Monday, April 30, 2012

Seven day baptism!

Hello.. It was a pretty good week. Lots of rain, some cool new investigators who we set with dates, oh and we totally had a baptism. Ha. So last Sunday, some lady just showed up to church. A member introduced us to her, Evana, and we talked a little and set up to come over on Tuesday. She said how a while ago, she had a member friend who tried to introduce her to the gospel. But she was very against it. So over the course of her life, she has gone down a wrong path in her life and over the last couple of years, has been trying to get back. The Saturday before, one of her youth pastors (or someone like that) said something that really hit her and she felt prompted to look up the LDS church, because it had stuck in her mind. She found the nearest chapel that night, and came to church the next day. That's where we met her. So during our lesson on Tuesday, we testified of baptism and the remission of sins and told her she could be baptized That Sunday! She instantly accepted! So we had that yesterday! It was so sweet. It was a one week baptism. I've heard of 8 days, never 7! We're so awesome. You only hear about those kinds of things. It was such an awesome experience. Misheann and Jean are doing good. We set them with dates. Misheann is pretty solid, Jean just needs to receive an answer, which he will. On Wednesday, we went on exchanges with the Zone Leaders. A 24 hour exchange. So Elder Ensing went up to West Palm and I stayed here. Elder Conger came with me. He is a really cool guy, we worked very well together. We were the ones who set Misheann with a date. Anyway. So the AP's and President already know some of the transfer information and so if someone is about to train or be a district leader or take over an area, they'll have someone train them and help them. So I think that's what this was for me. They're training me to take over this area since Elder Ensing is going home.. It will be a good experience but I'm really nervous... I'm like 99.9% sure I'm staying here.    That's all I have to share about mission stuff. We were driving to church on Tuesday and we saw this SICK car. It was called like a Karma Ever or Ever Karma. None of us have ever seen it before. It was awesome. Oh, I also saw that Marriott Rewards has a credit card? That's cool. Do we get one? Just wondering.. Oh yeah so I sew stuff now. I keep getting rips on my pant cuffs so I sewed them together. I think that's pretty cool. My eye has been irritated and red since last Sunday, idk what's wrong with it. I may go see a doctor this week. I was thinking about the saying, "Building the Kingdom of God" and I found some really cool things. Read: Malachi 3:3; Isaiah 1:25 and 1:16; and Jeremiah 9:7. So us as the members are being refined as pure steel so that we can be the beams of the 'building'. And we're supposed to let that refining happen so that we can be as strong as we can. Then we're supposed to build around ourselves. It was interesting. Also read Deut 8:2. K I love you all! I can't believe it's already almost Mother's Day. We still need to make plans to skype.. But we will. I miss you guys. Love you!!  

Monday, April 23, 2012

Found some good investigators


This week was pretty good. A lot better than the last few. Have you guys seen the bible videos on lds.org? They're super cool. Anyway, we finally have some cool people. None of them are super prepared, but as they read and pray about the BoM, they will get baptized. One lady, Misheann, is really cool. First of all, she looks like 32 but she's like 49. She's from the Bahama's and she's pretty receptive. She knows the BoM is a 'holy' book, which is cool. We just need to have the Spirit to know her needs. Another guy, Jean Augustine, is really sweet. He's haitian but speaks good English. He just loves God and wants to follow Him. He grasps pretty much everything, which is rare.. But it's awesome. There's a few more people who we're trying to progress. Oh yeah, remember the pregnant lady I talked about? Well it's been a couple weeks since we were able to contact her. On Thursday we gave her a call and she didn't answer. Like 2 min later we received a voicemail without getting a call. Well it was her and she told us that she was in the hospital and she lost her baby :( Ugh that was one of the worst feelings ever. We're going to try to see her later this week. Spanish has been super hard. There's only like 3 or 4 days a week where I can study, because of church, p day, meetings during the week.

Anyway, how is the Fort Lauderdale temple coming? We don't hear anything about it... Which is weird. But please keep me updated. So I thought I had a copy of my call, but I don't. Can you send me a copy? I have a sweet binder that I keep lots of things in. Also could you put the MTC pics back on the sim card before you send it back? Good times... I wanna see them and show them to people.

Well, it sounds like you all are having a great time at home. I'm glad. I'm having a good time too. Oh yeah, on Friday again, POURING rain. We were finishing up harvesting at 7 and it was about raining a little. Then we had to go to Bernadette's, which is a little west of us (we were way east). So like right when we got to our bikes, it started. So we rode in a waterfall like all the way home. I don’t know if you've looked at my place on google maps, but there's a big ol' pond on the south east side, and as we were riding past, there was a turtle on the middle of the sidewalk. So we stopped and were looking at it (we couldn't get any more wet) and it tried to run onto the road. The water level was up to the curb at that point so it kind of just glided into the street. There were a couple cars coming, but they drove past, so I ran out and grabbed it and put him back. It was intense. But yeah, I felt like I was in a waterfall for like 20 minutes.

I miss you guys a ton. I can't wait to talk to you in a couple weeks! I love you!!

Monday, April 16, 2012

Caught in a rainstorm!

hiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii.
K well we went to the Collins' (senior missionaries) this morning to get haircuts (everyone got one except for me) so I don't have my planner, which is where I write a lot of things down to tell you. But I'll try to remember everything. The first thing I remember is on Friday, we met up with Bro. Remmington Jarvie and went out with him. He was a missionary here who left last March and knew Elder Ensing. He was here visiting the mission and he came here and we went to lunch and taught a couple people. Anyyyyyway. What type of car did Lehi take his family in into the wilderness? (answer at end)
Ok so about the rest of my week. We still haven't found anyone great. We taught a couple new people and set up return appointments, we'll just have to see. I still have been having problems with flat tires... On Friday, with Bro. Jarvie, I got one and the other elders picked us up, then later, Bro. Jarvie got one. While we were riding, it was POURING. We were all soaked. Then he realized he had a flat, so we walked to our next appt.(fell through), then we walked to the train and dropped him off, then Elder Ensing and I rode home. But we walked like 2 miles in the pouring rain. It was fun... The water thing works great. I love it. I got the pods as well. Thanks.
 I can't believe Marty is out of young men's! That is so weird. Tell him I say hi. Oh yeah, so in Wellington, we never had the chance to go back to that family and eat papussa's. So i have yet to try them. But I'm sure I'll have more chances in the next year and a half. Things with Elder Ensing are fine.

My blood sugar has been ok. Sometimes I get low but i take care of it. I don't check very often. I just forget because I have other things on my mind, but I am doing ok. Well, I can't remember anything else significant that happened this week. I would tell you about investigators, but we don't have any good ones. We did meet one guy named Jose Diaz who could be promising. We're seeing him tonight. I'll let you know. I love you! Miss you all.
Lehi travelled with his family in the wilderness in one accord.
HA.

Monday, April 9, 2012

Pretty good week

This week has been better. My bike is all fixed now. I finally got my back tire patched up. I had to do it like 6 times because air kept getting out, so there's like 3 pattches on my tube. So the next day, I guess I ran over a thorn and popped my front tire...... But that just took one patch. But it took like 30 min to find the tiny hole. Other than that, it was an ok week.
I can't remember if I told you about our new investigator who is pregnant? I think I did and mentioned that she's due next month.. Well she's actually just 4 months pregnant..... And apparently the baby hates water. She struggles to even take a shower. So that might be a while.. Hey we actually got fed by a member yesterday. It was pretty good. But still no one else has even offered. 
At one point during the week, one of our appointments fell through, and harvesting was planned right after that appointment, so we just decided to start then. We were standing at a corner and we felt strongly like we should stay on that street, even though we haven't had any success earlier on that street. We started at the end and about the third house we knocked on, we met a really cool guy. At first, he declined the blessing but we testified and he let us in. He was home alone and he told us about how him and his wife were contemplating divorce, so he wanted a different spirit in his home. We promised him that this would help. We left a great blessing and were talking afterwards. He asked "So you guys said that something told you to come here?" We told him yes and he almost started crying and we set up a return appointment to come and teach his family! It was such a great experience. We left there extremely pumped and we left 10 blessings that day, like 6 families.
Nothing else really happened. You don't need to send that recipe. I just wanted it for when I get home. Yes, the ward here is in English. They do a Creole translation. The Haitian members are really cool and nice. I love Haitian people.  Some of the ones we knock on are really mean... But the nices ones are really awesome. Welp.. Idk what else to say. Alright, well, I miss you all. I love you all a ton!
 

Tuesday, April 3, 2012

Staying and adding a new companion

HIiiiiiiiiiii

I'm staying.. But that's ok. I like it. Except we're getting a new comp.... so we're gonna be a trio! haha it's gonna be way weird.

Well last week was also super lame. No new investigators.. We got 2 actually, one is Bernadette's daughter who turned 8 on March 26 :) and the other is a pregnant lady who won't get baptized til after she has a baby and who knows when that will be... We harvest for like 5 hours a day. And don't find any cool people. So that's lame. Whatever.. I got all the things you sent, also grandma's card. Thank you. As for supplies, I'm all good for a while. I have 2 boxes of pods so maybe like next week or the week after you could send some more. But other than that I have enough.

I can't believe we got a new bishop! I didn't know it was already time for a new one. Who are the counselors? That's so weird.. But I love Delos. ANYway.....

So last week I got like 3 flat tires. We were on our way to appointments 2 of the three times. Luckily (not really) they called and cancelled. So we'd have to call this way cool member, Bro. Herring, to pick us up. The first time we had just left the apt and we made it like 1.5 miles so the other elders came and picked us up. I've had to borrow Elder Jones' bike a lot. I patched up the tire  but it kept failing... But today I'll get it fixed. On Thursday we were planning and the other elders come in and said that they needed me. I was like, ok... The zone leaders had called them saying that someone needed a blessing at a hospital in our area. And they asked if I spoke Spanish and the other elders were like yeah i think a little bit.. The zl's said good, you should probably take him. So they came in and told me and I'm just like whatttt.... Freak. So I take the little red book and I'm practicing all the way up and i'm just freaking out and praying like crazy. We get in to the main desk and we're talking to the main desk and the son of the guy we're going to bless walks up to us and he just got there as well. so we're trying to get signed in and the son asks the desk "what room is he in?" "2108" or whatever it was. Right as he told us the intercom comes on. "Code blue room 2108, code blue.." In my head I'm thinking crap we missed him by like 4 minutes and he just died. But we went up to the waiting room and waited for a couple minutes and I'm still freaking out about the Spanish thing cuz the whole fam is there and they're all speaking Spanish except the kids. So the doc comes out and says we're good to go in. We get in there and he's in really bad shape and totaly unconscious and elder jones (just me and him went) asks if we can do it in English and the son goes oh yeah that's fine. haha. Did you think that I'd be super blessed and the Spanish would just flow out of my mouth? Yeah me too..

One day when we were harvesting, there was like a drug or illegal weapons bust right across the street from where we were knocking. There were tons of cops with machine guns and like 5 or 6 guys lying face down on the front yard with their hands on their heads. haha it was intense. Cops were searching inside and the yards. I wish someone would have taken a picture..

Conference was amazing wasn't it? Elder Holland was my favorite talk I think. We missed the first like 10 minutes of the Saturday afternoon (they're both afternoon here...) session because it was stormy and the satelite went out. But luckily we got it back. That means that we couldn't sustain anyone... haha But it was an amazing conference. On Saturday, we had bball and 8 then a baptism at 11 conference at 12, 4 and 8 so I was at the church literally all day except after bball to get ready and we ate lunch in between the first two sessions. haha

Our goal as a mission has always been 100 baptisms in one month. We've gotten like 82 I think a couple months ago. But in March we got 106! It's awesome. President Anderson has done an amazing job here. I'm having a good time even though it's so hard. Thanks for all the support. I love you all.