I'm here in Florida!! I have been assigned to work in the Gainsville area! Gainsville is pretty big compared to Salem. UF is close by, or so I hear, but I'm not actually assigned to serve on, or near campus which is kind of a bummer.
My Companion or my sister trainer is Sister Atkinson. She is from Washington State and is just wonderful!! She has only been here for one transfer and is already training. The Sister training leaders (similar to a zone leader) said that I be training the next transfer.
Any way... Sister Atkinson has a ton of motivation and drive to get things done. She is 20 as well and for the last 2 years has been golfing for BYU. My first days were AWESOME, we met with all of our scheduled appointments and I met some of the investigators we are working with. It's strange how much I can love someone that I barely know.
OOOOHHHH wait....
Before I talk too much about my days here I have to tell you about my plane experience.
I was assigned to sit next to an Elder. I jokingly dared him to give the other person whom we would be sitting next to a book of Mormon. He said why don't you. after a little banter the lady who was assigned to sit near us came down the isle.
We started having some casual conversation about where we were going. She was coming to Jacksonville to see her daughter who is on the Navy base here.
She asked about us and we told her we were coming to serve missions. We talked a little and she brought up how important families are to her. She talked about how every night she was determined to have family dinner together, and how hard it has been for them to be apart. Then we talked about our families and how much we love them. I told her that part of our beliefs are that we believe families can be together forever, and she really liked that.
Later conversation died down a bit and me and the Elder looked at each other and decided to "casually" pull out our scriptures and begin reading. We were sharing some scriptures we liked when she looked over and asked us what we were reading. She said, "is that like the bible?"
The Elder then begin to introduce her to the book of Mormon. He said how it was an account of Jesus in the Americas and she said she believed that, she believed that something had to be happening here while it was happening over in Jerusalem. He then began to talk about Joseph Smith when he looked at me, and bam, I took it away.
I began to tell her about the first vision when not to my surprise the plane hit turbulence... that satan is a trickster.
Any who we continued to push onward and I just "happened" to have a copy that I had bought from the bookstore before we left the MTC. I asked her if she would like to have the copy to read for herself. She said she would LOVE THAT!!!!!
She then asked a bunch of questions, that were all the right questions about the restoration of the preisthood, and many other questions that we had the answers to. She said she was excited to have some new reading material because she had until 4 everyday for a week that she had nothing to do. GOODNESS, GOD IS GOOD!!! He had prepared this lady so much for us! She even told us that her mom used to say if they didn't grow up catholic they would have grown up MORMON!!!!
The Elder dog eared some awesome parts like 3rd nephi 10, the intro and some stuff in alma. We got her e-mail and then said goodbye because our plane had landed! WHAT A MIRACLE! I was so happy as were the other missionaries sitting around us listening in on the conversation. As we walked off the plane me and the Elder (Elder Noall from cache valley) shook hands and joked that we didn't know our first "REAL" companions would be of the opposite gender.
Today I'm going to E-mail that lady and find out how her reading went!! So stoked!
Well...
FLORIDA! Basically this is the most foreign place ever. So many tall trees, so much GREEN! All the trees have spanish moss on them which gives it a really eerie look, but it's pretty much the bomb! There are really so many lizards here along with bugs galore! We even saw a frog in our work out room.
My apartment is WAY nice and I'm so lucky to be blessed with a very nice car as well.
The teaching is my favorite. Our days are long and planned out to the T but everything flies by because I get to teach the gospel.
The first few days I noticed that we were around a bunch of people but we were not taking advantage of it. We were not handing pass along cards like we should and were not really searching for potential investigators (here they just call them gators, it's awesome secret mission code language).
The people are wonderful! Some are progressing quickly and I can see the light growing within them. Others (one older lady in specific), not so much. She has been working with missionaries since before my companion, and before her companion, and so forth. She wants to know if the Book Of Mormon is true, and if her family (who are members) are truly saved. The problem is that she has so much fear that it is not true that she stunts herself from really learning that it is true! I have never prayed so hard or so much for someone. I know the Lord will bless her though.
To be honest I have not really had a hard time transitioning to the mission. I love it here, I love this work, I love the Lord. I know I'm meant to be here! I'm just so excited to share this gospel with everyone!
Oh on Saturday we were asked to work with the youth for youth conference. We taught them, and ended up taking them tracting with us... which happened to be my first time tracting too, and maybe one of my last times. By Dec. we will no longer be tracting, we will also have smart phones and IPADS! AWESOME!
Gosh it's just amazing!
I love you all! I hope that you can be missionary minded and look for opportunities to spread the gospel, the work is hastening!
Love,
Sister Chambers
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