Dear Family,
I'm sorry to hear about Brother Eldredge. Makes me sad. Give Sister Eldredge my condolences and love. I still remember her being my kindergarden teacher.
Transfers are tomorrow, and I'm being transferred! Ahhhh! Last week was the 'trainers training meeting' conducted by the AP's on Thursday. Sister Atkinson and Sister Toledo from 3rd Ward went to go have lunch and to tract while her companion and I were in the meeting since we're training this next transfer. The Assistants come up to me right before the meeting starts and ask where Sister Atkinson was, and I told them. They asked if President had called Sister Atkinson, and I said no. Well, Sister Atkinson is training as well! They just forgot to call her! So I am Opening an area for Sisters and training a new missionary at the same time. :p I'll be going right next door to the Gainesville 1st Ward!! It's the half Spanish half English Ward and has a the Spanish Elders in Gainesville. Fun! I hope I'll be able to see Sister Atkinson on P-days and everything. So if you sent any mail to me in the last few days, it shouldn't be long until it gets to me :) We get a brand new car - probably one of the 2013 Toyota Corollas or Ford Fusions. Our new apartment is also right next door to the Sister Training Leaders in the YSA ward. We're gonna have a great time!
A lot of unexpected things happened this week. President Craig recanted the work out video. Sad day. The one week we did have it, I've never had such a great work out in my life! But I can understand why. He owns a gym and he's really into fitness, but I can see some missionaries going wild with that. Oh well. Sorry I jumped the gun Mom. I just got really excited about it. But I got the book that he wants us to read today!!! It looks really good. I would encourage everyone at home to read it. It's even got extra large margins for you to write notes in. President Craig is hoping to get rid of tracting entirely since its becoming so ineffective. Home Associations put 'No Soliciting' signs everywhere. I hate those signs. People think they're convenient, but they are really the adversary diminishing missionary work in richer neighborhoods. Those poor rich people.
We helped Miss L clean her room. Ever since she broke her leg things went down hill cleanliness wise. But she also admitted to having hoarder tendancies before 'finding Jesus'. Trying to fill up a hole she didn't know was there with stuff. I was so proud of her! We tossed so much stuff and she was so much happier after we left! (It took a couple of visits). We also taught her the Plan of Salvation and watched Joseph Smith: Prophet of the Restoration with her as well. She has fibro myalga and has a lot of pain and uses that as an excuse to not come to church or anything and it's kind of frustrating. After watching Prophet of the Restoration we had her commit to pray about it. That night she did and she told us that she was reading in the scriptures and it answered the question that she had about elisha. But she wouldn't admit that it was an answer to her prayer.
Another unexpected thing. Miss P was evicted. Florida law states that you can't evict a tenant if they have no place to go if they petition - so they can have 30 days to find a new place. Well, Miss P put in the petition last weekend, but because it was over the weekend, no one looked at it since no one works over the weekend and it wasn't recognized. Thursday the police came over and served her a eviction notice that if she wasn't out in 24 hours she'd go to jail or something. She called us up and called in a few favors to get a moving truck. All the missionaries showed up and members of the Ward and two of her friends who are helping her out. We got all of her stuff into the moving truck and into a storage locker in Cheifland. It rained pretty much all day on Saturday so that was nice to keep us cool, but not nice for Pam's stuff since a lot of it got a little damp. Elder Gao was an amazing Chinese acrobat climbing all over furniture and shoving boxes on top of each other to the ceiling of the moving truck and the storage locker we had to put it all in. She's homeless until August 1st when she can move into her new place. Ever since then, she's dropped off the face of the earth. Her phone has been disconnected and we don't have an address to look her up at. :(
Miss M gave a great talk on Sunday! I cried. Not really. But it was really good!
Yesterday and today have been crazy packing and getting ready to go.
Love, Sister Jen Carlson
P.S. This is just a personal request.... but no one has a copy of Joseph Smith: Prophet of the Restoration out here...... and you can't order it from HQ... and I was wondering..... if you could send me one..... and one of the Testament too... I feel really bad asking cause I've been asking for a bunch of stuff and have been really needy lately. I don't want to be like that. Sorry.
