conference gems and a gun?!

It was General Conference this weekend and we got to hear some amazing messages from our prophet and apostles. It was incredible! Missionaries + General Conference = happy missionaries. I don't know if we could have handled all the stress of missionary work this week without it. The messages are so different as a missionary and you just get to hear things from so many different views.

This week was also a week of firsts. Sister Dimond got to hit up her first sketchy apartment complex, and let me tell you... it was beyond sketchy. We ran out of there as soon as we met with the members. It was not a great place to be, but we were protected and safe now. I also said something that I never thought I would say in my entire life (Mom and Dad, maybe skip this part). I actually uttered the words: "Okay Sister Dimond, if we see ONE more gun... we can leave." No worries though. We didn't see another one. Never thought I would ever have a reason to say those words until I came to Miami, but its just our area. It's interesting and amazing at the same time. We are going to try to get a picture this week of what it looks like on a typical day in Goulds (the name of the town). It should be interesting.

Also, 2 of our neighbors had some rockin' parties this weekend until the late hours of the night which was interesting to try and say prayers with some music across the street. Another first, we were knocking and heard the radio from someone's car and Sister Dimond said: "Wow I love this song." And I didn't know it! It was some song from the summer that I don't think I'm sad at all I missed, but dang... it made me feel like I had been out here forever!

CONFERENCE GEMS:
-"As you share your testimony, your faith and confidence will grow." (Hales)
-"Prayer is essential in developing faith." (McConkie)
-"Are you really praying or are you just saying prayers?" (Uceda)
-"All the Lord expects of us is to try, but we have to really try." (quoted by Elder Cornish from President Hinckley)
-"Stop feeling guilty for insufficiencies you have in sharing the gospel." MISSIONARIES.
"You cannot judge your efforts based on how people accept you"
"The Lord needs you to be more involved." Talking to members and missionary work. (Anderson)
-"Do you realized the Book of Mormon is for you? The people of that time saw our day and wrote it for us? The things that they treasured most for years, is now available in your hands." (Stevenson)
-"Knowledge doesn't always come as fast as we want. Wait patiently on the Lord and His timing." (Bassett)
- All of Elder Yamashita's talk to missionaries.
-"What could be better than sharing the gospel with all? Pray not just for the missionaries to find them but also for you to help. Our own conversion is measured by our willingness to share what we have." (Oaks)
-"We need to know the perfect plan that Heavenly Father has for us." (President Monson)
-"I have learned to suffer with joy." (Nelson)
-"Embrace the less actives like you embrace the recent converts" (Ballard)
-"Exercise faith. Follow Him. Serve Him. Believe Him. (Bednar- read this for real!)
-"As you live the gospel your testimony will grow and be protected." (Rasband)
-"The reach of the Atonement is infinite but will never be forced upon us." (Renlund)

Okay that was a lot of quotes but it was just so good. Everyone should go back over these talks and read them and really ponder them. There were so many others that I didn't even mention. There is something in Conference for all of us!


1: Comp pic of the week

2: We look disgusting but #missionaryworkprobs

3: When you finally get your house organized after Elders

4: I CAUGHT A LIZARD IN OUR HOUSE DURING STUDIES.

5: This is the face of a very sad Harry Potter fan. Found this in a members home. WHAT IS IT?!

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.

i'm having a baby!

Do not freak out. I am not actually having a baby, but I will be training a new missionary! Transfer calls came in last night and I will not only be training a new missionary but also transferring. Also pink washing the area of Coral Reef South in Miami South! I am taking over an Elders area with my trainee and I am so excited! I have no idea what to think or what the heck I am going to do, come tomorrow but WOAH. I am freaking out a bit, but its really just excitement!

So more on that next week... all I know is that it's a bilingual area in Miami South, but mostly Spanish. I have no idea what the area is like, but based on their numbers this last week, I'm walking into a great area.

This last week we had a mission conference and we went all the way down to Miami and I got to see my trainer Sister Soza again. It was so nice to see her! It was a great conference that really got us all pumped and excited to hit our mission goal of 100 baptisms in the month of October. President Richardson said: "Give it all you've got, and then give it some more." There is no down time in missionary work and we have to continually work and find and teach to build the people here. We are really "raising the bar" and President said. It's going to be an exciting month! We did a mission wide fast on Sunday and we started it with a "mighty prayer" by President himself. It was awesome and the whole mission saw so many miracles this week because of it and they will hopefully continue to come.

We also had a great stake conference up in Fort Myers and we heard a lot about the temple and family history work and genealogy. It was hard as a missionary because we cannot do any of that right now but it was really nice and there were a ton of people there. The stake is huge and there are about 30 missionaries in the whole stake. Woah, that is a lot of missionaries! It was awesome.

Sister Rosario will be leaving to an area in Fort Lauderdale. So we have a lot to do to prepare our area for the 2 new sisters coming in. Thank you for the love and support, I love you all!


1: We went to the Everglades! This is it. It was also very strange to wear pants.

2: Peace out into the yucky everglades water

3: Sister Soza, love her!

4: Last comp pic :(

5: Family photo! (Me, my "Mom," Sister Soza, my "Dad," Elder Adams, and my "Brother,"Elder Foster!)

6: House photo at the glades

1: The Glades

2: Sunset

3: The Tylers, the family we eat with every Sunday. Don't worry mom, I was taken care of here :) I'm going to miss them the most!

4: Beautiful rainbow... beautiful Sister Adams

5: I am going to miss my dollar taco Tuesdays

6: EVEN BETTER SUNSET

let's pretend it's not week six

This week we had an awesome zone training, and President Richardson came, which is awesome! He drove all the way out here to see us. Just kidding it was just his turn to make the LONG drive across the entire state, but the training was really awesome. We have a mission goal every month of 100 baptisms, but we haven't been hitting it in a while. So the training was about finding those people this month, to be baptized in October, and really just a pump up 2 1/2 hour long training. Well, it worked because everyone killed it in finding this week here in the Naples Zone. We found 6 ourselves and every single one of them was a little miracle.

Sister Rosario and I are focusing on all the different methods that there are to find and so we picked the most obvious one. BE SEEN. If we aren't seen, people won't talk to us and we cannot stop and talk to them very easily in a car so... BIKE DAY! So fun. So much pain. So worth it. We biked about 20 miles, half of it in the rain, whoo! But sacrifices, because our investigator Nicole, along with 2 of her children, accepted baptismal dates! She has already prayed and knows its all true and she was so down to get baptized. She loves all the members and really does want to be baptized. 

Here in South Florida, there are a lot of people from many different countries and this week, Albania and Greece were added onto the list of different countries! I have about 50 different countries at this point, including Yugoslavia and Sri Lanka. It is so cool to see all the different countries and cultures here and I am so blessed to be in this wonderful part of the world with so many amazing people!.

This week in my Book of Mormon reading I was in Jacob. There is a verse in Jacob 4 that I really loved. It says: Nevertheless, the Lord God showeth us our weakness that we may know that it is by his grace, and his great condescensions unto the children of men, that we have power to do these things. Isn't that so awesome? It goes along great with Ether 12:27. The Lord gives us weaknesses, not to put us down or sad, but so that we will turn to Him and rely on Him. If we didn't have weaknesses there would be no need for Him because we would all be perfect. NEWS FLASH, literally no one is perfect. We all fall and we all have weaknesses but they can become strengths as we rely on the Lord. 

Love you all! We are headed to Miami on Wednesday for a special mission conference (2 hour drive yay) and then next Monday is a proselyting day so look for the email next Tuesday! 

1: BIKE DAY, finally on the way home!

2: some people have some weird statues in their yard. This is from a Portuguese speaking woman and is now my all time favorite statue

3: SKY PICTURE 

4: post mighty prayer in the Bahia best house

week 5 has begun

First of all, GO COUGARS! Sunday morning after the game we were sitting in the chapel and I heard a bunch of people talking about it. One of the members son's who knows I went there before my mission came up and gave me the play by play. He's like 10 so it was super animated and hilarious, BUT GO COUGS. 

Okay, back to missionary work. We didn't get hit with the hurricane, just a lot of rain. We did a lot of knocking and contacting and trying to find people. Our area sort of dried up right as it was getting started, so not too much happened this week. But that's missionary work, right? I love it here in this area and really love all the members and people we get to meet. We saw some miracles and we were able to really focus on the Savior this week. 

One miracle we saw actually didn't really help us but we were able to pass an awesome referral to the YSA Sisters. We knocked into Mike who loved the prayer, and was so down to come to church. We gave the sisters his number and they immediately went to teach him. He accepted all the commitments and teachings and ended up coming to church yesterday. It really just shows that we are all on the same team and it might not have helped us out but it made us feel really good to find someone who is ready! 

We also had some interesting experiences since we were knocking a lot. We met this man while knocking and we talked with him for probably 15 minutes. He seemed open at first but then we started talking a bit more and he just went off about how God doesn't answer prayers and that at 19 and 20 years old, we know nothing so there is no way we know that God has answered our prayers. It was kind of shocking to have someone like throw that in your face. We really didn't know how to help him, if we even could so we just testified to him that we knew God had answered our prayers in the past and that He still does today. He really did not like that but we were able to leave knowing that we did all we could to show him the truth. I stood there the whole time just feeling so sorry for him and how sad it must be to believe that Heavenly Father is not watching out for us. I could really feel the pain the Savior feels for him too. Being a missionary really brings us so close to the Savior and we really can feel bits and pieces of that pain. 

We also learned about the Holy Ghost yesterday at church and here is the part of the lesson that i really liked:

To have the Holy Ghost with us we need to:

1) try honestly and sincerely to keep the commandments He has given us

2) be spiritually attuned as a receiver of divine message

3) ask in humble, fervent prayer for this gift

4) seek answers with unwavering faith

Inspiration comes to all who ASK, in FAITH. 

It was a really great lesson and will now be the focus of my studies the rest of the week! We are running this week full speed, with training tomorrow with the zone and then next week we get to have a special mission conference!!!! I hope everyone has a great week! 

1: this is why we have Elders, y'all

2: caught in the rain!

3: I stepped in this giant puddle while knocking and Sister Rosario didn't warn me! I was too focused on knocking the door and I didn't see it.

4: #work

5: The GIANT baptist church has this sign... I think its in the wrong church?

vanderbilt beach

I hope everyone had a wonderful week because it was an amazing week here in the area of Vanderbilt Beach, had lots of miracles and lots of laughs!

Fun fact: I hit my 6-month mark last week! We were at zone conference on the 24th and as I was writing down the date it hit me. If you changed 2016 to 2017 I would be on a plane ride home. It was a rough moment, less than a year left and I just barely started. Sister Rosario looked and me and laughed and then realized she goes home the same day as me and then immediately stopped laughing.

On Wednesday we had an awesome zone conference. We got to hear from our mission president and his wife as well as the assistants and got some good trainings. One thing that Sister Richardson said that I loved was that sometimes we are given challenges and trials, not so Heavenly Father can see if we can handle it because he knows we can, but so that we can know what we can handle. After trials we are able to see all that we can do and look back at it with joy not sadness. President Richardson also said that our goal, or the thing that we should always have in mind and picture should be us at the end of our missions, smiling at Christ and saying, "I did my best. I gave it my all," and having Him smile right back at us. AGREED.

We also got stuck in the rain this week, shocking, but this time it was on bikes. DEATH. We got some sympathy looks and just kept going.

THE MIRACLE. In the amazing area of Vanderbilt Beach there are a lot of people here for the CRNA program who are members. They all happen to live in the same townhouse complex, lovingly nicknamed "mini-Provo" (we were walking and 2 members stopped us to talk to us). We took our ward list and wrote down everyone who lived there so that we didn't knock their doors, just their neighbors. We felt like because so many members live there, it's a pretty prepared place, right? Well it turned out to be true. We knocked the door of Sherry and she immediately welcomed us right in to pray with her. She then listed off about 5 members names and sat us down to pray. After the prayer we were talking with her a little bit more and she told us that her and her husband were looking for a church (!) and that they felt like living there had shown them a side of members they had never seen before. She said she had been to many church activities (!) and that she had a subscription to the church magazines and she studies them every month they come (!!!!!). She welcomed us back to teach her this week and was very excited to learn more about the gospel. When we were talking with ward members yesterday they were all so excited to hear about it, and we were so grateful for their wonderful example.

We left that house jumping for joy and ran all the way down the street to our meal appointment. She is so ready and her husband is very excited to meet with us too this week. It was such a miracle! Mini Provo is the place to be. People are being prepared all the time, and we found this little family by happening to knock their door.


1: obligatory sunset picture

2: rain on bikes. dripping wet

3: COMPS 4 LIFE

4: I make awful faces while playing the piano

rain rain go away

Hello hello! No more "hola hola" as I am now serving in English, but I love it here. The area is amazing and the ward members are super awesome, the members are so willing to help. It also helps that they are all young and half of them served missions themselves so they know what to do!

This week it rained so much... The first half of the week was all rain, all day. Normally, it just rains for an hour or so but this time it was all dang day. Not fun to try & contact people and knock doors when you cannot see in front of you or when you forget your umbrella in the car... the reality of missionary work. We were able to contact a lot of people and luckily the rain and storms make people more willing to at least pray with us or talk to us for a little bit. They feel bad for shutting the doors and making us walk back in the rain. It's the little miracles!

We had to stop teaching a lot of people this week, either because they weren't progressing or they didn't want to learn more. Kinda sad but we are doing okay and have the positive attitudes we need! We are really going to focus this week on prayer. Just really making sure that every single thing that we have planned out, whether it is a former investigator to visit or anything else, that we are really taking it to the Lord because we want to find those people and teach them all about this message that we have to share! It's not fun to not be able to teach and like Preach my Gospel says, "nothing happens in missionary work until you find people to teach."

We did get to knock some super nice mansions. There are some very wealthy people here and their houses are amazing. We got to meet and talk with a few of the owners and most of them were surprisingly nice, they didn't want a lesson but they were sweet. We have decided that we are going to buy one of the houses and live in it when we are old. So look for that in my future.

One miracle that I wanted to share this week happened while we were knocking. We were talking to a man and asked if any of his neighbors needed a prayer. He said that the neighbor across the street was a good Christian woman who would probably love a prayer, so we went to her house. There was a keep out sign but we just pretended we didn't see it, and went and knocked her door. She answered and was actually pretty rude. We were a bit shocked based on what the man had told us but we just thanked her for her time and left and continued working. We didn't really give it a second thought because we have that happen all the time. About 15 minutes later as we had continued walking down the street, I heard a car pull up beside us and I looked and there was the woman! She rolled down her window and said that she wanted to apologize for the way she treated us. She said she felt bad the moment we left, and it looked like she was about to start crying. We told her not to worry and offered any service that she might need. She smiled and then drove away.

It was really a tender mercy for the day. We didn't find anyone but we were led to that street to be able to talk to her and give her that experience. I had almost forgotten about her comments, but the Lord knew how much it would brighten our spirits and make us happy, and she came and apologized! It was amazing and something that never happens so it was a big miracle. I read this morning in a talk that said "going on a mission and serving a mission are 2 completely different things." When we give ourselves over we are serving not just here. It really changed my whole perspective for the week!

I hope you all have a great day and week! And if missionaries knock on your door, give them some water! It will be greatly appreciated, promise :)


Pictures:
1: Naples Zone!

2: We eat dinner with the same members every week and this time they let us see their guns and then
made us take a picture. no worries, they are all unloaded and we did not shoot them!

3: Florida Sunset #1

4: When you run half a mile back to your car because its pouring rain and you have to be dry in 30 minutes for a meal appointment (we were not dry yet)

5: Florida sunset #2