Kelsey's Call to Serve: #Paradise City

Hey ya'll long time no email. It has been forever especially with MTC p-day being Thursday then leaving for the field on Tuesday morning and the mission field p-day is on Monday. So its been like a week and a half without getting to email and receive emails and let me tell ya its been a long time and nothing makes a missionary happier than logging on to an email full of emails.

So here is a rundown of the week and wow let me tell ya I've seen so many miracles (I've also not seen all the miracles) that God has bestowed upon me so don't think that what I tell ya is all that is happening because as it says in Malachi 3:10 "there shall not be room enough to [write] it."

Friday October 9: We got to meet and hang out a little more with the awesome new district that I talked about in my last email. Man these guys are so cool and California, Colorado, and Missouri are so lucky to receive such awesome missionaries.

Saturday October 10: Erika told us that she didn't really care what God thought about her but what the people around her did, and this made us super sad because if you always compare yourself to the others around you then you will never be happy. We told her that as she impresses God she will impress the man that she wants to marry. But for everyone as we impress God we will make the friends and acquaintances that we need to because God puts the people in our life that we need to meet and as we strive to have a better relationship with him he will help us improve the other relationships in our life. Also as we taught Dawaun I learned that we need to follow all of the promptings that we receive and I missed an opportunity to help Dawaun because I didn't follow the prompting. But don't worry I repented and in my next several lessons with different investigators I followed the promptings and was blessed for it.

Sunday October 11: So we finally had a normal Sunday where we go to lots of meetings (as a Sister Training Leader you have to be a part of all the ward meetings). We also got to go walk up to the temple which was awesome. I love the temple and I love the peace that we can feel on temple grounds and the love of God that we can feel in his houses, so if you haven't been to the temple recently then you need to make an effort to get back to it because it is AWESOME!! Even better than going to just any temple, I got to go to Provo temple which is my temple! Also today we had sacrament and the 2 districts headed to Florida all got up and sang a special musical number The EFY Medley (if you don't know what it sounds like YouTube it), and it turned out amazing which was awesome because we really did not have a lot of time to practice singing it. Today we also had a departing devotional for all of us missionaries leaving the MTC and our leaving group was so big they had to put us in 2 rooms. There were 500 missionaries leaving Provo and headed out to the field to help the Lord do his work. That is amazing!!!

Monday October 12: Today was my last day in the MTC since we leave tomorrow morning very early to head to Florida. We got to practice teaching Less Actives and we were teaching Kara and JC (these are once again our teachers but when we walk in the room to teach they are no longer our teachers but our investigators). I learned while teaching JC that sometimes you need to be bold and those your teaching may not like the things you tell them but if they want their life to improve then they need to listen. Also our teacher shared an amazing scripture with us: Mosiah 18:30. "And now it came to pass that all this was done in [Florida], yea, by the waters of [Florida], in the forest that was near the waters of [Florida]; yea, the place of [Florida] , the waters of [Florida], the forest of [Florida], how beautiful are they to the eyes of them who there came to the knowledge of their Redeemer; yea, and how blessed are they, for they shall sing to his praise forever." Man I am so excited to serve in Florida and I know that the Lord has prepared people for me.

Tuesday October 13: Leaving for Florida begins at 3:30 am, that's right as in the morning like before the sun early. We got to the airport and some nice people let me use their phone to call my family. So lesson for the day if you are ever in the airport and have a little extra time on your hands and you see a missionary let them use your phone because if they hadn't have let me use their phone I would not have been able to call my family. Also on our first flight we were traveling with a group of people going on a church history tour and the tour leaders were the writers of Meridian Magazine (an LDS magazine) and they took some photos of us and are going to be publishing them in their magazine (supposedly). So if you see the picture you should email or send it to me.

Wednesday October 14: Transfer day!! Found out I'm serving in Delray Beach South which is part of the Paradise City Zone so that is why its titled #Paradise City because that's where I'm at. My trainer is Sister King and she is awesome. Also we are whitewashing our area (they took both missionaries out and are putting two new missionaries in).

Thursday October 15: This is my first full day in the mission field! Found out that we will be doing a lot of knocking right now because we have absolutely no investigators. But hey that's okay because that means the Lord is just preparing some amazing people for us to teach. So funny story from knocking we were in this Haitian (kind of ghetto) area and there were a group of kids playing on the sidewalk and one of the kids ran up and gave me a hug. As we kept walking we overheard his friend say to him "Why did you hug a white person?". Hahaha kids are so funny but the cool thing was is they can see the light of Christ emanating from us and they want that.

Saturday October 16: I know I skipped Friday and that is because this is a ridiculously long email and we mainly experienced a few miracles while knocking (because we do a lot of knocking). Today we had a young woman from the ward come out with us and she loves coming out with the missionaries. Everyone, the missionaries love it when you volunteer to go out knocking, teaching, etc. with them. Also saw a funny sign on a church board "If Satan offers you a treat, its a trick" so just remember that Halloween themed message because its true!

Well that's all I have time for and I know this was a really long email because I haven't had p-day in forever. Just know that I love all of you!

My New Address:

Sister Kelsey Jennings
2031 S. Congress Ave. Apt. 113

Boynton Beach, FL 33426

Love you lots,

Sister Jennings

Here are some photos: