Colorado to Kingston : Learning to love the awkward!

Once upon a time there was this girl named sister Oman. And she has to email home on an iPad this week so her email will probably be full of typos and stuff. Terribly sorry about that y'all.

Whatcha sayin???? How is everyone? How's life around the world? Life here in Nassau is swell :) haha. This week was pretty much a week full of pure chaos. And rain. Lots of rain. It was a good week :)

Monday was spent pretty much getting sister wilkinson ready to go back to Jamaica. So we spent most of the day shopping, then found a tiny little sketch Chinese restaurant and got 50000000 pounds of food for three dollars, then went to an appointment with a couple in the branch! They're so sweet. I love them!! And that was Monday!

Tuesday was Sister Wilkinson's birthday, so we floured her. We may have floured her inside our apartment because we're not the brightest, which means we still have flour all over in our apartment. But we cleaned most of it up so that's good haha. I shall flour people on their birthdays for the rest of my life. It is a grand tradition. Then we had to take sister wilkinson to the airport so she could fly back to Jamaica. Many tears were shed, a bit of a scene was made, and she was off! Which meant that sister Rampersad and I were in a trio with sister collier for a few days until sister Woolf flew in from Jamaica! The airport stuff took up most of the day (you know how it is haha), but we were able to meet with a new investigator! James is super cool. He used to be a Rastafarian and he's looking to make a lot of changes in his life. He's showing a lot of potential!

Wednesday, we had district meeting in the morning. It was a small district meeting since there were only three of us on the island and the Freeport elders didn't skype in like they sometimes do. So it was small but very good! I learn so much every day here!! When we were just about done with district meeting, a member of the branch, brother Camillot, called and asked us if he could buy us lunch! It was so perfect because we didn't have any food with us and we wouldn't be home until 9:30 that night. Tender mercies I tell ya. But anyways we went to lunch and then went and spent about three hours in line at immigration. Guess who FINALLY has her work permit for the Bahamas?? THIS GIRL!! Woohoo!! Wednesday we did some service. Which was super funny and incredibly awkward. Hahaha so we had one of our investigators ask us if we could help him do wash. So we said yeah, of course! So we show up to do wash and first off all, everyone in the house comes out to watch us and laugh at us cuz we aren't the best at washing by hand. So that's awkward experience numero uno. THEN we had to wash underwear, which was a little awkward too. But what made it even better was that sister collier got really into washing and scrubbed too fast so dirty underwear water and the dirty underwear itself flew in sister rampersad's eye. I about died laughing hahahah. That was awkward experience number two. Then we were hanging out the wash to dry and I was yawning and I turned around and got a mouthful of underwear hangin out on the line. Awkward experience number three. Then we were drinking juice and chatting for a few minutes when we were done and sister Rampersad came up behind me and tickled me. So I laughed but I had juice in my mouth which flew out of my mouth all over our poor investigator. Awkward experience part four. So I guess what I learned from this experience is that you always need to remember that service is super important because when you're in the service of your fellow beings you're only in the service of God. But what I also learned is that if you're awkward before your mission you're going to be just as awkward on your mission so you might as well live with it and laugh at everything always. So many awkward things happen on a mission that if you don't learn to laugh you'll just be in a constant state of mortification. Hahah. And our investigator still wants us to teach him and he was at church on Sunday so it's all good!! We had conch for dinner Wednesday. Man conch is an experience all right. If any of y'all are ever in the Bahamas get some conch. You haven't experienced Bahamian life until you've had crack conch.

Thursday! Thursday we had to pick up Sister Woolf, Sister Collier's new companion, at the airport! She's super cool. But seeing as this is Nassau, home of the pranking missionaries, we couldn't just pick her up and call it a day. Oh no, no, no. We had to prank her! So we called Emmanuel, a BIG guy from Africa and asked him to help us. He said he would. So he met us at the airport and we told him what was up. When Sister Woolf got off the plane, we all ran over and did the usual hugs hi how are you how was the trip sorta stuff. Then when we were leaving the airport, Emmanuel (dressed in super dark colors with sick sunglasses on), walked up and in a super low voice was like "Miss Woolf? There's been a problem with your passport. I'm going to need you to come with me." She freaked out because I mean who wouldn't if a huge 6'4" African with giant muscles approached you and asked you to come with them? We all almost died of laughter but she looked so scared. She asked him if she could see some ID, and while he was fumbling around for his wallet, we all bust up laughing and told her he was a member. It was so so funny!!

We took her and Sister Collier home, went out teaching for the rest of the day, and that was Thursday!

Friday morning, Sister Rampersad and I went for our usual morning run. It had rained the night before so everything smelled fresh and clean. The sun was coming out from behind the clouds, the birds were chirping, and the flowers everywhere were so vibrant. It was gorgeous! Every time I really take a minute to look around, I'm reminded of how much Heavenly Father loves us. If he took so much time to design a world as beautiful as the one we live in, how can we ever believe that He doesn't love us and want the absolute best for us? I can't even comprehend how much he must care for us. After studies and stuff on Friday, we went out teaching and got the mail... my package came Mom! Thank you so much!! And everyone that wrote a letter that was in the package... ya'll are too sweet. I love you guys! It made my week :)

We had fun night on Friday at the church. There was the usual basketball and football (soccer), and some board games, and pizza and wings and s'mores. It was such a blast! One of our investigators told us that it was a fun night that made him want to learn more from us because he could see that we were just normal people instead of these weird girls that always wear skirts and talk about God haha. So it was awesome to see that something as simple as basketball and pizza can be turned into a missionary opportunity!!

Saturday was a typical proselyting day full of a typically insane amount of rain. We taught a lot of people in the rain, and even lessons we taught on porches were in the rain because they leak. I'm pretty sure I haven't completely dried out in a week haha. It's pretty sweet.

Sunday, Sister Woolf gave a talk on charity in sacrament meeting. It was absolutely beautiful and it helped me form one of my goals for this new transfer... to be more charitable. From now on, every time I meet or interact with someone I'm going to try to ask myself a few things. 1. How does Christ view this person? 2. How does he feel towards them? and 3. How would those things influence the way Christ acts towards this person? It's a work in progress... definitely. But then Sister Rampersad and I taught young women's. We taught a lesson on modesty, and it was super fun! We have such sweet young women in this branch... they all have so much potential and i love them so much!!! After church, we went to dinner at the Dinkleman family's house... I'm going to miss them so much when they move! They're amazing. Then we went and taught AJ, and had a little missionary fireside type thingy with some of our recent convert young men!!

This morning we paid for groceries with change since we're out of money for the month haha, and we just got a phone call telling us to prepare for hurricane stuff! So it's possible that new adventures are on the horizon involving hurricanes and lock-ins. Woohoo!!

Also, we got a phone call and someone told us that Jeffrey R. Holland knows who we are! When he was in Jamaica organizing the stake, someone told him about us off-island sisters. By name. Ahhh! So that's basically the most exciting news I've ever had.

I was reading the book of Alma this week, and I was reading about the sons of Mosiah. (Chapter 17) It really struck me how much patience and long-suffering those boys had. They literally gave up a kingdom and endured an insane amount of trials and hardships to go on missions. So if they can do that, we can surely make the tiny sacrifices we are asked to do without complaints right? Just food for thought :)

The church is so true you guys!!! I love this gospel so much! We can learn and grow so much EVERY DAY if we continue to rely on Jesus Christ and especially His atonement. I love you all so much and I'm praying for every single one of you!

You are all amazing!!! Have a great week, everyone!

xoxoxo,

Sister Oman