General conference was THEE BEST!!!!
You all probably already knew that, but really! If you didn't
watch
it... Well get off reading this email, and watch it! It will
change
your life! I think being a missionary really helps you
understand
better the significance of conference... I love it SOOO much!!!
I
can't even explain how excited all the missionaries get ;) GC
weekend
is like better than Christmas and a birthday party combined
(it's the
on 19th.... My birthday... You can start sending your cards now
in
case you forgot ;) haha also- my companions birthday is on the
24th so
I feel like everyone should send her a hilarious card as well :)
it'll
make her day) We have a living prophet and apostles. What they
say is
SCRIPTURE for our day. They are speaking directly from our
father in
heaven! Ah! Talk about the coolest thing EVER. I'm pretty sure
if
Moses or Abraham were here we would all drop everything to hear
them.
Saaaaaammmmeeee thing :) I know I can't tell you how important
it is,
you've got to figure that out, but i sure do have a testimony of
our
prophet and the power that comes from hearing him speak and
listening
to the things they say. It's so powerful! I went in with 3
questions
and the first 2 were answered within the first hour of
conference and
continued to be answered as the sessions went on. I know I'm
being one
of those missionaries right now, but I just wanted to make sure
you
had a formal invitation. Remember- there's no excuses ;) watch
them
all! If you don't watch every single one you'll miss something
that
you need, or you might even miss Elder Hollands AMAZING talk.
Pretty
much, he shattered my bones and made me want to cry, it was so
powerful.
Love. The world is all about love :) that is the main theme I
got from it! :D
I'm gonna get off my little soap box now... Haha sorry I know
everyone
just LOVES those emails from missionaries where they get
chastised. I
promise I didn't want to chastise you! I just care so much about
everyone and I want you all to know how you can receive the
peace and
answers you're looking for :) we showed one of our investigators
a
clip from General Conference explaining to her what it was, and
she
said their voices were so peaceful and brought her comfort :) we
explained to her that was the spirit because they were the Lords
representatives on the earth today :)
We had a cool lesson with Sister Maraj, our less active who's
now been
coming back!! she's the greatest :) our little grandma away from
home
:) I can't tell you how much I miss my grandmas by the way! But
we
just sang hymns with her :) the spirit was so strong even though
I'm a
horrible singer haha but music is just so powerful! It's like
with
that one woman we got a referral for in Lakeland. We just sang
to her
on her porch "I am a Child of God" the first time we
met her and she
cried as we sang. At her baptism Sister Beck said she said 2
angels
were sent to her to sing to her and bring her comfort :)
We picked strawberries with Mikayla and the young women's
president.
:) that was fun! I've never done that before! But both Sister
Upshaw
and I did not have good effects afterwords from eating those
berries
right off the vine... On or way there Terri Tadle texted us
telling us
she wanted to move her baptism up to the 19th!!!!!! We were
ESTHETIC!!!!! Best. Birthday. Present. EVER!!! I cannot even
explain
my love for her! She is one of the most amazing women I have
ever met
:) she has so much faith! We decided to call Sister Lazenby (who
is
actually my cousin Danny's aunt who's in my ward here) and ask
her to
give a talk at her baptism cuz Terri said that she'd love that!
She
was her visiting teacher a long time ago and Terri just loves
her.
Sister Lazenby has been going through a really hard time lately.
She
has a lot of Heath issues and it's been so hard for her. But
she's
such an amazing example of pushing to the end and never giving
up!
When we told her Terri was getting baptized she cried and said
this
was the news that she needs right now to help her keep going
because
she'd been really discouraged lately. You never know how much
you can
effect someone else's life!
In conference they told you all to tell us (the missionaries)
what
you're learning in Preach my Gospel :) I would LOVE to hear what
everyone's learning! I have studied it every single day of my
mission
and I still get stuff out of it every day! It's helped me teach
simpler and with more power. It's the perfect thing for everyone
to
study so we can all be better missionaries and not tell people
we meet
about Outer Darkness, Kolob, and becoming Gods.... Studying PMG
will
help a lot more with member teaching I think ;)
I hit my 1 year mark. Of course, we partied. That went by so
quickly,
yet I feel like I've been here my whole life! While we were
sitting at
our birthday lunch with our grandmas I was just thinking how
normal it
all was and then realized that this was totally not normal and I
haven't been doing it forever. It's so weird.
Cool story- while on exchanges with our STL's we were contacting
in
downtown Sarasota. We met these two super awesome gay men. They
said
they had sen the BOM play and liked it a lot and then they had
researched Mormons a lot. We told them about the temple open
house in
Ft. Lauderdale. They said they wanted to see it, you know.... A
lot of
the time people don't do what we tell them to haha but we fb
friended
this couple annnnnnnddddd they posted a picture of them at the
temple!!!!!! They told everyone how beautiful it was and they
shared
how anyone could go and see it even when they were getting
ridicule
from their friends comments. Ahhhhh :) so cool.
They mentioned Florida twice in conference.... Just sayin'....
Also- listen to the spirit. Remember my email last week? Well
Sister
Upshaws mom emailed her and said that she needed to hear what I
said,
even though I thought it was funny that I was writing that in my
email
but I just felt like I needed to. I love the spirit :)
Also- we get to hangout with Ernie and Ashley all day today at
the
beach :) we are pretty excited :)
The church is trrrrrrrrrrruuuuuuueeeeee :D
I love you all. A lot :) party whenever there's something to
celebrate... It will make you happier.
Love, Sister Calder :)
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| Picking stgrawberries |
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| creepy |
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| How we party. One year mark |
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| I got to see Ernie and Ashley last night. :) They came down to see me! We are going to the beach all day today! I love them so much! |
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| Old Lady Lunch |
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| Florida Sunsets |
