Week 33... Mandarin 1st Ward

Hola familia y amigos !!!

This week was a lovely week!!! It went by really, really fast. It was all a blur so I'm going to try and remember everything that happened.

We had zone conference this week and it was super great!! I learned so much. It was focused on becoming a consecrated missionary. That was really good for me to hear. I love that I only have to focus on The Lord and helping people in my area. Wow. That is such a blessing. :) I am so passionate about this work and I'm so blessed to be a missionary!!!

Mandarin Zone Conference May 2014

On Tuesday we talked to a lot of people and handed out a lot of Mormon.org cards!! We went to the super duper wealthy place in our area right on the intercostal waterway and they were HUGE! And Jewish. All of them were Jewish. Haha. We went service tracting and ran into this gentleman and he was weeding in his garden so we helped him and he turned out to be the Jacksonville zoo executive director!!! Woooow. We meet the coolest people. . . He gave us free zoo tickets and told us we could do service at the zoo anytime. So that was awesome. He weeds every night so we are planning on going back!

We met this other lady who told us we were butterfly's pollinating the world with goodness. Haha. It was awesome. 

I must endure the presence of a few caterpillars if I wish to become acquainted with the butterflies. - Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

We knocked on this door and this little white dog came running up behind us and tried to go in their house and it wasn't the dogs’ house so we picked up the little white dog… It looked like Baxter’s twin.. And we went searching for the owner. We found him and started talking about the gospel and he was interested in us coming back!! That was such an amazing miracle!!!! God leads us to people to teach. Even if it is by a little white dog. :)

Dogs leave paw prints on your heart

We also ran into a man named Khalil. He is from Jerusalem!!! He was interested in our message and said he has been to the Mormon church mbefore. Sister Pasko said he was flirting with me the whole time. And I didn't know. So that was creepy. Haha. Apparently I need to dress uglier. And wear no makeup. And shave my head, and grow a uni-brow. He had a sincere desire to learn though. So that was awesome. He took us out to dinner... Which was hilariously awkward and I'm really not sure how we get into these situations... Haha.

Hooray for dining out!

We met a Jamaican man. He was super cool and had the best beard ever.
We got a picture with him.

Hooray for Bicycle and Pizza Skills 

Hooray for 100 degrees Fahrenheit, I'm melting.

(Message from Alyssa’s mom..  Apparently, this is part one of a two part email to be continued??? "Somehow the second half of the email didn’t send" and she didn’t have time to fix it)