A Lion's Den With No Weapons

 Hehe, so I'm going to tell y'all how my week went from being in the dumpster to being one of the best weeks on my mission! We started out with a ton of drama in the branch and I HATE drama, so that wasn't fun. But after interviews with President, we got a call from one of the people starting the drama, and she said she wanted to meet up. We were so scared to go, and it was literally like a movie. She brought one of her "followers" and the follower stood behind going, "mmm hmm" the whole time. 😂 We couldn't help ourselves and kind of laughed. She told us that we were sent to a "lion's den with no weapons" and that we needed to chill because sisters aren't cool. The good news is, everyone is starting to like us better now because they have gotten to know our personalities!

Then we got stood up for a lesson with our most progressing person, Ethan. He was waiting for us in our usual spot at Chick FIL A and he said hi to us for like 30 secs and then he told us he had to go to the bathroom. He took all of his stuff, even his drink, and left. We waited for 35 MINUTES!!!! We eventually just had to leave, and he blocked us... We tried to see him a couple days later and he blew us off, so we left him a note. Hopefully he'll come through!!

Here's where it starts getting good: We went to our branch president's mansion. Yes. Mansion!!!!! It was sooooooo cool!!! It felt like paradise! They literally live on the ocean! 

We were on a frustrating phone call with one of our members and we looked over and saw the beach!!! It was beautiful!! I was driving, so Sister Jensen was reaching over to take pictures while we were talking to the member haha. It was funny!

Then we were filming the sisters for a video, and I saw the biggest spider I've ever seen just chilling in a tree! It was terrifying!

I got bit by something, and it was burning, but it looks fine now. We also saw tons of cats and families of raccoons in the bushes!!! Sooooo cute!

BEST PART OF MY WEEK!!! We got to decorate for the YSA dance, and it was a party and a half! That's where the members started being nice to us!!! We went to the dance for 30 minutes to get our friends situated with people, and it was so hard to leave!! Everyone was dressed up (my companion and I switched name tags lol) and the music was so good! I wanted to dance so bad that I went out into the hall, and I exploded!! I did the worm and some cartwheels, and I felt better! This guy walked up to me in a mask and said hi and I was like, "who's that?" And so, I asked him, and he was offended and told me that I knew him! I remembered who it was, but I couldn't remember his name! He was from the Coral Springs ward!! I tried to play it off, but I felt sooo bad!!

Church the next day was awesome!! We had so many people that we had been wanting to come to church come!! We sat by two less active people, and it looked like they were our body guards. 😂 Then one of them fell asleep and started SNORING!!! I turned to Sister Jensen, and I had no idea if I should wake him up or not haha! Luckily he woke up pretty fast! 

For p-day we hit a piñata!!! It was so fun!!! 

Miracle: We were trying hard to meet up with this guy named Billy, but his phone was broken, so we visited him so many times and finally decided that he was impossible to get a hold of. We decided to visit him one last time and left him a sticky note with our number on it. The next morning he called back and wanted to meet up!!!! He had changed his number! We had a good talk and he said he still remembers the spirit he felt just from meeting the elders one time!! 

Heavenly Father always places people in our paths for a reason. There truly are no coincidences! There is always something to learn from every person, or a friendship or something! Never forget that! There is a reason for everything. 

Here are some pictures from the week and some from last week. Love you all!! 💕

Tiki Man

 So... yup. This week happened. We found this weird tiki man in our pantry and literally everything falls around it and we keep hearing weird noises!!! We all think it's cursed! It's creepy!!

I beat the YSA at chair soccer and it was pretty funny! I accidentally hit one of our leaders that was playing! I felt so bad!

I also forgot to say that Sharon from one of my old areas got baptized!!! I love her!! ❤️  I got to watch on zoom and she was so happy to see me!

For Sister Jensen's birthday we went to dinner with some old ladies and they gave her an "Incredicandle." It did not turn out as planned... it went up into flames and started singing like it was dying while they pried it apart with 2 forks. 😂 It was the funniest thing I've ever seen.

Miracle: We were looking for a Book of Mormon for one of our friends and we moved a pillow and a box with a brand new Book of Mormon fell out of nowhere!! We gave it to him and he was so happy!!! 

Not too many pictures this week because my comp has them and I'm out of time, but I'll put them next week! Love y'all!! ❤️ 

Showdown in Downtown Delray

Oh boy... how can I describe this week? 😬 I'll start with my last few days with my last companion. It was a hoot and a half. This man came up to see why we were parked in front of his house and he looked like he wanted to fight. I was so scared, but my companion rolled down the window and... handled it... 😬😂 It was sooooo funny. Then we delivered brownies that we cut into the shape of a pumpkin! We were out on pros Monday teaching lessons and getting gas until 9. It was so stressful! Transfer news was coming out and we told the other sisters we would be back to open it together. I sped as much as tiwi would allow and made it home at 9:03!!! I was pretty proud, and then transfer news didn't come out until 9:30!!!!!!!! We were all DYING!!!! I honestly thought that I was staying in Wellington, but nope!!! I ended up going YSA in Boynton Beach!!

 Let me tell you... it has been a wild ride!! We now live in a 6 man house, and it's interesting for sure. We get to go OYMing on campuses and go to institutes and FHE's and it's weird! Also, apparently our branch president is LOADED. He has a multi-million dollar house on the ocean that they have parties at almost every month!! His wife is adorable too! She brought a blanket to church and told us it was cold and spread it across us. 😂 She's probably in her late 70's early 80's. I love them already! I thought that I had escaped drama when I left middle school, but here we go again! The YSA is FULL of drama! The last missionaries let things get a little "casual" so now we get to fix things! Yay...! Apparently there is also a YSA bully that has made it so our recent converts don't want to come back to church. 😑 If y'all have any ideas on how to make three 20 year old girls not hate us, and how to fix the bullying situation, please send them. We are brainstorming... Also, my new companion is awesome! We are just trying to work up the courage to talk to these people together and we are having a ton of fun! 

Funny stories: We went to this Haitian family's house thinking that we would teach the 19 year old aunt, but instead, she threw all the little kids into the room and said, I'll be in and out, but you teach them! We were like, "what?!" So, we kind of winged it and played a game with them. It was INSANE! I kid you not when I say there were 8 kids all trying to talk at the same time and grab our attention, and not only that, but they all had kittens that they wanted us to hold. One of the little boys was so funny 😂 he came up and said, "wow... your hair is soooo pretty!! It looks so natural! Were you born with your hair pressed?! Can I braid it?" Before I could answer *starts braiding it... eek!! He was like 9. Haha. He was also convinced that Sister Jensen and I were twins! 

We walked past some kids and one of the girls was wearing shoes that looked like golf balls cut in half all over! I said I liked them and she said, "look up bubble shoes on Amazon! I have them in red, yellow, purple, green, blue, white, etc..." 😂 so funny! 

Also, I was on the messaging team (we are in charge of messaging people back on our mission's Facebook page) and there was this CRAZY dude that messaged the weirdest stuff. I even screenshotted some of it because I thought it was so funny. Turns out HE'S IN OUR WARD!!!!! He's so funny! He's the ward missionary, so we had our missionary coordination meeting with him and he started playing army music so we could "focus" on how to fix the ward 😂 

Next is the best of all. We had this big whiteboard and we wrote "what makes you smile" on it and we went to the spot they usually go to to try to get people to sign it, and lo and behold, someone beat us!!! The Jehovah's Witnesses were already there promoting a Bible study class. We were walking past trying to find another spot and they stopped us and asked what we were doing. It was the most tense conversation I've ever experienced. 😂 We were super nice to them and they were not having it. We asked if they wanted to sign our board and they looked judgmentally at it and said no. As we were walking away I heard them say that it was a really good idea. 😂 It felt like a show down and it was so funny.

Miracles: We were whiteboard oyming and this guy came and almost started crying and said that we were a sign from God. He got our number and wanted to come to church with us. Heavenly Father helped us so much this week because we had no idea what we were doing and we got so many numbers!!! 

Heavenly Father is always there helping us even if it's more clear sometimes than others! He loves us, and I love all of you!! Have the best week!! ❤❤❤ Miss y'all!

Hurricanes, Hospital Visits, and Mall Security

 Holyyyyy!!!! This week was WILD. Well, first off, sorry this is so late! I am heading to the temple and they changed my pday, so I guess this is like 2 weeks... I'm not dead! The hurricane passed by us and we did get a tornado where I'm at!! It was terrifying! We got like 10 warnings that said, "extreme danger: get in a closet now" one of which being at 5 am. I could hear the wind super loud outside, so I woke up my companion and she listened for a second and said, "it's fine" and went back to bed. 😂 It's all good. We survived. The day before Ian passed us, it was raining super hard, so we did our studies in the garage with the garage door open and watched the rain! That night we ran out and jumped in the flooding street because we had to bring our garbage can in hahahaha! It was so fun! We had all our hurricane shutters up and it felt like a cave in the house. While we were putting our shutters up, there was a snake in our yard!!! The best part about everything was that two of the sisters nearby had to evacuate and stay at our house, and guess who it was? SISTER YOUNG (my MTC companion) and her companion Sister Bevan!! It was a party!! 

Next part of the crazy week you'll have to buckle up for... 

We kept hearing noises that sounded like footsteps coming from our attic. We thought we were going crazy until the other sisters came and heard it too!! We kind of freaked out because there was a hurricane, so we couldn't have anyone come check it out. So...we decided to be brave and check it out ourselves. We went into the attic and there was SO much insulation that there was no way it was a person living up there. We figured it had to be an animal! We had the ZL's on video call and they looked in the attic with us because they happened to call at just the right time to be involved. 😂 We named the animal Walter, and we put out some bread for him. The next day we heard him less and then basically not at all the next day. We were positive that Walter had died. 😬 Turns out the whole time it was pinecones being smacked into our roof from the hurricane wind. 😂 It's become a joke in our house. Anyways, before we figured out that Walter was just pinecones, I went on exchanges, and that night I went out to change the thermostat and about died when I heard rustling and cupboards closing in the kitchen! I flipped out and ran back into my room to grab Sister Merrill and when I did, she heard it too! We locked the door and called the other sisters and they said they hadn't left their room, so we got pepper spray and went out and nothing was there!!! At this point we were all just exhausted and tired of all of the noises in the house. Sister Davis needed a blessing the next day before she went to the ER (I'll get to that) so we had the Elders bless our house while they were there. Everything has settled down! Weird! 

So as I said above, my companion had to go to the hospital. She had been having stomach pains and a big bump was forming, so we went to the ER. We got it figured out and she will be fine after she takes antibiotics, but let me tell you, those antibiotics make her CRAZY!!! 

Last story: we put out sticky notes at the mall again and we got a call from MALL SECURITY telling us that someone complained about "hand written sticky notes soliciting"! You can't sell Jesus. 🙄 Anyways. We had put out over 70 sticky notes and we had to take them all down!!!! 

Miracles: we were all safe and the house was blessed. The couple we are teaching are praying about baptism!! 

Invitation: listen to the Saturday evening session of conference!! It was AMAZING! I got so many answers. 

Sorry this email is hecka long! There was just soooo much! I love you all. You've never gone too far to feel God's love and turn your heart to Him. He loves you!!!! ❤️