"I've never been good at the line dance."

Well I'm sending all the hellos from my sunny state of Florida. 🌴☀️ I just want everyone to know that Sister Hart and I have tan lines on our feet. They are very impressive.

Let me tell you about all the things

Monday

So on Monday we had P-Day. Our wonderful Zone Leaders decided to do service for everyone and clean everyone's cars in the whole zone (seriously... They are the coolest.) but somehow they accidentally threw away my Tiwi card that I have to use to log in to drive the car. So for the first half of the week I had to drive without logging in and Tiwi saying "no driver" every 15 seconds or so. Hahaha life. 😂 Sister Glover and I decided to introduce our trainees to Yellow Dog Eats and Hillary came with us. I ordered the White Trash sandwich because I'm classy.💃🏻 Then we went to FHE. We tied balloons around our ankles and played a game where you try to pop other people's balloon without letting anyone pop yours. Stephanie popped my ballon. She's a Hufflepuff.🎈

Tuesday

On Tuesday we did the temple service like always. Me, Sister Hart, Hermana Shelley, and Hermana Stokey sprayed lots of things with round up. We killed all the weeds growing in the cracks and it was a swell time. We also had our traditional homemade "chipotle" with BBQ sauce burritos. The rest of the day consisted of finding.

Wednesday

On Wednesday we had a day! We got up and after studies we hurried over to district meeting. Our tiny district of us, the Hermanas, and the Windy Ridge elders met on the stage. I gave a spiritual thought. Then after district meeting we were running to leave because we had to eat lunch and while we were running Sister Hart tripped and fell gracefully in front of a couple elders. It was a hard fall but she survived. Then we went quickly to the Hermana's apartment and ate taquitos... Then we drove to JustServe at Second Harvest Food bank and we assembled disaster relief boxes. We were told they are going to Ecuador. Then we went to dinner with a girl in the ward named Bekka... Then we went to night games and played a sweet game of sand volleyball. 🏐 We had some random Italians join us. It was a good time. Then to top off our day we got McFlurries. 🍦

Thursday

On Thursday we had a pretty great lesson with T, our gator from Venezuela. She is my favorite. We also had a lesson with L, dinner with Kaitlyn and Taylor, a lesson with E, and INSTITUTE! It was about marriage and family so that was a good time. Haha and my favorite part of the night was when we were all standing around talking and as soon as it was 9:00 Adam and Lauri came back in the room and said "it's 9:00 we have to pray for the missionaries!" And then the whole group kneeled and Sarah said the most beautiful prayer for us and for the ward to have missionary opportunities and I was crying by the end of it. This ward is so good to me. 💛

Friday

On Friday we weekly planned. Then we went to the temple grounds and talked to some people that were waiting for a wedding. We met Sarah because she had random presents for us. She gave me chocolate, and nail polish, and lip gloss, and sticky notes, and cute window clings that say "shine all day." Again... This ward is so good to me. 💛Then we went to dinner with Lisa Reid... We found out we are 10th cousins once removed... On our moms side...Go figure. Then we made little bags with treats and stuff in them and dropped one off to a girl named Megan and the others we hid in the bushes by Sister Glover and Sister Hill's apartment and then we texted them and told them we hid stuff in the bushes. They said they enjoyed that scavenger hunt. Then we came home and found out the STLs had left us brownies on our door... I had one for breakfast yesterday. 😋 Service is great.

Saturday {MY 7 MONTH BIRTHDAY} 🎂🎂🎂

On Saturday we took a girl named Karina in the ward to this trail and we drew a big plan of salvation with chalk. That was a blast and a half. Then we took her to knock some doors with us. We found a long lost less active that made an appointment with us to come back and teach her! And we also got a new investigator named M. He was pretty cool. Then we went with Sarah to contact a referral that ended up not being home. In the process we met this super nice Methodist couple that gave us water and passed out some cards to some guys power washing driveways... That is a difficult task my friends... Power washing is loud. Then we did some service for Lacey, ran home for dinner and then decided to be in the Windy Ridge Ward (the Spanish Ward) for the night and go to the Hermana's baptism of a girl named M. We got there and the Hermana's told us they had filled up the fount, but that when they left to go get dinner it started to leak so the four of us filled up pitchers of water in the kitchen and ran back and forth dumping water into the fount. It was pretty funny. The program was half Spanish and half English. The baptism was beautiful and we were just so excited for M. We took a picture with her and they also wanted us to join the big group picture with the Ward. I love the Spanish Ward because even though nobody knows you and you can't speak their language they all still hug and kiss you as if you are their family. 

Sunday

Then on Sunday we had morning church. We had a girl named T come to church. She was investigating in Baltimore and moved down here for Disney. She told us she wanted to meet with us. Like WHEN DO MIRACLES LIKE THIS EVEN HAPPEN?!?  ✨She is very cool! Then we went to lunch with Kristen, Brittany, and Megan. That was quite fun, then we went to Lacey's and talked with her. Then she had to leave but she let us use her house to study (since we live so far away from our area we have to study at someone's house on Sundays because we don't have the miles to drive back to our apartment.) while we were there we wrote things on sticky notes and put them all over her room. Then we went to dinner at Brooklynn's with Lacey. Then we had night sacrament and it was parfait! 👌🏻 Then when we got home we realized our phone was GONE. So we couldn't text "in and safe" so the zone leaders had to come to our apartment and make sure we were home. Haha when they came they knocked on the door and hid. When Sister Hart opened the door they scared her SO BAD. It was pretty dang funny. We found out that our phone is at the church. This is why we can't have nice things.

So today is Monday... in case you were wondering. I'm going to eat some ice cream today. 🍦 

On a serious note, I need everyone to pray for Sister Hart's mom Janna. She was diagnosed with breast cancer and Sister Hart found out this week. Sister Hart is doing really well but could definitely use some prayers as well.

Sister Whitney Reid 

Florida, Orlando Mission

🍋🍍🍋🍍🍋🍍🍋🍍

 

Yellow Dog Eats, my favorite place to eat

White Trash Sandwich

looking for gators

In Florida there are signs like this at every pond because of the alligators

Orlando Temple Wins

Plan of salvation chalk art at the park

"M's" baptism day in the Windy Ridge Ward

Windy Ridge Ward

 

"I think that's how plants work."

"I think the plants were short at some point, and then grew bit."..... "I think that's how plants work."

Dearest friends, family, and fan club! (I'm kidding about the fan club... I'm pretty sure I don't have one of those.)

Like always, I made a couple voice recordings with the shake down of my week. My voice recordings for this week also include a magnificent rendition of the happy birthday song for my mom by a bunch of people in my zone. It's her birthday today. Everyone should call and text her and say happy birthday. 

How is everyone doing?? I'm doing pretty swell! I got a chicken nugget in the mail this week... so that's a good time. Sister Hart and I are still having a party! We have a lot of new people we are starting to work with and as a ward council we are tackling the ward list. There are a lot of people on our ward list that nobody knows and we are going to FIND THEM ALL! We made forty two phone calls on Saturday. Fun stuff. 

There's not a lot that I have to talk about that I didn't talk about in my voice recordings. We decided to ride our bikes a little bit this week... because I've been in full car areas my whole mission and feel a little bike deprived. It was a fun time. We had fun at trainer follow-up and our YSA meeting this week. We also got to stop by the mission office and spend a little bit of time with the mission office missionaries. The ward is fantastic and I have made some of the best friends in this ward. We took quite a few pictures this week. I hope you enjoy them.

I have been feasting on The Book of Mormon lately. What a miracle it is to have these ancient holy records that we can just hold in our hands and carry in our pockets on our smart phones and tablets. It really is such a miracle.

Anyways, I'm doing great and I love hearing from all of you. Keep sending me letters and emails. You have no idea how much they mean to me. 

I'm sorry this email is so lame.

I love you all more than adjusting to missionary life says the words "all I have to do right now is..." 

Peace and blessings from the sunshine state!

     -♥- 

Sister Reid

 

We took a wrong turn and found this gem of a place

When they make me leave Florida, I am taking these trees with me

We decided to ride our bikes even though we have a car

Look at my model companion

Spencer is leaving this week

Diego is going to Utah and then back to Italy

illegal download of the Book of Mormon

Missionary Peeps, thanks Robin Jaramillo

I love Sundays

Florida is so beautiful

Sister Hart got some War Heads

 

My brother mailed me a chicken nugget

"Chapter 24 was talking about how Lehi gets dead, he almighty Nephi arises, and how his brothers don't like that."

Hello my favorite humans! How is everyone?

First of all, thank you so much to everyone that has sent me love recently. I don't know if I can express to you how much a simple email or letter means to a missionary 1925 miles away from home. So thank you so much for all the emails this week. They make my soul happy!

I am doing so good. Sister Hart is a rock star and we are having a grand ole time together. I love training her... like a lot!

Like always, I sent a few voice recordings. Contact my mom to get them!

This week was a good time. Some of the more particularly interesting parts of the week include temple service, night games, packaging meat for Second Harvest Food Bank, ZTM, weekly planning ice cream, setting up a "FREE LEMONADE AND BOOK OF MORMON" stand by CP housing, and STAKE CONFERENCE WITH ELDER EDWARD DUBE OF THE SEVENTY!

And some of the not so great parts of the week were when Sister Hart got food poisoning from some Urban Hibachi place, and when we had to drop one of our main investigators "A". That was really hard, but I'm pretty sure I will still be friends with her for a long time.

I have a testimony of how when one door closes, God makes sure another one opens. We received  several referrals this week, one of them being a girl named "V"! She is super awesome and we are so excited to teach her!

Elder Edward Dube of the seventy came for our Stake Conference. He spoke in the Oct 2013 General Conference and is from Zimbabwe! It was an incredible couple meetings! He talked about how he gained a testimony of the Book of Mormon and told us to "NEVER GIVE AWAY A CLOSED BOOK OF MORMON!" He also gave a challenge to every single person in the stake to either #1 bring someone to church that is not now attending that should be, OR find one person that is not a member and prepare them to meet with the missionaries BEFORE DECEMBER 31ST!! What an incredible challenge. 

So I'm doing pretty great. I mean, you can't be doing that bad when you've got yourself a black name tag and you spend your time setting up lemonade stands and talking to people about how much Jesus loves them. 

Jesus loves you.

Go drink some lemonade. (I'm wearing a shirt that has lemons on it at the moment. haha)

I love you more than I loved eating green jello with shredded cheese in it... I actually didn't like that very much... but I still like all of you... a lot!

--

Handstand contest

Us and the Hermana's getting ice cream last Monday

Nigel... our assistant ward mission leader that moved to Idaho on Thursday

     -♥- 

Sister Reid

"Have a great night! God bless America!"

Oh wow. I love everything.

I am training Sister Hart. She is sooooo awesome. Let me tell you all the awesome things about her. She's from Mesa AZ. She's 5' (tiny like me! although not quite as tiny..) She was a cheerleader so she understands all my tumbling talk! Her favorite fruit is grapefruit. (I'm telling you, we are the same person.) Anyways, she's basically the coolest and I'm pretty pumped to be her trainer. She was baptized in the church when she was 8, but never went until a year and a half ago so she considers herself a convert. She is so much fun to be around and we have had a party this week. She's also really good at finding and has no fear when it comes to talking with people. ahhh It's going to be a good transfer!

My favorite parts of the week were getting Sister Hart, the Relief Society Pizza party, Temple Service, District meeting, getting free froyos (frozen yogurt) because we are bffs with the manager Pierre, and CONFERENCE, Conference lunch in between Saturday sessions at Tijuana Flats, Saturday night Sushi at MiWa with Lacey, Jackie, and Meilin, and Dinner with Brooklynn Sunday night. I also particularly enjoyed contacting people in Walmart as well as contacting in some apartment complex's. Sister Hart has no fear when it comes to talking with people which makes finding SO MUCH FUN! ahh she's the coolest. 

I loved conference this weekend and one thing I loved so much was when Elder Holland said "Do you have any Idea how much we love you?" It just made my heart so full. I learned so much from this conference, one prompting I received while watching conference was actually from the song "there is sunshine in my soul today" I received the prompting that the gospel is sunshine and I have the great calling of giving that sunshine to people's souls. And In order to give it to these people I must show that sunshine through my face. So from that I felt prompted to smile more and to be joyful about my testimony, because what an amazing thing it is that we have Christ's restored gospel and all the blessings that come along with it!

Go share some sunshine.

This week was super duper fun! I am doing really well and am so excited to train Sister Hart. I made her make tweets (on note cards) to teach me the restoration this morning. haha it was a good time. I hope all is well I think I'll finish this email with my out of context quotes from the week. Please enjoy! 

"SATURDAY IS THE DAY I SHINE!"

"My favorite color is yellow and blue..." "Isn't that green?"

"Teancum... we can promise that if you throw your spear straight, you will kill someone."

"Have a great night! God bless America!"

"Where's the rest of the thirds?"

"I have no English in my mouth"

"We know a lot of the same people together."

I love you all more than Isaiah loves to be confusing! Have a wonderful day! I'm going to go eat some ice cream right now. #Blessed

--

     -♥- 

Sister Reid

Sushi on Saturday

trainers selfie number two!

trainers selfie

First day with Sister Hart!

DAYTONA FRIENDS! (transfer meeting

I have taken a liking to sushi... it's a good time!

Elder Holland post-conference icecream

Pictures from our walk

a large sand hill crane

Saying goodbye to Sister Lewis!