Florida Resident! 8-11-14

Well I officially hit my 1 year mark! That makes me a legit resident
of this state now, right? Sister Skeem and I celebrated with some well
deserved frozen yogurt at Menchies! Haha this past week has been
pretty great. Last Monday a member took us to a baseball game for a
local minor league team here in Bradenton. Some Elders from a
different ward were there with some of their members, too, so that was a
party. The funniest thing happened as we were leaving the game though.
We had to leave early so we could get home on time and as we are
walking out a foul ball came into the stands and hit one of the Elders
on the inside of his right thigh (too close for comfort). The mascot
for the team happened to be right there and as soon as he sees this
happen he drops to the floor pretending to be in severe pain. It was
so funny! That poor Elder turned so red! Then Marty took a picture
with all of us and basically the whole crowd watched the entire thing.
😂😂😂

Transfers are coming up next week. We will find out on Sunday what is
happening. I have been in this area since January so I would be
shocked if I stay for another transfer, but who knows? One of the
members keeps threatening to lock me in their spare bedroom so I can't
ever leave! Haha I definitely love the people here and it will be
sooooooooo hard to leave! Maybe even harder then it was to leave
Lakeland... Is that even possible?

This weeks miracle was brought to us by media referrals! (That's when
someone goes online and requests to meet with missionaries) Over the
last 7 months that I have been in this area we have probably received
10 media referrals. 5 out of those 10 happened in just this last week.
The first 3 we received last week were all bad addresses or wrong
numbers and finally the third one told us that his friends had been
"messing with the Mormons" and he wasn't interested. By the time we
got the 4th referral the name seemed strange, there was no phone
number and we thought it was probably not a good referral either. I
was so tempted to not even contact it, but Sister Skeem and I decided
we didn't want to get to Heaven and be like, "sorry we totally ignored
your request to meet with us. We thought it was fake!" So we decided
to go and the daughter of the referral was the one who opened the
door. By the end of our conversation she was crying telling us how we
were sent there for her. It was amazing! They came to church and
Lauretta was shocked at how calm her boys were (both of her boys are
severely autistic and she was afraid they would act out). She
recognized that the boys felt the spirit and that is why they were
able to stay so calm. I know Satan put those bogus referrals in our
way so we would have a bad attitude about them. He would have given
anything to have kept us from meeting Lauretta and her family!

He would give ANYTHING to keep people from the peace and joy that this
Gospel brings. I may have said this before, but man he is a total
jerk!

Everything is splendiferous! (woah that is actually a word!?) Except
we both caught this nasty stomach bug that has been going around.
Sister Skeem didn't believe me when I told her I was sick until she
caught it 2 days later! Haha she is such a punk! Basically it comes in
two forms. Either you vomit profusely for two days and then you're
fine by day three or you just feel nauseous and clammy with a killer
headache for seven days. I think I would have preferred the two day
illness. Oh well. Alas it seems to be just about over now.

I love you all so much and I hope you have a LEGEN, wait for it, DARY week!

Love,

Sista Upchuck <---suddenly that childhood nickname seems so appropriate!