This will be another short one. At least in terms of how many pictures I put on here.
This'll just be an introduction to a new area, Seminole/Largo. And my new companion, Sister Collett.
another crazy conversation bubble that I stuck on this picture.
okay, so as you can see I wasn't too thrilled when I arrived to my new apartment. In my new area.
Keep in mind, I had just left Port Charlotte, which was my favorite area, and my nicest apartment. Arriving in Largo, to a dive. And waiting for a new companion from the MTC. It was a little overwhelming.
Not to mention I had just received that letter from Joe.
I was a little stressed out.
this is what I saw when I arrived at our new apartment. Yes, it is a dead mouse in the corner.
As I mentioned, I was opening a new area, and we were replacing the Elders. They didn't leave the apartment in the best of shape. They could have the least gotten rid of the dead mouse!
This apartment also had plenty of cockroaches to keep us company. I've got a great story about Sister Collet and cockroaches later on :-)
this is my new companion, Sister Collett.
Sister Collett was from Centerville, Utah. She was my only companion from Utah. So we shared that in common. Although, I didn't really feel like I had that much in common with her because she came from a white collar background. And I of course came from a blue-collar background.
But she was a sweet girl and we got along very well. She was willing to learn and work hard.
I don't remember if I mentioned this before or not, but whenever we trained a new missionary from MTC. We had to do obedience month again.
Let me back up a little bit, earlier on in my mission. Our mission president liked to have themed months, where we focused on different topics. For instance, one month was forgiveness month. I remember for that month we had to read "The Miracle of Forgiveness" by President Spencer W. Kimball. Just as a sidenote, if any of you have not read that, I highly recommend it. President Kimball doesn't pull any punches. It's very powerful.
And another month was obedience month. Where we had to keep track of whether we kept all of the mission rules or not on a daily basis. We had to mark it down on a chart and mail it in to the mission president at the end of the month. Not only that but we had to read the missionary handbook, a.k.a. white Bible, I think every day. I remember reading it while we were tracting. And we also had to read the Florida Tampa Mission rules everyday, during that month.
I can't remember what the other themes were but seems like there were about four or five months of them.
So I wasn't too thrilled about having to do obedience month for the third or fourth time. It wasn't that I didn't want to be obedient . It was just a lot more work. It just seemed like a lot of busy work to me.
I would say that my first month in Seminole was one of my more challenging months on my mission. Trying to learn a new area, getting to know the members and church leaders in the area, training a new greenie, missing my old area and companion, and dealing with dead mice and cockroaches, etc. It was a lot to deal with. But I'm tough. I handled it just fine. :-)
Let me just clarify that the area and ward I served in was called Seminole. But our apartment was located in the city of Largo, Florida.
I'm standing in front of the sign at the entrance to our apartment complex. It was on Bardmoor Boulevard.
Our apartment was probably a hundred yards behind where I'm standing, on the right. I don't remember if Sister Collet ran with me or just read her scriptures sitting on the curb. But this is the road I ran down. Kind of a circle like a track around the grassy palm tree area island in between the two roads.
It was actually quite fun to run that route every morning.
Sister Collet standing in front of the church building.
This is the only area I served in where we, the missionaries, actually met with the Ward council every Sunday morning.
me standing in front of the church building.
One thing I want to mention is that every area/ward I served in, we were the only missionaries serving in that ward. So our area boundaries were the ward boundaries. And most of them were very large areas geographically. I think Seminole was probably the smallest area geographically that I served in. It was a more highly populated area than my previous three areas.
If memory serves me correctly, Seminole was in the St. Petersburg zone.
this is me sitting on my bed in our apartment in Largo.
Yes, it was just a mattress on the floor. I guess they wanted to make sure there was plenty of surface area available for the cockroaches to be able to crawl up onto the bed. :-)
It's definitely not the waterbed that we had in Port Charlotte. :-)
Who knows, maybe I got a little extra protein every night with cockroaches crawling into my mouth. While I was sleeping :-)
my family members will understand why I had Sister Collett take a picture of me standing by this sign.
For those of you who have no clue, there is a song by Shenandoah, that says "Get me to the church on the Cumberland Road."
Sister Collett standing by the same sign :-)
Okay, there's your introduction to Sister Collett and Seminole.
More pictures and stories to come :-)
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