Return Missionary Updates!

Hello my sweet friends and family! I just wanted to write a quick blog post and say THANK YOU so much to everyone who followed along with me on my journey as a Full-Time missionary for the church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints in Orlando, Florida.

I wanted to give you guys an update on what's going on with me and how you can continue to keep up in my adventures!

I completed my Full-Time missionary service on April 12th 2017. You can read all about my final week as a missionary in this blog post HERE.

Since I've been home I have been playing around with Photography and am loving getting back into the blogging world. I have gone back to working at the tumbling gym I've loved since I was eleven. I continue to find an increasing love for the temple and am trying to embrace the awkwardness of my local singles ward.

In the fall I'll be moving down to Provo to attend school at Utah Valley University. I'll be working as a tumbling coach at a gym down there and am SO EXCITED for my next adventures in college.

I probably won't keep this blog updated much, but you can be sure to read my OTHER BLOG to stay up to date with all of the latest things happening in my life. You can also check out my DIGITAL MEDIA PORTFOLIO to see all my latest photography, and graphic design projects.

Again, thank you so much for all the love and support y'all gave me while I served in the Sunshine State. I felt so much love and support coming from each of you and it was an honor to be able to share my experiences with you. Thank you so much.

Until next time,
Whit

Letter to a granddaughter

In the mission world your "trainer" or first companion is often referred to as your "mom." And when you are called to become a trainer you get a "baby." 

A few months ago I had the privilege of training Sister Hart from Arizona. Flash forward several months to now. I'm running the last six months of my race in the mission field and just this week my "baby" was called to train a new missionary named Sister Staten.

Which makes me a "grandma."

Since I've been in the mission field for about a year I wanted to write down a few things that I wish someone would have told me at the beginning of my mission. 

So this is a letter to grand baby Staten as well as every other missionary new to the field.

The first thing I want you to know is that it's okay not to know. In all honesty none of us really have it all figured out. When I first came out I looked up to those who have been out for a long time and wondered how I would ever get to where they are. What I came to realize is that we are all relatively new. There will be a time when you take over your first area without the direction from your trainer. For me even taking over an area for the second time I stressed because I didn't want to mess anything up. You will get transferred several times and may be called to serve as a trainer or an STL. Always look at it as an adventure. There are many fun times to be had, but if you stress to much over not knowing exactly what you're doing you might miss them. My Sunday school teacher would always tell us that "You may not know everything, but you know enough." 

The second thing I learned is that obedience is so very necessary. I thought coming on a mission would make it easy to be obedient. But I've learned that even as a missionary there is temptation all around you. Sometimes it might be a companion that chooses not to keep all of the rules or a member who suggests something contrary to what your mission president has taught. The best thing to do is stick to the rules. Because we are promised in the scriptures that if we are obedient we will always be blessed. My trainer (your great grandma) Sister Guynn always used to say to me "never let anyone determine your obedience or your happiness." And Sister Berry, the Mission President's wife when I first came to Florida, always used to say "obedience brings blessings, but exact obedience brings miracles."

The third thing I learned is that joy is so very necessary in missionary work. I learned that sometimes happiness is a choice and it is also a challenge. Learn to laugh when you are uncomfortable and smile when you are stressed. Re-discover humor and remember that you have been called to this area because these people need your personality. So don't try to be anybody but yourself, and I know that if you do that you will touch the hearts of the people and you will be happy.

The fourth thing I don't think I really learned until I became an STL. Open your mouth and talk with everyone. And I mean everyone. When you are at a stoplight, roll down your window and tell the guy next to you that you know God loves him, pull over to the side of the road and ask the old lady watering her lawn if you can help her. Walk up to the grumpy man sitting on a lawn chair and ask him for directions you don't actually need. If the person you had an appointment with isn't home knock on their neighbor's house and ask if they know when their neighbor will be home. "Whatever your initial approach may be, refer quickly to the restoration." If you do this I can promise that you will always have a full teaching pool. 

The fifth thing I learned is that you probably won't be best friends forever with every one of your companions. There will be some who will become like your siblings, and others who you will clash with. But with each companion you are given comes a reason for why you were given them. It may be something you will learn from them. It may be a Christlike attribute you need to develop. Maybe they need you and your example. Try your very best to get along with them even when it gets hard. If you are having a hard time feeling charity then clean your apartment and pray for charity. 

The sixth thing I learned is that this time goes so fast. People always told me that at the beginning of my mission and I didn't believe them. Thirteen transfers are all you get to serve full time for the Lord. You will never have the opportunity to serve in this capacity ever again. Soak it all in and don't take any of it for granted. 

A few weeks ago one of our investigators was interviewed for baptism. The missionary conducting the interview asked him about his experience working with us as missionaries. His response was "Those Sistas, they are the tools that God uses to fix broken souls."

You have the sacred opportunity to be one of those tools that God uses to fix broken souls. 

I could keep going on with this list for another eighteen months but I'll leave it with this; you have been called to do the work of God the Eternal Father. You have been called to stand as a witness of His Son, Jesus Christ. It is not going to be easy, as Christ's life never was, but it will be the most fulfilling work you have ever done, and ever will do. 

Go kick butt. Do good things and just know that you are changing the world one broken soul at a time.

Love,

Sister Reid

Cold tile

I grinned from ear to ear as I stood on the cold tile in the baptismal font. I plugged the drain and stood their as the water started to rise to my ankles.

I was entering the missionary training center later that day. My bags were zipped and the rest of my things were put in a box in a closet to wait for my return. Orlando Florida. That's where I was headed. I had butterflies in my stomach as my family piled into the car to drop me off.

My twelve days in the MTC came and gone and before I knew it I was stepping off the airplane. The humidity hit me like a ton of bricks and it was only October.

I soon learned a few things that nobody told me about before my mission. For starters, I was the same person as when I left. I still had the same personality, liked the same foods, and was still scared of the same things.

I learned that you sometimes have to eat twice as much as you want to so you don't offend anyone. I learned that sometimes people slam the door in your face and sometimes people stop texting you or answering your phone calls all together. I learned that sometimes people said mean things to the missionaries, and even worse, sometimes people said mean things about the church that I so dearly loved.

Missionary work is hard.

There are long days. Days that you don't feel like working. Days that you think you'll never get along with your companion.

Over time I started to grow accustom to some of the trials common to missionary work. Days were long, but I got through it. People didn't listen, but every once and a while someone would open their door. Every once and a while we'd find someone to listen.

After a few transfers I found myself serving in a singles ward in central Orlando.

I worked hard, but wasn't seeing the results come from my labors.

I was training a new missionary named Sister Hart and it was during that time that I learned some new things that nobody had told me about a mission.

I learned that faith means believing in miracles. It means daring the soul to go beyond what the eye can see. It means telling yourself that it will all work out even though you can't see the light at the end of the tunnel. It sometimes means taking a few steps forward into the dark believing that the motion sensors will recognize your faith and the lights will come on.

I learned that a successful missionary is a happy missionary. I learned that laughter is the best medicine and the best coping mechanism for hard days. I learned that if you can make someone else laugh or simply smile you can work miracles among the children of men. I learned that joy is a principle power. No missionary ever changed the world with a frown on their face.

I learned about friendship. I learned that in order to bring someone the gospel you must first meet their needs. And more often than not friendship is at the top of that list. I made friends with many investigators and members. I also learned that the best friendship you can strengthen as a missionary is the friendship you have with your Father in Heaven. I found myself on my knees more than I ever had before, not for myself, but for my friends who knew not God.

My soul started to ache for them.

I learned that these things, coupled with hard work are all that it takes to be a missionary.

But I was approaching nine months my heart started to yearn for these people. Nobody had yet progressed all the way towards baptism, and my soul ached for them because I knew the happiness they had potential to become, but far too many of them, members included, we're living below their privilege.

I started to wonder why I was on a mission. I loved being a missionary. I loved the members and I loved talking about Christ, but if nobody was progressing why were we wasting our time.

Some time passed and I eventually found myself standing in a baptismal font. I grinned from ear to ear as I stood on the cold tile in the baptismal font. I plugged the drain and stood their as the water started to rise to my ankles.

I watched as Mayra was immersed in the water and I was filled with so much joy. As she climbed out of the baptismal font and we handed her her towel she said with a smile on her face "I'm soakin' wet" with her cute little Puerto Rican accent. My companion and I did a little dance because we couldn't contain ourselves.

We left her to change and some of our friends from the ward came and gave us hugs. I don't know how to describe the feelings I felt that day.

It took nine months, but it was worth it. Nine months of slammed doors. Nine months of un-returned phone calls. Nine months of tear stained cheeks during my nightly prayers. Nine months of investigators not keeping commitments. Nine months of testifying of the only thing that had ever made me truly happy.

And someone had finally accepted it.

It was oh so worth it.

Elaine Cannon, a former Young Women general president, said, “There are two important days in a woman’s life: The day she is born and the day she finds out why.”

That day as I stood on the cold tile in the baptismal font, and plugging the drain so the font could be filled...

I found out why.

I Think That's What Faith Is

Growing up I always loved attending church meetings. They were always uplifting and that was where I could find many of my friends. But it wasn't until I was a missionary that I came to understand just how important these meetings are. It wasn't until one particular zone conference that I realized we can receive revelation and answers to our prayers through the things others share at these meetings.

It was at about my eight month mark as a missionary. I was really enjoying being a missionary and loved sharing my testimony with people. I was training my first missionary, Sister Hart, and she and I got along like peanut butter and chocolate and I was happy. But there was still one thing that felt to me like a fly buzzing around my ear.

I still hadn't baptized anyone.

It bothered me a lot because my whole life I had listened to stories about how if missionaries were obedient they would baptize thousands. Or at least, that's how I interpreted them. Every week we would receive an email of who was having baptisms in the mission and read it as "the list of successful missionaries this week." I longed to have my name on that list.

I had spent many many hours on my knees asking my Heavenly Father why we couldn't find anyone that was prepared. What was I doing wrong? Every night before I prayed I wrote my thoughts in a little prayer journal. The night before zone conference I filled the last page in the journal and felt like that was a final cry to Heavenly Father for help.

Zone conference came around and after car checks we began the meeting with an opening hymn and prayer just as every meeting in the church always begins. Then our Mission President gave some opening remarks and following him one of the Assistants to the President stood up to give the first training of the day.

He described that he came to a point on his mission where he felt like he was trying hard to do what was right, but that things weren't happening. He said, "my mission started to change me, but I didn't see the miracles from my work.

"That's where I am right now" I thought as I began to take notes quickly.

The title for his training was "more hope, more faith" and I listened as he described how he gained more faith as a missionary. And this gave me hope that maybe I could too.

Throughout the next few days I studied faith pretty intently in my studies. What is it? How does it work? How do I get it? Then my companion and I started to put it into practice.

I think the only noticeable change anyone saw in us was that we had a better attitude. Instead of trying to mentally prepare ourselves for things not to work out or for people to reject us we made an effort to speak as if everyone would let us in and keep their commitments.

Overtime we started to believe in miracles and overtime miracles started to happen. And when miracles happened we got excited.

We observed one of our zone leaders and the enthusiasm he has for the work. Every time something good happens (and basically every time we see him) he always works into the conversation an enthusiastic "WHAHOOOOOOOO!" We tried to emulate his example of enthusiasm when good things happened. We also made a greater effort to offer prayers of gratitude to the Lord when we did see miracles.

We worked at this for a little bit. This Sunday we will be baptizing our first convert.

I can't say it was anything I did to make this happen because it was surely all the Lord's doing, but I can say that this experience taught me that miracles do happen. They happen everyday, and if we put forth our effort to believe in them, recognize them, and thank God for them they are more likely to happen.


I think this is what faith is.

The Ugly Floral Couch

The other day I knelt down to pray by our old ugly floral couch that has probably been sat on by missionaries since the early nineties. 

I thought for a minute, just how many missionaries have probably sat on this coach in the last maybe twenty years.

A day of missionary work consists of being on your feet, striving to talking to every single stranger you come in contact with. For me it means getting out of my comfort zone. It means sharing the thing I hold the most dear to my heart with complete strangers who may or may not slam their door in your face for offering them the one thing that makes you the happiest. 

Ultimately it means a lot of long days, and a lot of hard work. It sometimes means blisters on your feet and tears on your face. And after a long day of work often the first place a missionary goes is the couch. 

So I thought about those missionaries. How many long days of walking and knocking and teaching came to a close on this ugly floral coach?

And I wondered if others, like me, ever knelt next to this ugly couch to offer up their nightly prayers. How many conversations were had with God about the people they had met, or the trials those missionaries were going through.

I thought again for a second about why we do all of this. Why do we spend our waking hours running from house to house handing out Book of Mormons and small pictures of Jesus? Why do we keep doing it? 

Because we know it's true.

As I thought about it for a minute the ugly floral couch taught me that all of those long days of hard work are worth it, because everyday I get to testify to the world of the one thing that makes me happy.

So I knelt down next to that ugly floral couch and offered a prayer of gratitude that I was here, in central Florida, serving a mission. I thanked my Heavenly Father for the blessings He's given me and for the knowledge I have that my family can be together forever.

I think I remember shedding a tear or two onto that ugly floral couch that night. And I added to the testimony this couch bears that this is a sacred work that we have been called to do.

I'll never look at that ugly floral couch the same way again, because to me it means we have the truth, and we are going to tell the world about it. One day long at a time.

Sister Whitney Reid

Florida Orlando Mission

Four Year Old With A Nametag

Blog

Let me tell you a secret.

I'm a four year old with a name tag.

I'm a full time missionary for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. I have been called by a Prophet of God to share Christ's gospel with the world. I have been called to labor in central Florida as an official representative of Jesus Christ.

When someone wants to investigate what our church is all about you'd think they'd send the very elite. You'd think they'd send some scholar who has studied the history of the church for 57 years, heck, you'd think that if someone wanted to investigate the church they'd send the Prophet or at least one of his apostles to teach them.

But no, they send me.

The other day I had gotten home from a long day of missionary work. I had my keys in my hand and instead of unlocking the door with the house key I proceeded to try to unlock the house by pressing the unlock button on the car key. My companion laughed at me for a bit and I couldn't help but think "and God called me?" That same question went through my mind when I went to our leasing office to get a new furnace filter and the man at the front desk asked what size we needed and I said "there are different sizes?"

I am an official representative of the church.

Sometimes I wonder why in the world Heavenly Father trusts us newbs with the task of teaching His precious sons and daughters about His sacred gospel, because clearly we aren't the most qualified. Seriously, he sends 18 and 19 year olds out who have little to none life experience out side of high school. Who barley know their left from their right, and who sometimes get embarrassed when people look at them. 

I remembered hearing a quote once that said that "God doesn't call the qualified, he qualifies the called."

Surely that must be true because the other day I was sitting in a lesson and a girl named Abby told me a story.

Abby is working in the Disney World College Program which is a program that allows college students to spend a semester working at Disney. Several weeks prior she had been having a really hard day. She was feeling very lonely and she had been praying hard to God for help. She left to go to the bus stop to head to work and on her way to the bus stop there we were, the sister missionaries, on the sidewalk by the bus stop. With tears in her eyes she told us that as soon as we said hi to her she immediately knew that God was watching out for her and that God loved her. She told us that as she got on the bus and went to work she thanked God for letting her know that she is not alone.

The other day we got a text message from a recent convert that said "Thank you all for what you do and I am so happy for everything! Y'all don't know how much of an impact each of you have in people's lives. Even if it's just a hello or just to see how they are doing. It's definitely an impact on people"

We hear stories like this all the time, and many more go unspoken of times when someone needed help or had a question and the missionaries were there at the right time with the right words.

I don't know about you but to me evidence points towards the fact that God must choose us unqualified for a reason. 

Because the fact that we as missionaries we don't really know what we are doing means that we must rely on God. We must rely on the Spirit to tell us where to go or what to say. 

So to all the missionaries out there that feel like they are failing, like you are only a four year old with a name tag and that you'll never be able to be good at this work, you are doing more good than you probably know. And to all those that are trying to decide decide if they can trust the missionaries to teach them truth, just know that we may not know everything. We may not speak the language very well and we may not know the answer to every question, but we have been called by a prophet of God to share what we know.

We know our message is true.

And we want to invite you to learn about this truth for yourself.

The Citrus Fruit Sister

What its like to be a trainee

Six weeks ago my Mission President asked me to serve as a trainer. My trainee's name is Sister Hart and she is from Arizona. She is the coolest ever and I asked her to answer the question "what it is like to be a trainee" and I thought you might enjoy her response.

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What its like to be a trainee

By Sister Hart 

What is it like to be a trainee? Well it's kinda like always imagining a chocolate cake... Like basically day dreaming about it, and then one day you finally get to eat this chocolate cake that you've been day dreaming about and it's way better than you expected. Yes, way better! 

Before I came on my mission, I was expecting it to be so hard that I would just totally want to go home. I mean, it is hard don't get me wrong, but not in the way you would expect. It's hard because you love the people so much, that you just get saddened by the fact that some of them are just not fully prepared to learn about the gospel. It's hard because you spend so much time and energy finding people who ARE ready to learn about this beautiful gospel, but they keep rejecting it. It's hard because when you think you've finally found the one who is ready, they decide that they aren't. But you know what isn't hard? Staying out here, working my hardest, and loving everyone I come into contact with. It's not hard to devote my heart and soul into not only serving the people of Florida, but also my God, AND my savior and redeemer Jesus Christ. 

To be a trainee means to get out of your comfort zone and try things that you never thought you would. It is the time in your mission when you basically decide what kind of missionary you want to be for the next 18 months. It's where you can learn all of these great things about yourself, because trust me, I've learned a ton of stuff about myself that I didn't even know. 

So the chocolate cake I have been day dreaming about since I opened my call, is WAY better than I expected. It's hard, yes, but the sore feet at the end of the night, and the sweaty back from the Florida heat is so worth it. And it's all because I know what this gospel can do for a person, and if I'm not trying my hardest to let everyone know, then I'm not being the missionary I decided to be the day I met my trainer. 

Being a trainee is tough, because you have to adjust to everything around you, but it's the best thing you can do for yourself and everyone you were called to teach. 

#SigningOff

Hello!!!

So this is me. 19 year old Sister Reid serving in the Florida Orlando mission as a missionary for the church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.

This is my new blog.

Let me explain how this came to be.. 

Before my mission I was the author of the blog feelmysunlight.blogspot.com. It started as me writing about random things that happened to me. Eventually my posts turned into my testimony and me writing about my experience as a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.

Apparently people read it. I expected my mom to be diligent at reading my posts and maybe a few of my friends, but over time I had random people start to tell me they loved reading my blog. I gained a love for sharing my gospel through the Internet.

Eventually I received a mission call to the Florida Orlando Mission. I said goodbye to blog land and I handed my blog over to my mom to maintain while I embarked on my journey to central Florida. 

So obviously I was delighted and also pretty surprised when my mission president told me he wanted me to start another blog as a missionary as a way to invite others to come unto Christ.

So these are the words of a sister missionary serving in state of citrus fruit and sunshine. These are the words of the citrus fruit sister.

The Citrus Fruit Sister