Kelsey's Call to Serve: Down and Derby

Hello dearest family and friends it really does not seem like it is Monday again, man this week flew by. Also I forgot to mention the title of my email last week "Hearses don't pull U-hauls" was a funny phrase that a member in the ward told us during a discussion with him and I thought it was really funny especially down here in South Florida where you live in one of 3 places: 1. Super mega rich beach side house, 2. Ghetto (mostly Haitians), 3. Gated community - with the majority being 55+. Well onto this week.

November 2: After writing we just kind of chilled at our house and then went knocking. While knocking I started not feeling well so we went home early and I went to bed at like 8 which is incredibly early. Don't worry I felt better the next day, I really think I was just super tired and needed a little rest.

November 3: Today we got a member referral for a YSA (Young Single Adult) from a member of the other ward but that's okay because we'll take whatever we can get. So we went to our meal appointment expecting to teach and come to find out that we weren't teaching her, no she was our waitress but that's okay hopefully we can contact her this week so that we can actually teach her. We got to teach Junia today!!!! Junia is a cute YSA Haitian that we found a week or two ago but haven't been able to meet because of her crazy schedule and we got to finally teach her. The cool thing about her is that she already believes the BoM is true and that Joseph Smith is a prophet (just after teaching it to her), the only thing that is holding her back is she doesn't know if she can be baptized twice so that is something that we can work with. Also today we had our first YSA mission correlation meeting and I am so excited for their branch because they are going to blow up with new members and returning less actives. Their main focus is getting them to activities which is the best way to get them in the church to feel the spirit in order to want to learn more.

November 4: Today was a lot of knocking so I won't bore you with the details of the many doors we knocked that contained people who are not quite ready to receive the gospel.

November 5: Today was the first time I have had an honest person, the other day we set up a return appointment with a lady we knocked into and today we were verifying our meeting time. She then texted us back saying she wasn't actually interested in hearing our message, it really was awesome to see someone who was honest about their desires instead of us going there and finding out she is not interested.

November 6: Some cool knocking happened today. We met a girl who practices Kabbalah and we gave her a BoM and she gave us a Zohar book. Awesome!! Today I also got told that I am part of a cult. Did you guys know that I'm part of cult? I certainly didn't until this lady told me, I reassured her thought that I actually was not part of a cult but she wouldn't listen to a thing we said. Today we offered a prayer with a lady but she would only let us do it if she could pray for us as well. Cool thing was it wasn't a repetitious rote prayer but a prayer kind of like how we offer it so that was pretty cool.

November 7: Today was Travis's baptism - he is being taught by the Creole Delray Elders. I got to give the talk at his baptism (there were to be two speakers but because of shortage of time I gave the 30 second talk). Now for the most important part of the week....the Turkey Derby!

We made a totally awesome pink brick car! It has graphite sparkles because one of the members in our ward helped us grease our wheels so that it would go faster so that we could possibly win. We used pennies we collect from the ghetto as our weights. Though our car looks totally ratchet (ghetto) it was totally awesome and we took 3rd place out of the 16 cars we were racing with. More important to note is we beat the Elders!!!! This was a really big deal for the ward and everyone was cheering on the Elders and the Sisters but Girl Power won in the end and it was awesome. We almost beat the fastest car and only lost to it barely so we could have won the whole event.

November 8: Today we went to go meet an old former investigator to see if she wants to learn again and guess what she was so excited to see us and to read the BoM again and she was excited to set up an appointment this week so we are excited for her. Her name is Jeanna (pronounced Jenna) and she has 3 cute little kids and is now married (she wasn't when she was dropped) so we are excited to work with her and help her progress towards baptism.

Overall an amazing week!