Week 14 ~ May 26, 2014

Missionary life is always fun, crazy, and busy...but this week was EXTRA fun, crazy, and busy. We had a zone conference on Wednesday. Basically every missionary in the Jax West, Jax South, and Mandarin stakes gathered together at the Mandarin Institute building to have a giant 8 hour meeting full of trainings from President & Sister Craig and the AP's. In preparation for that meeting, there is a car inspection that is done. It requires an interior and exterior wash and we need to wax the car. Sister Call and I did that last Monday and our car was so nice and shiny ready to go. On Tuesday, we went to visit a member's home and her husband was outside doing yard work. We pulled into their driveway and went inside to visit. When it was time to go, we went outside and after I had backed the car out and went to open my door, I saw that little tiny chopped weeds were smothered all over the passenger side of the car and they would not come off. All we could do was laugh. It was so funny. The one week where we needed the car extra clean, it just ended up getting dirty. So we got up early the next morning to take care of it. But then came the car inspection. We opened the front hood of our car and there was a pretty good size wasp
nest hanging on the inside. How does that even get there in the first place is what we wanted to know? So we had to remove that quickly.

Zone Conference was amazing. The center focus was about what it means to be a consecrated missionary. Before we came to the meeting President Craig asked all of the missionaries to read a talk by Elder Tad R. Callister of the Seventy, all about what it means to be a consecrated missionary. What it means to be a consecrated missionary is that a missionary is willing to lay everything on the table, "the altar of sacrifice", and give his or her all to dedicating entire service to the Lord. "It is a willingness to give every ounce of energy, every conscious thought, and every drop of passion to this work-to submit our will to God's will, whatever it may be." Some of the things that might be put on the table are disobedience, fear, pride, negativity, sarcasm, etc. By changing our nature instead of our
behavior, we become more effective servants representing our Lord Jesus Christ. By setting goals and through the Atonement of Jesus Christ, we can overcome whatever it is that is laid on the table and become a more consecrated missionary. Every missionary can be a consecrated missionary. It takes the desire and willingness to do whatever it takes to align our will with God's will. This was my favorite part of the Zone Conference.

We have had some great lessons with Enselmo, he is progressing very well and is reading the Book of Mormon.

Creature of the week:
Another creature that I see everywhere is earth worms. We have these sporadic thunderstorms and all of these earth worms come on the sidewalk. Then the sun comes out about an hour later and the earth worms get dried up and shrivel because of the heat. They are everywhere and
I cannot look at the ground anymore when I walk because of these poor earth worms.

Along with this week, we had tradeoffs with the Sister Training leaders. This time I stayed in Fleming Island while Sister Call went to the Whitehouse area. I was with Sister Ashcraft. We went tracting a lot and found a woman named Anne who just loves flowers. She has tons
that she wants to plant. She wanted us to come back and help her plant them so hopefully this week we can do that! Yay I love serving!

I also was called to be a Facebook missionary! So I will be making a new Facebook sometime this week. It won't be my old account. I'm looking forward to finding people online who are ready to hear the gospel!

By the way, my new favorite chapter/story in the Book of Mormon is Helaman chapter 5. If you get the chance, please read it!  One of my favorite verses: 12 And now, my sons, remember, remember that it is upon the rock of our Redeemer, who is Christ, the Son of God, that ye must build your foundation; that when the devil shall send forth his mighty winds, yea, his shafts in the whirlwind, yea, when all his hail and his mighty storm shall beat upon you, it shall have no power over you to drag you down to the gulf of misery and endless wo, because of the rock upon which ye are built, which is a sure foundation, a foundation whereon if men build they cannot fall.  I know that this is true, as long as we build our foundations by feasting upon the words of Christ, we will be able to withstand Satan's temptations. I know the Book of Mormon is true and that Jesus Christ lives.

I love you all so very much.

Love,
Sister McCook