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

Dynamic Duo

Hey Everyone!!

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!!

Well it has been a crazy week and probably one of the best weeks of my mission. It was super crazy and had a ton of amazing miracles. To start it off the sisters we live with got in a car accident and we had to go to the rescue and pick them up and we basically lost an entire day of work helping them figure everything out with their car and the tow truck and stuff.

Yeah that was crazy! This week we also had a crazy finding week. We found 9 new investigators which is the most that I have ever found in a  week which is amazing. We really saw so many miracles as we were dedicated with our efforts as well as we saw a lot of miracles of other missionaries finding for us. Also one of the biggest miracles is our investigator Zonquez, he's 15 and the coolest. To show how elect he is on Sunday we rounded up Zonquez and he was in the shower getting ready for church so when sacrament started we wondered what happened to him and why he wasn't there. Since we had no other gators there at church we left church and walked over to Zonquez's apartment to round him up for the 3rd hour of church. When we got there he opened the door wrapped up in a blanket because he was dang sick. Even though he was like terribly sick he asked if there was a later church time he could come to, and he was devestated when we told him we'd have to move his baptismal date back. Man #WhatTheElect it just feels so good to work with the elect.

Also to show how this year went out with a bang on New Years Eve we had to be in by 6pm and had to call President to tell him we were going to be home late because our 5 o'clock appointment cancelled and we decided to go see a recent convert. While at the Recent Converts house her son swallowed a penny and was chocking on it. Well all of a sudden I remember that in scuba diving we learn how to do a make shift heimlech because I didn't want to perform the heimlech on him (he's only 5) and so me and my companion went to work and we were able to dislodge the coin so that he would choke. Yeah that was a crazy moment.

Well that's all for now! Love you all!

Love,

Sister Jennings

P.S. This is my second companion where everyone thinks we are twins and asks us all the time if we are sisters. Here see what you think.