February 24, 2014

HEEEEEEY family and friends and everyone elsewhere in the world!
okay. I apologize cause this email is gonna be a little shorter, I caught the deadly sickness going around and so my mind is just a little all over the place and i'm juuuuust yeah... 

ANYWAY BUT I STILL AM HAPPY! 

this week was pretty good i think I can't remember very much at the moment, haha, BUT SOMETHING COOL was that we had taught this younger girl outside our apt. about Christ and she didn't even know really who he was, and THAT was really cool. cause we are always teaching born again christians and such and so just to teach someone who really didn't know, MAN, it was awesome, it brings a new understanding into your testimony :)

ANYWAY a while later like weeks or so we ran into her parents and TURNS OUT HER MOM IS MORMON!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

isn't that cool???? they will ALL BE BAPTIZED! 

anywho. that's the short version, haha

ALSO oh my gosh AARON RUSSELL!!!! BE CAREFUL ON YOUR BIKE!!! hahaha it's true though florida is not a good place for biking. you're gonna give mom a heart attack. 

aaaanyyywwwwayyyy...

guys i'm sorry. i just can't think of anything, haha i'm tired. 

OH WAIT. i thought of something.

well, eh nevermind. OH! orion passed the sacrament on sunday and it was really cool and i love him :) (the son of wavaney, that got baptized)

hey! transfers are coming up in a week so don't send anything after thursday if it takes a couple days, just in case i'm getting moved, i probably will stay, but we'll see!

well. I just hope you all know how much I love you. I really do, and I really do have a testimony of this work. I don't care where you are at in your life, or what you're doing, I love you guys. each of you, a lot. 

and i'm starting to nod off, so i will conclude this email with a powerful spiritual thought that issssss to go and read your scriptures. haha IT WILL CHANGE EVERYTHING if you will make that commitment and not falter from it. don't allow yourself to forget! it's too important. i commit each of you to read every single day! 

okay i'm sorry this email is so lame!

LOVE YOU! 

This is Shiloh, one of my favorite little girls in the universe!
And we walked outside just in time to see some awesome guy flying in a
little airplane and making this :) whoever he is it made my day and he
is awesome! It says Jesus loves you, if you can't tell!

February 17, 2014

WELL. no pictures today..... because devastatingly enough... my camera was stolen.......... 

along with my memory card with 8 months of my mission on it...............

so........ that was definitely that down of my week. haha but i've had my time to sulk AND now I just am trying to love my old camera again but it's like living in a hut and moving to a mansion and then moving back into the hut. hahaha SO i'm trying to humble myself again!! man we get spoiled so easily!!! 

ANYWAY. 

uh... BIG NEWS!!! but you all already know because Aaron and them (i mean Elder Russell) already talked about it!

IPADS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!

it was like a DREAM! hahaha so cool. the only problem is whipping these things out in super humble homes I feel like a monster!! but no they are awesome. 

LET ME TELL YOU. I did not know how to use ipads. at all. except swiping and camera and stuff. and our whole area book and planners are on these things, and it's a huge big program, and gospel library studies and stuff, and Pres. is like... NO MORE PAPER. throw your planners away! you aren't allowed to use your paper scriptures anymore! no more books! ONLY THIS! sooo it's been quite sad :( and my first personal study and Hna Meldau was pretty entertained cause i was sighing and groaning the whole time trying to figure out how to take notes while i read my scriptures. hahaha ANYWAY but now i'm getting all tech savy and it's pretty cool :) seriously, it's like the gospel! there is SO MUCH knowledge and goodness and potential if people will try and learn and work for it! but sometimes we are just too comfortable to make that effort and we don't wanna change, and we miss so many awesome opportunities. 

ANYWHO.

OKAY. this week was just really really good. nothing too special event wise, but it was just GOOD. I feel SO BLESSED and grateful to be out here. one day we were driving to an appt and I just got this overwhelming feeling of urgency for the work. and I feel like i felt a TINY little part of how important it really is, and we DON'T EVEN UNDERSTAND IT!!! haha the big picture and just everything! it is SO MUCH MORE than we can comprehend!!! and i just saw all these people and i was like... oh my heck... what are we doing???? WHAT I AM I DOING??? how can i waste any time out here??? how can i NOT talk to that person?? WE NEED TO BE GATHERING AN ARMY RIGHT NOW!!! haha seriously cause we have to find the people who are ready and the noble and great ones and they keep telling us that and i feel like I am beginning to get it... it is SO IMPORTANT. the 2nd coming is real. I literally wanted to buy a horse and put on a cool war outfit write the title of libterty on a ragged cloth and ride around florida shouting for people to JOIN!!! hahaha just like Moroni and that AWESOME WAR SCENE!

but I feel like.......... that wouldn't give the church the best look. so i didn't do it. 

anyway. so that was just a cool feeling.

we had a pretty awesome week though!! we met a lot of great people set up a lot of good appt's and we've been expanding our teaching pool! much needed! Our president is very inspired, and change is not my favorite thing but I'm beginning to love it, I love the progress, I just love this work! 

We got a referral for a cute mexican family who have their own restaurant from a member, and we went by and she gave us free drinks and dessert just cause we were missionaries! and man I love the spanish people and culture and everything. LOVE IT. 

and uh... gosh i just can't think of many big stories to tell, a lot has happened buuuuuuut it all just escapes me at the moment!

okay well anyway. I guess I'll just close up! 

I've been thinking a lot about how often we all look so forward into the future, and we don't live up our potential today.

One thing for missionaries and people in general that we know, is that we will all go home. Whether that means home back to your home state from your mission, or home to your father in heaven from this earth. I will go home from my mission, that will happen, we know it and it is sure. What is not sure and what I don't know, is how i will leave my mission, the person that I will be, how i will finish it. And even more than that, how will we all leave this world? We come, and no matter what, we will finish, that will not change. so stop thinking about when you are going to finish, and everything after, but think about what you have to do today, in order to become that missionary, or person that God wants, and intended you to be when you do reach that finish. The person or missionary God has intended you to be from very back before you even started this journey. He has his vision for you, and he knows how to get you there, let him do it. Follow him, trust him, STOP fighting him. Live, learn and love TODAY! 

I got that thought when I was thinking too much about the future, and Heavenly Father told me to knock it off and focus on now. haha 

I love you all so much, MORE THAN WORDS CAN SAY. I really am so grateful for every single person in my life, and gosh I just can't express to you guys how much i love you. I also can't express that AWESOMENESS of a mission. and the blessings and lessons learned and the challenges that help me grow. i am so grateful for a heavenly father who ALLOWS me to go through hard times, and allows me to learn for myself. I am grateful when I can look back and see that i have changed, and it's only because the Lord has given me trials. BUT, if i hadn't turned to him, I would've gone the opposite way. trials will make or break you, turn to him, and let them make you. 

LOVE YOU GUYS!!!

February 10, 2014

HOOLLAAAAAAAAAAAAAA my dear dear friends and family from around the world! haha this week went by FAST it's freaking me out! 

okay there were TONS of miracles this week. and uh i can't even begin to tell them all! haha 

here's one awesome one though, WELL.

one night, we were doing the whole talk to everyone thing, and we were driving back home, and it had been a rough night, no one was interested, and i was like OOOH man talking to everyone is kind of downing my spirits. haha and we were gonna be late so we were goin and then we saw this kid walking alone on the side of the road so i was like..... ahhhhhh OKAY FINE. and slammed on my brakes and we just rolled down the window and said what's your name? "christian!" christian! look up this website! gave him a mormon.org card, and drove away, hahaha okay.... about a week later. we went to go contact an old investigator/potential and we knocked and they totally looked at us through the window and left.... sooo.... we were like oookay cool. haha and left! as we were walking back.... there was a kid across the street.... walking... alone..... SO! we walked across and said hi, and i didn't even REALIZE THAT IT WAS CHRISTIAN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! WHAT! and he had totally looked up the website!!! WHAT! and he has a rough life and so he wants to learn more!!! WHAT!!! so that was pretty cool. what are the chances of that? 100%!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 

anyway... right after that we started talking to this other guy, and we started explaining how we have a prophet today, and the restoration and everything, and he starts telling us how crazy we are and how this is all messed up. and then we tried explaining about prayer and he started getting REEEEaally mad and started yelling at us about how we're crazy, and this is stupid, and he doesn't need our pamphlets or us to tell us what God says.. (as we're explaining that he can get an answer from God... not us.......) and then he threw our stuff on the ground and told us to go to YOU know where and then uh walked away! hahahah sooooo that was pretty weird....... but CHRISTIAN!!!!!!! MIRACLE!!! haha so cool.

anyway uh hey the other night, i was looking at a cake that we had in the house. and i was thinking... hm... i reeeeeeally want a bite of that cake! and then i though... NO! jessy no! you've been eating so healthy lately! go eat a carrot! and then i though... ehhhhhhh i realllllllly want a bite! and then i thought no! you'll eat the whole thing! you won't be able to stop! haha and THEN. i said NO. i can control myself :) just one bite! (NOOOO DON'T OPEN THE BOX!) and i ate a bite........... and then i ate almost the rest of the cake..... hahahaha then i didn't feel good. SO i related it to sin! we think we can control ourselves, and we THINK that it'll be fine!!! but the more we tempt ourselves and push the line, the harder it'll be to get back to where we are. so just stay away from it all!!!! haha 

anywho. okay WAY cool day! pres. has everyone on cars taking one day of the week for a bike day. so we can get out more, and man it was full of MIRACLES! one lady we just handed a card and said it'll strengthen her faith in Christ and she start crying and said she needed that, and then broke down to us about everything going on in her life, and said God sent us cause he knew she wasn't making the right choices. and ANOTHER lady said she walked into walgreens and prayed for everyone in the store and then saw us giving someone a card and she needed to know what it was and then we offered her a prayer and she took us outside to her whole family waiting in the car and had us pray for them! and cried and said God sent his angels to her to help them that day! and man I could go on! it was an awesome day. 

okay ANYWAY. I love you guys. I want you each to know, individually. that God, Heavenly Father, and Jesus Christ. they love you. Your father in heaven, he loves you. he is focused on you. and he is working hard to get you back to him. he doesn't take his eyes off of you, he has plans and back up plans and back up back up plans. he will be there, and put people in your lives, to help you. He will not give up on you, so do not give up on yourself. He really is involved. whether you believe it or not. I love you, don't forget that either. There is purpose. Be strong, carry on. Don't let anything get you down. Your faith will be tested, every time it grows, so that it can grow even more. there is no limit on your growth, so just be patient through trials, let God make you who he knows and needs you to be. Let him get you there, his purpose, and reason for everything, is our happiness. think about that, really think about it. He loves us. He works for us. He will not stop working for us. 

I love you guys :)

hasta la vista :) 

the strawberry distance race thing!!! WOOO!

LOOK WHO I SAW!! :) yaaay i love hna judd so much!!! 

February 3, 2014

okay NOW this is the email! AH! no time! 
10 minutes. lets make this good.

MIRACLES!

one of the miracles from metro, i had FOUR family history cards! in the first ten minutes i gave away three and was like shoot.... i gotta save this one for something special! so i forgot about it all day! we were then walking home.... in the freezing cold BY THE WAY. we couldn't move our fingers. hahaha and we stopped to talk to this guy at the bus stop, and he was atheist so didn't wanna take our card, and then we were talking a little more and he was like, what the! (edited) haha MY bus just literally drove right by! what the heck! and we were just about to leave, and i was like... what!!!! that is NOT A COINCIDENCE!!!! haha but i had nothing else to say... it had gotten awkward! cause he wasn't interested AND we'd done small talk but i felt prompted that we needed to still talk to him, so i was like... uh... sooo.... you suuuuure you don't want this mormon.org card? hahaha and he was like yeah i'm good..... so we started walking away and then.. the THOUGHT! GENEALOGY! so i ran back to him and was like hey! do you like genealogy??? and he was like... well. i'm still trying to find my real parents actually! can't find them online so i was gonna hire a lawyer... and i was like NOOOOO that's so expensive! we have people that will help you personally for free!!!! and he was like.. wow really? and took the card.... :) and BAM! baptismal date. jk but ya know. eventually.

COOL HUH!

okay anyway. metro was a blast. there are SO MANY PEOPLE that are way more willing to listen than you would think! we saw SO MANY MIRACLES from just talking to everyone straight! it was AWESOME! and we are continuing to see miracles. 

ANYWAY. soooo news! president has banned any music...... someone had to go home and it rooted from music and it devastated him, so he's just taking out any temptations and distractions. he is making sure no one falls through the cracks, obedience is key. AND. you can imagine. with my often dramatic reactions to things.... how i reacted... when i found out.... hahaha WELL my friends it was an up and down scale of emotions for quite some time, devastation.... denial.... shock... you name it. BUT! i have come to be at peace with it! we uh.... hum a lot. and sometimes sing. to break the silence in the car. hahaha so i'm perfecting my voice skills! it's all around pretty great! i'll show you all when i get back. 

anyway. 

OH!!!!!!!!!!! this is way cool. ah! three minutes! okay so we were leaving the exchange and went to go say hi to some people and noticed they were moving in and so we helped them and it was a LOT of stuff and we even took up the couch and recliners up three flights of stairs!! WHAT! HARD CORE!! hahaha anyways it was really cool cause the guy moving in was like you guys! my helpers just called and cancelled so i dunno what i would've done without you all. AND the people helping him one of them had JUST gotten a hip replacement and the other had heart problems and the rest were weak woman! haha so uh yeah that was AWESOME! i love being an instrument! WOOO!!! 

oh my heck... the weirdest story of the week. i got legit proposed to by a guy who pretty sure did a drug deal right in front of us and preached and uh said he saw this moment with me from the past and uh... long story. but no time! hahaha good news though, i said no. so no worries mom. 

ANYWAY I GOTTA GO!!!!!!!!!!! LOVE YOU ALL!!!!!!!!! THIS IS ALL TRUE AND I LOVE IT AND IT'S THE BEST THING OF MY LIFE!!!!!!!! byeeeeee!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

DOWNTOWN TAMPA!!! WOOO!!! this was a metro trip, president is having all the missionaries take a 3 day trip to metro, which is just 9 straight street hours of contacting all day. no cars or anything. just talking to everyone. just to get us out there and not scared of talking to people anymore! IT WAS SO AWESOME!!!!!!!!!! and it was SO TIRING! hahaha i'm so spoiled with a car!

the city..... I WAS IN AWE! hahaha seriously it was so awesome to me! suits and big buildings and uh yeah we get really comfy in these cozy little towns that we never leave, so it was awesome to get out!!!

ummm... we went on exchanges and their recent convert gave us harry potter cloaks to stay warm outside cause his wife wasn't home so we ate on the porch with a tiki torch thingy whatever you call it and it was MY DREAM COME TRUE. he even had... the ELDER WAND. oh my heck. i died.

we had a great battle over the elder wand that night... obviously... hahaha 

More Harry Potter Pics

January 27, 2014

AHHH FLIP!!!!!!!! i have not much time at all my friends.... noooot much time at all.... and WHAT a drag because i had one of my FAVORITE WEEKS EVER!!!!!!! well weekends. oh my GOSH I AM JUST. man. blessings and awesomeness and happiness and i looooooooooove this i DO!

okay um let me tell you all i can! i like 10 minutes! asdlfjkhasd;fj! ah! 

okay. first...... all week. we'd been considering dropping one of our investigators. cause he wasn't progressing, not just any old investigator though, like... super big connection, we love him to death. he lost his wife, and said we were the only things kind of helping. her 1 year mark since she passed is this week, he's very unstable, ya know? just not a good situation. and we're freaking out, but we both feel like we need to do it, and make the decision. well we get there, he starts out crying, talking about what he was doing a year ago exactly with his wife, before she died. yeah. we feel like dirt right away. but anyway, long story short, we trusted God, we remembered that he loves him more than we love him, we knew it needed to happen. we all cried a bit, haha, but we listened to the prompting.

GOOD THING!!!!!!!!!

because the next day we had an INCREDIBLE MISSIONARY TRAINING!!!! literally... best meeting of my life. I have NEVER felt the spirit so strong for SO LONG! the entire meeting, my heart was pounding and i was just like.... AH! SO CAPTIVATED. i can't explain it, it was Elder Kapiscke of the 70, and he was incredible. MAN! talked a lot about obedience, but in a way that BLEW OUR MINDS!!!!! haha and the war chapters, which ALREADY are my favorite chapters, and he made me love them MORE!!!! they're incredible. and uh just so much stuff. but with obedience he talked more about the higher law, not just the missionary handbook, but preach my gospel. like when it tells us to follow up with progressing investigators every day, nobody does that, and asking for referrals from everyone, nobody does everyone, haha just little things like that that everyone struggles with! and especially......... he talked about ignoring a prompting.............

and read the most like, gulp and sweat scripture ever for if you ignore a prompting.... haha and OH MY HECK. it was incredible. he talked about ALL THE THINGS that i had been praying about lately. because i've been praying so hard just more strength to really talk to everyone, without hesitation, and to just step it up, cause pres. is like HARD CORE. haha seriously he is raising the level for EVERYthing and not allowing anyone to slip through the cracks. i love it. 

but ANYway. then he talked about how we can keep this desire and keep working hard, and the answer is SIMPLE! haha he said we can change when we have a spiritual experience and make the decision to, BUT, when we get a confirmation of something, an answer to prayer, we make a decision, or a spiritual witness, it will die, and fade away, if we do not act. if we do not immediately make changes and start applying it. if we don't DO SOMETHING! because the minute we do something contrary to that spiritual witness again, or back to before, we deny the spirit, and it will leave us, and we might not even notice that we lost that experience. and that we don't change, progress, or anything. anyway, it was way more than that but it was amazing. 

SOOO!!!!!!!!! we dropped George, and it was awesome cause hna meldau felt like Heavenly father was telling her there was a big blessing in store if we did. and then we had the conference and were so grateful we followed the prompting, and THEN we've been on FIRE all weekend! talking to EVERYONE! teaching everyone about the restoration!! mentioning it quickly! and man... we met... the awesomest guy ever. 

at first he was very joking and very catholic and wouldn't let us offer them a prayer or ANYthing. but i followed every thought that came into my head, and the minute i said that families can be bound together forever, after this life, he switched immmediately and said... i'm free this sunday, i'm coming to your church. and MAN just a ton of other stuff!!!! AHHH!!! it was so FLIPPING amazing!!! i can't even describe it! and i'm ticked cause i'm out of time and can't tell any other stories... haha

BUT JUST KNOW!!! THAT THIS CHURCH IS TRUE! you guys, man. we talked to a lot of people with a lot of good points and beliefs that made sense who tried to help us not believe ours anymore, haha but ust.... AH! nothing can change that fact that it's true. there is an answer to every single doubt, just have the faith to wait a little while and you will everntually get the answer and MAN the feeling you have when you know you waited on faith is so rewarding. trust your Heavenly father everyone. okay? i can't tell you how much he loves you. just listen to him, avoid the complications of ignoring him! IT MAKES LIFE SO MUCH HARDER! haha 

I LOVE YOU ALL!!!!!!!!!!!! BYEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!

creepy picture in the family history room.......... his eyes move... pretty sure...

celebrating hna meldau's ONE YEAR MARk!!! yaaaay!!!!!

WE'RE BACK TOGETHER! well not really, only for a day for a big mission training. but best day of my life!!!! haha i love these PEOPLE! SO MUCH!!!!! seriously.