Monday, November 28, 2016

#ILUMINAELMUNDO

Good morning my good friends and family! We have so much to be grateful for. This week was wonderful and filled with much joy and thankfulness! We had such a great week, not just with finding people but just with being happy and being around families. We had a giant Thanksgiving meal on Thursday and we were stuffed for the rest of the day. It was amazing. But, my mom's rolls are still better. We actually got a call from a family on Tuesday night and they invited us and the Elders over for an early Thanksgiving meal! It was Latin Thanksgiving so of course there were rice and beans and plantains galore. It was delicious.

I hope you all got the chance to watch the new Christmas video, "Lighttheworld." If not, go now to mormon.org and watch it because it is amazing. We show it to people 10 million times a day and I am still in love with it. Also, the service opportunities are awesome so be sure to check that out ASAP.

Dorothy update! She is out of the hospital, but diagnosed with stage 4 cancer in her liver. She is truly amazing. She was still so happy and upbeat and is not letting it get her down at all. It was just such a testimony builder to me that the gospel really does bring happiness to us every single day.

Being in Miami means there are a lot of Cubans. In world news, Fidel Castro died (AKA all the Cubans everywhere were super happy). There were some parties a bit more north, closer to Miami Saturday afternoon. Our Ward mission leader is from Cuba and we had a meeting with him on Saturday and he said "you didn't tell me congratulations!" and we were like.... what? He just yells "Fidel died." We were like what. Obviously it is very sad to hear of the loss of a human life, but it really means a lot to those people who are here and who have escaped from there. There were a lot of people that asked us to pray for their families and there was a lot of drunk Cubans out on Saturday night, but what else is new?

In other news, it was just a great week and I'm super happy to be here serving the Lord as His missionary at this time. It's wonderful and amazing and I cannot believe how lucky I am to be here.

Some quotes for ya:
From a friend this week: "God is making things happen for you. Even when you don't see it. Even when you don't feel it, even if its not evident, God is working on your prayers." Love that.

From Elder Holland of course: "What we do is nothing but one drop in the ocean. But if we didn't do it, the ocean would be one drop less than it is." Everything is important to God. I love that no matter what we have done, or what we are going through, God is always there for us and listens to us and then answers us in His time. What a blessing prayer is.


1: 9 months y'all

2: Latin Thanksgiving!

3: Grateful for yummy Latin food and families that love missionaries!

4: Our gratitude tree is full. We look gross but Thanksgiving!

5: The Elders were ready to eat.

Monday, November 21, 2016

halfway there and definitely livin' on a prayer

First of all, it is freezing here, and by freezing I mean last night it was 67 degrees and I wanted to die. Utah will kill me next winter, butt means sweaters. And the pants make it a bit better to be cold not gonna lie. Still not the biggest fan but oh well. 9 more months.

Yes, you read that right.. I am halfway done my friends. I cannot believe it and I cannot even begin to tell you how much I have loved the last 9 months of my mission. Thanksgiving day is my actual 9 month mark so what a perfect thing to be grateful for! All the miracles and blessings that I have been able to see in the last 9 months, just make me more excited and pumped for the upcoming 9!

This week we had Zone Conference way up in Hialeah and I got to see Sister Soza again! She is serving in Naples now as an STL and it was awesome to see her. Also, I saw Sister Rosario and Sister Adams. It was awesome and the trainings were super great about how to work with the members better and how to help them do missionary work. It was incredible! President Richardson gave us some great training and got us all pumped for the last 3 weeks of the transfer! I cannot believe that I only have 3 more weeks with Sister Dimond. It's so sad, but she'll be great!

This week we got some sad news from our Recent Convert Dorothy. She was in the hospital and she just found out she has stage 4 colon cancer that has spread to her liver. We haven't been able to see her because the hospital is too far, but please keep her in your prayers! She is very calm about it all, but just needs some comfort right now.

Fun stories of the week:
First of all, Sister Dimond is a much better driver than I am, but this story begs to differ. She was pulling off to the side of the road and thought she saw a big dead palm leaf (they are everywhere) that had fallen. NOPE. Not a palm leaf. It was a tree trunk and our car got stuck! I literally could not stop laughing about it. A man just walked by laughing at us while I jumped out to get it off the stump before we had to call the mission office and say we were idiots. Luckily we got it off and no one has to know.

Second, we went and taught a bible referral in the Projects here in our area. It's a place called "Chocolate City," and I promise I'm not being racist by saying that. That's really what it's called. Anyway, we are standing outside her door talking to her at about 7:30 at night and she points to a patched up place on the wall and says, "This place is crazy. This right here is an AK-47 bullet hole and theres another right here."WHAT. We just looked at each other like, "Where the heck are we doing here!" Then as we are teaching her, she's just really watching around us, looking at everyone and she interrupts us and goes: "Sorry, but y'all need to go. let me walk you to your car. I think there's gonna be a shooting..." So we leave and go back the next day and she tells us that there was. Right after we left! Holy dang. So grateful for the Spirit and the guidance and protection that He gives us everyday. (lo siento mom and dad I promise I'm safe).

We also got to preview the new Christmas video, at zone conference, that the church is putting out for the Christmas season! It is so good, oh my gosh. It will launch November 25th, the day after Thanksgiving on mormon.org and everyone needs to check it out. The "campaign" this year is wonderful and very service filled and the video itself is incredible... go check it out!

Some quotes from Zone Conference from President and Sister Richardson:
"People with good intentions make promises, people with character, keep them." -SR
"You're going to have good days, and you're going to have bad days. But they're all days."-PR

I hope you all have a wonderful Thanksgiving, full of love and gratitude! Enjoy the holiday time with family and friends! Don't worry! We are being fed well!

1: TACOS FOUND!

2: There's this ghetto wall by our house that we always pass. this is "cut the cake" (real name) and I in front of it. nice.

3: Sisters at ZC!

4&5: mi hija y yo!

6: bug spray for days

7: Jesus Saves y'all. Found this in our backyard #elders

8: This family feeds us the most amazing brunch! 4 sets of missionaries :)

9-12: a member took some super cute pictures of us so enjoy these too! 



Monday, November 14, 2016

His love is infinite

This week was filled with finding, knocking and a couple really cool experiences!

First, we had a great zone training on baptisms. It was really awesome and has already blessed our area a lot by inviting everyone to baptism at the door. Within the first 5 minutes of meeting anyone, but it has helped us see who is ready to receive the message a lot faster and we have seen some sick miracles from it. We met some cool people who ended up canceling appointments but really just being able to stand there and testify to people right away and being able to plant that seed is all we can do. Loved a quote from Elder Ballard that says, "A fireball missionary starts when an investigator says no." I want to be a fireball missionary, we just need to open our mouths and testify sometimes.

Everyone has been asking us to pray for the country after the election and pray for Trump. I have never said so many prayers for the President of the USA. A woman literally broke down and was hysterically crying while talking about it. It was super uncomfortable and awkward. We also found a taco shop that looks so super god and we will of course be eating there today. Also, a nice man from AAA fixed a hole in our tire for free while we taught his family!

We also met a man named Fede from Haiti this week. It was the last door we were planning on knocking and when we offered the prayer he said, "Oh well, we are Jehovah's Witnesses here." Normally there would be some comments about the church but he actually started asking us questions and asked us to sit down on his porch and we ended up talking to him for about 1 1/2 about the Restoration and Plan of Salvation, and all about God and Jesus Christ. It was so cool. We left him a Book of Mormon and asked him if he would be baptized and he said yes. It was so awesome to sit there and have a normal discussion all about God's love for us and all the things He has blessed us with! Even though he didn't come to church or anything, we definitely helped him feel God's love for him and share some awesome doctrinal stuff!

Last night, we went to see a less active that we knew nothing about and it was in an area that isn't super great to go to at night.As we were walking around looking for the house, a man calls to us and says "You white girls don't need to be here right now!" We just looked at each other like, "Yeah we know...but the Spirit" and we were starting to walk away when something just told me that we needed to go back and talk to him. So I kept talking to him and we started to walk closer to him and just walk with him. His name is Tali and he really opened up to us after about 3 minutes. He's had a hard life and really wants to change it, but doesn't feel like he is worthy to ask God for help. To survive he has had to do some things he doesn't like to do because he knows its wrong. He knows that God is watching out for him. He really didn't think it was a coincidence that we found him. Then all of a sudden, the Spirit just came over all of us so strong. Sister Dimond starts telling him how much God loves him and we are just looking at this man, so fallen and so in the world, telling him, through tears, how much his Father in Heaven loves him and knows him. So then, I say the prayer and after we finish we look up and there in front of us is this hardcore drug dealer, just with tears streaming down his face. The Spirit was overpowering. It was like Heavenly Father was giving us all a giant hug right then. It was amazing. It just really showed me that Heavenly Father loves all of His children. It doesn't matter what they have done or where they are going but He loves them all so so much and just wants them to get back to Him. It was an amazing experience to end the night. Sometimes going into scary places is good!

I know without a doubt that Heavenly Father loves us all so much. We cannot even know how much. It surrounds us every single day, stronger and stronger. We just need to turn to Him and He will be there.

"If for a while, the harder you try, the harder it gets; take heart. So it has been with the best people who ever lived." -Elder Holland

"Every person is eventually backed up to the wall of faith and it is there that he must make his stand." -President Benson.

Heavenly Father loves you and I do too

1: Cotton candy sunset!

2: New part of our area, previously unexplored by missionaries. Called the Redlands of Florida!

3: TACOS!!

4: Sister Sant with a literal machete cutting open our coconuts.

5: Sister Dimond with Katherine downing some fresh coconuts.

6: Christmas Trees in Florida? Also, why is there already Christmas stuff in stores and on people's houses?!

Monday, November 7, 2016

PANTS

WOW. What a week. First of all, I will include many pictures of the wonderful pants we now wear 24/7 (please read with as much sarcasm as possible). The pants themselves are not terrible, like they are comfortable but they do not look good on anyone. So basically, it's a good thing I'm a missionary because there is zero things attractive about these pants. But alas, 9 more months of them to come. Kill me. After our meal appointment the Elders tried to make us walk in front of them to look at our pants and we ran down 5 flights of stairs to get away from their laughing. It just looks weird to be honest.

Other than that, this week went well! Me and Sister Dimond definitely got some kind of bug or something because I was nauseous for like the whole week. I'm convinced it was food poisoning from a meal appointment. Terrible, but we went on and kept on going! Go Missionary work!

We got a few new members of our district down here in the south. We got a new District Leader and he's pretty chill so that's nice. We walked into the first District Training in our pants and they like demanded we take some pictures so those are coming as well, but its all great down here. It's just us and 4 other Elders and then there's no one for the rest of the mission. Apparently, next transfer we will be putting missionaries back into the Keys (they haven't been there all summer) and that will be super exciting to see.

This week we ate some food from some different countries. We had rice pilaf from Serbia! It tastes like normal rice pilaf to be honest but it was made by a Serbian member with her family recipe so it was extra special. The container she gave us was giant and filled with enough of it to feed 10 missionaries, so we gave some to the Elders. We also ate with a Brazilian family! There is a Portuguese branch way up in Boca Raton, but they live down here and travel up there every Sunday to be with the other Portuguese speakers. And because Elder Souza (one of the Elders we share the ward with) is Brazilian, they love him and invited us all over to eat some yummy food. We ate Feijoada, which is this beans/meat concoction and it was so good. I could have eaten so much of it. We also ate with a family yesterday who lived in China for like more than 10 years and most of them speak Chinese. Dream family life.

This week will be mostly pictures. Nothing too crazy happened except for the pants though. To answer some questions I got about them:
- We were given extra money to be able to buy them. We obviously have certain guidelines we have to follow but luckily we found 2 pairs last week that we liked. Today we have to buy more or we will go crazy.
- We are not allowed to wear ankle length skirts instead. The President of the Quorum of the 70 told Sister Richardson, "Nope. Sorry it's hot, they will have to wear pants anyway." BOO, but inspired council from our leaders so we are doing it.
- There is literally no mosquito season in Florida. Its 24/7, 365 days a year.
- We have to spray our feet and arms like 5 times a day as well. Just terrible, and there's this military grade spray that we spray onto our clothes and every bug that touches it will like die immediately. I have no idea what it is but Sister Richardson put like a billion warning labels on it.
- Basically we just wear them outside of the house. If we are in the house we can wear skirts or if we are in church meetings or mission meetings such as trainings. But it's like an all the time thing that will be staying here for a while. YAY.

Besides the pants thing, I was reading this week in Helaman and Helaman 3:35 is a verse that everyone should look up and mark! I love you all and I love this gospel. There is nowhere else I could be right now other than here. Every person I meet is placed there for me to meet and talk to. God is good.


1: I hate the Elders.

2: THE PANTS

3: We are so not down for this

4: barf

5: The zone leaders brought us ties. Literally they are the worst and we all match and look disgusting, but its life now.

6: Elder Britton thought it was hilarious with the ties. He's the one in the middle.

7: The AP's made this for the Zone Leaders. So funny.

8: A gecko decided to chill on our car on the ride home. Thank goodness Sister Dimond is driving now. 12 weeks is long enough for me!

9: Sister Dimond's mom sent us these! SO CUTE.

Tuesday, November 1, 2016

transfer 5 done!

Nothing exciting from transfers, I am staying with Sister Dimond to finish training her for the next 6 weeks. We are so pumped, and our Zone Leaders are staying with us and now that they are chill and actually have come out of their shells and we made them crazy, it will actually be fun to share the ward now. Just kidding, they're great.

But in exciting news, the Florida Fort Lauderdale mission is the first mission in the US to wear pants. this is not a drill or a joke. I honestly wish it was. The only mission in the states to wear them and the only one in the world that has to wear them year round because there is no mosquito season in the state of Florida. Thanks Zika. Really just praying that it goes away now. Pictures to come next week of sister missionaries in pants.

For Halloween we came in at 6:00 because we can't be out teaching and knocking in doors that night so we came and painted little carvings and went to bed an hour early.

This post is so out of whack but we have to go buy pants so there is really no time! But a funny story from this week. Everyone and their dog has vivnt security here and they have these weird doorbells that have cameras and call the persons phone first so we rang the doorbell and the guy answers his doorbell and we stand there and talk with him through his doorbell for a good 3 minutes and then at the end of the conversation we said, "thank you for your time!" and he goes "thank you... for talking to my doorbell!" We died. It probably doesn't sound that funny but I promise it was.

Also, our district leader has zero privacy in the house this week and had to account with us in his pantry. We were almost on the floor laughing. Missionaries are weird and we really laugh at anything. We also had interviews this week! SO GOOD. Now we will be having them every transfer. Now all my deep doctrine questions don't have to wait 3 months at a time to be answered.

1: When you run out of miles you make deals with the zone leaders... no regrets

2: HALLOWEEN ZONE ACTIVITY

3: When there's more water after a storm than there was after a hurricane?

4: This little guy was just chilling on our porch... NASTY

5: Junie B Jones and a scarecrow take on the trunk or treat