Week 25 (9/23/13)

This week has been insane. After contacting on campus for a couple hours on Tuesday with some other sisters I found out that my new companion is Sister Ochsenbein (Oxen-bine) and that I was re-opening an area with her in Lakeland/Mulberry. It's about an hour East of Tampa.... so no more beach. :( which stinks... cuz I totally got to go there anyways haha weird. President laughed pretty hard at my face when he told me what I was doing. It's been really challenging, but really fun! Let me explain.... So it's called white washing. Usually just one companion leaves the area then the one knows what's going on. But they had to re-open it because one sister had to go home, so we both went in totally blind. I've been loving meeting new people, even if half my heart is still in Naples :(

We had a cool experience. A member had us over for lunch on Thursday. That Wednesday she called us and said that she had met someone at her Physical Therapy that she would like us to meet. So Thursday we met her at lunch. AWESOME. No joke. Her name is Sher. She came to church on Sunday and is reading the Book of Mormon. It made me SOOOO happy! Member missionary work. I'm telling ya. It's the greatest!

Thanks for all your support and letters!

My new address is:

5921 Topher Trail

Mulberry, FL 33861

Oh yeah I forgot to mention the best part! Can you tell by my address? It's a really small country town :) I LOVE IT. Topher and Mulberry. Let's be honest. :)

hasteningthework.lds.org

:) look it up fellas :)

Love, Sister Calder

P.S. Sorry that was the most boring letter EVER!

Week 24 (9/16/13)

ok... so this week started off AMAZING as usual. It seemed like everything was falling into place! We have been getting in with people that we normally don't and we have just been having so much success! It was amazing. Then I remember that trasfer calls were on Saturday. AnNNNNNNDDDD. I knew I was getting transfered. It's a good thing I recognized that feeling sooner than Saturday. I was able to take pics with lots of people and stuff.... it's pretty much the hardest thing ever. President called and I just started balling. It was the hardest thing ever. I was so excited when the work is finally taking off after we've been in a slump for the past month. Sister Whipple just keeps saying that I won't see the fruits of my labors I guess haha. Ok no actually. It's not funny. I love the people here more than anything! I cannot even explain the love I feel. And it feels like it's all being ripped away. UG. I know. I'm such a baby, but this change thing is pretty hard for me.

On to some good things.

Wait. PS... I don't know where I'm going. We do this new thing where we just all meet up on Tuesday and go where we are going from there. So I don't know anything yet...

We had a feeling that we needed to fellowship Kim with Amy. Kim told us that she wasn't going to come to church anymore and that she was going back to the Cathoic church. That broke my heart about a month ago. But we still kept having the feeling that we should bring her with us to Amy's. We decided to just text her and ask even though we thought the answer would be no. But guess what.... the spirit is always right. She said she would love to! Amy and her got along so well and we were able to talk to Kim about why she wasn't coming to church. Let's just say she is now undercover Mormon ;) she needs to save her marriage right now, but she still lives and believes everything! I love her sooooooooooo much!!!!!!!!!!! You probably didn't really get that story... but it's a good one :)

We met this girl names Davida. She told us that we stopped by in her life right at the right moment :) I love that. We get that a lot. Those ones we know are prepared :)

We have been trying to get in with a less-active since I've been here. We have knocked on their door probably over 20 times. We had almost decided to give up, but on Friday decided to knock one more time. THE DOOR OPENED. I don't even know how to explain how significant this is. We talk to her for a while and she said we could come over tomorrow after she cleaned up a bit. We told her we'd come over early and help her! So, on Saturday (after transfer calls :( :() we showed up in our work clothes! She laughed and was so shocked cuz she thought we were kidding. Hahaha. We never are. People still don't get that. Haha. We washed her dog and dusted a bunch of stuff. It was so amazing to get to know her! She was so sad to hear that I was leaving... but I know Sister Whipple and her new trainee will take care of her :) it was a miracle week that's for sure!

We sang the amazing song in stake conference. I could hardly do it without balling. The spirit was SO strong! Let's be honest... the words are what get me "we go forth enlisted with Helamans army, in numbers much greater than ever before." Almost everyone in the congragation was crying. Whew. Goosebumps just thinking about it!

 

Have I mentioned Hastening the Work? Yeah. I don't know if you guys get it yet. THE GREATEST THING TO HAPPEN IN THIS DISPENSATION.

NO JOKE.

Here's the link... you should probably go to it.....

 

hasteningthework.lds.org

 

I love you all! Member missionary work. It's the only way I promise! :)

 

Love, Sister Calder

Week 23 (9/9/13)

This week has been awesome!

Sorry for the downer letter last week! I guess it just shows that things here are still real... but there are so many more good times than bad!

We had a fun time on Thursday. It was Elder Claudes birthday... (19th... I know. It's crazy) we ate cake and BBQ at the church. Then this HUGE rain storm came! So, the most of the Elders and Sister Whipple and I ran out in it and... really we just ran around like maniacs. Hahaha it was pretty fun. You wouldn't think that would still be fun since it rains every day... but it was a blast haha. But what we didn't know was that this storm was HUGE. Like.... everything flooded. There was about a foot of water on the roads and in our complex. The Senior couple drove us home and they couldn't even get their van in our complex. So, since we had to get to our house we got to run in it (we aren't aloud to play in the flood water because it's really dangerous... so we were happy we got to at least a little bit). OH! The lightning... it was INSANE. There were over 3,000 strikes that night. It was a record or something. Basically it looked like strobe lights.

We also had an AMAZING lesson with Danae this week. One of the best lessons I've had out here. We brought Sister Oakey with us. They connected in a second! Danae knows it's true. She's only had the first lesson and she commited to being baptized that day. So we taught her the second lesson and she just said that everything makes sense and she has always wanted to believe it all! It's so amazing to see how the spirt works. She keeps telling us how much we have done for her but we just tell her that we have done nothing and it's all the spirit. It's the most amazing feeling ever :) I love her so much! It's been amazing to see her want to do better and learn all of this for herself :)

Last thing- we are singing this awesome song in Stake Conference. Like, all the missionaries in our stake. It's the Army of Helaman and As Sister in Zion... but DIFFERENT! I don't like the arrangment as much, but the lyrics to the girls part changed... it's the same tune but the words give me chills every time!

"The sister of zion are called to God's labor. We willing serve him with spirit and might. We go to the nations with truth ever lasting. We teach of the savior our lord jesus christ."

Then this part we sing with the Elders...

" We go forth enlisted with Helaman's army in numbers much greater than ever before....."

Ha. I totally forgot the rest! But isn't that AWESOME! Some how I will get a video... let's be honest.... we go forth enlisted with helamens army in numbers much greater than ever before. It's the best.

That's all:)

I love being a missionary more than anything. :)

This is the most important work in the WORLD. :)

 

Love you all!

Love, Sister Calder :)

Week 22 (9/3/13)

Missionary work is HARD. I don't think I really understood that until this last week. Everyone kept telling me about how hard it would be and I just didn't get it... but I was proven wrong...

Sister Whipple has had Bronchitis the past 3 weeks. So it's been hard cuz she's really weak, but wants to keep going. Finally we got her some meds so it's been helping a lot. On Wednesday we were having the hardest day. We had a recent convert who just went through the temple tell us she's going back to the cathoic church. Then Dawn (who almost got baptized you know) said that she doesn't want to learn anymore. Then like 4 other investigators just dropped us or we had to drop them. All in one day.... we were biking around not knowing what to do just wanting to cry. There were huge black and grey clouds all around us and we were wondering what we should do so we didn't get caught in the rain. Then we just looked up and saw literally just right above us a clear blue sky. It was the most amazing thing ever. We just wanted to cry haha dramatic I know. But it honestly was that amazing. We made it all the way home (10 miles 1 hour) with clouds all around us and didn't get rainned on! It was seriously a miracle!

That same day we went to knock on an investigators door. He hadn't been answering our texts. Right when we got up to do the door I had this really bad feeling and told Sister Whipple that we should go. I had no idea why, but just had to leave. We had heard about 2 weeks earlier that there had been a murder on that very street. We decided to have someone check the news even though we thought we were being stupid to see who it was that got murdered. The bishops wife looked it up. We found out that it was our investigator who had been killed. His dad shot him and his mom. We were heart broken. I have had deaths of people close to me, but never like that. The hurt was a lot different. We did a lot of praying for him. We were just so glad that we were able to at least teach him twice and that we have other people on the other side of the veil watching over him and his mom :) that's the only thing that gets us through sometimes. We are so glad that we were privelaged to be the missionaries that introduced to gospel to him here so that he will accept it there. We have no doubt about that :)

Friday helped with our deteriorating week. We went to visit a LA in a old folks home. We taught her about hymns then went out and played and sang hymns for her on the piano. She loved it and so did everyone else! We are now going back there every week to play hymns with all the old people :) we've been studying their hymns and some of them are the same so we just play those. On Friday we basically just played Christmas songs haha :) imagine a whole room of old people singing Christmas songs :) it was pretty cute and made our day :)

I tracted for 6 1/2 hours on an exchange. We need members to do missionary work! We found nothing. It was pretty stinky and hard. But it makes me feel like a real missionary :)

 

Well! Sorry for the dower news! We are having a great week now! I love you all so much! Remember there is good that comes from everything and that Heavenly Father is helping us! :)

Love, Sister Calder

Fun Email (8/2913)

Today is Labor Day. I knew I wouldn't get an email from Nicole. To my surprise I got this from a sweet member in Florida. 


HI SISTER CALDER, I'M SISTER KARINA ORTIZ,  HERE I SEND  YOU PICTURES OF  YOUR DEREST DOTHER THAT IS SO SPECIAL TO OUR FAMILY . I ADD A PICTURE FROM MY OPEN HOUSE FOR MY SON STEPHAN  IN MAY HIS NOW IN UTAH PROVO, OREM MISSION. I HOPE YOU LIKE THEM WITH LOVE AND  MY BESTS WISHES OF BLESINGS FOR YOUR FAMILY. SISTER ORTIZ