What even happened last week?

I feel like once you get on a mission time changes and the way time used to be is definitely not how it is anymore. The weeks are so short but the days are so long and every day just kind of runs together. So... this email may be confused and jumbled. I apologize in advance. I'll try my best

Monday-

After doing the usual email/grocery shopping/cleaning the house kind of p-day stuff, we decided to go wander around downtown! We went to a cute little restaurant overlooking the bay and had some delicious Bahamian food, did some souvenir shopping, and explored the straw market and got some killer deals (the straw market is like the local touristy place to go... random vendors go and set up stuff on the floor of a giant room and you go and barter with them. Basically they all hate us because we refuse to pay the insanely high prices tourists pay, but we usually get what we need anyways haha.)

Since P-Day ends at six, we went and had family home evening with some of the recent converts in the branch. We watched the Testaments and played some games... pretty good FHE if I do say so myself :) 

Tuesday-

I honestly have no idea what happened for most of tuesday. I failed at journaling this week. Oops. But I'm assuming we went proselyting for most of the day and taught some lessons. OH! And we did something I've always wanted to do for my whole entire life! Seeing as the cars on good ol' Nassau are sadly beaten up and broken, the mission decided it was about time to buy us new ones. So Sister Rampersad and I got to go to a car lot and pick out two brand new cars!!! We got ourselves the world's cutest toyota yaris. It's a 2014 and it's blue and beautiful. We named it Pedro. We don't actually have Pedro in our possession yet, but he will be ours by the end of this week. Soon come. 

Wednesday-

We had district meeting in the morning. Sister Rampersad taught an awesome lesson on helping investigators keep commitments... aww she's such a good trainer. Then we went to lunch at the mall. One of the members takes us there every week after district meeting and lets us buy whatever we want at the food court. This week after we ate lunch, he disappeared and came back with literally 18 of the world's biggest brownies. Keep in mind there are four of us on the island. We do not need 18 brownies. So... if anyone out there wants brownies, just fly to Nassau and give us a call and we'll hook ya up :) 

Thursday-

Thursday was another one of those days that I don't really remember haha. If I learned one lesson this week, it's that a journal is a very important thing to keep. Ummm I think a member took us to dinner Thursday night? And we taught some lessons? OH! I remember. We had a really really awesome lesson with a new investigator on Thursday. We taught the Restoration, and half way through the lesson he was just smiling and smiling and he told us that he had never felt that happy in his life. Then at the end, we bore our testimonies, and he looked at us and said "Everything you just told me is true. No one can speak like that and lie about it. This is all true." Then he asked us when he can get baptized!! I swear I smiled all night. I'm pretty sure I even smiled when I was sleeping. It was a great evening. 

Friday-

Superplanning went a little crazy. We had been planning for like an hour when Sister Rampersad had to use the restroom. So I went out in the kitchen to get a drink... and the next thing I know Sister Wilkinson and I are drumming on the bathroom door singing we will rock you to Sister Rampersad. She ran out of the bathroom spraying air freshener everywhere and screaming, and then ran back in the bathroom. Next thing I know, Sister Wilkinson is standing on a bed waving a chair in the air holding Sister Rampersad's teddy bear hostage, I'm running around with my good old trusty broom, and Sister Rampersad is waving toilet paper and air freshener around while holding my teddy bear hostage. (Yes we both took teddy bears on our missions. Don't judge.) But anyways, that lasted for about five minutes until we collapsed on the floor laughing because we had no idea how the whole thing started. Welcome to life in Nassau, everyone! We work until we can't work anymore, and then we work some more. But sometimes, we just need to take a break. Hahahaha. Friday night was fun night at the branch. We had a ton of investigators go, so we got to go too! We did the world's best scavenger hunt, and then everyone else got to eat hot dogs. (We didn't because we were fasting, but I'm sure they were delicious.) Everyone in the branch is so fun and loud, it makes branch activities a little chaotic but really awesome. 

Saturday-

We ate a ridiculous amount of conch fritters and mangoes because everywhere we went all day kept offering them to us and acted all offended if we said no. It's mango season! I think we have about 30 mangoes in our fridge right now... everyone has an insane amount of them, so they always just give them to us. We've had mango toast, mango smoothies, mango ice cream... pretty much whatever we can think of to change up the mangoes, we've been doing it. 

It rained ALL DAY LONG. Holy moly. We were inside for most of the morning teaching lessons, but in the afternoon we had to go find a referral. People here don't really have house numbers, and a lot of the streets aren't even labeled, so finding where people live is always a bit of a challenge. It's even more of a challenge when it's pouring rain and thundering. You think you've seen a thunderstorm and then you move to the Caribbean. Let me tell you... Colorado thunderstorms got nothin' on the storms here. But anywho... we were standing on a porch literally looking like we showered in our clothes, trying to cover our scriptures as best as we could so they wouldn't get wet, shivering, and looking basically just like drowned rats,and just praying that this was where our referral lived, when a nice lady opened the door and said that she'd been hoping we would stop at her house! It wasn't the referral we'd received, but she wants to hear more about the gospel and she was able to help us find the people we'd been looking for in the first place. 

Sunday-

I had to talk in church (again), and then Sister Collier and I had to go into primary to help out with singing time. It was just like being back at home! No matter where you are in the world, singing time is the same. The songs are the same, the kids mess around the same, and they sound exactly the same when they're singing as they do at home. After church, we had branch council, then we went to dinner at a member's home, and went out teaching for the rest of the evening! No paradise island this week because it was pouring rain and thundering again.

Transfer calls are this week! I can't believe I'm halfway through training already... how did my first transfer go this fast?? I realized this week that missions are the best things ever. Haha I knew it before, but it hits me all the time. We walk miles in the blazing sun and pouring rain down dirt roads every day. We see people that have literally no money for food and are living in shacks with no roofs, but they are happy and content with their lives because they have the gospel. We talk to what feels like hundreds of people every week, hoping and praying that one of them will be open to hearing the message we bring. We can have the longest and hardest day of our lives, but having one good lesson with someone makes it all worth it. This church is true, and I want to spend the rest of my life helping other people find the joy it has brought me in my life. I love this mission. I want to share my testimony with everyone I see, hoping and praying that they will realize how important this message is. There is nothing I love more than watching someone completely change into a happier and better person through the gospel of Jesus Christ. 

Missions are amazing! The church is true!! I love you all! 

View from the Poop Deck Restaurant

cruise ships mean tourists which means traffic and waits at restaurants and stores. blech hahah 

A pier in Downtown Nassau

This guy was looking for conch shells and I totally creeped on him with my stalker zoom on my camera. It was all well and good until he saw me. Then it was awkward and I had to run and hide behind a palm tree. hahaha.

We found random stocks in downtown so Sister Rampersad locked me up in them. haha

Sometimes we send things like ties to the elders in our zones. We usually ask them to send us stuff back. This week we got creative (look up the scriptures haha) 

We play at this park sometimes. Just kidding, we were waiting to meet one of our investigators and decided to go play on the swingset. Which only has one swing by the way. The rest got stolen. Welcome to nassau haha.

I was in the shower one night and came out to find this. This shirt is incredibly large. hahahaha

Look at how much water is in the roads! It's crazy! The drainage system here is super ghetto so the water just kinda sits in the roads haha

We go to a playground by the beach to teach lessons sometimes because it's quiet and spiritual and it's by the beach, so hello? Why wouldn't you go there? 

This is what happens when you go teaching in the Bahamas. It rains and you get funny stains on your clothes from who knows what. Yay!