Week 23... JAX Beaches

Hey y'all!!

Can you even believe it is St. Patrick’s day? March? Already? WHAT?!

Well this week was lovely!  I'll try to make this email as exciting as possible..

*cue dramatic music*

In a world...

Where missionaries go 2 by 2 teaching eternal truths..
Where doors are slammed..
Where elect investigators know not where to find the truth..

2 sister missionaries combat the forces of beach bums and 

Baptists in hopes of bringing salvation to their fellow Floridians..

Their efforts will not only change JAX Beach forever... It will change
the woooooorrrlllddd...

*scene of sister Joseph and I walking dramatically from an explosion*

THE END.

Sooo.. Yeah.

Let's see.. What actually happened this week.. Hmm..

-This lady called us and said she wanted to learn more about the
Mormon church! We were so excited!!! We rush over there to find out we
had helped her with her groceries a couple dates earlier. She is very
very Jewish. But super nice!!! She considers herself an "old babe"
hahaha.. She then told her life story which took two hours and sent us
on our way!! It was so random and funny! The people here are so weird!
But so awesome!!

-The P*****'s (less active family we found) are moving to Oxford
Florida this week. Which is super depressing because I want to keep
them foreeeevvverrrrr. But they found a really good deal on a house
and as far as I'm concerned.. Houses are better than crappy mold
infested apartments? Yes? Anywhoohoo.. I'm going to miss them a lot.
But we helped them pack up some stuff and they took us out to eat
Mexican!!! I don't know if y'all know... But I loooove Mexican food.
Like, future husband watch out. You got some competition. .
I digress..

So that was fun!

-this week we have been working our little missionary bums off to try
and find people to teach. I feel so incredibly awkward when I do door
approaches. Not like the shy awkward.. Like the try and share the
gospel awkward where you have a huge grin on your face and they look
at you like you just came out of a nut house. And you sit there and
laugh awkwardly. That kind of awkward. All of you that know me well...
I'm sure you can imagine this. ITS AWESOME.

-N****** still hasn't contacted us. I'm trying to ignore the fact of
how much that stinks.

-So the miracle of the week is super great!!! We were tracting. Trying
to find people to teach.. As we do. And we came across a man who was
washing his super nice sports car! We started chatting with him and I
asked him if he had any cool experiences where God had answered one of
his prayers and he told us about a dream he had about a year ago where
he was with a bunch of really confused people and Christ was there but
nobody knew it was Him except for himself. He said that Christ had a
long white robe on and his brightness exceeded the brightness of the
sun and he was standing in the air.. Sounds familiar eh?? Maybe... The
first vision? Sweet right!!!! So we gave him a restoration pamphlet
and showed him a picture of Christ visiting the Americas with a white
robe and he was very very excited to read the Book of Mormon and learn
more!! Miracles happen! We've been praying for this for a long while
so it was awesome. His name is R*****. He is supes cool.

-We were street contacting and we ran across some gangstas... Some
homies in the hood.. Yo? And it was really embarrassing how white I
was. Haha. I tried so hard to relate with them!!! But I think I just
came across as an awkward white Mormon girl. Which I am. Soo... I
don't blame them. Haha. That said!!! They took a card from us!! Woo! I
guess previously the elders had talked to them and they didn't take a
card or anything. Sometimes it just takes a sister to do the job ;)

-on Saturday we went and had dinner with the L***'s! They are this
really cool family in our ward! They are known for feeding the
missionaries weird food (cow tongue, frog legs, etc) sooo I was kinda
really excited!! Well we got there and dinner was normal (and quite
delicious might I add) and they asked us if we wanted to try these
special neon green olives!
I like olives!
I like neon green!

WHAT COULD POSSIBLY GO WRONG?

.... everything....

I'm really not sure how to describe the taste of this.. Thing.. This
food from satan.

If you can imagine taking a soggy dirty sock.. Liquefying it.. And
mixing it with the tears of small children. . . That is only a sliver
of the horror that is contained in that little olive.
Neon green olives = death. That said, they are being sold at your
local costco. Check it out. You WONT be disappointed. ;)

And thennnn!! They asked us if we had ever had Scorpion ice cream!!

My first initial thought was... Mmmm ice cream. I love ice cream...
Hahaha. It's really sad how gullible I can be sometimes. Luckily they
did warn us about the effects of this one. The scorpion pepper is the
hottest world in the world. (Yes, hotter than the ghost pepper) and
bro Lynn thought it would be a super great idea to mix it with ice
cream! He is so brilliant!! The ice cream was fantastic! You stick it
in your mouth and you think "mmmm vanilla, cold, this isn't too bad"
and about 3 seconds later the burn kicks in. When I say the burn kicks
in... I mean it's like somebody lit your mouth on fire. You can
feeeeel the heat spread across each individual taste bud and all the
sudden your sweating and coughing!! Doesn't that sound pleasant?! :D
But really it was sooo cool! ...errr.. Hot I mean. The presentation
was brilliant and it was delicious, try some. Sure you might have
ulcers and heart burn... But it's worth it. ;)

I just realized I've spent half this email talking about food. Some
things never change.

And that was basically my week!! Hooray!!!

Oh! (Sorry in advance for the over usage of caps... Buuuut...) 

THE SUN GOES DOWN AN HOUR LATER WHICH IS THE 

BEST THING THATS EVER HAPPENED TO ME BECAUSE 

NOW PEOPLE ACTUALLY TALK TO US AFTER 7.

The church is true.

Well.. I really have nothing else to say.

I end this off with a good ole Sister Chamberlain testimony/pep talk.
I'll do my best to control my caps. (Image of a bunch a bottle caps
running around)

This week I've learned why it's so important to have charity.
Everything in missionary work needs to motivated by love. Not to
impress the mission president, or get good numbers, or even to impress
yourself. This work is completely selfless. When your action are
motivated by charity.. Everything falls into place. Because "charity
never faileth" When you serve someone for the pure reason that you
love them, they will truly feel the love of God in their life. One of
my bestest friends I've met out here is this old, super bashful man
named Gary. We visit him on occasion and teach him the gospel. He
loves it when we come over and even calls us his little angels. I
never knew the impact we were having on him until this past week he so
tenderly told us thank you for being apart of his life because he
didn't think he had any friends! It's amazing what love can do to
change someone's life. Gary prayed with us for the first time last
time we met with him and it was beautiful!! Love changes people!
That's what this gospel is! Love! When people truly understand the
love that Christ and their Heavenly Father have for them.. They have a
desire to do the things they are supposed to to get back to them.

People don't care how much you know, unless they know how much you care.

Have a super peachy keen week y'all!!! I love you so much! :)

Love, Sister Chamberlain

*dramatically sends email*