Sept 22, 2014
Hello Florida!!
Well let me back up a bit. It feels like it's been forever since I was in Nauvoo but I'll get you all up to speed.
The sisters were absolute lambs and helped me get all packed the day before. Sister Etherington and I planned on getting up an hour and a half early to be completely ready (bless her heart she was going to get up early with me) but, of course, the alarm didn't go off (we had three dead alarm clocks at that point) and we woke up 20 minutes before we had to leave. What!! You can get a lot done in panic mode. So I was just zipping up my suitcase when President Gibbons walked up to the door. Perfect timing.
President and Sister Gibbons and I drove the three hours to the airport. I played the alphabet game and 20 questions with two 75 year olds. So much fun! I almost won 20 questions because they guessed Michael Jackson with only two questions left. They are pros. (One of the questions President asked was "Would Sister Gibbons and I listen to this artist?" No. Definitely not. hahahaha.)
The days leading up to the airport day, I had prayed that there would be people prepared for me to meet to talk about the gospel to. I had solid conversations with three people, two of which accepted to learn more! Score one for Heavenly Father's team. One was a sweet old woman who lived alone in Jacksonville Beach, so hopefully they'll keep me updated on what happens to her.
In flying into Jacksonville, it was so beautiful! So much green and so much water... I couldn't believe it. Everything was littered with rivers and streams and marshes. Wow! The airport itself was nice, too. A senior couple picked me up and we arrived at the mission home around 7:00pm. The group coming in from the MTC had already had their dinner and was in the middle of a meeting, so all the other senior couples took my bags, microwaved me a plate, had me fill out paper after paper, got my driving certificate... it was a whirlwind. Also my President (President Craig- he looks a lot like President Ames from Texas, but shorter- also our interview went on for like 15 minutes because he just wanted to chat. I was like, "President you have other missionaries waiting" he goes "I know". hahahaha) informed me that there will be a transfer on December 11th and another mini transfer on the 30th, and I am currently signed up for the 30th. There are other ASL missionaries coming in from the MTC in December so it could be helpful if I stayed to help transition them and we were in a trio for just three weeks... I don't know. I'm thinking it might be the 30th.
I joined the MTC group for their training on the using of iPads and things. They've got plenty of restrictions and whatever else on the iPads so people don't get into trouble with them. They are very handy! And effective, from what I've seen. For Facebook, we disable our old facebook for the time being and make a new one. I'll be starting to make mine this week. There are also plenty of rules for facebook usage so don't anyone go being offended if I can't friend you or talk to you. :)
Anyway, that night all the sisters stayed in the mission home then we went to greenie training the next day. It was probably about 2 hours worth of "these are the rules" and 4 hours of "you can do it! go get em!" and by the end of that 4 hour pep talk I was sooo done. Just let me go! hahaha. During one part of the greenie training, we were put into the gym and roleplayed with the "seasoned missionaries" (little did they know about me) and first we were the missionaries, then we switched and we got to see how the veteran ones did it. I got a piece of paper that I held saying I was a woman, sad, crying in the park because a family member died. One elder comes up to me and goes "Are you sad?" (I had to play along and not make any smart comments so I said yes) and he goes "What happened?" I said, you know, life is hard. He says "Did a family member die?" Are you joking me, elder? Hahahahaha that's not how you do it!
I met my two companions- Sister Hale and Sister Corbridge. They are great!! This is Sister Hale's last transfer and she is training Sister Corbridge, who this is her second transfer. Both of them have had some ASL in the past (high school and things). We are in the St. Augustine Shores ward. We are right on the coast! Part of our area is an
island!! It's called Anastasia Island. The weather is absolutely beautiful all the time. St. Augustine is the oldest city in the US. It certainly doesn't look like it where we are but we're going up to the actual ancient St. Augustine today! Very exciting.
We've got a concentration of deaf members because there is a deaf school nearby. We have probably 20 deaf people. It's sweet! Of course three of the deaf families either know me or my parents.
We went to Walmart on my second day to get bike shorts for me (we bike here, but thankfully we also have a car) and we saw a deaf woman signing to her daughter. We interrupted and, bam, miracle. She has been wanting to go to church but there are no interpreters. We have them! So we exchanged information and hopefully we'll begin teaching them both. We also have a deaf investigator who, in our last lesson, went to ask her mom if she could be baptized (a miracle in and of itself) but mom is very Catholic and blew up about it. Seriously I have never seen someone react like that. We suspect it's a multi-faceted reaction- there's more about it than we can see on the surface so we'll continue working with her mom. Regardless, some very good things, especially as pertaining to the deaf, are going to be happening here.
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