Oh man. What a week.
Okay so last Monday
we went to the beach in the mornin' and had a grand ole time. Then in
the evening we went to exchange with the Daytona sisters. We were
sitting in the Daytona apartment and we're just sitting there talking
about goals and whatnot and ALL OF THE SUDDEN AP Elder Johnson calls and
is like "oh hey Sister Reid... President Clark wants you to give a
training at MLC on Thursday..." 😳😶
And I'm over here thinking "I've never been to an MLC where anyone
except the APs, President and Sister Clark, and GENERAL AUTHORITIES have
given trainings..." what even is life? 🙈 but you know, it's fine.
Tuesday
I stayed in Daytona with Sister Badal and ALL THE GOOD THINGS HAPPENED.
All of them. And all of the crazy happened too. We started off our day
at the HUM doing some service for the homeless. We cleaned the showers
and toilets that the homeless people use. It was very humbling. Then we
went outside and this homeless guy asked us to push his wheelchair up a
hill and then after a few minutes Sister Badal started to not feel so
good because of the smell of the whole place so she almost passed out.
And I'm just thinking "well this is going to be an interesting
exchange."
I was right...
Then
we did some finding and taught one of my faves Brother Zanker. The
Spirit had him in tears twice during the lesson. *whips and nay nays*
Then we did some more finding and found a sweet new gator named
J.... and then.... read this story... we go try to contact this
former and we got up to the porch and this trailer and before we can
knock the door SWINGS OPEN and this old lady and a lady covered in tats
while wearing a bikini are holding onto this giant man eating dog and
they quickly tell us we need to get to the end of the driveway or the
dog might eat us. So we booked it to our car and dived in before the dog
could rip our faces off. Then we watched them secure the dog and then
then bikini lady starts walking to our car so we are sitting there
thinking she's just going to come to our window and say sorry, but THEN
SHE HOPPED INTO THE BACK SEAT and Sister Badal and I both start to panic
because here we are trying to spread the gospel and then all of the
sudden there is a lady in a bikini in our back seat. She was telling us
all kinds of things about her life and wouldn't even let us talk. I was
just sitting there trying to plot a way to get her out, but after a few
minutes she quickly decided on her own that she needed to get out BUT
THE CHILD LOCK WAS ON THE DOOR SO THE BIKINI LADY WAS LOCKED IN OUR CAR.
So sister Badal was going to get out and unlock it but the lady decided
that would take too long so she dived over the seat and climbed out he
drivers side door. So Sister Badal hopped in and we drove away
realllllll fast.
The crazy doesn't even end there.
We
went and met a guy named Chopper who had ramen noodle hair. Then we saw
the Trents who are the nicest! Then we had dinner with Sister J. I
don't know if you remember but about 11 months ago we had dinner with
this lady who dumped Coca-Cola all over me on accident... well that was
Sister J. She remembered me, but I don't think she remembered the
coca-cola incident. Haha she was all excited to give us yogurt. What? I
don't even know.
Then here's the best story from exchanges...
So
we are leaving and Sister Badal needs to use the loo pretty bad 🚽so we
drive over to the church and she runs into the bathroom and I'm just
chillin' outside the door and just as she sits down she hears someone
say "I'm so sorry.... I have to tell you I'm in here." THERE WAS AN
ELDER who will remain nameless IN THE STALL NEXT TO HER! I was
laughing so hard I was crying listening to this all go down. He said
there was only one stall in the boys bathroom and he really had to go
and he didn't think anyone would be at the church. So there Sister Badal
was just peeing away while an Elder was taking a dump next to her. She
hurried out of there as fast as she could and we ran outside and laughed
until we couldn't breath. Then the elders eventually came out and we
all laughed about it for another solid ten minutes.
It definitely made the top 10 funniest moments of my mission. And the best quote from the whole ordeal is "You don't know how loud your pee is until there's an elder in the stall next to you."
The
last miracle from Tuesday was when we went to visit heir progressing
investigator John and I realized that I TOTALLY CONTACTED JOHN eleven
months ago with Sister Nelsen and he is INVESTIGATING THE CHURCH now and
he RODE HIS LAWN MOWER TO CHURCH ON SUNDAY and I just really like when I
find out that the work I did in the past really did make a difference.
What a day.
Wednesday
we had DM and we gave a two minute training on memorizing scriptures.
We also taught Tammy and went to a super fun ward choir practice where
the director just played songs on the guitar and we jammed out. Then we
went to young women's and did skits with them.
Thursday
we road tripped down to Orlando for MLC. I'm there thinking there are
going to be several people giving trainings, but Hermana Jones asks
Elder Johnson how many people are giving trainings and he holds up a
number one and then points to me. ☝🏻👉🏻Excuse me what? Oh man. But I gave my training and nobody even died so I guess you could say it went pretty well. 😂
I kinda gave an obedience lecture and then told a story about mung
beans and then talked about following the spirit. Hahaha Then there was a
really good discussion on obedience that was lead by President Clark.
Thursday we also taught Melody, Brittany, Milady, and Jefferey. They are
my favorite family. Then we taught Sister Chilkott, and then Brother
Schmidt and Judy.
Friday
we weekly planned and had a meeting with the Zone Leaders to plan ZTM.
We also had dinner with the Cintron's who I LOVE! And we taught this 13
year old kid named Jathen who told us about fishing for a solid 30
minutes and and I was just nodding my head like "ya mhmm garr is a good
fish to catch... did you know Jesus' apostles were fisherman?"
🐠🐟🐠🐟🐠🐟 Then we convinced him to read his scriptures. 👊🏻Then we
taught Angel and Brother Clausen.
Saturday was general conference. My favorite holiday. There were many revelations received.
So
here's the cutest thing. I've had the same home teacher since I was
seven and every year since I was a little kid we've had to draw him
pictures during general conference and when he comes to visit after
conference we would present our pictures to him and he'd give us a treat
in response. Well we are teaching a part member family right now so
that some of the kids can get baptized. I decided to pass this tradition
onto them and so when we went over Saturday night they all ran to me to
show me their pictures. I was in awe as they told me all about their
favorite talks and stories from conference. We took some selfies with
their pictures.
Sunday
we had some more wonderful sessions of general conference. Go watch
#LDSconf if you haven't yet. We also taught a guy named Frank who was
nice.
Like
I said, I always like to joke about how conference is our favorite
holiday. I like to say that because it really does feel like a
celebration of the fact that we have the restored gospel on the earth
today in its fullness. The overall feeling I got from conference is
motivation. I liked when President Eyring said that LDS also stands for
"Let's Do Something." Overall conference was a reminder that this is the
greatest work I can ever do and I am so excited to go out and do it!
I'm doing
really well and I hope y'all are too! Thank for all the love and
support. You really don't know how much even little emails mean to me.
I just love y'all more than missionaries love conference, and more than President Uchtdorf loves airplanes.
