Hurricane season officially began! 6-2-14

This week has been rather quiet. I can't even think of an exciting 
story to share! Gosh, how lame am I? I'm sure something will come to 
me... Hmmm nope. The train has left the station! Oh wait! It pulled 
back in! Okay so this week was pretty quiet, but for some reason 
people seemed to have misplaced their filters! You know, that thing 
that keeps you from saying socially unacceptable thoughts out loud? Or 
as Dad would say their brain was leaking! Haha situation number one... 
 
A lady answers the door and as we are talking we hear a mans voice, 
she then yells back and says, Don't come out unless you're naked! This 
lady is someone we are teaching so we told her we would call her later 
and WE FLED LIKE JOSEPH OF EGYPT FROM POTIPHERS WIFE! Haha 
 
The next day we are at a members home having dinner and the man we 
were teaching was confused about reincarnation and resurrection. He 
thought we believed in reincarnation and to him that made a lot of 
sense. His wife tried to explain and the conversation went something 
like this... 
Wife: "Imagine I am bad" 
Him: "you are bad, very bad" 
Her: "okay? So I'm bad and your good. Are you going to let me come 
into YOUR body?" 
Him: Edited comment 
 
Now imagine how much funnier that convo is when you see their 10 year 
old son slap his forehead and start rocking back and forth plugging 
his ears. The poor kid was traumatized! Also the husband is polish and 
the wife is Philapino. English is their common language and neither of 
them know it very well... Haha ahhhh I hope everyone locates the 
filters on their mouths very soon. I walked out of both those houses 
more red then Shaylynn after a day at the beach! (The girl is so 
transparent, she could get sunburnt from a toaster oven!) 
 
Well Anywhoo... Church yesterday was fabulous! This ward always has 
AWESOME fast & testimony meetings! (On the first Sunday of every month 
the first hour of church is set aside for members to bare their 
testimonies. If you don't use it, ya loose it!) 
 
one of the guys that got up to share his testimony, talked a bit about 
his conversion. He said that the other day someone had asked him when 
he KNEW the Book of Mormon was true. He thought about it a bit and 
then said, "well it wasn't 20 years before I was baptized when the 
first copy was given to me by two sister missionaries." "It wasn't 
five years later when someone I worked with told me, 'you know, you 
really should read it'" he went on to talk about different experiences 
he had pushing him in the direction of the church (remember this man 
is from Florida...the church isn't very big out here, yet he had SO 
many interactions with it!) he finally said, "it wasn't until 19 years 
later when I picked it up off my shelf and read it. Then I knew for 
myself." I teared up at his experience. 20 years that man carried 
around a Book of Mormon that two missionaries placed in his hand. 
Those sisters have no idea what their 20 minute conversation did for 
this man's life! It's so cool! The thing that hit home was when 
brother Conway talked about how he had to act to know. A testimony of 
the gospel doesn't just come from wishing for it. I have always felt 
like everyone around me seemed to KNOW the gospel was true, while I 
merely hoped it was. It wasn't until I finally picked up the 
scriptures regularly and really prayed and allowed the atonement to 
have a place in my life that I gained a testimony. The thing is, it is 
so stink'n simple! Either it's true or it's not, but we will never 
know if we don't make an effort. 
 
Well that's all for this week! I love you guys so much! I hope you 
know how much I think about you all. I'm gonna steal a page from 
Dylan's book and say... We aren't there yet, but we are closer than we 
were yesterday. :) 
 
-love Chelsea 
(Sister Upshaw)