Not so new companion

What's up. Santa Rosa Callifornia for T!? Nice! Ah I'm so excited for him! That's so exciting! Tell him congrats for me. Anyway, I'm sure you're all wondering who my new comp is... well you all know him....It's Elder Bloom!! My bud from the MTC!! Isn't that awesome? Ah man it's so sweet. I've loved it so far. It's definitely what I needed from being in a rut with a dying missionary. This week has been really good. We met some really cool people. Like Hannibal (scary name) He's Peurto Rican and wanted to know more about the BoM. He's pretty skeptical... but as he reads it, his concerns will drop. Oh, and J.A. was baptized yesterday!! It was so good to see that. He's the coolest guy. We also had another baptism, technically.. So when ELder Ensing and I were harvesting once, we met this Haitian lady named Promesse and we passed her to the Creole elders. They taught her and her cousin Angeline. Well I guess Elder Furner's new comp, Elder Beard, thought that it would be best to give us Angleine cuz she speaks english more than Creole. And that was on like Thrusday so we had that baptism too. Which was pretty cool too. But yeah two baptisms yesterday. NBD. haha no but Jean is like the greatest guy and I'm so happy for him. Idk. Other than that, not a whole lot happened. We're biking a ton more but it's ok cuz Elder Bloom and I just talk to each other the whole time. This is the first time where I'll actually be like friends with my companion. I'm excited for this transfer. Well, I love you guys. Miss you. I'm happpy and doing well. Love you.

Staying put

Hello fam.
Well yep. I'm staying. I'm excited but also kinda nervous about taking over the area. Oh well. Just comes with the job I guess. Elder Jones is leaving too. He came out to the field with me (Creole elders come mid-transfer, so 3 weeks after) and he's been here in Boynton the whole time. So just me and Elder Furner are staying. It should be good. I have no clue who my next comp will be, or if I'll be sr or jr comp. You just find out on Wednesday. I'll let you know.. I'm so excited for Tanner Howell! I wish I could be there. That's so great. Remember, my guess is Singapore. Other than that, Idk what to say. I pretty much said it all on Sunday. I loved being able to see you all! I hate how fast the time flies as well. It's lame. But I loved every second of it. But yeah.. Yesterday was ok. Nothing cool. The wml, Bro. Dengg and his wife took us to lunch and then we ate dinner at the bishop's house. THat was really nice. I'm glad I'm staying in this ward, not necesarily staying on bike... Whatevs. K well I love you guys a ton! I'll have much more to say next week. Miss you. Love you.

Flat tires and teaching a family

Welp, transfers are next week! Isn't that crazy? Time is flying by. Although it's pretty sure I will stay, still send letters to the mission office just in case. We have talked to a brother here, and he's gonna let us skype at his house. I'm not sure what time we'll be able to do it, but on Sunday morning I'll be allowed to call you and tell you what time, then hang up. So that may be what will happen.

Cool story... After preparation day last week, we went and taught a guy named Ray. He had stopped us on the street the week before, and told us how it's amazing to see people as young as we are to be doing such a good thing. So we asked him if we could come by and share a message. Anyway, on Monday, we had a super spiritual lesson with them (there was him, his wife, and his daughter and son) When we got there, only his daughter was home (she asked if we were the church people. which is suprising that he actually remembered about our appt.) So we just waited outside for everyone else. The mom got dropped off by some lady and she said she didn't feel good so she wouldn't be able to sit in with us. A few min later, Ray and his son arrived. We went in and the mom was just sitting on the couch resting, but she stayed there. Anyway. He started off asking about how to help his teenagers build strong faith and about fasting and other random things. After answering his questions, we just testified of the Atonement and the Spirit. I don't even remember much of what we said, but the Spirit was so strong. The mom said that right when we walked in, she felt the Spirit and felt a lot better. And Ray said that she's very skeptical but she loved what we said. We left a blessing in their home and it was amazing. When we asked them how they felt afterwards, the daughter, who was pretty quiet the whole time, instantly said she felt so good and that when I said her name she felt something peirce her heart. They all committed to be baptized! We were supposed to see them Thursday, but something came up.. We're seeing them tonight so I hope it goes well. Also, I can't remember if I told you about Thomas, but a few months ago, he was praying that God would send him the true gospel. The missionaries showed up a couple weeks later and he instantly recognized it as an answer to his prayer. He was converted and everything but his family pressured him a ton and so he kinda just fell off the face of the earth.. But we stopped by last week and he still wants to be baptized and he said we can start coming over again. I pray that he'll be able to make that step of baptism.

That was some cool mission stuff. Other than that, my sheets have a big hole in them.. so either you could send some or I can buy some. Please let me know ASAP. This past week, Elder Ensing and I BOTH got flat tires at the same time. No one could help us out so we had to walk home... it was like 3 miles and it took like an hour. Ugh it was horrible. Anyway, we borrowed the other elders bikes and we went out and I totally forgot my helmet!! haha Luckily we just had one appt with Bernadette who lives just down the street. But it was funny. Elder Ensing totally ripped his pants one day. He got a flat tire, and we walked to Alexandra's house. She didn't answer so we waited there for about 20 min and then as he lifted his leg up to get on his bike, his pants ripped like all the way down the bottom. So we had to stand there for like 30 more minutes waiting for the other elders to get us haha. It was way funny. The car has a thing called Tiwi. It's like a black box. Tracks where you are, your speed and other things. You can get speeding violations or aggresive driving. It's just to make sure elders are being safe I guess.

We went to teach an awesome guy named Jean and he was watching the Jazz game.. Ah I miss it so much. They were wearing their new green uni's. They looked so sick. Maybe an idea for my next package..... Paul Millsap.... haha Anyway, I love you guys so much! I miss you all. I can't wait to talk to you next Sunday!! I'll let you know the details. Thanks! I love you !

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!!  

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!!

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.

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!