One of my all time favorite things about serving in Florida is the wildlife. From the tiniest tadpoles to the sandhill cranes that are taller than me, the sunshine state has all creatures of our God and King. The entirety of my mission thus far my main goal (aside from teaching repentance and baptizing converts) has been to see at least one alligator. I have had so many near misses, and have been bitterly disappointed; but on Thursday I finally saw one.
We were biking home from a dinner appointment and while passing one of the ponds I noticed in the distance a V line behind a floating object in the water. I stopped and dismounted. "IS THAT AN ALLIGATOR?!" I called after Sister McCullough. She stopped a few hundred feet ahead and looked where I was pointing. We paused and watched. The floating object was definitely moving. "You bet it is!" She called back. Then we just sat there and watched it for a few minutes. Nothing really happened next, it was kind of anticlimactic. I was hoping it would go ashore so I could take a photo but alas. the ride continued.
We then turned a corner and there on the curbside sat a perfectly majestic turtle. I got so excited I crashed my bicycle. After I had desperately scrambled out from under my bike, I rushed to the curb and admired in awe this shelled wonder. I had my companion take a photograph to commemorate the moment. Turtles are much cooler than alligators, obviously.
I've had so many stories to tell since my arrival in the Lake Crescent Ward that I haven't had the chance to actually talk about the work. Apparently it's much slower than usual for this area, but that's what we're here to fix. One of our investigators that we were working closely with, Hector, was on date in June shortly after he graduated high school. He's quite the character and has been a unique challenge to work with. Teenagers, am I right? We thought we finally had a major breakthrough with him last week when he finally kept his commitments; but then a few days later he texted us and said he was feeling unsure wether or not he was ready to commit and wanted to take a break from the lessons for a while. Getting dumped wasn't something I thought I'd have to worry about at this point of my life but here we are. Keep him in your prayers, he'll come around.
We are teaching the sweetest lady, and she is preparing for baptism in June! Her name is Le Thanh (Lay-thawn). She was born in Vietnam but she grew up in Germany and so her accent is pretty neat. She has the most tender testimony of the Gospel and missionary work. She came to Sacrament meeting yesterday and to a baptism later in the evening! It was great for her to be there to see what it was going to be like and feel the Spirit. It helped us gauge what else we need to do to help her be ready.
It's getting warmer and I have no human idea how I'm supposed to survive the summer. We're going to have to be put back on full car or I'm going to have to go coastal because I don't think I can ride up and down Tiny Road all summer with thE ONLY HILLS IN FLORIDA. I've been bathing in sunscreen so I haven't had any bad burns yet, but I did develop an awesome watch burn line. Most sisters have a watch tan line, but since I don't tan this is the closest I'll get. I'm kind of excited about it.
My poor sweet companion Sister McCullough has been through the ringer the past two weeks. Remember last week when she threw up in some guys yard? This week after all the missionaries in our zone did our weekly community service at Second Harvest in Orlando, we all went to Baskin-Robbins for some ice cream before we got back to work. No one is quite sure how it happened, but I guess Sister Allison had set her chocolate shake on the ground for a second and then as Sister McCullough went to sit in her chair, it somehow fell over on top of the shake. So there was this crash and I look over and my companion is dazed on the floor drenched in ice cream. For reasons unknown there was a spare skirt in the trunk of the car that fit her so after Sister Stubbs helped her clean up everything was good as new. Blessings.
Work hard and be nice to people,
-Sister Olivia Petty 🐢
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| TURTLE 4.27.17 |
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| Service at Second Harvest with Elder Creer, Elder Bigler, and Sister Stubbs 4.26.17 |
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| Car share squad after temple service 4.26.17 |
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| Collapsing from exhaustion after Zone Conference 4.25.17 |
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