JULY 17, 2017

PURE JOY HERE IN BOYNTON BEACH!

HEEELLLLOOOO,

I seriously love this area and I LOVE Sister Jensen. She is such a hardworking, eager, and dedicated missionary. We have already seen so many miracles. This area is completely different than Naples but I love it just the same. We are so excited to go out and just get to work every single day. I feel like this is kinda a turning point in my mission. I know what I'm doing, I know what works/doesn't work, and I'm not scared to try new thing, speak up, and I'm excited to become the missionary that the LORD wants me to be. I'm willing and now I am able. 

Boynton Beach is such an insanely diverse area. All my last areas were practically all Spanish but in this area, there are seriously people from all over living on the same exact street. It’s SO fun. It reminds me a lot of my first area of Miami Lakes just with even more diversity. I LOVE it. 

Sister Jensen has been out on her mission for two more transfers than me. Before the mission she danced at the University of Utah. She reminds me a lot of one of my very best friends that I grew up with and so we just got along perfectly as soon as we got together. Seriously such an inspired companionship. SO EXCITED!! She is teaching me everything about being an STL and its been super good thus far. I did a few of my *STL duties* (Nacho Libre Voice) this past week and they went fine! 

We also Baptized two 9-year-old boys this past Saturday. Their family was really less active and the Elders found the Dad just walking outside on his way home from work. The Brunson Family.  They passed them over to the Sisters in this area and they taught them everything and now they are baptized! I seriously just kinda walked into this one but now we are starting "Project Brunson". The Brunson family has such an interesting story and family dynamic. The Grandparents live there with all their grandchildren and have raised them as their own. They are honestly an inspiration. They stopped going to church about a year ago but with our "project Brunson" we are so excited to bring them back. They are such a cool family! My favorite quote this week comes from Sister Brunson.." We can’t have without Heavenly Father" or "If you 'aight earned it God 'aight gonna let you keep it"... TRUTH. 

We are teaching so many cool people this week! Another one of our investigators Deitra is getting baptized this coming weekend! She is seriously the coolest person ever! I love her so much. She is just nice to EVERYONE. I will write more about her in the next email hopefully. We saw another crazy cool miracle with a girl named Alicia. She just kinda "showed up" to church with her member boyfriend. Alicia is this young woman from NY who has obviously seen a lot of success in her life. She is a financial adviser and just has a very "professional" personality. The most miraculous part of it was that seriously the entire Sunday service was about charitable giving, tithing, and really all about money (which typically isn't something we talk too much about as a church) . But she LOVED it. She felt the spirit so strong. Everyone was just kinda "speaking her language". It just goes to show how much God cares about every single one of his children. 

I just wish you could all see the "face of joy" that Deitra, The Brunson boys, and Alicia had on Sunday. And honestly how excited and happy Sister Jensen and I were. It was "magic". 

Earlier this week we were knocking for our hour and we finished with really no success at all and then as we were walking back to the car this man walked out of his house to go check his mail, so of course we went and talked to him. Turns out his wife who passed away two years ago was a devote member of the church. We went back and taught him yesterday and had such an awesome lesson with him. I usually hate lessons that last longer than an hour because I just get "burned out" especially since yesterday we taught him outside standing up but the lesson lasted about 2 hours and it was so awesome. He is just the sweetest funniest man from the Bahamas. He has the coolest accent.

This week was packed with hard work and miracles. I LOVED every single second. I am also extremely exhausted but that's okay! I am so excited for this area and for this next transfer. 

You guys are all so awesome! Thank you for your prayers and support. I LOVE YOU!!!! I pray for you every single day. Have a great week!