Nov 10, 2014

Alright well I think this week has been one of the most cumulatively
embarrassing weeks of my life. Good stories to follow!

Well on Tuesday, we had a district service project for our investigator, Hannah. She has troubles with addictions and well, long story short, we were moving her out of her apartment. She had a looot of stuff, let me tell you. Well a few of us missionaries are standing in the kitchen and boxing things when one elder, Elder Burton, makes a mention of how men can't be married after this life, but women can. I was like 'Whoa now that isn't true'. Remember that- it leads up to a story later. So a little while later, we- Elder Burton and I- were talking while piling stuff into the moving truck and I think the topic of us being late to our own service project came up. My excuse was that I had to shower that morning and that men have a lot less hair than women, so it takes a while and he says 'Why not do it the night before?' And I said 'Because then you sleep on wet hair and you might get sick and plus it dries weird. That's why I only wash my hair every other day.' And he gives me this grossed-out look! Excuse me, elder, that is totally normal! 
Awkward moment number one.

So remember our doctrinal disagreement? Well the next day I found a conference talk to support my opinion (because I was right) so I was like, 'Yeah! I have to show this to Elder Burton!' So I screenshotted it- which, by the way, the talk's title was "Celestial Marriage". The day after, we were at zone conference and all the elders are standing around while the sisters are sitting front and center (it's a rule in this mission that whenever a sister walks into the room, or is standing, the elders must stand. I approve) and I thought, oh hey, I
should airdrop (you can send pictures from iPad to iPad which is really handy for a lot of things) that screenshot to Elder Burton! So I motion to him and he turns on his iPad and I was like, 'I better send this to both him and his companion so this doesn't look weird'.
So airdropping to Elder Burton, not a problem. To his companion? IT DIDNT WORK!! Oh my gracious so embarrassing. I literally just sent a picture of a talk called Celestial Marriage to an elder. So him and his companion are looking at this screenshot and have these weirded-out, confused faces on. I was urgently whispering to Sister Corbridge 'oh my goodness this looks so bad, I am mortified' and she is laughing hysterically. So like 45 agonizing minutes later, they excuse us for a bathroom break and I immediately go up to the elders and I'm like, 'I have to apologize. That looked SO bad.' Elder Jorgenson said 'Yeah. That looked really bad.' Hahahaha but it was fine and we all laughed about it. (But of course other elders are hearing this conversation so they had to know what happened too. Ugh.
Awkward moment number two.

And now we go into awkward moment number three of this week. A couple hours later they excuse us for lunch (8 foot subs, yo!) and afterwards we're all standing around waiting for our zone's turn to have pictures taken and, I mean, it's three zones of missionaries so it's loud. My district is standing around and one of the elders is autistic and came out at the same time as Sister Corbridge. He is so funny, we love him. But he's explaining to us that last night he was feeling better about missionary work but after today he felt so chastised that he just wanted to go home. I heard the opposite so I said 'That's great, elder! The spirit edifies and uplifts.' And every single missionary in the district looked at me in suppressed horror because they heard what he had actually said. The elder gives me this piercing look that, I mean, if looks could kill I would be long gone. I apologized profusely but, alas, it went on my embarrassing moments of the week list.
That night we had a meeting with our ward mission leader and we got there before the elders so I had plenty of time to entertain him with all my embarrassing stories. So at least someone got joy out of it  hahahaha.

I found out this week that Sister Corbridge doesn't believe in dinosaurs. Like literally doesn't believe they ever existed.

Hannah, that investigator with the addictions who we helped move, accepted a baptismal date for November 29th. Sister Corbridge and I had been discussing baptismal invites and I told her my philosophy is to just do it unless the spirit tells you otherwise. It's just one of
those things that you always do, like getting out of bed in the morning or saying a closing prayer at a lesson. So she extended the baptismal invite in that lesson and holy cow I have never heard a more powerful baptismal invite, ever. Ever! So she's on for November 29th,
but we'll see if that happens. She struggles a lot, and she's missed dates in the past, but she has improved so much. She really does want to be baptized though. So, with Sister Corbridge's newfound confidence in baptismal invites, she invited David, our investigator in Pakistan that we skype with, to baptism and he accepted! He has the most solid date- December 6th. He was supposed to have gone to church yesterday, so we will follow up
with him soon and see if he did. He's incredible, he searches everything out himself. He basically told us that he would talk to people at church and get his baptism all set up. He's really amazing.

We were walking out of Panera the other day and there were two guys our age sitting at one of the outdoor tables and as we walked past, we heard one of them say 'oh never mind, they're Mormons'. Hahahahaha.

Sunday was stressful, trying to coordinate rides for like 8 investigators. Only three showed up, but it was all good because it was the primary program. I cried several times. Especially because the deaf kids went up there like everyone else and the primary president just voiced for them. So beautiful.

It's always an adventure in St Augustine!

Love,
Ashley

Sister Corbridge and I waiting to have a Skype lesson with David

We carved a pumpkin
and it rotted outside of our apartment and it was too far gone to put
it in or on the car so Sister Corbridge ran the 0.2 miles to the
garbage while I drove :)