Week 24: February 29, 2016

Good afternoon y'all,

         I hope y'all have had a great week!  It has started to get hotter down here in Florida.  I'm a little sad, it's staring to get to the point where it is more of an uncomfortable hot than anything else.  It isn't the best feeling to walk out of your apartment some days and immediately begin to sweat.  But thus is mission life down here.

        This past week for us has been great, we had a baptism this last Saturday.  F***** was super excited to take that step and come closer to Christ.  She is such a great lady and I was very blessed to be apart of her life and be able to see the gospel of Jesus Christ change somebody's life.  It's crazy some of the things she was able to overcome, she was able to get her life in order quicker than anybody I have seen.  But that was one great experience I had.

        Oh one funny thing I just thought of was this last week we drove by an old Asian man selling bonsai trees.  So we turned the car around to go look at them.  We found out real quickly that they are really expensive.  Holly cow, but they looked so cool.  I have now decided that once I get home I am going to try to grow a bonsai tree.  I might not know how but they look so cool so I'm going to try.

       One awesome that happened this week was at a missionary training meeting.  We talked about attitude, but more specifically the "I Will" attitude.  That we have to be 100% in, we can say I'll try or I'll do my best.  Because that is giving ourselves an put, or a way to not complete the task.  But when we say "I Will" we are telling ourselves that we are going to do what ever it takes to a implies hour task.  Since then I have decided to have that "I will" attitude always.  That even though a task may seem a little hard, nothing is impossible with God.  So if we are doing his will he will help us.  He does not give us anything above which we are able.

I hope y'all have a great week!

       

         ~Elder Guinup~

Florida Jacksonville Mission 

P.S. We found a tank on the rail road when we were biking
so we took a picture. 
And that's my companion Elder Bore.

Week 23: February 22, 2016

Hey y'all,

      I hope y'all have had a great week, it has been pretty crazy for
me.  This last week we were always so busy.  We traveled up to Georgia
for a day for some training.  It was really awesome and I learned a
lot of great stuff to help the missionary work grow her in
Jacksonville.  The one thing that was special to me was the special
spirit that could be felt at that meeting.  It was indescribable how
much we are able to learn and comprehend when the spirit is present.
It helps bring knowledge to our minds and inspiration to guide our
lives.Also funny thing that is happening in our mission.  They
installed these boxes in our car called tiwi.  It monitors how fast we
go, if we brake or turn hard, leave mission, seat belt is on or off,
and some other stuff.  So when we get in the car the driver swipes his
card to sign in.  Then anything he does wrong can be on his record and
president Craig will know what he/she did. It's funny because it talks
to us when we mess up.  And because it is a big part of our life now
we had to give it a name, We named him Lopez.  Lopez isn't the nicest
sometimes but I think he tries his best 😉

       This week has had its crazy times but we were still able to go
out and get the work done.  The one awesome Thing is we have a baptism
coming up this weekend. She has truly been prepared for this.  I am
truly grateful for having amazing people around me change and let me
apart of their lives.  I'll write more about her next week after the
baptism.

       One last experience from this week.  There was a member who was
in a hospital near by us.  He wanted some missionaries supplies so he
could do missionaries work while in the hospital.  When we got there,
a different guy was in his room.  By he just let us in, he had been
messed up really bad.  But he just had us sit down and talk with him.
It was really awesome because he was interested but had no idea who we
were at first.  But God works in mysterious ways, now he loves us
coming by to see him and he is going to be reading the Book of Mormon
soon.

       I just wanted to let you all know that I know this is the true
gospel of Jesus Christ.  I have seen the blessings that come as we are
obedient to his commandments and as we follow our saviors example. If
you haven't read from the Book of Mormon I would highly encourage it,
it is not only a book, it is the word of God.  And I promise you will
feel the spirit as you read it.

I love you all and I hope y'all have a great week!


Elder Guinup

Week 22: February 15, 2016

Good morning y'all,

        Hopefully everything is going great back home, it's crazy to
think that it is already February!  Also I hit my 5 month mark
tomorrow, which I am still trying to comprehend how time is going by
so fast.  It doesn't make much sense to me but oh well.  So this area
is great, Elder Bore and I cover the north part of down town
Jacksonville.  And there is a lot, I mean a lot of Ghetto.  Is funny
because people always give us weird looks because there's 2 white boys
in white shirts and ties walking through the hood.  I love it though
the people down here are great.  The best part is they are all so
humble and love God so finding people to teach hasn't been to hard.
One of my favorite parts of serving in downtown is that there is so
much going on.  Ere are always people out to talk to and for a change
since just about everybody here are baptists nobody really hates the
Mormon missionaries.  That makes work a whole lot easier.

       So up in this area we do service for a farm, and it is so much
fun.  His last week we just made a giant bonfire and burned so much
stuff.  Then we made a fence out pine tree, they were about 35 feet
tall.  So once they were cut down we had to drag them over to the
fence.  It was a lot of fun, plus they have a ton of animals on the
farm to mess around with.  One of the animals is a giant pig named
batman and is about 1000 pounds!  But it is always fun to go out there
and do some service.

        Oh here's one cool thing that happened, this morning we woke
up early to go to the coast to watch the sunrise.  It was a nice to be
able to go relax and to let off some steam.  Because believe it or not
because of missionary work I am always tired, but it is a good tired.
And you get used to always being tired.  All in all I love being a
missionary!!!

       There is one quote that I found recently that I wanted to share
with y'all.  It is by Hartmen Rector Jr. He was a church leader a
while ago and he said  "When the Lord said, “Lengthen your stride,
quicken your pace, heighten your reach, widen your vision, and stretch
your capacity,” he was in reality saying “expect a miracle,” for
these are the stuff from which miracles are made."  This has really
made an impact on me, that if I want miracles to come I need to put in
my all.  I need to also continue to improve, for as we do all we can
to do the Lords work that's when we see the miracles come in.  So now
this comes all down to our desire to improve and our desire to follow
God.  So I'll leave you with this question, what are you willing to do
for God?


As always I love you all have a great week!!!

Elder Guinup

Random pic by the train tracks

 

Week 21: February 8, 2016

Good afternoon y'all!!!!!!!

           So this last week has been great, I'm in my new area which
covers downtown Jacksonville.  It's a lot of fun and covers some
sketchy areas but it's fun.  This ward (congregation) over here is so
awesome, they love missionaries and feed us a ton.  It is also a lot
of fun because another set of missionaries live in the same apartment
building and live right above us, so we hang out at night and most
meals.  But all in all life here is going great.

           One interesting that has been going on is we have like 90
referrals!!!  A referral is when somebody gives us a name and address
of someone they want us to go meet with or if someone requests a bible
or Book of Mormon.  So we have about 80 people who requested a bible
in our are and about 10 who requested a Book of Mormon.  And he funny
thing is we have 1 more bible.  We are waiting for more to come in.
And even more funny ever time we contact one more names are sent to
us. It is really overwhelming at times but is really awesome that so many
people want to hear about the gospel.  We hopefully will eventually
contact all of our referrals in the next couple weeks.

          Oh one funny thing was we were driving through the ghetto
and there was a preacher who had parked his car outside an apartment
complex and had speakers and was singing songs and teaching about his
church.  It was interesting because everybody else was just going on
with there day and were ignoring him.  I give him props though he had
a good voice.

         Well life here is great because there are so many awesome
people that live down here.  I love it so much and there is much work
to be done.  I am going to have to be short with my words today but
have a great fantastic week and I'll talk to y'all next week!!


Elder Guinup

Here's the picture for the week, all my stuff fell out of my pocket,
we call this a pocket puke.  And one of the elders took a picture,
this is how depressed I was.

Week 20: February 1, 2016

Good morning y'all,

         This has been a crazy awesome week, a lot of miracles that
happened.  But before I write about some of them some news has arisen.
I found out that this next week I will be transferred to a new area!
I'm leaving Jax beach and am going to the north part of Jacksonville.
To an area call Dunn avenue, it is one of the poorest areas in
Jacksonville.  I'm really excited to get going and working in my new
area.  I meet up with my new companion this Wednesday, his name is
Elder Bore.  He is from Canada, how cool is that!!  I hope he has
bottle galore of maple syrup....anyways this should be a lot of fun.

       Now to the miracles, the first was a baptism we had this last
Saturday.  A man named C*** got baptized, he was so excited for
Saturday.  The cool thing was he asked me to baptize him.  It was a
neat experience, I was so nervous when I went to baptize him but
everything went well.  And then also his confirmation the next day
went really well on top of that.  He loves this gospel and the gospel
has helped him become a better man, he is going to do a lot of amazing
things in his life.  But I am just so proud of him and his decision to
follow Christ.

      A lot of good things going on here at the beach.  We set another
baptismal date is last weekend.  Funny story I didn't tell y'all the
story behind this guy, his name is W******.  I met him about 3 months
ago.  The first time we met him he had taken 40 shots of alcohol and
was belligerent.  He threatened to cut our throats, he went on and on
just yelling at us, it was pretty funny.  But we met with him a couple
more times and now he is sober and has read over 100 pages of the Book
of Mormon.  This has really helped me grow a testimony that this
gospel can really change people's lives.  He had been drinking
everyday for over 6 months and was able to stop in just a couple
weeks.  It wasn't easy for him, and still isn't the easiest thing now
but he made up his mind and is not drinking anymore.

       While all of these great miracles were happening the weather
changed on us.  It is starting to get hot again.  It's the first day
of February and 79 degrees.  Ahhhhh why couldn't it stay cold longer.
It might drop in temperature again, but who knows.  I am starting to
get used to it though.....I hope.  Well that's it for this week, I
hope y'all have a great day!!!


Elder Guinup