our area is on fire

Literally and figuratively. Naples really was on fire this week and there was a big evacuation made where 7,000 people had to evacuate. But we are safe and all the missionaries are good. The poor everglades need some rain though! The sky was nasty and it was raining ash but the work keeps on going!

Other than the literal fire, we also are on fire in our area right now. We were out knocking yesterday and found 4 new investigators to teach in an hour. Miracles! Jonathan is getting baptized this Saturday and all the branch members are excited and supportive. He texted us this morning and said, "I wouldn't be here without your help. Thanks!" This is why we do missionary work. There is so much joy and happiness that comes through the Gospel and through missionary work and I am lucky to be a small part of it.

If you haven't had the chance to read "Jesus the Christ" DO IT. And the talk called, "Joy and Spiritual Survival" from President Nelson will change your life. READ THEM.

This week was spent a lot in Naples, Cape Coral and Lehigh. We did a couple exchanges so we were all over the place and our miles are disappearing way too fast. Cape Coral was just an overall weird experience where a less active woman was holding her dog's leash while we were inside the house and the dog was just barking and snarling and it literally had a muzzle on. It made me question why people have dogs like that? We literally just stood up and left because who wants to sit and feel fear? NOT US.

We also got to see some amazing miracles as a zone. We have a April baptismal goal of 11 baptisms as our zone and so far we have 10! Jonathan is number 11 going down on Saturday!

Thank you all for your love and support!

1: The ZL's put us in charge of the zone activity invite... this is what they received.

2: When your area is on fire and you secretly started it... just kidding

3: Cape Coral bridge!

what's the tallest mountain in florida?

SPACE MOUNTAIN IN ORLANDO. President Richardson told us that and it still makes me laugh. What a goober.

So this week has been great. We drove into Ft Laud on Wednesday and I dropped Sister Schmidt off. Kill #2 accomplished. And then picked up my new comp Sister Adams. We lived together in September and it has been our mission dreams to be comps. At transfers one of the AP's was talking to me and they were like "Are you so excited, do you know Sister Adams?" and I was like, you don't even know. The moral of the story is, keep your mission friends a secret and you will be comps.

Other than this party that has been going on in YSA, we have seen some boss milagros. We were knocking yesterday and no one was answering... until Tyler! He opened the door, came right out and then started crying when we introduced ourselves. He said it was the sign he was looking for and he is so down to come to church and be baptized when he gets an answer! SO DOPE. We're going back to teach him more, but it was really cool that on Easter we were able to find someone who 100% needed to hear our testimonies of the Savior and His Atonement right then. The Lord has been too good to us here. It's really unbelievable.

Yesterday was Easter and it was amazing. We wore matching flower dresses and then we didn't have an Easter meal appointment, but a member in Bonita came and fed all 4 of us. #blessings

We met with Jonathan and Thiago who are both still doing great and Jonathan is getting baptized this weekend! We had District Training and decided our district name is the "Sandlot" District... so I'm down for that.

We had a zone leadership meeting and it went on forever but such is life as an STL, the struggle. But I love it. We have zone conference next week in Miami so it's gonna be great!

Basically missionary work is such a party and is the best thing in the entire world. I don't want this to ever end. 14 months has come and gone way to fast!


1: I look super gross but it was the end of the day and you know missionaries always look disgusting but... Jonathan is set for baptism now! Word of Wisdom done.

2: You know we got 7s tacos and ate it on our old back porch (because the sisters weren't home so we made do)

3: When you're finally comps!

4: Our adorable district

5: My companion... don't ask about the sheep costume

6: EASTER TWINS

MIRACLES

Miracles for days here in Estero! I know I have said it a million times but this one is LEGIT.

So here is the very long story that actually was just a week but felt like eternity:

On Monday night we got a text from our investigator, Thiago, the Brazilian one. He said he "wanted to talk about baptism" ...this kid wanted nothing to do with baptism like a week ago so we said HECK YES. We met with him on Wednesday and we talked and he asked when the next time he could be baptized. Good ole Sister Cottrell here, jokingly said, "well this Sunday actually!" He said, "Nah too soon, how about the 29th?" We're down. Then on Saturday morning, we are sitting in McDonald's waiting to exchange with the Cape Coral sisters and we get a text saying, "Can I still get baptized this Sunday?" WHAT WHAT WHAT? You betcha we screamed. We made some phone calls and called the ZL's in Fort Myers and asked if they could do the interview that night, and they said "Absolutely". So he had his interview and he passed. Then on Sunday morning Thiago entered the waters of baptism! He was baptized by his member best friend, recent convert and fellow Brazilian Abraham! MIRACLES.

Sister Schmidt really went out on a high note. Planned an entire baptism in about 10 minutes and all the YSA showed up! YAY! He was baptized and confirmed in Portuguese so why not?!

This week has just shown me how much we really are just instruments in the Lord's hands. There is no way I had anything to do with that miracle. I just opened my mouth and the Spirit spoke. So much joy. This is the Lord's work.

Also, transfer calls came and I get to stay here in good ole Estero YSA and my new comp is Sister Adams! I lived with her my 4th transfer and her 1st and we have always talked about being comps and now we are! There's a party in the YSA. I screamed way too loud and probably startled our neighbors. Miracle #2. I am so blessed in the comp department guys.

Jonathan also had the chance to come to Thiago's baptism and now he is even more excited for his own on the 22nd!

Here is a funny story from last night. So after the call I just like could not fall asleep so I got up and went to the bathroom. Well Sister Schmidt didn't hear me leave and saw the door open and went and shut it...and then when I came back from the bathroom the door was locked. And you have to sleep in the same room as your comp so I was like ...uhhhhh... and I just started knocking. Meanwhile, Sister Schmidt has had her house broken into on her mission in the middle of the night so she just starts freaking out and then yells: SISTER! I said, "Dude it's me. Open the door." She opened it like, "What the heck are you doing!?" I traumatized her a bit, but its all good. Miracle #3 is that she didn't come out and kill me.

I also don't know if I ever sent this out but my address here in Estero is:

19120 Miami Blvd
Ft, Myers, FL 33967

PEACE LOVE AND BLESSINGS SISTER SCHMIDT IS DEAD.

1: THIAGO'S BAPTISM!

2: President Newsome, the branch president.

3: When your investigator asks if they can be baptized tomorrow.....

4: DOMANIQUE

5: Sam and Janelle took us to I-Hop again.

6: yes dad, that is 2 tacos under 2 dollars.

7: when your mission president hands you 20 bucks for breakfast and lunch in the airport after your final interview.

#PrinceofPeace and milagros

WOW. General Conference was so inspiring! I loved every single second of it! There was so much to learn and be heard and if you missed any of it GO RIGHT NOW TO lds.org and watch it! Elder Costa's talk was obviously one of our faves as missionaries but Elder Oaks' was fabulous as well... GO WATCH IT AGAIN.

I forgot my notebook so I can't send my favorite quotes sorry, but it was all so good and so inspired. I loved it. And what made it even better is that our sick new gator Jonathan came and watched 3 sessions! He loved it.

I could talk about this kid all day. He is the coolest and just so real. I walk out of every lesson just grinning ear to ear because he just gets it. You can see the light that is growing inside of him. He came to conference and just ate it all up. He was so excited to hear the prophets voice and to hear and learn from his chosen apostles. Obviously, you stress a bit as a missionary, just in case they hear something that sounds super weird to them, but he just said it all made sense. God truly prepares people! His whole family is Seventh Day Adventist and he went into work this weekend and asked to get Sundays off and his boss miraculously said yes. MIRACLES MIRACLES MIRACLES! The Gospel is perfect and people are looking for it and it is our job to help them get it.

Also, there is a super dope new Easter video on mormon.org and everyone should go check it out RIGHT NOW. #PrinceofPeace it's so good. Like always. I don't think they've made a bad Easter video because they are all just so powerful!

We also had MLC this week and drove on over to good ole Ft Laud. Great place. President's house is just so homey and it was so great to see everyone again! Even though we will see them in a week because it's WEEK 6 OF THIS TRANSFER ALREADY! Time goes so fast. Sister Schmidt has her final interview this week and then transfers are next Wednesday! I am praying I stay here in Estero because it is easily becoming my favorite area.

Also, the infestation of our cockroaches only caused one freakout/breakdown this week leading me all over the emotional scale this week from yelling/anger to crying on the couch. Sister Schmidt laughed the whole time and killed a cockroach for me. #truecomplove What has the mission done to my emotions?

Y'all. The church is true. There are people who are waiting to hear this message and we've gotta go share it! Don't delay a prompting to share it with everyone! The gospel is there for everyone and it is there for free. There is no cost, just effort and diligence. GO GET EM. Or as President Richardson would say: GIDDY UP!



1: our CO2 alarm wouldn't stop beeping after we deactivated it and Schmidt might have lost it...

2: Love Jonathan and YSA life

3: matching t shirts = comp unity

4: thank you giant baptist church for this very true sign

5: ESTERO YSA HOMIES (Jonathan is the Haitian in the back!)

#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....