The One with Florida

Week 4 (Sep 12th-18th 2016) & Week 5 (Sep 18th-26th)

Are you sitting comfortably? Let's begin.

Here I am in Flori-dada. My flight was a snap and everything was smooth sailing. then there we were, bright eyed bushy tailed greenies fresh from the 801, in the city beautiful: Orlando. We met our Mission President and his wife and were able to find them and all our luggage easily. No mishaps or delays; the Lord blesses His missionaries. President and Sister Clark are the sweetest and they are new to the mission too, so they'll be here for the entirety of my mission which is massively comforting.
We all had dinner at the mission home and shared a quick devotional before sleeping either there, a hotel, or (if you were a sister like unto myself) the resident ward mission leaders home for the night. Then when the morning came, we met at the church for the real and official transfers meeting, where we'd be meeting our trainers and learning where our very first area would be. and get our iPads which I was particularly jazzed about.

I'm now serving in the Leesburg Zone of the Florida Orlando Mission, in the Belleview South Area. but my apartment is in a little place called Lady Lake (there are a lot of names to remember. there are like 5 towns in my area but it's only half of the ward I'm serving in its bizarre). I then met my new companion and trainer, Sister Phelps. She is the sweetest and most humble thing with two legs and a name tag. She's from Grass Valley California and is a bomb missionary. Don't worry fam, I'm in good hands. Between Sister Phelps, my district, the ward, and the Lord I feel very safe secure and welcome.

It is so green here. It was the first thing I noticed as the clouds parted while the plane was descending. That and water. Lakes. Ponds. Puddles of unusual size. so many small bodies of water dotted everywhere. My top three favorite things about Florida nature is 1. Lizards. 2. Spanish Moss. 3. Banana trees.
You should see me when I see a lizard. They are everywhere; they are tiny and adorable and super fast, so I haven't caught one to love and cherish yet. But if I talked to people on the street the way I do to any given lizard, my success as a missionary would deplete pretty quickly:
"HI! YOUR NAME IS CYNTHIA AND I LOVE YOU."

But the thing I truly love about Florida (the area I'm in, at least) is the bizarre culture.
Before I came to Florida the most golf carts I'd ever seen in one place at one time was maybe about three. now it's like 50. There are more gold carts than people. and the people that drive them are sunkissed retirees with small immaculately groomed dogs in their laps. It's magnificent.
The location where this is most prevalent is a whimsical place called The Villages. Oh my goodness it's amazing. Candy colored houses with a golf cart in every driveway and various lawn furniture in front of each screened porch. I've heard so many many great descriptors for it, but my favorites include "Disney world for the elderly", "maze of old people" and place where "no matter how wealthy you are you will still do anything for a free hot dog". Please look this place up. It is glorious. and sometimes when we drive by a pristine house with a plastic dalmatian and fire hydrant I just laugh because I still can't believe this place is real.

AND THE PEOPLE. okay. let's put it this way; it's like college kids that never grew up. They all party and go out drinking at 6pm at night, and the people who aren't dating around are newlyweds. 55+ and a newlywed. It still trips me out when I will be thinking that here this couple has been married for 40-50 years and then they mention their two year wedding anniversary is coming up.
One of the sisters in my mission wrote that she's serving in a YSA ward now. and I was like. you know what. I am too. but an OSA ward. (old single adults)

Okay, okay, I'm done. I love it so much, it's so quirky and always keeping me on my toes. I really do love it here and the people. I never thought that my problem would be getting investigators to stop talking, but here I am. People love chatting here and so it's hard sometimes to get a quick lesson or a thought in before we're almost running late to our next appointment.

One of my favorite parts of the week is when we go and do our community service at the local library, we loom hats for pediatric cancer patients and we get to meet and talk to the sweetest people. It's a nice relaxing break without having to actually stop serving.
Not that I necessarily need a break; good news friends, I am in a full car area! That means no cycling for me for the next 6-12 weeks at least! So many blessings and tender mercies. It is so hot and so humid. and it rains a lot, but not as much as I expected because apparently the summer is winding down to a close. I forget that it's technically autumn until I go into a grocery store and see Halloween merchandise. It's hard to get in that mindset when you're surrounded by palm trees.

I'm told I'm in the best ward in the mission and I absolutely believe it. The members are amazing. They fellowship investigators, less actives, and recent converts like its nobodies business and they feed us almost every night. Belleview is a blessed ward. Sister Phelps and I even got a chance to teach primary sharing time yesterday about how you can be a missionary now.

The work has been slow, but steady. I knew coming in that a lot of people don't really follow through, but I wasn't expecting it to be so much so often. We have so many potential and progressing investigators that were doing so amazing but then fall off the face of the planet and never call or text us back again. We go to their houses and no one will answer, even if we did have a set appointment. It can be frustrating, but it makes the lessons that happen so worthwhile. A bit of vocab I had to learn is the term 'Snowbird'. It means a resident that leaves Florida for the summer but comes back in the winter months. I'm told that they should be coming back soon and we'll have a lot more people to talk to then. I'm pumped for that.
However I do have an investigator on date(!!!), her name is Amy and her and her two young daughters (ages 6 & 8) just came to America from the Philippines and have seen God's hand blessing their lives. She had a few lessons with the sisters before I got here, but was having a really hard time grasping and understanding the plan of salvation. So Sister Phelps and I brought this cute little visual of it, with cards to put in order to explain how the plan works. It all clicked and she finally got it. When we asked her to pray to know if it is true she said "oh I already know it is true" but said she would anyway.
Our lesson after that we reviewed the restoration (she had a hard time understanding the priesthood), and she asked amazing insightful questions that showed she was really listening and thinking about it; taking it all in. At the end of the lesson we asked her if she would be baptized in mid November. She said yes. I was screaming on the inside I was so happy. She's not totally confident about it yet, it's not like she's going to be jumping in the font, but we set up the date and told her it wasn't set in stone, just a goal to work towards as we teach her more. I'm so excited for her! She is so ready, the Lord has been preparing her for a long time.

The women's session of general conference was also this past weekend! It was amazing and I highly and totally recommend watching or listening to it if you haven't had the chance yet. If you don't have a lot of time, be sure you get around to Sister Carole M. Stephens and Elder Dieter F. Utchdorf's. All of the talks were superb, but those two were especially striking to me.

This week as you prepare for conference, try to prayerfully consider a question to ask God to help answer through His Prophet and Apostles. Anything that may be pressing your mind or heart, or just a simple affirmation you need, Heavenly Father will help you hear what you need to by the spirit.

Be good,

-Sister Olivia Petty

Phelps and I with ornaments we made in addition to our hats last week 9.20.16

Enjoying the blessings of a full car area 9.19.16

My first hat! (and the name tag Bobbi made for me bc I wanted one even though I am always wearing a name tag already) 9.21.16

Golf carts parked in the square early on a Friday evening 9.16.16

The One with the General Authorities

Week 3 (Sep. 6th-11th2016)
Note: I didn't have a P-Day my last week at the MTC because I was flying out to Florida. So this email was written out but not sent, there will be another for this week shortly.

Friends, Romans, countrymen,

I am going to miss the MTC dearly. But mostly my district, who have all been superb and absolutely delightful. I'm going to be so sad when we all go our separate ways; half of us to Florida, and the other to Brisbane Australia. And the lone Elder Williams going to Zimbabwe. Bless his heart.
We're all so close we even wrote a rap about one of the Elders, Elder Doerr (pronounced door). I'll send a video of it once it gets sent to me. Our whole district is just irrationally obsessed with him for no reason. It's literally impossible to take a bad photo of him, and everyone has tried. It's great.

We've been doing Progressing Investigator practice lessons and this week we got to use the observation room a lot. It's a regular classroom with a one way window (the one that looks like a trippy mirror on one side) and it's so fun. I feel like a cop. Our lessons continue to improve, and the ebb and flow of questions and answers is going well. Meaning I'm not talking the whole time which was a legitimate concern for me. But it's going great and my testimony grows more everyday.

On Tuesday night, and Sunday night we had a devotional where a general authority came to speak. It was a pretty big deal. Tuesday was Elder D. Todd Christofferson and Sunday Elder M. Russell Ballard. I honestly can't remember if I already wrote about the Tuesday devotional, but I will say it was fantastic. He talked about how simple our message really is, and how when we testify of repentance we are testifying of Christ.
And Elder Ballard spoke about (a lot of things, but what I enjoyed most was) how the Spirit is the teacher, and we teach by it, not with it.

I have all my flight plans set and travel accommodations ready for lift off. But I'm still not packed. Which I don't understand seeing how I've essentially living out of a suitcase, and yet none of my stuff seems to be in it.


Until next time,
-Sister Olivia Petty

The One with the Bats

(Week 2: Aug 31- Sep 6th 2016)

Last night I dreamt of Jeanie. except Jeanie was actually room 233 in 17M. It had everything; across from my class building, ground floor entrance, two closets for each Sister, a desk with a mirror, a top bunk with a view over the whole room and a spare bottom bunk for me to use as a storage space for piles of dirty laundry. This dream was taken from me on Saturday afternoon. by bats.

Friday afternoon all Sisters were called for an emergency meeting, and told that the Sisters living in the third and fourth floor of 17M (my residency building) would have to evacuate by 10pm that night due to sightings and the occasional bite from bats that had got in. Sisters Padgett, Staten, Day and I were so insanely relieved that we were blessed enough to keep our room and even gloated a little amongst ourselves.
However you learn a lot of things at the MTC, including humility. We had to move out the next day. to a building literally on the opposite corner of campus. it was built in the 70's, used to be an elders building, has construction blocking all but one entrance surrounding it, no elevator and a room on the fourth floor. We were... humbled. very very humbled.
We had to move in with two sisters who moved in the day before and had already spread all of their belongings throughout the whole room and over the span of the six closets. I left the dream and entered the nightmare.
I'm convinced that bats are the devils actual advocates.

But the vast majority of the rest of this past week has been the absolute bees knees. I adore my sisters and district beyond belief and have never felt lonely for a second. We played some sand volleyball for exercise time the other day and apparently I'm not that bad. I'm actually pretty good. Maybe I would have gone to church ball if we played on beach sand? who's to say. On the nights we don't have late night classes we meet up in our classroom and turn off the lights and watch mormon messages and cry together. It's a great time.
In fact we made Friday night movie night and watched Joseph Smith Prophet of the Restoration. My grandma sent me fresh brownies and I brought them and it was a grand old time. One of the hardest rules to follow here is not hugging the Elders. When we are all crying and loving each other and feeling the Spirit we get to share meaningful brief handshakes.

Sunday Sister Padgett and I were made Sister Training leaders! That sounds important, but really we just tell new sisters where the bookstore and the cafeteria is and pop into their residencies twice a week to make sure everything is kosher between the sister companionships in our district. But we get a totally sick flip phone from the Britney Spears ages. but it only calls the front desk and everything else is locked. so the only thing it's good for is checking the time. but we did take a ceremonial selfie to commemorate the event.

Now being an STL isn't that eventful, but the night we accepted our assignment I had an interesting situation to use my new position of leadership. Around 10pm there was a Sister in our district that was being paged over the campus wide intercom periodically for about 15-20 minutes, Until the announcement finally said, "Sister Williams or anyone from Branch 39 please pick up the emergency phone in the hallway and call the front desk immediately." I sprang into action. When I connected with the information desk they asked if Sister Williams was there, when I said that she wasn't in her residency they were concerned (as missionaries are supposed to be in their buildings at 9:30pm) and asked to speak to a Sister Training Leader. When I proudly responded I was one of the STL's they said,
"Oh, we've been trying to contact you through the emergency cell phone you have." and I said,
"Oh really? I haven-" and I opened the phone to see a notification telling me I had 45 missed calls.
45. How do you even make 45 phone calls in a 10 minute period?! The phone was on silent and we had no idea. so super great start to my career in mission leadership.
don't worry, I'll be relieved of the assignment this Sunday. relieved being the key word.

Although this letter doesn't sound like it, I'm loving it here. Everyday feels like a week and every week feels like a day. Time has no meaning. it's non linear. I don't understand how it works anymore, but I didn't really have a good grasp on it in the first place so I guess it's business as usual.

Well they're giving me the light, tune in next time and don't forget to neuter your pets.

until next time,

- Sister Olivia Petty
olivia.petty@myldsmail.net