Carpe Diem - Seas the Day

Hey Everyone!!

Wow I can't believe how the weeks have been flying by and I can't believe that I only have one full week left on my mission and will be home in 10 days. But as my title suggests today is the day to Seize the Day (Seas the day is the Florida edition) and give it everything I've got these last few days.

This week we were trying to show the people that we are working with that we love them and want to help them to progress. That involved going to the talent show of one of our less actives. He performed in a saxophone quartet playing the Mario theme.

​(He's Luigi)

Right now we are just trying to find people to teach and less actives to reactivate so that we can be able to help this ward grow.

The biggest highlight of this week was General Conference, every six months getting to hear from modern day prophets and apostles is the greatest. This weekend is something especially as a missionary I look forward to. Here are some of my favorite quotes:

- "Genuine discipleship is a state of being. This suggests more than studying and applying a list of individual attributes. Disciples live so that the characteristics of Christ are woven into the fiber of their beings, as into a spiritual tapestry." ~ Elder Hales

- "Overcoming the world is not one defining moment in a lifetime, but a lifetime of moments that define an eternity." ~Elder Andersen

- "The trial of our faith will always involve staying true to simple, daily practices of faith. Then, and only then, does He promise that we will receive the divine response for which we long." ~ Elder Clayton

- "When you pray with faith, you will feel God’s love as His Spirit speaks to your soul. No matter how alone or uncertain you may feel at times, you are not alone in this world. God knows you, personally. As you pray, you will come to know Him." ~ Elder Grow

Such a good conference, if you didn't get a chance to watch it or watch all of it check it out.

Funny story about how I became a temporary AV (tech person) for the church. On Saturday we showed up to the church expecting to find the conference being broadcast to the church, but it wasn't. The first session we eventually got loaded up on a computer but we played the buffering game the whole time and didn't really get to watch the first session. In between sessions on Saturday we called up a member to help us set up the broadcast. We searched the church for the projector and found the room it's stored in unlocked (which was a surprise) and were able to figure it out just in time to watch the second session. Then on Sunday came into the church once again to find the broadcast not being projected but I'd figured out how to set it up the day before so I did it again and we were able to watch the Sunday sessions with no problem. Truly God wanted us to watch the conference and unlocked many doors for us, literally, so that we could be able to listen to the words of a prophet.

Well that's all for now!

Love,

Sister Jennings

Rapunzel, Rapunzel, Let Down Your Hair

Hey everyone!

So super cool this week we had a baptism!!!!! Her name is Isane Ruano Mora and she has been waiting 3 years to be baptized. All of her aunts and uncles and cousins are members just not her own parents. Well her parents told her that she would have to wait to be baptized and so she was waiting for either her parents hearts to be softened or that she turned 18. She turned 18 last August but had some visa problems and had to go back to Mexico for a while. Here is where the cool things start. When I served in Port St. Lucie more than 3 months ago in our book of former investigators there was this teaching record for Isane and I thought wow she sounds so cool I want to teach her, the only problem was the address said "Lives with Sister Mora" and there was no Sister Mora on our ward directory so I just left it in the binder and kept on working in Port St. Lucie. Then coming here to Stuart and replacing the elders they didn't really leave us a whole lot of work and they didn't even mark on the directory who the active members were. So we just started visiting people to figure out if they were active or not and who they were and on our first Monday we knocked on this door trying to find Carlos (turns out he moved) and instead met Sister Mora! On Sunday she had leaned over to us at church to tell us she was feeding us on Thursday and that was the only way that we recognized her. Well Sister Mora invited us in to visit and told us that her unbaptized niece Isane would be at the party on Thursday that she signed up to feed us at. Went to that party on Thursday and the rest is history and she got baptized on Saturday!!!!!

Sorry that was a long story but it is so cool to see how a seed had been planted and watered for so long before it finally came to bear fruit. Now here is a short funny story or two.

Last Sunday we had a member come up to us at church and ask if either of us knew how to cut hair and neither of us did, and then she asked if we would like to give it a try because her hair needed to be cut and she didn't want to pay to have it done. So we went over this week and I cut her and her daughter's hair with kids school scissors because they didn't have anything else.

Also super funny when I served in Port St. Lucie the elders in Stuart always complained that the members never fed them. Well that has changed a lot since I've been here. This was our donate food to the missionaries bin on Sunday. Basically I don't need to buy groceries this week because they got me taken care of.

Also this week we met this less active Sister Schmitt and she told us that she went less active after her husband passed away last September because she was so sad. Then she told us how when we called into her gated community and she let us in she was totally expecting these two elders and instead these two sweet sisters were knocking on her door. She then commented on how beautiful my braid was and how she wished she could see what my hair looked like down. I then told her that I would wear it down on Sunday so she could come to church and see it. She told us she would come to church and said it would be funny if she told everyone that she only came to church to see her missionaries hair. Well she came to church on Sunday and it was the sweetest thing she came up to the two of us and told us that she was there because of us and she thanked us so much for our help.

Well that's all for now!

Love,

Sister Jennings

Milestone Markers

Hey Everyone!!

Wow I can't believe how time flies it seems like only yesterday that I just got on my email and now my companion just hit her year mark! It's weird because Sister Fernandes first day on the mission was replacing me in Boca Raton right before I left for Miami and now she's at her year mark.

​Yep we celebrated that day!!

Also one of the less actives that we are working with had her birthday this week so we had our investigator go over there and we taught a lesson and celebrated a birthday so that was super fun. I love parties, especially when it helps others come back to church and helps our investigator have more friends.

​(sister Fernandes, Ashley the Birthday girl, me, Adriana, Isane our investigator, Roxanna)

Also we've been working on a project of putting our entire ward list in groups by where they live with all their info so we can keep track of people better and so we can more effectively visit everyone and we finally finished.

​Yeah it's impressive, yes it's a little bit creepy, but man is it effective. I wonder what people would think if they came into our house with pictures of Christ everywhere, lists of people, and maps on all the walls. We promise we aren't weirdos, just trying to help people come closer to our Savior Jesus Christ.

Cool experience so last week on Monday we were getting to the end of the night and were kind of tired because we hadn't been seeing a lot of success that day when we decided to stop by a less active member. Well pulled up to the gate (because everyone in Florida lives in a gated community it seems) and called her from the box and she actually let us in #Miracle. Then we pulled up and were knocking on the door when all of a sudden this lady comes running down the road flailing her arms. Apparently she'd moved apartments two weeks ago and the new owners are not so nice. Well after visiting with her found out that her phone that the gate box uses had been disconnected and just got reconnected 15 minutes before we called. #Miracle! So visited with her and she's been less active for over 13 years and we finally found her! Yeah!!!!! So now we'll start working on her to get her back to church.

Well it's been a good week, hope you all have a good week too!

Love,

Sister Jennings

Good Life, Sleep Strife, because the Bedbugs Bite

Hey everyone!!

Well the adventures of Sister Jennings never end, my last week in Vanderbilt someone broke into our house and now in my first few weeks of living in Stuart we get BEDBUGS! Sunday morning we both wake up with tons of bug bites all over our arms and legs and so we call the mission nurse and pretty sure it's bedbugs. So Sunday night we spent the whole evening cleaning out bedroom and yup it's bedbugs and most of them lived in my bed (of course). Let's just say after the next few weeks our apartment will be the cleanest in the entire mission especially since we have to vacuum our room and steam our mattresses every morning and throw our sheets in the dryer to kill any of the little bugs left. So yeah, new adventures!!!!

(Here are just a few of the bites)

Well this week hasn't all been bad adventures. We saw a super cool miracle this week. We were knocking the other day and knocked on this door and the lady opens it and says "your probably looking for my daughter Keisha right, well come on in." Had no idea what she was talking about but walked right in thinking maybe her daughter Keisha was a less active or something. The lady went and grabbed Keisha and we proceeded to talk to her and come to find out she isn't a less active member but a former investigator! Went home and looked through all of the teaching records and couldn't find the former Keisha. Well the next day happened to be looking through a bunch of formers we picked to try to contact and Keisha (the one we knocked into) was in that stack. We knocked into a former that we wanted to try and find and got a return appointment with her. Awesome!!

Also this week I officially started myPlan, which is a program that the church created to help returned missionaries ease back into non-mission life and set goals so that we can continue to progress. Let me tell ya it was super weird thinking about life after the mission while I'm still on the mission.

(As missionaries we've nicknamed in "Reverse 12 Week" because when we first come in we do "12 Week" which trains you on how to be a missionary, and this trains you on how to be a normal person)

Also went to Tijuana Flats this week for dinner and saw the funniest sign. A lot of people here in Florida believe that Mormons are a cult (we aren't).

Well that's all for now, it really has been a great week despite it's trials. I know that God loves each and everyone of us and that trials are to help us grow and to learn and maybe right now I just need to learn how to be a really good cleaner so that I can apply it when I get home. Nah, but there definitely are lessons to learn right now.

Love ya all!

~Sister Jennings

Sisters are better than Elders

Why hello everyone! This week definitely have a story or two for ya!

To follow up on last week since I didn't have time, my house in Vanderbilt got broken into. Sister Tyrrell is a very light sleeper and heard someone in the hallway and then heard the really loud bedroom door open and woke up in the middle of the night (2 am) because she thought one of us was coming for some reason. Well surprise it wasn't one of us but a guy with a flashlight staring at her from her bedroom door. She woke up her companion and they waited til he left the house and then came and woke me and Sister Neeley up. Turns out Sister Neeley saw him come into our room as well but just thought it was me getting up to go to the bathroom. Well we called the cops at 2:30 in the morning and they told us to go outside and wait, so I grabbed me a frying pan so that I'd be armed if he tried to attack us while we waited outside. The cops got there and couldn't figure out how he broke in but think he's just a drunk guy (lies!!) and told us not to worry about it and joked with me about how I was deadly armed with my frying pan (clearly they've never seen Tangled). Let's just say the next few days slept with the frying pan just in case and we put wood dowels in all of our windows and now lock our bedroom doors. Now I'm in Stuart though so no need to really worry! Here's a funny photo of us armed for if he broke in again.

(Sister Tyrrell, Schmidt, Neeley, me with my frying pan)

For p-day last week we went to the Naples pier and it was a beautiful day to enjoy some sun and ocean!

Also transfers happened and I'm in Stuart now and I'm PINK WASHING an area, which means that there used to be elders here but now there are sisters. Well let me tell ya it has definitely been interesting taking over an elders area and living in an elders house. We found out from a neighbor today that he's lived in the house next to us for 20 years and in those entire 20 years it's been elders so we're the freshest thing this area has ever seen. It has definitely been an adventure this week taking over the area, the house was disgusting and we had to clean it real good, the records here are terrible so don't know what has been done for the last several weeks and on top of that they have been taking notes on the ward on 3 different sets of directories. Seriously boys and girls minds are so very different. So let's just say it has been an adventure getting to know this area. Our ward is so excited to have us though and we've had countless comments about how Sisters are better than elders and they are so excited to have us. Let's also say that we've had countless meetings with the ward leaders here so we can understand the area. Stuart is a super small ward with lots of less active members that we are going to work on reactivating.

I'm at the top of the board and go home in 6 weeks can't believe it. I'm on death row!!

Cleaning the whiteboards in our house to get organized.

First Sunday in Stuart and guess who came to church, Mitt Romney!!

So a little bit about my new companion. Her name is Sister Fernandes (pronounced Feh-nan-jez) and she's at about a year on her mission. She's from Recife, Brazil and technically portuguese is her second language (english being the first) but she's learning english (since she forgot it all). She served in Boca Raton right after me and Miami YSA right after me as well so she's been chasing me around the mission this whole time and now we're companions. I'm super excited to serve with her.

Love ya all!

Sister Jennings

My new address:

3287 SE Brook St.

Stuart, FL 34997

I'd love letters these last 6 weeks!!​

Lions and Tigers and Bears, Oh my!

Hello dearest family and friends!

Well this week has been terrific, started it off by going to the zoo last Tuesday!

What a gigantic lizard, totally kinda scary, hoped for no Harry Potter moment :)

Went to an animal show and I got chosen to participate as a competitor against an animal. They were showing us how animals camouflaged and I pulled out my awesome animal detecting skills my dad taught me and found all the animals on the screen lickity split (I think I even surprised the worker).

Such a fun day seeing lots of cool animals. We even watched a few minutes of the alligator feeding show and then got really bored because we'd been so much closer to alligators the week before but it was cool to see 16 alligators get in a line.

On to other news, found out I'm leaving Vanderbilt beach for my last transfer and I'm really sad to leave because I have grown to love this area so much and especially grown to love the people but there will be more adventures waiting for me in ..... Stuart!! Crazy I'm going back up north to Stuart (it's right next to Port St. Lucie) and I'm so excited for this adventure. My new companion is Sister Fernandez and she's from Brazil!! So my second Brazilian companion.

​(the Jackson family)

Well something super cool happened this week, I got to go to the temple!!! (with Sister Neeley's recent convert). Here in our mission we only get to go to the temple if we are showing the grounds to an investigator, our last day in the mission, or if our recent convert goes through the temple for themselves and Carlos Amaya got baptized a year ago and got to go to the temple!!

(Sister Neeley, Mckenna, me)

On Saturday  after the temple the member (Mckenna) who drove us to the temple drove us right to Stake Conference for the pot luck and meeting (since we had an investigator coming). Well pot luck happened at 5:30 and our investigator still wasn't there by 6:15 and we started to get worried that he wouldn't come and there was no way we were gonna get home before it was done (because we can only go to the Saturday session if we have someone coming). Well not only did our investigator come but our eternagator (someone who is investigating for a long time) did as well because she got invited to come by some members. Really cool experience seeing how much our ward loves those we teach and wants to bring them into the gospel.

Well it's been a good week and next week I'll send you my new address from up there in Stuart!

Love ya!

~Sister Jennings

P.S. in other interesting news our house got broken into at 2:00 am this week, but we are okay and nothing was stolen and I won't be living there anymore. Have a great week!
​

el Dia de Amistad

Hey Everyone!

Well this week has been crazy with so many miracles!

Miracle #1: We knocked into this Brazilian family like 2 weeks ago and after the prayer they accepted to come to church, prepare for baptism, and a return appointment for the next day. Problem was when we went back the next day they weren't there and we tried back a few times with no luck. The other day we got a referral from the Spanish Elders of a family with the same last name as this family we had met so we called the elders and found out it was the same family we had previously met. Turns out we prayed with them and the next day they had to move, but they remembered us and still wanted us to come back and teach them and they want to come to church and be baptized. Such a cool miracle about God's timing!!

Miracle #2: About 5 weeks ago (the start of this transfer) me and Sister Neeley tried stopping by this less active to see if we could help her to come back to church and she wasn't very interested. Well this week we got a text from the Creole Elders saying they had just met this less active member Sister Walsh and that she had started reading the Book of Mormon again and wanted to come to church this Sunday. Well she had something come up and wasn't able to make it to church so we went by and visited her yesterday and she wants to come to Stake Conference and she might even drive us to it. Then saw her this morning at Wal-mart!! She's definitely gonna come back to church, God is giving her so many signs.

Miracle #3: I spent more time with guys on Valentine's Day than probably any other Valentine's Day in my entire life!!!!! We started by having dinner with this single guy in our ward whose only available day to feed us just so happened to be Valentine's Day. Super funny he might have started flirting with my companion but I got her back and diffused all awkward moments.....so funny!!! Then we had an awesome lesson with our investigator Thomas and we taught him about the Book of Mormon and he was so excited to read it, he also told us about this cute 8th grader love note he found in the class he was substituting in. Oh junior high boyfriend/girlfriend drama, definitely don't miss that. Then we ended the night visiting this returning member who doesn't really have anyone to celebrate Valentine's Day with and we didn't want him to be alone. We made him cookies, talked about the gospel, and got the best thank you text afterwards! Then we took some cute Valentine's Day pictures as a house!!

Miracle #4: I survived a 8-9 mile bike ride going to the Rookery and seeing alligators!!! Definitely felt like I was dying afterwards and sometimes during the middle but I made it out alive!

(This was the biggest gator we found)

(funny photo of Elder Durrant pretending to jump on the gator) (cute tag photo with me doing yoga in the back)

Miracle #5: Got to celebrate my half-birthday with the best members ever... the Tylers!!! So the Tylers are this cool family who feed the missionaries every single Sunday and last week we found out that Brother Tyler's birthday was February 16th and that he didn't want to celebrate his birthday at all. Well February 16th is my half birthday and Brother Tyler agreed to do cake and ice cream only if we came over to also celebrate my half birthday so of course we went over! Such a fun time hanging with the Tylers.

It's been a great week! Hope all of you have a great week to, until next time!

Love,

Sister Jennings

Gateception Galore (Gates within Gates within Gates)

Hey everyone!!

This has been a really good week and we've gotten to see some pretty cool miracles. To start with I'll tell a funny miracle. We went to visit this less active in our area and he lives in a gated community, so we pulled up to the gate and the guard buzzed us through without even asking for my I.d. or even coming out to talk to me. Yes!! Then as we drove further into the community to get to the persons house, we came across a 2nd gate...that's right some people need 2 gates. Well at this one I got stuck because there was no guard and the person wasn't on the box, but while I was playing with the guard box 5 other cars... yes 5 pulled up behind me. They got so impatient waiting for me that they gave me the code so that I could drive it. Yes!! And that's how you get into gateception communities with multiple gates! Yeah that's my life trying to figure out how to go to talk to people who clearly don't want to be talked to but that's whatchya gotta do.

Also in other fun news last week for p-day we got 2 zones (so all of the West Coast) to get together for the West Coast War activity. Basically we had a massive water balloon fight and barbecue and the coolest thing was somebody even brought J-dawg sauce and it just brought be back to my good ole times at BYU going to Jdawgs. It was a super fun activity though!

Then we like to make our zone training fun because no one wants to go to a boring training so we had a teamwork activity where as a team you try to get as many m&m from one plate to another. To make it more fun (for others) you have to find the m&ms in whipping cream. So I had a good time watching others get whipping cream faces. I don't feel too bad though because I did this same activity back in Miami so it's chill.

So in our mission when a missionary is going home soon we call it their death and their last companion is the one who kills them. Well I'm currently killing my companion (she goes home March 2nd) and there are a couple other deaths happening in our zone so we decided to have a big funeral for them. It's the largest funeral I've ever been to, 3 missionaries going home, that will be a sad day for us when they go.

Also in our mission we like to get creative and we like to have awesome zone names and this week we changed our name from the Ricciardi zone (based off an awesome talk that we read) to the Naples Nike Zone - Just Dunk it. So some super cool missionaries even made us a super cool flag with our new zone name.

Also over the course of my mission I've started to study Spanish (I'm not very good at it but I'm trying) and one of the sisters said that a way to loosen your tongue up is to enunciate with a pen in your mouth so that's what we now all do as we read Preach My Gospel in Spanish. It makes it really funny to listen to but hopefully it's actually helping me out.

Sorry theres not a lot of other stuff, right now we are in a finding phase and are trying to find those new people to teach as well as those people to help back to church and so that means we do a lot of knocking, trying former investigators, trying to find part-member families and less actives that we can work with.

Oh also, just forgot, yesterday in church after the sacrament was done being passed they called me and Sister Neeley up to bear our testimonies on the spot. And so with no warning we walked up and bore our testimonies which was super cool and such a great opportunity. 

Well love you all! Happy Valentines Day!!

Love,

Sister Jennings

Livin the Life!

Hey Everyone!!

Well this week has been really good and had a lot of interesting turn of events.

For starters we got a new schedule that allows us to have more freedom with our day. Basically the only major changes for us is we now start studies at 8:30am rather than at 8:00 which allows us an extra half hour to get ready in the morning. Lunch is now only 1/2 an hour instead of the full hour and we plan for our day in the morning rather than the night before (which is still weird for me). But other than that nothing really changed because we were kind of already applying most of the things. I think the biggest change though was our p-day now starts at 8:00am rather than 10:00 am so we get 2 extra hours today to do stuff we like (really it's only like an hour after cleaning and junk but still).

Well this week saw the miracle of diligence, because this week we lost contact with our investigator Zonquez and though we tried our hardest none of our stalking him down was working and his phone had been disconnected. Well the other day I was feeling sick and had been told by our Mission President's wife that I should probably go home to get feeling better but I wanted to stick it out to finish our knocking (because I hate not getting our full knocking in). Right as we finished our knocking we got a text from Zonquez saying we could meet with him right then. So we sped over and called a member on our way and had an amazing lesson with Zonquez. After the lesson went home to take care of myself and get feeling better. Truly the miracle of being diligent and God will bless.

Well just a few cool random things from this week:

- had to drive across Alligator Alley on the way to a mission conference in Miami and in the morning there is a lot of fog on the road so I took a cool photo of it. Thank goodness we were headed to Miami rather than to Naples. Also I've gotten a lot better at spotting alligators as we drive I think I saw over 40 on the way back to Naples.

- We introduced our Chilean friend to the corn dog, she'd never had one before and now she knows she's been missing out her whole life. Since we only have a half hour for lunch we've all been looking for ways to cut down on our prep time and the corn dog is an easy way. Yeah for microwaves!!

 My companion decided to cut up all the pictures of the jerk boy she'd been writing for most of her mission and I totally felt like the teen chick movies. Only thing missing was a good bowl of ice cream and a hilarious chick flick movie, we settled instead for some good Español study instead.

- Also one of the YSA that I used to serve with is on a mission now in Boise Idaho and she made me a planner cover!!! Was so excited when I got it in the mail, because I love my awesome planners and am so glad I don't have an iPad!

Well that's it for now, hope you all have a great week!!

Love,

Sister Jennings

FFLM Mission History is Made

Dear Family and Friends!

Well to start with I made mission history, up to this point on my mission I have never ridden my bike despite having 2 previous mission wide bike days. My streak has finally been broken and I had to ride my bike on Thursday on another mission wide bike day. To explain, in our mission we have a rule that if missionaries get in a car crash that costs more than a certain amount and is the missionaries fault then the entire mission bikes the following Thursday (the shortest day of proselyting). This rule was established last year in January and we didn't have a single crash that fit these 2 qualifications for 6 months. We then had 2 mission wide bike days in July (got a ride for one and the other we just walked). Recently we had a couple accidents back to back and so this Thursday was another mission wide bike day and I wasn't able to find a member to drive us all day and our appointments were too far to walk.......so as a result I rode my bike. Definitely missed the car that day and my knees didn't exactly thank me for the added leg exercise but it all worked out.

In other news my former investigator Joshua from Miami YSA got baptized this week!!! I'm so excited for him finally making the decision to get baptized! I saw one of the sisters who used to serve in Miami YSA after I left who just got transferred here to the West side and she told me about how they reached back out to him and Joshua remembered me and Sister Tui teaching him. He finally was ready to give up the addictive habit of smoking weed so that he could be baptized. Joshua told them that he had a love of reading the Book of Mormon and that has helped him in his life since we stopped teaching him. It just warms my heart because Joshua really was a good friend and I'm so excited that he got baptized!!!

​(Me, Sister Tui, Joshua, and Joshua's 2 little sisters)

Also this week we had a World Wide Missionary Broadcast and found out that our daily schedule will be changing a little bit to allow us more freedom to choose our schedule, we'll find out how that effects us on Wednesday since we are having a Mission wide meeting to discuss the changes. So stay tuned on that.

Cool miracle: On Saturday night we got a text from a less active that we've been trying to see for weeks that she wanted to come to church on Sunday and wanted to know the different times so that she could go to church before work. Told her the times and she said she was excited to come to church, then we asked her if we could come over and visit her and her part member family and she said she'd love to. So went over on Sunday night to visit with her family and her son wants to be baptized just like his mom and the non-member husband even sat in on the lesson and so now we are working with them. A miracle of perseverance of trying to get in contact with them has finally paid off.

Well that's it for now! I hope you all have a great week and can see the hand of God in your life!

Love,

Sister Jennings

Having lunch at Waffle House with the sisters we live with. (me, Sister Neeley, Sister Schmidt, Sister Tyrrell) Man I love these sisters!!

Somethings Rotten in the State of Florida

Hey Everyone!

Well this week has definitely had some ups and downs as every week does but this one more than normal. 

To start off with the good stuff, me and Sister Neeley are companions! She's a Spanish missionary and the two of us came out together so she goes home 1 transfer before me. This is only her second English area so she is like super Spanish and she even has a Cuban accent. She's from a little town near Bakersfield, CA and is one 1 of 7 kids. I'm so excited for this transfer with her.

Now onto the interesting downs of this week:

- Had to take our car into Firestone to get the tires checked out and it turns out something was whack with our (insert fancy car lingo that I don't know)....basically our tire axel was a little out of wack which meant the tires wore down unevenly. Well that was supposed to only take an hour and it turned into 2.5 hours, which meant we got to watch a little bit of the Presidential Inauguration Parade.

- This week we had a lot of sewage problems at our house. We had the septic tank emptied and that didn't work. So we called the plumber and it turns out that the palm tree in our front yard had its roots growing right through our sewage line. So that means for us that we had to do a lot of clean up every time the toilets overflowed and this morning we had to study outside since we weren't allowed to be in the house while the plumbers were working. I've always wanted to have my personal study outside but I never wanted to do it because of this reason. Hopefully by the end of today all our plumbing problems will be fixed and our house will stop making weird noises.

Well that's it for this week, talk to you next time!!

Love,

Sister Jennings

P.S. At transfer meeting took a picture with two of my past companions who everyone says I look like...

Hounds of Vandy

Hey all ya'll!

Well this week has been crazy and it's transfer time again! I know this was a 5 week transfer and it was weird and super short. Well the good new is I'm staying in Vanderbilt Beach!!!! Even better news I'm going to be companions with Sister Neeley (who I basically lived with in Miami)!!!!!!

#ThrowbackTuesday - Sister Neeley and me at Wynwood

Well in other news this week has been awesome! We did a lot of finding as well as focusing on helping our investigators to progress towards baptism by helping them overcome their concerns. This has also been a crazy week because our investigator Zonquez was supposed to get baptized this last weekend (it didn't happen) and so we did everything in our power to help him do that. We even staked his house out for 1.5 hours because we didn't have contact with him because his phone was dead. We tried our hardest to get his Mom Tyronica to sign his baptismal papers (since he's only 15) but she is the hardest person to get in contact with. Also found out his sister is super baptist which typically means anti-mormon. So yeah it has been a crazy week trying to get everything ready for Zonquez to get baptized in the next few weeks so that he can be able to receive all the blessings of the gospel. 

Also cool miracle! We were knocking doors in this apartment complex after a meal appointment. and God directed us perfectly to meet this former investigator who had gone to church for 2 years but hadn't been baptized because he was waiting for his parents to sign the papers, well he was super excited to see us and we are excited to work with him and help him to prepare to be baptized.

In our mission we do service every week and so for the past 5 weeks I've been volunteering at Harbor Chase this cute assisted living facility and have got to meet some super cool people. We talk with them, play bingo and uno, and always have a good laugh.

​(This is me and Edith making funny faces)

Also last p-day we went to a place called the Rookery and got to see real life alligators in the wild!! I was so excited!! I've been dreaming of this since the day I got my mission call to South Florida!!

Well love you all!!!!!

Sister Jennings

Muy Frio en Florida

Hey Everyone!

Well gonna start off with that this week has been super cold here in Florida. I know not as cold as all of you in your snow covered areas but it got down to 54 degrees and me and my companion were having a shivering companion. It's also so cold that every morning we wake up the humidity making fog.

Other than that it has been a super good week and we've seen a lot of miracles happening. So the other week we got a referral for this lady named Evelyn and we went over to teach her and she was super excepting of everything we taught about the Restoration of the Original church of Jesus Christ. However, when we invited her to come to church to feel that the church was true she upright told us no she would not come to church. So we went back another day and testified about church and how she could be able to feel of the spirit there and how going to church would be exercising her faith and she said she would pray about coming. Well Sunday morning we got a text from Evelyn that she was going to come to church and we literally did a happy dance! It was so exciting!!

Also funny knocking story for ya. We were knocking in what we call the Estates which are these really long roads that stretch all the way to the Everglades and have pretty nice houses that are set pretty far back from the road. So we were knocking the other day and as we were walking up to one house we felt super creeped out so we decided to skip it and go to the next house and got super comforted when there was a cop car in the driveway, cops got to be safe right. We knocked on the door and could hear someone insided and saw them check through the blinds but not answer. So we knocked again (because that's what we do) and this guy answered the door with his hand behind his back. We told him who we were and that we were there to share a prayer. He declined the prayer but accepted the prayer. As he pulled his hand from behind his back to accept the card there was a gun in his hand. Yeah that was the time a cop brought a gun to the door and potentially almost used it on us, but not really because we're representatives of Jesus Christ. 

Also here are some fun photos of me!

Ordered in pizza because we were too tired to cook lunch. This is Sam, while we were at dinner he made us a temple from his blocks

Late happy 20177 photo

Love you all!

~Sister Jennings