycled things! Haha she is a cute old lady though and I can't wait to go back to see her dogs ashes! 

So some more funny stories for the week. I learned to never eat the lunch meat you find in the fridge... I was so hungry and we didn't have much food but I had some bread and I found some lunch meat ham in the fridge but I wasn't sure how long it had been in there because it was in there when we moved it. Well I did the sniff check and it smelled ok and it looked ok so I started eating it on my sandwich and it tasted a little funny but I ate it anyways. Bad idea!!! I got so sick from that!!! I thought I was going to die!! Nothing is worse then being outside in the heat, your stomach is churning and then you start to get what I like to call the poop sweats! Hahaha I had to hold it for an entire hour until we were able to get home from our lesson we were having outside in the 100 degree heat! I thought I was going to die! So lesson learned, never eat old things you find around your house! Haha 

Another story, so I had been using this hand soap in my bathroom for about a week and could not figure out why it was not lathering up every time I washed my hand.. Well it took about a week and one day I was reading the bottle as I washed my hands and realized it said hand lotion instead of soap.. Hahaha yes, I am truly starting to get blonder and blonder out here! And my hair is really starting to show it. It is getting blonder and blonder every day! Well I hope those stories made ya'll laugh! 

I am also starting to pick up on all of the southern talk. I now say: ya'll, and wooder instead of water. Haha 

So we have still been trying to teach Aleidon. It has been quite the struggle.. The language barrier is so tough and he doesn't like us to use google translate. So I have been studying up on my Albanian words lately. We went over this week and taught him and his family English! It went pretty good! Hopefully he will let us teach him again real soon! 

Heidi is still on track for baptism on the 28! So cross your fingers that she will still be ready! 

It is still super hot here and only getting hotter! This week it hit 110 degrees and everyone said that it will only get worse! I've been trying to jog in the mornings to wake up and it is just miserable. Not to mention I only have sweats to exercise in.. Haha 

Well that is all I have to say about this week.

I'm so glad to hear Linsey's wedding turned out amazing! I am still sad I missed it but the picture really helped! :) 

Have a wonderful week! I love you all and miss you all like crazy!! 

Love Sister Webb 

(Note from Carolyn:  Olivia sent pictures and descriptions this week but the pictures didn't come through.  Darn!  I sent a note to her so I'm sure she will send them next week.)

Zone P-Day - June 8, 2015

We just finished an amazing p-day with the zone! We had hot dogs for lunch and then played volleyball, basketball, water balloon volleyball, and tie dyed tee shirts! What a great day!

I hope ya'll enjoy the email and pictures! I will message ya'll again next week!

Love you and miss you!

Have a great week!

Sister Webb :)

Welcome to Jumpsuit June! - June 8, 2015

Family!!

It was so good to hear from all of you this week!! I'm sorry to hear that the A/C went out but really I'm not that sorry! I am in hotter then 90 degree weather everyday! With humidity on top of that! Although I am starting to get use to the heat and humidity! So this week was such an amazing week full of so many miracles! This week we were able to find 5 new investigators and were able to set 2 baptism dates! I was getting so frustrated at the beginning of the week because we were not having very much success finding people and teaching lessons. Seriously every door we would knock on would tell us they are already religious and believed in Jesus and were already saved. It's tuff. Well like I said, I was getting frustrated and a little discouraged. Then I remembered that I need to trust in the Lord and have more faith. That night I prayed so hard to Heavenly Father telling him that I know I need to trust him and I was willing to do so and have the faith that we could find new investigators to teach and that I did have the faith! Well that prayer was seriously a good 20 minutes I swear and I had such a good talk with my Heavenly Father. I felt so much better afterwards. The next day we went out tracting and I again prayed and told Heavenly Father that I had the faith and to lead us to the elect people who were prepared to hear our message. Well that day we found 3 new investigators!!! What a miracle! My faith was getting stronger and my hopes were getting higher! 

We met Heidi Batzka she is a young mom who lives in our apartment complex. Her husband is Albanian. Apparently I am meant to teach the Albanians! Haha we were able to teach her the gospel of Jesus Christ and invite her to baptism! She said she wanted to be baptized and we set a date for June 28! Now she just has to come to church the next 3 weeks so she can be baptized then! 

We also went out tracting after dinner that night and met Jim and Paula! It was such a neat experience!! We knocked on the door and Jim answered. We talked to him for a few minutes when he invited us to sit on his porch and talk while he smoked.. Well we started talking about the Book of Mormon and all the sudden his wife Paula came out! We then started talking to her about the Book of Mormon and testifying of it. She told us how her boss was LDS and he had tried inviting her to church but she hadn't managed to go yet. She told us how she had stopped going to her church a while back and how she had felt like something was just missing in her life ever since she stopped going. We talked to her about church and before we could even finish she asked us if she could come to church on Sunday!! What?? Crazy! We gave her all the information on the church and set up a time to come back and teach her another lesson on Friday! Sadly she had something come up yesterday so she did not get to come to church, but we are still teaching her and Jim Friday night! Ok so by this point I was so pumped! 

We went the next day to some of our potential investigators and we met Anna. She is from Purerto Rico. We taught her the restoration and about the Book of Mormon and she was so interested and invited us to come back and teach her again! 

We met Bill. He is an older man. His wife died about a year ago. We were able to teach him a little about the plan of salvation and he invited us to come back and teach him! Holy cow!! 

Oh and then while we were tracting on saturday night we met Fred who was an older gentleman who was at a party at his friends house but let us teach him about the Book of Mormon and some of the restoration. He also invited us back for another lesson! 

Our final investigator for the week is Andrea! She is the cutest girl ever! She is 14! We have not been able to teach her a lesson yet but she has come to church 2 weeks in a row now! At church yesterday we were able to teach her a little bit and she told us she knew from the first day she came to church that it was true and she had been reading the Book of Mormon and she knows it's true and can feel the spirit so strong when she reads it. As she was talking the spirit was so strong! She was crying I was crying.. Haha it was so great! We invited her to be baptized on June 28th. She said yes and she would talk to her parents! So hopefully everything work out because she is so prepared and ready!!! 

We were able to go teach Aleidon and his girls earlier this week.... What a hard lesson!! First off he doesn't speak much English so it made it extremely difficult. He did not want us to use our google translate.. So we tried teaching him the restoration. He told us that he does not want us to teach him. He wants to learn everything for him self. He knows the Book of Mormon is true and that Joseph smith was a prophet. As we tried to tell him about prophets today he said there were none. As we bore our testimony to him about modern day prophets he stopped us half way through and told us we were wrong.. The ended our lesson with a prayer. We prayed for him that he might be able to find a job and he stopped us mid sentence and said no do not pray for me.. What a hard lesson. He said he would come to church Sunday but then didn't come so we will see what happens.. The language barrier had made it extremely difficult to teach him. We have been praying a lot for him and that he will have a softer heart and come to find that there are modern day prophets.

This week we were able to invite 22 people to baptism! And 2 of them now have dates!! The Lord truly does watch over and bless us when we put our trust in him and have faith! 

It has been such a good week! On Friday we celebrated inviting 21 people to baptism by getting ice cream from McDonald's! The best part was the nerdy boy at the drive up window we gave him a pass along card with our name and number on it and oh my, his face was priceless! He just got this huge smile! Haha I laughed for like 20 minutes about it! 

I have never been so tired in my life!!! I am realizing the truth when people say good missionaries are always tired! Every time I sit down on something remotely soft I start to fall asleep and do the head bob.. Haha most mornings I almost fall asleep while exercising as well as in morning studies.. It has been such a struggle. Church is the worst cause it has soft seats! Haha 

The bugs are so bad here! My bug spray is not even working!! I have like 20 mosquito bites on each leg!! Not to mention I found a dead cockroach in our apartment and there are still millions of lizards! Hopefully I can get brave and catch one so I can send a picture home! 

We had president interviews again this week. It was nice to talk to him again and get to know him better. 

We just finished Mighty Miracle May and have started June off my calling it Jumpsuit June! Hopefully our baptisms pan out and we can get them done in Jumpsuit June! 

One of Carolyn Barnes friends is in my ward! I was so excited to find that out! It was great to talk to them! We are going for dinner tonight to their house! I am really excited! 

Speaking of dinner.. I had my first fast Sunday yesterday and after fasting all day we went to dinner at a members house and they fed us salad.. I hate salad. (It's like eating weeds) then we had pesto pasta which was good besides the fact that it had cherry tomatoes in it... as well as shrimp.... I was dying... salad, shrimp and tomatoes all in one meal.... It was a rough meal. Luckily I managed to eat it all! Nothing like fasting all day for things you hate! I am really learning to eat what I am served though! Haha 

That is basically all I have been doing this week. Can you believe by the end of the week I will be at my one month mark??!! Time is flying!!!! It seems like just yesterday that ya'll were dropping me off at the MTC and now we are already 1 month down!!! Woot woot!! 

I hope ya'll have an amazing week! I can't wait to hear from you again! I will keep an eye out for all the letters and packages! 

I love and miss all of you so much!! I am still praying that Nathan will get that job! :) 

Love ya'll,

Sister Webb 

Eating frozen yogurt - June 8, 2015