December 1, 2014

WE HAD DEAF INVESTIGATORS AT CHURCH!!!!!!

That was the highlight of my week. Probably one of the highlights of
my mission. More on that later.
So on Tuesday we got a call from someone at the mission office about
our car being fixed. Hey, alright! It wasn't supposed to be done until
mid-December so that was a surprise. They said we had to drive up
right away because someone was on his way down to get our current car
and we could get our old car back from the dealership. So we drive the
ten miles to the dealership and... where's the car. Well the car is
gone. The other person from the mission office beat us there and just
picked up the car, not knowing we hadn't switched cars yet. So we
drove the other ten miles back (now being only 10 miles short of our
daily limit) with the same car that we left with. Long story short,
we're keeping this car. I ain't even mad. It has a camera on the back
when you put it in reverse.
We taught a woman named Gloria who the district had done a service
project for her a few weeks ago. We taught her a really excellent
restoration lesson and she understood it all just fine, believed it
could be true (actually seemed to say that she DID think it was true)
but at the end, she says something to the effect of 'Well thanks for
sharing your message with me, girls. I'm just not looking for another
church at my age'. My jaw hit the floor. Whatever. Whatever, Gloria!
That night we had dinner with a couple who just moved here from New
York. Oh, they are incredible. Both converts since 2005 and their
visits with the missionaries stemmed from the Hill Cumorah pageant.
Yeah!! Anyway we told them that we had to get out of there in an hour
to get to our sign language class on time, and do you know what they
did? They set a timer for us. They set a timer! So we were actually
out on time! Oh what a blessed miracle. Also the wife is pretty
certain that I took them on a tour of Carthage Jail when I was just
barely out. She's apparently going to send my picture to her friend
who has a photographic memory, so we'll see.

For Thanksgiving, guess what we did. Well actually it was the sisters
in the other ward's idea but they had us come with. We went to
downtown St Augustine and had a Thanksgiving Tree! We had a poster
board that looked like a tree and grabbed people to write down
something they were thankful for and put it on the tree. We then gave
them mormon.org cards with a hashtag that, when typed into facebook,
would lead them back to the final picture of the tree. It was super
successful. Some people got their grinch on early, though. Whatever.
We're gonna do the same sort of thing for Christmas but with the whole
district. Shortly thereafter, we went to a less active family's house
for the Thanksgiving meal. Oh man can they cook. Good food.

Thanksgiving night, we went to contact a referral from the other
sisters. One of the sisters knows a little ASL so when she saw a deaf
man they talked to him enough to get his information. He never texted
us back so we stopped by. He got home just before we left and we
taught him a little and he said that since he moved here from North
Carolina, he's been to three churches and God keeps telling him it
isn't the right one yet. What?! So he came to church on Sunday. It was
incredible. The deaf members welcomed him with open arms, the
interpreter finger spelled 'Mormon' signs, and Sunday school even
extended by like 25 minutes with all the deaf members just teaching
him and answering questions. His deaf son came as well and most of the
deaf members work at FSDB so he knew them as his teachers. They
invited us out to lunch after church but I mean, it's the Sabbath.
It's a good sign though.

On Friday I went on the departing missionaries temple trip! It was
awesome. I forgot how much I missed the temple. Sister McCook in the
other ward and I had a sleepover then we drove to the meetingplace
where they took us in groups to the temple. It was wonderful :)

The weeks just get better and better and we see so many miracles!

Love
Ashley

The temple trip

The tree we helped our ward mission leader decorate!