hello from miami!

Miami is literally everything you have heard and then some more. Wow. We have been going all over our area trying to figure it out and find all the people who are ready for us. We took over from Elders... It's been a mess but we are working on it. The Elders were not very organized and me and my child are very similar and everything needs to be organized.

So, my baby's name is Sister Dimond! (like diamond). She is from Alpine, UT! She studied for a year at Utah State University and she is so pumped to be out here! We are basically the same person. We get along great and she is killing it her first week. She is really trying to go out and learn as much as possible in as fast as possible and I am trying to teach her the best Spanish this gringa knows.

Our area, if you were to look at a map...look for Homestead and then go a few miles up. That's us! We are super south in the mission! The farthest we could go! The area is nice and big with lots of different people. We have tried to go to a few places in each of the 4 quadrants we have, but most of our notes from the Elders just say: "Do not go here at night." So at least they're watching out for us.

No super scary experiences promise, just some feelings of "Oh my goodness get out of here!" The Spirit is guiding us and keeping us safe, but sometimes we make mistakes and go into the sketchiest part of Miami... oops. We went on our morning run the first day and figured that it was just an easy loop around the house... we were very wrong. We ended up way far from home and it took us forever to find our way back. But we said a prayer and miraculously found our way back. I have no idea how but we did it. It was a bit worrisome and I, being the best mother ever, got my child lost her first day in the field. WHOOO.

The ward seems really great and really supportive and we are really excited with all the people we got to meet with. We met the Ward Mission Leader (who has a ferret) and he was surprised by how much we already knew about the ward in 2 days. That's why there's sisters here now. We met a lot of cool people and even though none of them came to church this Sunday, we got a lot of prayers said for people and contacted some very cool people who we are excited to work with! The ward, like I mentioned last week, is bilingual. So how it works is that there are actually 2 professional translators in our ward and they translate. So if an English speaker is speaking, they go into Spanish and vice versa. Interesting, complicated but it works. We sing one song in English and then one in Spanish and it just flip flops. They even have 2 different Sunday School classes and then 3rd hour is also translated. It's super different, but it works I guess!

This Saturday was also the women's conference! We got to go and it was amazing. President Uchtdorf's talk hit me hard. At the end, he told the story of the missionaries who found his wife's family and how they knocked and knocked and on the last door found an awesome family. He was using it as a metaphor to keep going and there is hope at the last door...but as a missionary it was not a metaphor! It was really spoken right to me. Just keep knocking, keep going and you will find it. Like the verse in Matthew it says "knock and it shall be opened unto you." That verse has a totally different meaning as a missionary that I had never realized before. We just need to keep going!

PS: My new address is 19820 SW 119th Ave, Miami, FL 33177

#1: Generational picture! Sister Soza almost mowed me down right before this to give me a hug. It was quite a sight I'm sure.

#2: SUNSET

#3: 1st mother daughter photo

#4: Our house has GIANT avocados... I am in heaven

#5: This is Tina Turner the Ferret. This is also my favorite picture I have taken on my mission
because it is completely not posed. Also Sister Dimond and I have decided that this will be our album cover on our parody band. These are our zone leaders and ward mission leader.