planting seeds

WOW, this week was great. So, South Miami didn't really get any damage so we aren't doing any clean up down here, but the ward members did go up north this weekend to help out. We are very grateful that we are spared and continuing to pray for those affected, especially in Haiti and Cuba.

This last p-day we went to the zoo. The Miami Zoo is amazing. It is so beautiful and thanks to an amazing member, we got to go for free! Blessings all around. Then we got the week started with a zone training on Tuesday about how we need to get more people to church, because you can't get baptized without coming to church. So we did that and one thing that I really liked from it was "If you are doing the work, you can't do a bad job." It's so comforting to know that as long as we do our part as missionaries, it doesn't matter who accepts us or not.

But, thank goodness people do accept us. Dorothy is getting baptized this Friday! She came to church and loved it yet again and just loves us. She calls us her daughters every time we are over there and just loves us. It's like having our own little grandma out here. We went over the questions with her last night for the interview and she "pre-passed" with flying colors. of course. there were no doubts in my mind. She's very excited and leaves little pamphlets out for her brother to read... go Dorothy!

Also, we had a lesson with our girl Courtney. She's 14 and has been coming to church for about a year and a half now but never got permission to be baptized. She told us that her grandmother and mom were okay with her being baptized and she will be baptized the 29th of this month! We were so excited and she is just really pumped for it all. She wants one of her friends to do it which is going to be so much more special! It was a really awesome day and just great news to hear!

We also went on a full day with our STL's this week. Sister Dimond went to Riverside for the day. Riverside is Miami Miami. I was scared to send my baby there but she did good, it was fun! Also super weird to not be with her for the day, but the STL's were also both sick so we took EXTRA precautions and cleaned everything when they left. We cannot get sick here in the October #Huntfor100.

Our mission is really heating up and getting excited for the month of October. Our baptism goal every month is 100, but we've been seriously slacking and not achieving it. BUT, everyone is working so hard so far this month and we are going to get it. We all have so much faith to find them and get them baptized in this month and we are so excited that this weekend we get to contribute to that number!

Also got some great news from Vanderbilt Beach, my last area! One of the AP's was on exchanges with our ZL's who we share the ward with and at our meal appointment he told me that Nicole and her kids, who we were teaching last transfer had gotten baptized this weekend!!!!!!!!!!! AND that Guyrlene, who me and Sister Rosario found while knocking got baptized on Saturday too!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! WHOOOO planting seeds and working on the same team is amazing. It was great news and I am so happy to hear that! They were all so wonderful and I am forever grateful that I got to be a part of their journey!


1: At the zoo!

2: Bruce Springsteen is in hiding as a dentist

3: When your Mission President says pack up and then nothing happens

4: Here's a better sunset dad... We have palm trees

5: Comp pic after a long nasty day of sweating. When is it going to cool down?

6: WILD PEACOCKS ARE A THING?!

7: We found this awesome golden elephant at the zoo

8: GATOR

9: #stop

10: She's not my daughter... she held a ferret. Nasty.

miracles and a hurricane

Hello, hello! We survived a hurricane this week! On Wednesday morning we got a text from our mission President to pack our go bags and wait for further instructions and then at 9am he evacuated 4 of the 9 zones to the chapels. Thank goodness it wasn't ours because while we had to stay in the house for 35 hours, we got to sleep in our own beds which was a blessing. It ended up going more north and didn't even hit the mission. Missionary prayers were answered! It turned and went up but we were still praying for those that it affected, I'm just grateful that it wasn't us! There were people going insane. There was no gas anywhere. The lines were like down the street to get some. It was CRAZY. We just got some wind and hard rain down south though.

Besides the miracle of the hurricane missing us, we were blessed with so many more miracles this week!

Tuesday, me and Sister Dimond both felt super prompted to knock a certain street when we looked on the map and so we went and started knocking. At first nothing was happening. Then we knocked on a door and found Kim. She let us in and we prayed with her, and then she asked if we had a pamphlet we could leave. We taught her and she loved it and was so excited to learn more. She accepted a date for the 29th of October. We were so excited and could see the way the Lord is preparing people all around us! We left a Book of Mormon with her and she was so excited to read it. She said she would start as soon as we left. Unfortunately she didn't come to church but we are meeting with her tonight.

Then we go to Friday, after the hurricane. As a mission, at 5:00 every Friday, we knock to find families. So we were knocking this area and knocked into G and M. We asked if they wanted a prayer and G says: "I'm actually a member!" He's been less active for about 10 years but immediately invited us in and M started asking us all kinds of questions about the church and we did our best to answer them all as fast as she was giving them. She really has a sincere interest in learning more, and even though she has no religious background, she wants her 3 children to be raised in the church. G was raised in the church,in Utah, so he knows how much it helps when they're kids so he was very excited to see us there. They invited us back Saturday night for dinner and the best Key Lime Pie I have ever eaten. I don't know how she did it, it was incredible. We shared the rest with them and she really wants to get baptized, but they aren't married. So we gotta work on that first! It was amazing to find our vision family that we had set and we left in complete shock. It was just a week full of miracles.

We are also working with Dorothy. She's a 65 year old woman who is super sweet. She was a bible referral and loves learning and reading. She has been to church 2 times and will be baptized next week. She came to church yesterday and said to the teacher: "I just gotta say somethin' I've been itchin' to say, Joseph Smith was a prophet..." and then bore her testimony on the Book of Mormon and the church. We were just so happy this week with all the lessons and investigators and miracles that we have been able to see. Dorothy is progressing so well and reads everything we leave with her and asks a ton of questions so that she makes sure she really understands it. She already told us she wants us to meet her brother and teach him, so she's already doing missionary work herself!

This week I read a great quote about member missionary work. It's from President Eyring and about how we all need to share what we have. He says, "All of the people that we meet here will know what we had when we were here and will wonder why we didn't share it with them. They will know that we knew the truth, and will know we didn't share it." It just shows how important it is that we share with everyone the things that we know. There shouldn't be anything holding us back, we should share it and we will be able to see blessings.

To me at home, it was so much harder to share the gospel with friends and people I saw everyday. As a missionary it is so much easier to walk up to random people and just share it with them. Elder Oaks or Hales, I don't remember shared at conference that it doesn't matter the length of time you have known someone, share it. So that is my invitation: share the gospel with someone this week. Post a picture on Instagram or Facebook or something. Share the light!

I love you all and hope you have a great week!

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?