Week 9, 12/7/2020

Ok when I got called to Jacksonville FLORIDA I didn't think it would get super cold for winter or anything. But its been coooold this week! I also wasn't in the right state of mind when I was packing for my mission, so I honestly only packed one sweater and a raincoat 😬🤦‍♀️ I literally thought I would be on the Florida beach! 😂 Anyway moral of the story is that Georgia actually gets cold (not as cold as Utah) and a lot of hot chocolate has been drunk this week. 

But it's been another good week here in Brunswick! We got our first transfer call this Saturday and....I'm staying in Brunswick!! Sister Thomas and I both knew we would stay since I'm still being trained, but a lot of people in our district are getting moved around so this will be a weird week. 

Anyway heres some things that happened this week:

-birthday party at the Messicks

-Service for the Jensons

-church tour for Tina

-Some kewl lessons

-Sister Thomas's 6 month mark!

-Some finding out in the country 

So a pretty solid week! First of all: we love the Jensons. They aren't members, but her sister is. And Brittany (the mom) is 8 months pregnant with TWINS and they have been trying to move into a new house for the past few weeks. So her sister called us and asked us for our help, and its honestly been a really fun project! We got her family all moved in this week and they were extremely grateful for our help. It was a cool experience because it showed how missionary work isn't all about teaching people the gospel, its about being an instrument in the Lords hands and loving and serving others. :) Anyway we've now become good friends with Brittany and her family! And cool fun fact: her husband is from Australia and was a professional Squash player...yes apparently its a sport! He had his own cereal box cover at one point so I guess he was a big deal in the squash world!

My trainer just hit the 6 month mark!  Celebratory soda...

Turns out church tours are cool. We had our first church tour with Tina and she said she's going to try getting work off on Sundays! Its been hard getting her to church because of her job, but we just keep praying that everything will work out.  Something I've had to learn on my mission so far is having patience.  Sometimes God doesn't answer your prayers immediately and sometimes people don't progress as fast as you would like. And that's when patience comes in! I've learned that I'm working on the Lords timetable, not my own. That's been a hard lesson to learn and its a work in progress, but basically: patience and diligence is key!

We visited some people out in the countryside of our area and we came across some interesting houses 😂 there were multiple signs that said, "due to low ammo supply there will be no warning shot"....I'm happy to say that we never got shot! People pretty much do whatever they want out there! There's no paved roads, its all dirt and sand roads, everyone burns there trash, and they like to use stop signs for target practice apparently. 

Georgia country backroads...

Anyway my favorite part of the week has been Christmas!! We've been listening to Christmas music nonstop and it makes me so happy but also...Light the World has started! I encourage all of y'all to watch the Christ child video and get involved with Light the world this year because it's super awesome I promise! 

Behold our marvelous Christmas tree

That's pretty much it for the week though. The holidays on the mission so far are fun, they're very different from home, but I really like all the unique opportunities we get to experience as missionaries out here. (And all the Christmas cookies we get to bake:)

I hope y'all have an awesome week! You better be enjoying the snow because oh I miss it sooo much! Love and miss y'all!

- Sister Bonny❤