October 28, 2014

Hey friends and family!


I think I mentioned our district P-day last week. We'll let me tell
you, it went splendidly. I mean, besides the elders being super vague
on where to meet and park, but that's to be expected. Anyway we played
ultimate frisbee on a field with palm trees in 80 degree weather next
to a fort from the 1500s. Yeah it was awesome. I am seriously
considering being an active member of the frisbee club at USU when I
get back. I say active because I was part of it once upon a time, but
never ever went to anything.

First exciting event of the week- I dropped my watch in the bathroom
and it hit the counter and fell on the floor. Happens all the time, no
biggie. Except this time when I took a second look at it, it was
shattered. My Target watch! But it's okay, secretly I wanted to buy a
new one but I couldn't justify it. Picture to follow.

This week, we went hard and our efforts were rewarded! It was a good
week. Most of our lessons were those taught 'by the way'- aka street
contacts. People in the south are so willing to pray with us, it's
nice.

However, there is opposition in all things, right? Well my whole life
I have never been rejected by a deaf person. Never. Until this week.
We met three deaf people in one day (a miracle in and of itself) but
all three said no. I mean, people saying 'no I'm not interested' ain't
no thing, but when it comes from my own kind- that hurts! One of them,
we were at the door and introduced ourselves as being from the Church
of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, also known as Mormons and when
her daughter came to the door and asked who we were! she slyly signed
'JW'. Woman, are you serious. We are not Jehovah's Witnesses. Number
one pet peeve. But it's okay, because one of our deaf members texted
us the other night and said he had invited a nice couple to meet with
us and they said yes!

Fun fact, Saturday was National Make A Difference Day. The nearby
organization called up our zone leaders and asked if we could help
out. We, as a district, were assigned to paint this man named
Colonel's house. Let me back up for a second. Way back at the
beginning of my mission, me and the Nauvoo sisters had this joke that
I was on a quest to find a Southern Black Jew, and when I found one! I
would take a picture with him or her. I went to Texas and came back,
finding no one. Back to the present. We're painting outside of his
house and he's got this Jewish music blasting and we can hear him
singing and clapping from inside. Saturday is the Jewish sabbath. He
comes out on the porch, where I'm painting, and he is on this long
winded speech when he says 'I am a black Jew! My father was a Jew from
Ethopia!' And I thought, wait a second. We're in the south. Goal
finally accomplished!! You betcha we took a picture with him. He was
very excitable though. At the end, we brought him outside to show him
his house and all us missionaries ended up standing in a circle around
him. He took that as an opportunity to preach to us, so he's looking
at all of us and starts preaching (his voice is getting louder and
louder) when all of a sudden, he just fixes his eyes on me and is
yelling 'People think Jews have a problem with Jesus! There ain't
nothin wrong with Jesus! But God is FIRST! Jesus is SECOND! You hear
me?! God is first! When I die and I see you on the other side, you
remember what I said! Jesus is second!' Oh my gracious I could see all
the other missionaries around me suppressing laughs so it was mega
hard for me to stay polite while he's yelling/preaching at me. (Why is
it me that is always picked out?) But, I mean, he's right, Jesus
directs all the glory to the Father, so he's good on that point.

So it's a couple days later and it's about 8:30, a half hour before we
go home, and Sister Corbridge and I were trying to find wifi to do
Facebook. For the sake of Sister Corbridge not having to back me out
of a parking spot, we parked further away from our usual wifi spot
which resulted in little to no wifi. Sister Corbridge got in the back
seat, trying to find a signal. We couldn't find one, so we decided to
drive to another nearby location- but Sister Corbridge stayed in the
back. Throughout my mission, especially recently, I have found myself
in worldly circumstances that have proved to me that I am officially
'that awkward missionary'. This was one of them. I'm driving with no
one in the passenger seat and holy cow how uncomfortable was that.
Sunday was my 16 month mark! What! I sound excited about it but
actually, after studies that morning, I kiiind of had a breakdown.
Sister Corbridge comes out of the bedroom and says 'Sister Munro,
you're crying! What's wrong?' And all I could blubber out was 'It's my
16 month mark!' (if you needed another evidence that I am now 'that
weird missionary' here it is). I just had a small crisis about the end
of my mission drawing near.

Yesterday (oh I didn't email on Monday because, on transfer week, our
p day is moved to Tuesday) we carved pumpkins with a family for Family
Home Evening and later that night, we decided to tract a certain
street near their house. Without making a simple story took
complicated, a couple things fell through that put us in the right
place at the right time. We were walking back to our car when we saw a
man standing in his garage. We went up to talk to him and he acted
like he knew exactly who we were- he turned out to be a former
investigator! He says 'I was thinking about y'all the other day. I was
almost baptized in your church but I just stopped going.' I said
'Well, do you still want to be baptized?' He thinks for a second and
says 'Yeah, I would like that' so within five minutes he had a date
set for January 3rd. We'll see how well he actually understands the
significance of it, but hey, I had always heard about missionaries
setting dates on the first contact, but had never experienced it for
myself.

Yesterday was transfer calls. The whole mission was on a conference
call while our president made announcements and then said the
transfers. He went zone by zone and of course we're the last zone
announced. Sister Corbridge and I are staying together! Our whole
district is staying except one elder is going home, so he is being
replaced, and one of our zone leaders (the ZLs are in our district) is
being switched with the district leader of the next district over. I
went to that elder's district meeting on our last exchange and I
thought 'holy cow he is a great teacher, I wish I could pick his
brain' and lo and behold he is now in our district.

Our mission motto is: I love tough things! I am the first to do tough
things! I do tough things first! I love being a missionary!

Until next week!
Love, Ashley

October 20, 2014

It was an interesting week. There's actually not much to say about it
so sorry this will be a boring update! Long story short, with the
sifting of investigators we've been doing, and Sister Hale being sick,
and our main investigator being in New Jersey, and every single one of
our set appointments canceling this week, not a lot was accomplished
in the way of spreading the gospel.
Sister Hale said she just wasn't getting better so she decided to go
home this past Saturday. 110 of our 900 miles for the month (with a
remaining average of 14 miles a day for the rest of the month), and
she was safely in Jacksonville. (Luckily our vehicle coordinator is
merciful and told us it'll be alright). So now it's just Sister
Corbridge and I! Thankfully we like each other ;)
Come Saturday evening and we have about one hour of proselyting time
so we go visit an investigator who just got out of rehab. She wasn't
there when we knocked on the door but as we were turning around to
leave, she and her husband were coming up the stairs of the apartment
complex. Husband, in the past, apparently was not mega friendly to the
missionaries but this time, he actually advocated for us to come in
when she said they were in a rush. Miracle. And then he sat with us
and participated in our short lesson, and both committed to come to
church on Sunday! They didn't actually show up (apparently people can
get really 'sick' really fast) but it was leaps and bounds beyond what
he was in the past.
I think I mentioned that our church building has been shut down for
mold, right? Well they thought it would be finished in late October.
Then that became late December. Which just became September 2015. Are
you joking me. It's hard enough getting people to drive 6 miles for
church as it is- forget about it when church is 45 miles out in
Palatka! So hopefully we'll be getting a rental building very soon.

I told you it was a boring week! Lucky for y'all I have pictures :)

I caught a lizard!

BONUS!

I can't believe, I totally forgot to talk about David! David is a man
from Pakistan who friended me on Facebook. He was once a Muslim but
converted to Christianity. We talked about the Book of Mormon,
especially how it testifies of Christ and how it is like the new new
testament and he was very interested in that. We had a skype lesson
with him on Sunday! He got a Book of Mormon (don't ask me how) and is
very excited to read it, and said he would have his whole family
involved in our next skype lesson.

October 13, 2014

My mission just gets more and more interesting. We went to a baptist
church, Sister Hale has been sick alllll week, Sister Corbridge got an
egg stuck in her nose, and we taught a 'prophet' the restoration.

Okay I lied a little, we went to the baptist church a couple weeks
ago, I just never mentioned it. Apparently months ago, a woman invited
the sisters to come hear her husband preach, so we did! They really
appreciated it and it was very interesting. The people were so
friendly. It gave me a new perspective on how investigators feel at
church. There was definitely the typical screaming baptist preacher
thing going on though. Quite alarming.

Sister Hale's birthday was the 8th. A couple weeks ago, I was looking
through the cards at Target and found this hilarious chinchilla card
(it says Me? Forget your birthday? And on the inside, it says Not by
the hair on my chinny chinchilla. So funny) and not even 30 seconds
after I slip it into the cart without her noticing, she makes a
comment that she hates animal cards. Well, all the better, in my
opinion. Fast-forward to her birthday, she ended up loving it. I win.
Sister Hale's being sick and Sister Corbridge's nose egg go hand in
hand so I have to explain Sister Hale's thing first, then I'll give
you Sister Corbridge's perspective on this.
Starting the evening of the 7th, Sister Hale just felt sick and
exhausted. And she just felt totally exhausted every day since then.
She will literally sleep like 20 hours a day. We just found out last
night that it's been a thing that's going around, and the typical
recovery time is 7-10 days. So let me interject here to give you the
nose egg story. It's a good one. Also Sister Corbridge writes much
more exciting emails than me so don't judge.

"So uh the weirdest/grossest/funniest thing happened this past week,
so get ready to laugh...or throw up, whatever works. So Brother
Collins (our ward mission leader) brought us McDonalds breakfast on
Wednesday, which he does at least once a week..like who does that?
He's the nicest! But anyway so we're eating it and Sister Munro asked
if she could have my biscuit and I say of course and she grabs it but
then has like a hand spasm and immediately drops it. And she goes "NOT
MY BISCUIIIT! AHHHHHH!" And I just bust out laughing! Like ugh I wish
yall could hear how she said it and the look on her face! But ahh I'm
laughing so so SO HARD! Like to the point where I'm thinking holy cow
I might pee my pants...and I SNORT. But oh wait I forgot to mention
that I was chewing on some scrambled egg as this is happening and once
I snort the egg shoots up to the back of my nose somehow and GETS
STUCK THERE. IN THIS MOMENT I LITERALLY HAVE EGG STUCK IN MY NOSE. AND
IT WILL NOT COME OUT!......fast forward two days. There's still egg
stuck in my nose. We're considering going to the doctor about it. Like
this is a joke right? So Sister Hale is sleeping and Sister Munro and
I are putting potentials in the iPads and we're both a lil chilly so I
tip toe into our room to grab our blankets..and Sister Hale is sleepin
away and suddenly Sister Hale makes this weird like baby pterodactyl
noise that cannot be explained in words but was the funniest thing I
have ever heard! So I'm trying with all my might to hold in my
laughter while I grab our stuff so I don't wake her up and the second
I get out of the room I bust out laughing! Ps we have a bathroom fan
that's our noise maker so we can be loud and she can't tell..okay
resume story. So naturally Sister Munro asks what happened, so I tell
her, and we are DYING! We're laughing SO HARD! And again I got to the
point where I was laughing so hard I SNORTED. AGAIN. But oh
wait....THE EGG CAME OUT! HAHAHAHAHAHA oh my gosh it was the worst."

Ahahahahaha its the grossest thing ever, right?
So these past few days that Sister Hale has been sick, people from the
ward have taken her in while Sister Corbridge and I go do work. On
Saturday, we went to an appointment, just meeting these people for the
first time. They immediately invited us in- good sign- and we found
out that the husband was once upon a time, a preacher. I thought 'Yes!
I have always wanted to teach a preacher and now is my chance'. So we
taught this restoration and as we talked about Joseph Smith being
called to be a prophet, they interrupt and he says 'I don't tell
people this very often, but... I am a prophet.' Oh really? And he
continues to tell us that one day he was laying on his hammock and
Jesus came and took him around the world for about three hours. So
he's a prophet. I have met 'prophets' before but I am always at a loss
for words, so I know it was definitely the spirit that helped me say
'So you must understand how Joseph Smith felt to be called as a
prophet!'. Phew. Anyway long story short they KNOW (and they made sure
we understood this) that Joseph Smith is a prophet. But then in their
eyes, everyone is, so whatever.

We went to dinner with the Price family last night- the husband is
deaf and has known me since I was a wee one, so they brought out
family scrapbooks and I was in them! What! Yeah. Also he is the VP of
the deaf school here so he's helping us out with finding deaf people
to teach. Oh and- we found a stack of like 15 sheets of potential
investigators not in our area book. I can't even tell you what a gold
mine this is. We're stoked.

Do work!
Ashley

Oct 6, 2014

Hi! 

Another beautiful, sunny week in Florida. Some of the license plates
here say 'Endless Summer' on them and it is so true. Also Florida
definitely has the most variety of license plates.

So to start out the week with a bang, we went to go visit a
less-active woman. Sister Hale explained that with this woman we'll
need to be bold and she'll usually just try to chat and avoid all
gospel conversation. Alright, great. So we go in there and she's this
kind little 83 year old woman. A few minutes in, I started talking
about church. She immediately got a little rigid and the more gospel
comments I made, especially as pertaining to her coming to church, it got worse. It only took about two minutes for her to absolutely
explode. I mean, I have never been torn to shreds like that before,
ever. She goes off saying 'how dare you come into my house and start preaching at me' and 'If I didn't come to church when it was in my backyard what makes you think I'm gonna go when it's way out in Palatka?' and 'I am 83 years old, and I am old enough to know right from wrong and sometimes I just don't do it'. (We had just been talking about in the car how we wished less actives would just tell us they're not interested and don't come back instead of stringing us on, so that's all we needed to hear.) Anyway we proceeded to give our little message (we are also her visiting teachers) and left. She hates me hahaha. But what was funny, was that throughout her entire chastisement and ever since then, I have felt complete and total peace- not one moment of guilt- about everything that happened.

We've been teaching a 70 year old named Frank (apparently I only teach old people wherever I go) and he is hilarious. He's from New Jersey and has this 'whatever' attitude about God. Direct quote: "If I get there and He tells me 'get out of here, you're going to hell' then, I mean, what am I gonna say? I'm not gonna kiss his butt." Oh my gracious. And last night when we were teaching him, we found out that he doesn't and doesn't know how to pray, so we were talking about that. We explained how to pray, how to listen for answers, etc. and he goes "Does God like jokes?" Sister Corbridge says, sure, god has a sense of humor. He says, "Does he like ethnic jokes?" Ahahahahahahaha! I said, "Frank, you can't tell God black jokes!" Ahahahahaha he is a hoot.

I got a missionary Facebook this week! Sorry, I can't be friends with
friends from home and family outside of parents and siblings, but I'm
sure y'all can look at it. I'm just under Sister-Ashley Munro. There
are plenty of rules, of course, but if you all follow that First and Great Commandment (no friends or extended family) then there's really nothing else to worry about.

General Conference was fantastic!!! The first session was my absolute favorite. I had been studying the ordinance of the sacrament and had the question of why do we need the sacrament? If it's to remind us of our baptismal covenants and to remember Christ, why can't we do that by looking at a picture or having silent, thoughtful time, or anything else? Why the sacrament? So first session, I'm in a member's kitchen, eating their food (typical), when I hear Sister Esplin say something like 'I'm going to talk about the importance of the sacrament'. What?! I totally got my answer. It's because you can made a promise with God, just you and him, but to make a real covenant requires and ordinance to be done with the priesthood power. Bam, revelation.

Not too much to say about this week but what did happen was prime! Anyhow, I am loving it, as always. My companions are wonderful. The weather is great. We're finding new people. Revelation is abound. :)

Sayonara!
Ashley

The map of my mission, and where I am is highlighted

Little lizards are everywhere here and they are lightning fast. This is the first picture I've been able to get of one. 

My companion, Sister Hale, loves General Conference so much that the countdown made her cry. 

My Facebook page! The hand behind the ear thing is attached to the

hashtag #theprophetspeaks and we have people post pictures of them
doing that to promote General Conference.