adventures with aubrey: first week in florida

AHHH!

I made it to Florida okay just so everyone is aware. It is crazy humid here and I don’t even know why I thought I would ever do my hair… it just doesn’t get done. On Tuesday we landed and got picked up by President Richardson and the AP’s. Then we went back for dinner and orientation and then went and knocked some doors. It was in a super sketchy place, in English, and we got to practice the way our mission does door approaches. We ask if we can have a prayer with them! It seemed weird at first but it is okay and not weird at all. We had a couple that just looked out the window and never opened the door which is super awkward.

On Wednesday I got my trainer! Her name is Hermana Soza and she is from Chile! I GOT A NATIVE TRAINER. She has been out about 7 months and I am learning a TON. I am so excited to work with her and she is straight up hilarious. We have a great time. Our area is the Coral Springs Zone, in the Lauderhill ward. We share the ward area with Elders, who are also the ZL’s, and so we have to drive 20 minutes every morning just to get to our proselyting area. And since Sister Soza is from Chile, I get to drive everyday. Then we park and go biking or walking! It is actually super fun, but biking in a skirt has been an adventure let me tell ya. It is really hard with all the wind!
We have an investigator named Jesus, from Ecuador, who is going to be baptized on April 24th! We invited him on Friday and he said yes, but then got sick and didn’t come to church. But he has 2 more weeks so we have a ton of time to prepare him some more. We are super excited. Another investigator, Milly, from El Salvador, is preparing for that same date too, but said that she wanted to pray about it before she fully committed. But they are both awesome and close with each other.

Our ward is AMAZING. The members love the missionaries so we always have food (more on that in a bit). There is no one in the ward that plays the piano… so I get to play in Sacrament meeting. Jokes on me because I thought I could get away with never playing again… yet here I am. Its fine though… they all came up to me after sacrament and thanked me…and for my broken Spanish testimony that the Bishop had me share. Whoo… Spanish is coming along super well especially with a native companion. A bit hard to have church solely in Spanish but I got about 70% of what was going on. When the members find out how long I have been in the field, or pretty much just look at me and see this American girl, they either slow down or speed up. One thing that I am getting used to with Latin’s is all the kisses!! It is a totally different experience but its adorable.

Yesterday the Elders in our ward had a baptism so we got to go and see that. And I got to play the piano again…. I don’t think I will ever get out of playing for my whole mission… oh well. Gotta share the talents you’ve got.

We knock at least an hour every day. Knocking might seem boring but it is actually super fun. You get to meet all kinds of crazy people. A LOT. We run into a lot of Jehovah’s Witnesses, which is super weird to me, but all the Latin people are really nice. We get to say a lot of prayers for people and ask if they know any one who speaks Spanish. There are some pretty heavy Spanish areas that are way ghetto so we go to those places when it is still light outside, obviously.

The bugs here are insane. I’ve gotten like 20 bites in the last week so that has been fun. We just keep anti itch stuff in the car. Might as well bathe in it though. We sweat a lot and I bet we look disgusting but for some reason people let us into their homes. we have a great time while out knocking or teaching though. It is so much better than the MTC.

The FOOD, OH MAN. These Latin’s are going to kill me. So far we have eaten food from Peru, Bolivia, El Salvador, Ecuador and Chile. It was all super yummy. The woman who fed us from Chile, legit gave us so much food we could barely move afterwards. But it was amazing. The only thing i haven’t liked was yesterday the Bishop’s wife fed us fish. But it was like a whole fish, bones, eyes, teeth and all. They all laughed at this gringa trying to eat it… it tasted fine but freaked me out the whole time. It is a lot of rice and beans here which is fine for now but in a couple months will probably be awful to me.

We don’t have ipads in this mission which is kind of nice but also kinda sad because we can’t show all the awesome videos the church has for people! We live with 2 other sisters serving in an English ward. In this mission a lot of the Spanish missionaries serve english at least once or twice so one of the sisters, Sister Evans is actually a Spanish missionary and she does language study with us every morning. Her and Sister Tui, from Hawaii, are a hoot. We have a great time after a long day of work.

Also my last Sunday in the MTC was conference and here are my favorite talks:
-ALL OF WOMEN’S CONFERENCE–it was soooo cool. I loved it all. Service and love.
-President Monson’s short talk about choices.
-President Uchtdorf’s talk about building the church. He was hilarious.
-Elder Christofferson’s about fathers
-Of course ELDER HOLLAND KILLED IT. It was so great. He made a quip at the beginning about missionaries and said: “every missionary will tell you that life in the field is much harder than the cushy bubble you live in at the MTC.” As we were sitting in the MTC watching it. Everyone started laughing and then it quickly died down because that was going to be us in 2 days.
As a missionary it came across totally different than the rest of the times I have watched and it was super cool to see it from a new perspective and new place in my life.

We can send out our addresses to everyone. I will be here for at least 12 weeks so go ahead and send stuff! Its 3452 Coral Springs Dr, Coral Springs, FL 33065, or send it to the mission home and we can get that every 6 weeks. Also, sorry if your individual emails back are like 2 sentences but we have to email our president every week so that takes time too.
I love my mission!! It is amazing and I am so grateful for the opportunity I have to serve the Lord for these next 17 months. I know this church is true and that this is the Lord’s church on the earth today! I love you all!

Pic 1: Bikes and canal