March 17, 2014

Family,

Happy Saint Patrick's Day. I do not condone saints, but I do love green. Check this out. This is from the back of a member's home. He says that a gator lives close by. His wife says that he is full of it. 

As we are on the topic of wildlife, check this out!!

We were getting out of our car to knock doors yesterday and HOLY COW!!! There were two of them, and I don't know what the heck they are. They let us get close and take a picture though. It probably came up to my elbow. It's nuts. Florida is crazy. 

I wanted to tell you a cool experience that we had. This is from President's email, so it is a little missionary talky:

I told you last week about that awful experience that we had last week out in the rich part of town. Well, honestly, my faith was a little down out there. I was nervous, but we went out there anyway. We felt prompted to knock a specific road, and we got to it. We knocked the first one: Jews that did not want to hear about Christ. UGH! Well, we kept walking and we started up to this other house. I was overcome by a crazy fear. This fear was different than other fear I have felt though. It was dumb. Usually, I feel a little nervous, but I still do what i need to with a lot of faith. This was different. i had no desire to go up to the door, so I made an excuse. we didn't go to the door. WELL, we got a little bit down the road, and we were talking to this nice lady. She didn't want a prayer, so we asked for a referral. She pointed the house that we had just passed up and said, "You could go pray with Tim. His sister was murdered last week." My heart sunk.  We went back and knocked on the door. No one answered, but we saw some movement in a trailer behind a massive dog. We mustered up all the courage we had, and the dog ended up being nice, and so did Tim. We prayed with him and testified of the Plan of Salvation. He accepted a return appointment and we were able to follow up with him a few days later. I know that the adversary did not want us there. I had never felt fear like that on my mission before, even my first day. Even if Tim doesn't get baptized, I know that God sent us to him. He needed it so badly. He needs to know that families are forever. Satan was working hard not to have us there, but, after a kick in the pants, the Lord got us there. I've repented, and we've seen some cool things since then. We're praying for Tim super hard!!!

We also got to help the guy that Dad would really like. we helped him "pull fence". His horses were trying to knock us over with their faces the entire time. It was fun.

I'm feeling crazed, so I better go. I love you all. Keep on keeping on! I've missed you all this week. How are your lives?

Hermana Gardner