Hey all!
It has been a busy week! Lots of exciting changes! So, I'm in a new area as of last Thursday! Got a call the day before, packed up, drove out and here I am! I'm currently in Lake Wales with Sister Faalaulau! It's been great! It's in central Florida and it's about 1.5-2 hours away from Tampa. Very different from my previous area, but I'm excited to be here. There's a lot of great missionary work to be done. Lake Wales actually has hills, which is bizarre coming from Tampa where everything is flat. We can see the lake from our apartment and I heard a bit of country music for the first time in months the other day. I've also been told that we're right next to Florida Naturals (the orange juice company) and sometimes in the evenings you can smell the oranges and it's amazing! Our bishop loves giving us fruit and we have some of the juice oranges they use and let me tell you...it is amazing! You all know I'm a foodie, so I love being able to have fresh orange juice! It's amazing.
We also had the opportunity to jump right in and speak at church yesterday. I love being able to share my testimony. I definitely will miss Tampa and the people and experiences there, but I'm excited to be here and to learn why the Lord needs me here right now.
We had a cool experience last night! We were going to see an investigator who had said we could come back (she ended up not being home), but we ran into another one along the way! His name is Jaquan and they had taught him previously, but he hadn't been keeping his promises, so they hadn't seen him in a while. He ran into one of the other sisters on an exchange earlier this week and had talked about Sister Faalaulau mentioning having "new life" and how he wanted that. So we were able to sit down with him and talk about faith, repentance, baptism, receiving the Holy Ghost and how we can gain this new life through Jesus Christ and being clean from our sins. It was so cool. He wants this and he said he's willing to work for it. I could see it in his eyes that he wants to change. He committed to being baptized at the end of May! It will take a lot of trust and faith and work on both ends, but I know it can happen as he continues to learn! The Lord's timing is the best. It's amazing to see people that people really can change. It's never too late.
Thanks for all your love and support. I'm grateful for all of you! This is one of my favorite quotes from this morning, "As we contemplate the decisions we make in our lives each day--whether to make this choice or that choice--if we choose Christ, we will have made the correct choice." - President Monson - April 2016
Amen to that! Make good choices!
Sister Gessel
PS - Pics
It rained so hard on Sister Gafa and I last Wednesday! Gotta love ponchos and bikes - also apparently Tampa is the lightning capital of the US of something? Don't worry we were safe even though there was a crazy lightning storm that morning.
Sister Gafa, me, Sister King and Sister Slawson outside my new apartment in Lake Wales when they came to drop me off.
Skyping with my sisters yesterday! It was the best! Also got to see my brother in Texas for a minute! Family is the best!
Don't worry I'll get more pictures in Lake Wales and with Sister Faalaulau this week!
No comments:
Post a Comment