Week 49 (3/10/14)

Have you ever had one of those moments where you're just like- "Man!

God totally loves me :)"

Those are pretty much my favorite moments EVER!

I feel like I get them a lot on my mission- where everything is just

going great, and you know that he loves you so much and is so aware of

you :) I had one of those on Saturday. We pretty much were just having

such an amazing day. We don't have too many investigators right now,

so we were doing some bike contacting while trying to contact some

less actives in the process. We weren't having too much success but

decided to stop and get some water at Walgreens (you know there's a

MILLION of those things here. Sometimes they have Walgreens and CVS on

one corner and then a geriatric clinic on the other... Those

oldies;)). As we were in line I pulled out my wallet to get some cash

and the lady behind me a couple seconds later asked me if I was a

Mormon missionary from Utah. Of course I was shocked because that like

never happens, and me and Sister Upshaw both are like "YA! How'd you

know that...?" Then she told me that she saw my Utah license in my

wallet (which I do not think is at all creepy just to let you know...

You should see some of the things we do. Fb doesn't help the

creepiness at all either...). Then we talked to her for a sec with the

cashier standing right there. After we were done the woman asked us if

we had a cars. We handed her a Mormon.org card and the cashier put out

her hand for one as well! Then she looked at it and asked if she could

have our number cuz we didn't give her one with our phone number on

it, the cashier gave hers back too for our number! So cool. The lady

was telling the cashier about how the Mormons are all so nice and

they're so family oriented. Nice. She taught a lesson for us :) that's

always a plus

Then we were unlocking our bikes and she comes out and gives us her

number and explained how she'd been taught by missionaries in.....

NAPLES! Cool eh? I felt even cooler when she told me where she lived

and I knew exactly where it was! You know how that makes you feel

cool... She didn't seem to like Naples as much as I did though....

Haha It's funny how fast we learn the areas that we're in! Anyways...

That was awesome. That same day we got a ton of texts from people that

we had texted them asking if they'd be at church tomorrow and about 5

of them were like "yeah we'll be there!" So that was SUPER happy! We

even got a call that same day from one of our gators nephews who'd

referred her to us and he said he was down and wanted to bring her to

church! Then we get a call from a LA saying that him and his wife will

be at church tomorrow (they haven't been in over 15 years and we found

them doing "To the Rescue" and the whole story is a miracle how we

helped them return to activity but we just love them!)!

Then as we were biking down to the church for our awesome ward party I

just had this moment where I was SO happy and couldn't stop smiling.

The weather was BEAUTIFUL and everything just seemed to be going right

in that moment :) I was SO happy... Well I guess you could say that

pure joy :)

Sooooo since were constantly showing people videos I always have these

videos pop in my head and I just want to do an air hashtag or

something with it... #mormonmessagemomentsthatmattermost

Look it up :) it'll change your life...then... SHARE ON. Easy

missionary work right there!

But you want to know what all these miracles are from?

OBEDIENCE.

It's so simple, but brings mountains of blessings! I didn't have as

strong of a testimony of that till this week. Sister Upshaw and I

decided to recommit ourselves to being exactly obedient to the very

end and working our hardest. We prayed together, and promised our

Heavenly Father that we would do better and talk to everyone, and try

our best to be obedient. We saw blessings IMMEDIATELY. Ria committed

to be baptized! I KNOW that being obedient and keeping your end of a

promise, that Heavenly Father will not only make up for our

imperfections, but pour out his blessing upon us. He's just waiting

for us to ask! Even when it doesn't make sense, still be obedient!

That's faith and trust :) serve The Lord with EVERYTHING you've got!

And don't hold anything back! You will see miracles :)

If I could give one piece of advice it would be-

BE OBEDIENT! Even to the rules you might think are stupid, you'll

probably realize later on that your mission president was right all

along... :)

Be obedient...and if I had to throw another... take LOTS of pictures :)

So numbers wise, this was one of our worst weeks, but I can't tell you

how fulfilled we feel :)

Also- we've been doing some crazy online stuff in our mission, we have

6 sets of missionaries just doing online procelyting! It's crazy all

the cool things that we're apart of right now! This should all bring

your comfort.... I probably won't come back as weird as you thought ;)

although I probs won't be able to sit on a couch....

Also- I'm a firm believer in oxi clean...

And Sister Upshaw and I have follow the prophet memorized. We're

pretty proud :)

Love you all!

Love, Sister Calder :D

Week 46 (2/17/14)

This week has been AMAZING!! Oh my goodness. It's weeks like these

that make it all worth it :) the good really does ALWAYS out-weigh the

bad!

Your probs thinking it was good because we got iPads.... Which we

totally did! But that's not even it at all! We just received SO many

blessings :D the iPads are just a HUGE plus... Which is what I'm

currently writing to you on right now :) pretty crazy to think we

could be trusted with these things eh? But already it's been such an

amazing tool for us! the very first day we got them after the

training, we has a lesson with a less active and we were able to whip

our iPads out and show her a video! She loved it! We've been wanting

to do this forever, and now it's all right at our fingertips and it's

so helpful!

It is the funniest thing ever though... Our President was like a

little boy on Christmas. He HATES paper, so he's pretty excited about

this. He even told us to burn our planners and that we should not be

carrying them around anymore... We haven't done it yet, but we for

sure going to be obedient and do EXACTLY what he says ;)

The weirdest thing was probably being a missionary and getting that

iPad put in my hand, and I've been using technology for a while now on

my mission... Imagine a whole room of missionaries getting an iPad put

in their hand.... It was actually pretty entertaining haha. The Elders

behind us pulled out their camera not 2 seconds after it was put in

front of them.... Haha don't worry- we waited until we were in the car

;)

We each have our own that we carry with us throughout our mission and

them we give it back at the end. It has EVERYTHING on it. Obviously

every internet site besides the ones that are approved are blocked,

and we can't download any apps, but I guess apple wouldn't let them

delete everything. So they trust us... A LOT. Some of our ward members

still think it's crazy to trust us all with this stuff... But we have

really stepped up our obedience to be able to do this. We for sure had

to prove that we could handle it before we were given this tool. Plus-

you already know how hard core our mission president is haha (still no

couches or music...although I think Sister Upshaw might kill me

because I always have to have some noise going... So we just sing and

hum all the time... Ha)

We are on of the 30 missions to get to us them right now. We really

think it's because of the area that we're serving in. Lot of rich

people... And other factors that play in. I'm just SO grateful I get

to us it, I can't even explain how much more effective it has been

already! We have literally EVERYTHING on here. Our planners, maps,

ward roster, area book, pamphlets, videos, Facebook, the whole gospel

library, and a bunch of other stuff. It is the only thing we carry

around with us. We are able to sync with the Elders in our ward so we

know who is teaching who, and we update them right after the lesson.

It calculates all our numbers, and maps it all out for us too. We use

it completely for our studies. I thought that I'd have a really hard

time switching over, but the second I realized how effective it really

is, and how amazing the marking system and study journal is, I'll

probably never go back!

Okay. Sorry... Enough about that. I just know a lot of people are

curious so I thought that I'd explain some :)

Here's the REAL reason why the week was SO amazing...

We have these SUPER AWESOME investigators! Basically.... we brought some members.... the members who are in the circus with us to an appointment. They rock. ANyways. And they had a lot in common because their daughter is in the program to be a professional ballerina! So cool. But yeah. We showed them the restoration video and  they just kept saying- "no 14 year old boy would ever make that up!" They know everything. They know it's all true. They say that they've never met a dumb mormon. I told them that I'm living proof haha. But they meant that no one that would join the true church is dumb.

True. Haha

It's true! 

2 hours later (which is a REALLY long lesson. They're supposed to be like 20-45 minutes) they are best friends with the circus members and we're running out the door to get home on time... and WE LEFT THE MEMBERS THERE. That's how you do it! Leave the members there. That's when you know you've done something right! 

They are just so amazing and SO prepared! I can totally see the difference in people who are prepared, and people who aren't. It's amazing! 

Obedience rocks. It's the key to everything. That's why we've had such a good week :) 

I said this in my letter to my mission president-

Also- I think I'm developing my music skills! My companion might kill

me eventually.... But we're both just singing ALL THE TIME! It's kind

of awesome... I always have to have some sort of noise going on, but

this has helped me think a lot more clearly... And be able to be okay

with silence! Crazy... I would never think that would come from no

music. And like I said, Sister Upsaw and I are both developing our

singing voices and humming our comp study hymn all throughout the day.

Anyways! I love you all so much! Today Sister Upshaw and I are going to Metro (downtown Tampa) we get to street contact all day every day for 3 days! Super cool! We're really excited! One of the things we're required to bring is paper spray... you know it's gonna be good! 

12 And at all times, and in all places, he shall open his mouth and

declare my gospel as with the voice of a trump, both day and night.

And I will give unto him strength such as is not known among men.

 (D&C 24:12)

I love you all! 

Love, Sister Calder :)