I have decided to speak "proper" English for now and forever because I swear my head will explode if I hear on more person say fix'n... Actually that is totally a lie. I love the way people speak here. I remember this past summer a group was in town from England at Caesars Palace and I asked them what it sounded like when Americans spoke (like if we had an accent) He responded, "Its sounds like you're butchering our language!" I now understand what they meant...  haha It really isn't that bad!

It has been another glorious week in paradise! Last P-day I took a nap in a hammock. The weather was Perfect! I am pretty sure I am serving in the greatest mission in the world! :) 

 

SO... I ran out of time, but it was for a good reason! So here is sister Calder's email! haha It talks about some pretty cool miracles we had this week! Sorry! I love you all so much! I want you to know how much I feel your love and prayers. I am doing great and loving this gorgeous state! 

Love always, 

Sister Upshaw! 

Have you ever had one of those moments where you're just like- "Man!
God totally loves me :)"
Those are pretty much my favorite moments EVER!
I feel like I get them a lot on my mission- where everything is just
going great, and you know that he loves you so much and is so aware of
you :) I had one of those on Saturday. We pretty much were just having
such an amazing day. We don't have too many investigators right now,
so we were doing some bike contacting while trying to contact some
less actives in the process. We weren't having too much success but
decided to stop and get some water at Walgreens (you know there's a
MILLION of those things here. Sometimes they have Walgreens and CVS on
one corner and then a geriatric clinic on the other... Those
oldies;)). As we were in line I pulled out my wallet to get some cash
and the lady behind me a couple seconds later asked me if I was a
Mormon missionary from Utah. Of course I was shocked because that like
never happens, and me and Sister Upshaw both are like "YA! How'd you
know that...?" Then she told me that she saw my Utah license in my
wallet (which I do not think is at all creepy just to let you know...
You should see some of the things we do. Fb doesn't help the
creepiness at all either...). Then we talked to her for a sec with the
cashier standing right there. After we were done the woman asked us if
we had a cars. We handed her a Mormon.org card and the cashier put out
her hand for one as well! Then she looked at it and asked if she could
have our number cuz we didn't give her one with our phone number on
it, the cashier gave hers back too for our number! So cool. The lady
was telling the cashier about how the Mormons are all so nice and
they're so family oriented. Nice. She taught a lesson for us :) that's
always a plus
Then we were unlocking our bikes and she comes out and gives us her
number and explained how she'd been taught by missionaries in.....
NAPLES! Cool eh? I felt even cooler when she told me where she lived
and I knew exactly where it was! You know how that makes you feel
cool... She didn't seem to like Naples as much as I did though....
Haha It's funny how fast we learn the areas that we're in! Anyways...
That was awesome. That same day we got a ton of texts from people that
we had texted them asking if they'd be at church tomorrow and about 5
of them were like "yeah we'll be there!" So that was SUPER happy! We
even got a call that same day from one of our gators nephews who'd
referred her to us and he said he was down and wanted to bring her to
church! Then we get a call from a LA saying that him and his wife will
be at church tomorrow (they haven't been in over 15 years and we found
them doing "To the Rescue" and the whole story is a miracle how we
helped them return to activity but we just love them!)!
Then as we were biking down to the church for our awesome ward party I
just had this moment where I was SO happy and couldn't stop smiling.
The weather was BEAUTIFUL and everything just seemed to be going right
in that moment :) I was SO happy... Well I guess you could say that
pure joy :)
Sooooo since were constantly showing people videos I always have these
videos pop in my head and I just want to do an air hashtag or
something with it... #mormonmessagemomentsthatmattermost
Look it up :) it'll change your life...then... SHARE ON. Easy
missionary work right there!
But you want to know what all these miracles are from?
OBEDIENCE.
It's so simple, but brings mountains of blessings! I didn't have as
strong of a testimony of that till this week. Sister Upshaw and I
decided to recommit ourselves to being exactly obedient to the very
end and working our hardest. We prayed together, and promised our
Heavenly Father that we would do better and talk to everyone, and try
our best to be obedient. We saw blessings IMMEDIATELY. Ria committed
to be baptized! I KNOW that being obedient and keeping your end of a
promise, that Heavenly Father will not only make up for our
imperfections, but pour out his blessing upon us. He's just waiting
for us to ask! Even when it doesn't make sense, still be obedient!
That's faith and trust :) serve The Lord with EVERYTHING you've got!
And don't hold anything back! You will see miracles :)
If I could give one piece of advice it would be-
BE OBEDIENT! Even to the rules you might think are stupid, you'll
probably realize later on that your mission president was right all
along... :)
Be obedient...and if I had to throw another... take LOTS of pictures :)
So numbers wise, this was one of our worst weeks, but I can't tell you
how fulfilled we feel :)
Also- we've been doing some crazy online stuff in our mission, we have
6 sets of missionaries just doing online procelyting! It's crazy all
the cool things that we're apart of right now! This should all bring
your comfort.... I probably won't come back as weird as you thought ;)
although I probs won't be able to sit on a couch....
Also- I'm a firm believer in oxi clean...
And Sister Upshaw and I have follow the prophet memorized. We're
pretty proud :)

 

 Love you all!

Love, Sister Calder :D