#GETLITANDPRAY

This week was fantastic with so many blessings.

I really say that every week, but its because missionary work is literally the best thing in the world and God always comes in clutch with some miracles. This week the dreaded stomach flu hit our house and I got sick. Y'all I am literally the worst patient ever, ask Sister Schmidt. I did not want to nap, or stay inside or take it easy. Also I hate not being able to eat when you're sick, so I ate anyway...bad idea but oh well. She declared me well enough on Friday to go work. Even through the flu, every night we had important appointments that we had to go to and there were so many miracles because of it.

Tuesday- we went down to Naples and met with one of the Bishops, then followed up with a referral the Spanish sisters gave us and he was super cool. Stevenson is from Haiti and has been here for 6 years. #nationsofhaitians. I have always wanted to be able to send out that hashtag and I was finally able to. Dreams do come true.

Wednesday- We met with Sade! She is doing great and we were able to teach her boyfriend George who also wants to be baptized. Baptizing boyfriends is the YSA life. I love YSA so much, and we met with our Brazilian investigator Thiago and taught him about the Gospel of Jesus Christ and he just lit up as we were teaching. He said "it all makes sense." Yes it does!

Thursday- we had institute and they were teaching about the reason we are here and why bad things happen to good people and it hit me. The Gospel and the Atonement make up for every little thing that seems unfair in this life. Everything will be made up to us x100. We can't even fathom that!

On Friday we had a full day exchange with Bahia, the Spanish sisters and I was with Sister Staffieri, she is on her 4th transfer and is a boss and loved YSA for the day. We taught our investigator Jonathan and he is my favorite. We asked him why he wanted to come to church and he said "well, because, you need to GET LIT and PRAY." Like wow, great answer. Thank you so much. He then mentioned that Jesus was the "Jordan" of the Bible and we almost lost it. Maybe a little sacrilegious but pretty funny.

We had a fantastic time at Women's Conference. It was at our branch president's castle. You read that right. It's giant and so gorgeous and my favorite place. I could stay there forever. We got to watch it on these super nice chairs and it was hard not to fall asleep. I forgot my notes on it but I loved Elder Eyring's talk about how all of us can go to the rescue of those around us and we cannot delay the call to go. Super inspired and super great.

In sacrament meeting yesterday a member compared missionaries to Harry Potter, because we are in world within a world just like Harry Potter. That made me pretty happy!

Last night, we were teaching our investigator Thiago and we were teaching him the Plan of Salvation, or our Heavenly Father's plan for us. And as Sister Schmidt was teaching and testifying of the pre-mortal life, before we came to this earth, the Spirit just came into my mind and said, "You knew him before this life and he told you to find him." WOAH. WHAT? I know without a doubt that I knew Thiago before this life, and he told me that I was going to need to help him find this Gospel and accept it into his life. There is no doubt in my mind. The Spirit is so real and I know that even if Thiago doesn't get baptized right this second, he will, and that I was supposed to be a part of his journey from way before we even met. Being a missionary is literally the best.




1: Look at all those gators! We went to The Everglades Wonder Garden this week and took some cool pictures!

2: Yours truly

3: Typical pic time

4: Definition of our companionship in the background there

5: Bahia North Sisters!

6: Look at that comp unity on a gator

7: Comps 4 life, just kidding, I'm killing her in 2 weeks!

8: Yes everyone, I Sister Cottrell, touched a turtle. It almost peed on me.

9: These trees are called "strangler trees" and they are huge and beautiful.

10: Welcome to my castle

11: Some of our boss YSA at the Women's Conference party!

#TheRISE

Ok guys, so apparently whatever I say on here comes true because guess what? It was cold this week. Like so windy and freezing and Sister Schmidt and I were dying. Please stop Florida. I prefer the heat honestly. BYU is going to kill me, but other than the freezing wind we had a great week! (shoutout to Jack who apparently prays for us to have fun because it works dude.)

This week was full of meetings. I was so done by Friday. We drove to Fort Lauderdale again this week for a zone conference and let me tell you... this really is the best mission in all the land. President and Sister Richardson are` amazing and all of the missionaries are fabulous. Sister Schmidt had to give her "dying" testimony with 6 other sisters and an elder and it was great. President quoted it all conference haha #shoutout This zone conference was titled #THERISE of the FFLM and how we are bringing it back to its former glory and all that good stuff. It was really pumped. So cool. We have the best leaders guys. (I have like 0 other vocab words apparently). We had a conference call with all the leadership in the mission and it was just so pumped. We are 100% hitting 100 baptisms in April. We all signed this cute flag too.

Then, the next day we had DT and also interviews so we got to see Pres a lot this week. Interviews were great and I just love President. He's literally the best. When I walked in and prayed, the very first thing he asked me was, "How is Sister Soza?" I was like... uhhh she's great? He was like "oh right sorry. I miss her" SAME. I do too but it was a fantastic interview after.

We are seeing miracle after miracle here in Estero. Literally just so many miracles. We met a woman named Sade (pronounced Shaw-day) and literally as we are teaching her the resto she stops us and goes, "So, how can I get baptized?" *cue the Hallelujah chorus from Messiah* music to every missionary's ears. We said, "well, we can help with that." She is set to be baptized on April 9th!

We also saw so many miracles with our YSA Round Up. This week was branch conference so we went hard rounding everyone up to come, enlisting help from the active members too. We got a TON of people there and we got some Less Active RM's to be there and that was really all that mattered. It was a great conference and the stake president talked about how the Book of Mormon can apply to each of us. It blesses every single one of us!

Lots of miracles this week guys. We met with our Brazilian investigator who is coming along super well. He lives with a recent convert who is just always talking about the church because he loves it so much and our gator said "yeah, I have a missionary in my house that answers all my questions." NICE. Love that.

Schmidt just reminded me that it happened this week because I thought it was last week because mission time is ridiculous. We were OYMing on FGCU campus and there was this group of people gathered around this man who was like yelling but we couldn't understand him. So we asked a student who he was and she was like "oh he's preaching, but not well." So we had to see who else was preaching right? Well. This guy was doing it all wrong guys! He was literally standing there screaming at these kids that they were going to hell. Wrong move. They were screaming back and we were just standing there and we knew he saw our tags so we just listened for like 2 minutes and then walked away just laughing. The spirit wasn't there. It was totally wrong. It was really cool to see, as we continued to talk to people that as soon as we opened our mouths, even if you could hear him yelling in the background, the Spirit was right there testifying to those YSA about our message. It was really a testimony builder for both of us. As we were standing there listening to him he said, "The Lord tells us in the bible to go out and preach the gospel to all nations.." I just looked at Sister Schmidt and said, "Yeah He did. We're right here!" It was interesting to see the 2 sides of preaching. One with love and the Spirit and one with contention. It was a sight to see y'all.

It is amazing to be a missionary. Even on the hard days when literally nothing goes your way there are seriously ALWAYS tender mercies waiting for us. Read the Book of Mormon every day. Pray. Go to church and remember that I love you.

1: Freezing

2: Guys I got to see Sister Adams all is well

3: Janelle (a YSA who drove us!), Sister Tueller (Adams' baby), Schmidt, Adams, yours truly

4: Best comp

5: The fab 3

6: Shoutout to the fam

7: I needed this in my life #gocougs

8: Aw so nice #bestZLs

9: Have I mentioned our duplex is straight infested with cockroaches? Look at this nasty thing. (I am so done with cockroaches for my life guys)

10: Our Spanish sisters were killing it with the protective eye gear at the zone activity

florida is getting hot

Update on the week. We had FHE with the YSA at an arcade and I learned how to play pool correctly. So watch out. I actually suck still but we made progress.

I went on an exchange with the sisters in Vanderbilt Beach again. It was really funny because after we prayed about which sister we needed to go with and where I looked at Sister Schmidt and said, "Heavenly Father just needs me to go back to Vandy again because apparently I didn't find all the people I needed to." Apparently I just needed 2 extra days there and not a whole other transfer. Good to know I did what I needed to now though! It was way fun and it was a party and we got 7's tacos because that is what you do where you're in Naples.

We also had a great zone training. It was weird this time because we already knew what it was going to be on because we went to MLC but, it was still really good. The Zone Leaders put us in charge of an activity and so we shaving cream pied them in the face as the prize. Don't put us in charge Elders. It was hilarious. But now we are scared for the retaliation.

Also, we have been on the YSA hunt in all the cities and towns and areas that we cover and it has been awesome. We were able to pass 10 referrals this week to the different areas and God blessed us with a miracle. Thaigo is from Brasil and is living with one of our Recent Convert YSA's and he came to church and LOVED IT. We are super excited to meet with him tomorrow, not only to teach him the Resto but also because we are meeting at the Brasilian food truck with the amazing burgers. BOOM.

At sacrament meeting there were 55 YSA! That is a miracle. The branch president said it was the most they had ever had!

This email is really just all capitalization, but when you are doing the Lord's work, you get a little excited. I was reading this week in Isaiah 12:3 that says, "Therefore with joy shall ye draw water out of the wells of salvation." WITH JOY. The Gospel is all about joy and I have seen that every.single.day on my mission and I know that the Gospel brings us the most joy possible. Without a doubt. There is no greater, truer, more amazing joy than there is in the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

Also in sacrament meeting yesterday the speaker said, "You never stand taller, than when you're on your knees." That is my new fave quote (for this week at least)

Guys, the Gospel is true and the Book is blue. Have a great week!

1: CAN WE JUST LOOK AT THIS 4 GENERATION PICTURE? We're famous.

2: Elder Celestin got way too into this... poor Elder Adams

3: THE WHOLE FAM. way too confusing to explain so its really just a bunch of missionaries to y'all

4: Weird filter on this pic but...the NEW NAPLES NIKE ZONE

5: Elder Adams giving me the evil eye off to the side and Elder Flores saying his last words apparently....

sarcastic duo in estero

Hello! I am still here in Estero YSA and loving every second of it! It's awesome and the YSA here make it amazing. At transfers, there were so many missionaries going home and so many new ones! Sister Soza and I said goodbye and then I ran before we cried, but so is life. The mission is full of greenies so it's bringing in some fun aspects to it!

My new companion, Sister Schmidt is great. She is from Sandy, UT and is going home this transfer and then to BYU-I in the fall! Also, we are the same person. We're both so sarcastic and last night we realized it was probably good that we were in YSA because you can just be so real with them and joke around and be totally sarcastic. There is a lot of sarcasm and sass coming from this coast. We were talking with one of the AP's on Saturday and he called us the "two sassiest sisters we've got," so that is what we are known as. It's all good though because we can talk and talk for hours and there's still more to talk about!

We had MLC, Mission Leadership Council, this week so we had to get up early and drive all the way back in to Fort Lauderdale for a 4 hour meeting, but we got to see all the leadership all over again! We have those meetings like once a month and it's really cool to see how the mission is progressing in all the other areas. We have great zone leaders here! I'm serving again with Elder Adams, who was my district leader when I first came in, aka my "dad" in the mission, so that is pretty cool. President just doesn't trust me because he stuck me back with my mom last transfer and now with my dad!

Our second counselor in the branch spoke yesterday in fast and testimony meeting and talked about how if we want to achieve goals, we have to just go do it. But he used a funny analogy. He said, "If you want milk in your fridge, just go buy milk and stick it in there. If you want to achieve something just go do it. Make the plan and do it. The gospel is the same. Go study it. Go learn about it." Basically the Gospel is milk guys. JUST GO STUDY IT. I loved that analogy because it's so simple. It doesn't take 5 hours a day to learn things in the gospel, but we do have to take that time to study it and to learn about it and little by little we learn and improve in our knowledge.


1: I do have this terrible picture of me and Sister Schmidt from January that Sister Soza took. IT WAS A PROPHECY.

2: Sister Soza's fortune. I died.

3: We snapped this one real quick before emailing. Don't judge guys, its p-day. we can't always look good.