My first area in the great Florida Tampa Mission was Dade City. We actually lived in Zephyrhills but the name of the area and ward we served in was Dade City. I only served there for one month.
My companion/trainer was Sister Beck. She had been out for 15 months and I was with her for her last three months in the field.
Sister Beck was from Sisters, Oregon. One of her biggest pet peeves was when people would pronounce Oregon wrong. People in Florida like to pronounce it ore-gone instead of ore-gun.
Sister Beck in front of the Dade City church.
me in front of the Dade City Church.
I think this was the view across from the church
tracting :-)
Sister Beck
Sister Beck inside our apartment at Zephyrhills
this is right outside our door. Notice the mailboxes in the background. This is where we checked our mail every day. :-)
Starting when I was at the MTC, my dad wrote me a letter every single day! So I usually had a letter waiting for me in the mailbox from Dad.:-) Thanks Dad!
this is the outside view of our apartment. Note our beautiful mission car in the foreground.
this is an orange bird statue. It seemed to be the symbol of Zephyrhills. I actually bought an orange bird piggy bank. :-) I'm sure I still have it somewhere.
Zephyrhills Post Office
watch out for alligators! :-)
I seem to have a lot of pictures of dogs. I guess Sister Beck and I got a kick out of the dogs that we came across.
door finding :-) It was a mission rule in the Florida Tampa Mission that we spend at least 15 hours per week tracting. So, that is where we spent a lot of our time.
some of my fondest memories from my mission were during our time tracting. And actually, it became one of my favorite things to do.
Sam dog as above.
my first baptism! My very first day in the mission field, we taught Libby the fifth and sixth discussion. That was pretty scary for me!considering the fifth and sixth discussions are the last two discussions and we didn't teach them very often. and that was my first experience at teaching a real investigator in the field. Talk about baptism by fire! :-)
I think this was in front of our apartment with the beautiful Florida sunset in the background.
this was a DA (dinner appointment. For those of you who are not familiar with missionary lingo :-)) at a member's house. Interestingly enough, I don't even remember holding this animal, which I think is a guinea pig. But that's obviously me, as indicated by the black name tag :-). More than anything, check out the awesome mission pager. In the Florida Tampa Mission at the time, that was our only means of contact. We did not have phones in our apartment. Every time that thing went off it usually meant going to the nearest pay phone to return the page. We bought a lot of quarters every month :-).
Sister Beck with the guinea pig.
the girls who owned the guinea pig
this was one of our investigators. I don't remember if she got baptized or not. I'm thinking not. I remember teaching her a second discussion, but I don't know if we ever finished teaching her or not. we may have gotten transferred out of the area before we could finish. I don't remember. Check out Sister Beck wearing my dress. it seems like I have several pictures with my companions wearing my dresses. I don't remember ever borrowing theirs. I guess they liked my sense of style :-)
I guess I was too busy looking for alligators to look at the camera :-)
lots of water in Florida :-)
I don't know what this is :-)
another dog we came across while tracting.
I don't really have any good pictures of egrets that I can find, but you can see two in this photo by the cow. Sister Beck loved egrets! She was always taking pictures of them. They were very plentiful in Zephyrhills.
this is a less active family that fed us lunch every Monday afternoon. I guess they liked the spirit that the missionaries brought to their home. I don't know what happened to them, but I hope they overcame their issues and returned to church.
I don't remember who this is :-(
not the most flattering picture I've ever taken :-)
ah, what a cute photo. :-)
what was I thinking? Another not so flattering self-portrait.
looks like Sister Beck getting ready to show "Our Heavenly Father's Plan" to some investigators.
another DA at a member's house. I think the gentleman on the right is the reason we were transferred out of Zephyrhills. He became a little bit too fond of Sister Beck. :-(
one thing I remember about Zephyrhills is all of the orange groves. my most vivid memory of the orange groves is when they were expecting a freeze. They would spray water all over the oranges on the trees and coat them with ice. It seems counterintuitive to me, but this is supposedly how you prevent the oranges from freezing.it was quite a sight to see ice coating all the oranges. I wish I had a picture of it.
another tracting picture
preparing to go tracting
I think this is the member that drove us to our new area, Brooksville! That must be Sister Beck's luggage.
After my first month in the mission field, Sister Beck and I were both transferred out of Zephyrhills to Brooksville to open a new area for sisters. Every transfer, I had during my mission was opening a new area to Sisters. Replacing the Elders and moving into their old apartment. We usually found lots of media referrals strewn about the place. Which made for some interesting conversations with people who were mad at us for not bringing them their copy of The Book of Mormon, or video, or whatever they ordered in a timely manner. It's no wonder we replaced those slackers! :-) Thanks Elders.
I think this project is going to take me way longer than I thought. This is only the first month, and it's taken me two days to blog it. :-(
So be patient, it might take a few weeks, but I'll eventually get my mission documented through pictures and stories on this blog :-)
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