Florida: Let's Keep Working! Part 2

T and I door-knocking the first day! It was so windy, yet gorgeous outside!

This fountain: so awesome!

 My sweet room-mate, KH!

Door-knocking the second day! In addition to being super sweet and fun, this gal has THE most amazing hair...

Wish I had taken more pictures of the different neighborhoods! This was one of the more middle-class ones, but still so beautiful!

 Yay!

JB (navigator) was awesome enough to spot this coconut and stop so I could take a picture!

 Weird duck/turkey birds.

One of the fancier houses. About five minutes later we drove by some more houses that were even more incredible.

On a totally random side-note, I learned that it is now acceptable to end sentences on a preposition, unless you're writing a very professional business letter or are old-fashioned. 

Happy Thanksgiving!

I'm just going to start with the generic, "Happy Thanksgiving, folks!" and go from there. So, Happy Thanksgiving, folks! 

Some things I am especially thankful for this year are:

• My relationship with Jesus Christ, who will never leave me or forsake me, Who shows boundless grace and mercy to His children, Who will, by grace, save anyone who will call upon His name in repentance and faith.
• Freedom to worship freely without fear of persecution.
• Family members who love one another, flawed as we all are. Especially thankful for how much care they are showing to me while I'm recovering from getting my wisdom teeth out.
• My amazing sister-in-law and darling niece, who is growing up way too quickly.
• My wonderful girl friends who are like sisters is so many ways. All my other friends who are a huge blessing, and bring so much encouragement. 
• God keeping my siblings and mom safe in the accident earlier this year and for keeping everyone safe from harm.
• The opportunities I have to study at college and the various work opportunities. So many people are jobless and I have been blessed with more than one job opportunity. 

We had our Thanksgiving Dinner last Sunday, which I was able to enjoy as well, and today Munchette made a delicious-smelling breakfast which I am not able to have, but she was so kind to go to the store yesterday and buy me a bunch of mushy food that isn't just applesauce and pudding. As Americans, we aren't nearly as thankful as we should be for the little things such as food variety. 

And, before I conclude, here are some pictures:

Sweet-Pea and I taking a selfie on Munchette's phone last Sunday.

 Clari and I accidentally matching.

 WWII era swing dance at a historic air museum hanger.

The dance!

HB and I ready to head out. Unfortunately, we don't have good pictures yet, but I am so thankful we are able to document these special memories at all. 

So thankful for a healthy, happy, and adorable niece! She's already learning to walk!

Colossians 3:15-17, " Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, since as members of one body you were called to peace. And be thankful. Let the message of Christ dwell among you richly as you teach and admonish one another with all wisdom through psalms, hymns, and songs from the Spirit, singing to God with gratitude in your hearts. And whatever you do, whether in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him."

Florida: Let's Keep Working! Part 1

When I first heard I was stationed in Florida, I was a bit disappointed because Florida is supposedly so hot, humid, and muggy.

Friday morning, October 31st, 8 a.m., found my parents and I at the airport, me excited to fly across the country and have new experiences, them excited as well but also a bit nervous about letting their daughter go so far away. Thankfully, I was able to fly there with a friend from my home state. 

We went through security, boarded the plane, traveled all day, and arrived in Ft. Myers, Florida at 8 p.m., tired but happy to be there. 

Stepping out of the airport, the first thing I noticed was that it smelled like coconuts. Secondly, I noticed it wasn't nearly as hot or humid as I was expecting. 
Okay, I shan't bore you with any more detailed descriptions until the end.

I met my roommate and we got along very well, which was such a blessing. We never got to sleep until after 12:30, despite the fact that breakfast was at 7:30 the next morning. She is awesome, and her tolerance of my weird quirks was incredible. 

Next morning we were assigned to our van teams. My team was in Cape Coral the bulk of the time, and if you've ever been to Cape Coral, you understand me when I say it was confusing. For example, we had a 43rd Street, 43rd Place and 43rd Terrace all in a row, and then we had quite a few streets that were separated divided by canals, so you could only do one part of the street before having to be driven to the next section of it, which was across the canal.

After the first day and a half with our driver attempting to navigate and drive, I was so excited when, the next morning, he announced he  had a dedicated navigator. 

Then he said, "it's you," and the expression on my face drooped a bit for a minute. It turned out to be a huge stretch and growing experience. I also learned that not looking down on curves reduces car-sickness by about 61.3%. 

If you haven't ready my post about Virginia last year, I will remind you that we door-knock from 9 a.m. to dark, around 6:15 p.m., and the van transports groups of two to different streets, where they blitz through the doors, we pick them up and drop them to the next street. Keeping track of who was on what street and where each street was proved confusing. Thankfully, our driver was able to keep track of where the streets were most of the time, and when he wasn't, I could usually figure it out.

Buddies in the back seat! 

 Tallying up our results...Fun stuff. ;)

 Phone-banking with this sweet gal!

This was what I had for navigation...Being slightly directionally challenged, I learned a lot. 

Other random adventure: I got to pump the gas. Call me weird, but something about pumping gas in a car you've never driven and in a state you've never been in is pretty cool. I also had to ask a random old guy what the zip code was because it was required to pump gas. Weird. 

After door-knocking/driving/navigating all day, all teams arrived at the Rick Scott for Governor Campaign office and phone-banked until 9 p.m. SS (part of our van), JB (our driver) and I spent the first half of the evening tallying up our voter contacts and doors knocked, which was time-consuming, but so gratifying after reading the figures we had accumulated. Our record voter contact attempt rate was 894 for the day, and our record doors knocked on was 656! That's pretty good for when taking into consideration that we were in Cape Coral, if I do say so myself. 

This concludes part 1 of my Florida experience. Coming posts will have more more pictures and less text. Oh, and just to explain, "Let's keep working!" was Rick Scott's slogan for his campaign.