Week 38 (12/23/13)

THis week was awesome! Finally we are able to do work! This opening thing is not as much fun as teaching people ya know? BUt..... it's got to be done. SO there ya go! I love teaching though man....

We had our Christmas COnference.... ON THE BEACH... Siesta Keys, rated one of the nicest beach's in the WORLD.... maybe the US. But since I don't actually know we'll just keep it at world. 

I'm SOOOOO excited for Christmas! SO excited! I can't wait to talk to my family! That's all I really care about! DOn't worry, we're being taken care of here! Even though it's a new ward we have been invited to so many people's houses! It's great! 

Also, I forgot to mention that I'm serving in Sarasota Springs FLorida.... weird eh? 

I have calluses on my knees. This is not a joke. Weird right?! Hardwood floors will do that too you. Lot's of praying. And it always works! Always. I love prayer! I have such a strong testimony of it! ;) 

We have a member who owns Texas Roadhouse and we get to eat there for free whenever we want! Yep. Dream come true. 

I love this gospel. SO MUCH. SO MUCH! I can't deny it's true! At all! This time of year has made me realize how much family means around the holiday's. But it's been amazing to really just have a completely Christ centered Christmas though :) I love it. 

I love the work. 

Keep it hastening. 

Thank you for all the amazing support and love! I can feel all of your prayers! 

Love you all! 

Love, Sister Calder ;) 

President Cusick and Us

Sand Angels

White Christmas

Week 12 (6/25/13)

So I would first off like to point out... for those of you who were watching the brodcast, and for everyone who wasn't either... the the Florida Tampa mission is THE BEST MISSION IN THE WORLD. I have been trying to tell you, but now you all have proof. Elder Anderson said it himself... I'm pretty sure. I saw some people I know on there. :) I even saw my sweet mission president and his wife who are leaving next week :( BUT! Like I said, it is very clear what the best mission is. ;) haha and I have already set aside that the second best mission will be Sister Calder #3's (Ash's) mission :)

The brodcast was AMAZING! We all had our guesses on what it was going to be about. We really thought it would be member missionary work... and ipads. Our other guess was that they were gonig to make every mission a service mission (which would be the BEST). But it was about memeber missionary work! It was SO good! I loved seeing all those missionaries in the MTC. They are always telling us that this is such an exciting time to be on a mission! I truly believe and know that! I am in the middle of this happiness!!!! I am loving every single second of it!!!!

So Dawn didn't get baptized... she had to move like an hour away. But once she can get back into a homeless shelter down here she will get baptized :)

On Tuesday I had one of the most spiritual experiences of my life. We had a conference cuz my mission president was leaving. It was a zone conference, so it wasn't everyone. We did a musical number (Love is Spoken Here) I played the piano for it. It was so beautiful. Everyone was fighting back tears afterwords. We had tons of departing testimonies that made me tear up as well. Our mission president showed us a video. I wish I could youtube it cuz I really want you all to see it. It's about a man who was running a 400 meter dash. He was expected to win. He tore his hamstring in the middle of the race and fell to the ground. He didn't want to give up so he started hopping to the finish line. A man broke through security, it was his dad. He ran next to him and helped him the rest of the way. At the end he let him finish the race by himself. Of course. We were all balling and it doesn't help that it had Josh Groban you raise me up playing in the background. Oh man. Then he read us a quote that I loved- "All you have to do to finish the race is rise each time you fall." and he also said- "If you never give up, you can never fail." SO TRUE RIGHT! I love it!!!!! I cried a lot.

But here is what really got everyone. Our closing song for the meeting was God be with you till we meet again. We all started to stand as we sang it. It was already hard to fight back tears, but the last verse the Haitianaries started singing it in Haitian Creloe and the Spanish missionaires joined. I couldn't even sing! The spirit was SO strong I literally cannot even describle it. If you can only imagine this... all the Elders and Sister with tears running down their face in complete love for our missinon president. That's really what gets the spirit so strong... pure love. That's really what it was. We love them so much! I said the closing prayer and I still don't remember what I said and we all just cried together. 

In our mission to say thank you to people we sing Love one Another. It's our mission presidents favorite song. So when someone does something nice for us we all sing that song to them. As President and Sister Summerhays walked out we all stood in silence and then sang, without even planning it before hand, Love one Another. We all cried as we walked out the door hugging Sister Summerhays and shaking Presidents hand. It was a moment that I will never forget :)

Really nothing else is worth saying after that! I love you all so much! Thank you for everything you do for me! I cannot even tell you how much I appreciate all of you!

I love you!
Love, Sister Calder

 

WAIT! The one peice of advice that my mission president has give us is-

"GET THE SPIRIT, AND KEEP IT"

Don't you forget it :) that the best life advice right there ;)

Week 5 (5/6/13)

My new address-

7779 Jewel Lane #101

Naples, FL 34109

 

If you have sent a letter to the other address in the past couple days don't worry about it. Some awesome Elders from our district are moving in so they can give me the mail.

 

Thanks again everyone for your prayers. They are much needed and I can feel them. :)

This last P-day we had the 4th injury of our zone.... Elder Shank twisted his anckle... let's just say I'm pretty hesitant to play sports with them at the moment... it's just so fun!

 

Aunt Diane- your first aid kit came in handy for Elder Shank ;) and also for another Sister :) luckly all I have needed out of it was a bandaid :)

 

We had a Sisters Conference on Tuesday! I got to see Sister Lee which pretty much made my week! I love her so much! It was funny to see all the Sisters legs though... it looks like we have a plague going around with all the ugly bug bites on our legs! So there are officially Sister Training Leaders in the field! They are kind of like zone leaders, but for sisters and they cover bigger areas :) Sister Bench and Sister Hill are the very first ones for a couple zones in our mission! :)

 

Wednesday was hard. We fasted all day for my mom. That was the day I have felt the most homesick so far. I know that because I was fasting Heavenly Father gave me strength to be calm and have peace. I don't know what I would have done without that peace. But that morning our bishop gave us a blessing. My comp and I and the Elders that are also in our ward. It was just to help us with the new area and everything. It was so powerful. He promised me that I would see one of my investigators get sealed in the temple with their family. I can't tell you how motivated that made me. It was a very specific and powerful promise. He also told me that my mission would help me be a mother in zion. It was such an amazing blessing that I needed so much at that time.

 

I had my first weird moment... one morning Sister Bench and I (she came out the same time as me) went outside and we were like- "OH! It's COLD!" We look at the thermometer on our car... it was only 69 degrees... this is going to be bad when I come home.

 

Remember that investigator that just came to church last week? Well, she wasn't answering our... many phone calls (Sister Andersen and I decided that missionaries are creepy stalkers....) so we went to her house. Right as we pulled up I had the feeling to not knock on the front door. I thought it was just nerves, but both of us looked at each other and said that we shouldn't go in. So, of course we followed that and didn't. We have no idea what would have happened. But I am so grateful for those very small promptings that we get from the spirit. I still cannot believe how small it was. But because we have been focusing and praying on having the spirit and listening to it we could feel that :) it was pretty amazing.

 

On Friday it was exactly one month that I've been a missionary! I celebrated by of course... taking 3 showers in a day (I'm not kidding) one after our workout, one after a serivice project, and then one after biking. It was a very eventful day.

 

Saturday I had my first door slam while tracting. That was fun... then we found this turtle in the middle of the road! Pics will come. I don't have enough time right now.

 

I have 18 bug bites on my legs... they will not be pretty when i come home that's for sure.

Everyone uses their car horns here...

There are tons of lakes. I'm pretty sure the whole state is going to collapse soon.

 

As my dad said in his mission journal- "This is true happiness, and nothing replaces this."

 

I totally believe that more than anything! Bringing someone to the gospel is TRUE HAPPINESS! 

I love you all! Sorry this one was short! :)

 

Happy Mothers day to all you moms out there! :)

The Day they made the Change

This serisouly was one of the happiest days of my life.
I had to work at 11am on the day of conference. I was super bummed because my family had tickets to go to the Saturday morning session. I begged and pleaded with Macey's to give me the day off. It meant a lot to me to go with them. But I could not get it off. Even to this day right now it is making me mad because what happened and was said in that conference changed my life (dramatic moment) and I could have been there with my most favorite people in the world.
So because of work I was sitting in my work clothes watching conference with one of my roommates. You know- everyone always wants something awesome to happen in conference, a new temple somewhere crazy, they open China, or something insane; but this time it actually happened, and affected me directly.
President Monson started talking about boys that were 18 in other countries going on their missions and how well it was working out. Right then I knew he was going to change the boys age to 18. I was so excited! I didn't even think about him changing the girls. My roommate and I freaked out! I started thinking about all these boys in my ward who would be able to go soon and how great it was not to have that awkward year after high school. Because we were talking about it we almost didn't hear him say that sisters could now go at 19. My jaw dropped. I swear I almost had a heart attack. My roommate and I sat there in awe and then started screaming and laughing. It was AMAZING! I still right now cannot even explain what I felt at that moment. I couldn't even cry I was so happy. On my way to work I sure did cry though ;) I started calling people and people started texting me. I guess people just know me. They knew already that I was going to go. :) while I was at work people couldn't stop talking about it and I was going crazy because I just wanted to call my mom, I couldn't right at first because she was in conference obviously. On my break I texted her and told her I was going. She told me that she and all my sisters already were planning on that :) I love them. :)
Then I drove home after work. Balling. The whole time. It was completely overwhelming. I still don't think it's hit me after 4 months...
I wanted to make sure that I was making the right choice for me, even though I'm pretty sure that I already knew in my heart that I was going to go. Especially since I've wanted to go my whole life. So, I decided to fast and pray on Sunday to get the answer. I prayed the whole drive home and then forever that night and morning.
I don't even remember the definite time when I for sure knew that I was going to go. I think I really just always knew. But when I was fasting and praying I never had a doubt, that is what really made me do it. I remember sitting down next to my mom after the first session was over and telling her straight up that I was going to go on a mission. We both then cried and hugged each other.
Best. Moment. Ever.
Ever since then I have never had a doubt that this is my plan and that I am going in the right direction in my life ;)