November 16, 2010

Hey! Today is a day full of packing and getting ready to go. I'm
getting transferred tomorrow. I'm sad because I LOVE my companion and
I'm really going to miss her but she's going to do so good without me.
We already had our christmas tree up and lots of holiday plans but
she'll get to share them with someone else. This area has definitely
been my hardest and tried me a lot as far as relying on the Lord to
know it's not baptisms that make a good missionary. We knock on doors
for hours every day and do everything they tell us to do to find
people and it just hasn't hapened. But I have learned many things
about myself as well as what I want in my life and for my future
family. This week we sat down with L and A’s mom because we
helped her with a science fair project. It was the perfect opportunity
to just talk and ask her questions. She knows the kids are ready and
wants them to be baptized but Hermano still doesn't want to change.
She said the kids have really latched on to the commandments and are
really good at picking out their parents disobedience. I was really
excited to hear that. They aren't going to be baptized any time soon
but it will come. Keep praying for them. I am really going to miss the
members of this ward. We have some really good friends here. Some are
widows, some are adults and some are little kids. its so fun! we have
little primary girls that follow us around every where we go. Today we
got to have breakfast with Hermana g and put up her Christmas
tree. It was so fun. She wanted a bow on her tree but didn't know how
and was kind of bummed. I told her I could do it and she was SO
excited. We made a huge one for on the top of it with pink and silver
ribbon. I knew all that floral design would pay off some day haha. It
made her day. Yesterday we also got to go to lunch with the English
sisters in our area. Its been fun.

ps i'm not a grinch this year. I already have my christmas tree up and
i've been singing christmas songs for about a week. I'm memorizing
them in spanish. and I've got the christmas spirit... YAHOO

November 8, 2010 Pictures

Hermana T and I

Fun at the Everglades

Alligator

sign - had to be by the sierra club or something- RIDICULOUS

Scripture cases I make for people

hats that were given to us as we were contacting garage sales haha-
mine still has the tag on it $50!

November 8, 2010

This has been a pretty eventful week. We had our PPIs with president
and it sounds like I'm leaving. Next wednesday is transfers. It has
gone so fast! there is a small chance I will stay here one more
transfer but probably not. I'm going back to YSA again but down here
in the south. President wants me and Sister Lowe working together
again and so she'll be in Miami Beach and I'll be in Snapper Creek. At
first i was a little nervous because it's english again and it
includes both thanksgiving and Christmas but as i've prayed about it
i've just gotten really excited. I LOVE YSA so much. My area right now
will still be in my YSA area so I still have a place to go for
thanksgiving. My FAVORITE lady here is letting me go to her house.
She's my mom here ;) her name is Hermana T. She does a turkey and
everything and her food is SO good. I don't know if Niki remembers
Rachel from our Europe trip but it's actually her Mother in Law. Also it has been so cold here. The other day we wore long sleeve shirts, long sleeve jackets and had our heater on the whole way to the church.... it hit 57 degrees.... i've turned into such a wimp! it's pretty much an embarrasment. The people from here are worse though. They were at church with wool coats over their suit coats! Also this week I was sick AGAIN. I was in bed for two days but i've been sick for like 10 days. I've gone through two boxes of medicine and like 1/2 a bottle of robitussin- thankfully they have a new and improved flavor so it hasn't killed me. i'm a lot better now though. I think i've been sick more on my mission than the last 10 years of my life combined but oh well.

ok time for the more spiritual things. This week we had a really good
lesson with L and A. They want to be baptized SO bad but the
parents just won't change. The dad says he's going to baptize them but
he's not ready yet. So frustrating! This week we told them to talk
with mom and dad to pick a date to be baptized. Then we asked L
to say the prayer. They are just learning to pray so it's always the
same things- help in school, grateful for their family but this one
was different. It was completely lead by the spirit. She prayed that
her family could pick a baptism date and that they could go to church
and that she was grateful we came to teach her. Sadly we went back
last night and she was really upset. We asked her what was wrong and
she said she tried to talk to them about it but they wouldn't do it
and they didnt' go to church again. It is so hard to watch her strive
to be good without support from her parents. Also we met a new family this week we are teaching. We had been knocking for 2 hours with 0 references. She let us right in and asked how we know which church is true and then even prayed to know
for herself. Her name is B. She's from the DR and she is a single
mom. She has 3 kids ages 9, 6, and 5. We're going to teach her again
this week so hopefully all goes well.

(Mom asked what the “mighty prayer” she keeps mentioning in her letters is about) Mighty prayer is at 9:30 pm and 9am every day. All of the missionaries
and also ward leaders and our families pray at the same time. we pray
always for the temple and also for cuba to open and then for anything
else we need. An opportunity to unite together to pray mightily :)

Niki here- I have no idea why her e-mails keep copying over so weird. I have tried to fix it but can't figure out how (if you know let me know). Sorry!

November 1, 2010

You never even told me jeff was going on a mission! I heard from Cody and Ave! which mission in Georgia is it? I have a recent convert that lives in Atlanta. Anyway sounds like you had tons of fun in Disneyland and Dad had a good birthday. I'm kind of sad I didn't get to go with you but that will be another time. I'm way jealous you went to schatz without me- SO GOOD! however I had some amazing food this week too. We had a huge ward party and it was "fiesta latina" where everyone brings the typical food from their country and do dances and songs and stuff. we only got to stay for the food but it was way good- all of my favorites! Baleadas, arepas, papusas.... yep amazing. I just need to learn how to cook all this stuff... actually I do know how to cook some of it. At the end of the night the elders qoruom suprised everyone by hiring a mariachi band so I heard it got a little crazy. It didn't get over til about 1 in the morning and it started at 6. This week we also had a really cool experience with the v kids. we asked L if she remembered to pray and ask if Joseph Smith was a prophet and the Book of mormon is true. she said "Yes.. and it's yes. After I prayed I was playing a game and I just stopped for a second and yes came into my head and I knew it was an answer to my prayer" She is so incredibly receptive to the spirit and she's only 10. Then we asked A if he has been praying because he usually forgets. L told us he had been and she said "the other day he was doing his math homework and it was really hard and he didn't know how to do it. He was thinking so hard that he couldn't even write. He just kept sitting there holding his pencil. All of a sudden he got up and walked in mom and dad's room. I went to check on him and he was in there praying out loud asking for Heavenly Father to help him. When he got done he immediately walked downstairs and started writing and finished his homework. It was the craziest thing... he immediately knew all of the answers." It was such a blessing to see that their faith is growing. They are only 9 and 10 and yet they have more faith than their parents. So sweet

Also thats awesome steeds are coming to visit.... I'll be ready for some canadian tossed salad! also- tell steed to e-mail me some pictures of their little girl. I want to see if she's super cute and looks like corey jo or if she's called monster for a reason and is the spitting image of her dad :)
out of time but love you tons and tons!!!

October 25, 2010

Well this week has been interesting. We had brother
watson come from
the missionary department... ps he comes from the truman line
somewhere.. his name is Tracy Watson. Anyway we just talked a lot
about how to teach, what to teach, and then just some things we want
to do. We did role plays and stuff too. our role play was a disaster.
The girl totally played the wrong thing and so president thought we
taught horribly. Anyway we left feeling like complete garbage... but
what do you do right?  you just get back to work. We've tried to make
a lot of changes this week and implement new things but its still not
finding us new investigators. It's been really hard but we know that
there are things we need to learn from it. I guess if it was easy we
wouldn't appreciate the little successes. In our time here we've
helped to reactivate 5 members of the ward but unfortunately they
haven't been to church in a long time and so hardly anyone knows them
and so they don't see the progress that is coming. It all just takes
time.

Also today I'm going to the everglades so i'm excited. I get to
finally see some alligators. It means I don't get any rest though and
I didn't get any last monday either so I'm running low on energy and
stuff but i'll deal with that later.
I'm really jealous you're going to disney land. disney world when i
get home???? ;)
LOVE YOU!
another funny story I forgot to tell you- we almost missed the bus on
tuesday to go to district council so we were running and I was holding
a plate of cupcakes for my companions birthday and I tripped on a
giant tree root sticking out of the ground and totally biffed it. my
knees got all scraped and covered in bruises and were bleeding but we
were able to salvage the cupcakes... i made the bus... and i was able
to wash everything out when I got to the church 40 min later and it
didn't get infected... it was quite funny and painful... but more
funny

October 18, 2010

Studying

I guess some things will never change

Paint before

More paint before (are you puking yet?)

Paint after :-)

Hey everyone! I got your package
and I LOVED it! We were so excited.
Those cookies were SO good! Two thumbs
up for Aaron! I waited to do
the pinenuts today when I get home.
I'm excited. You are the best!


I'm going to send a few pictures real quick

October 12, 2010

Sounds like you have all been busy as usual. I'm jealous you've been hunting. You'll have to send me some jerkey! I have to admit I don't really miss pricing. Not my favorite part of the year, but next year i'll be there ready to help you.
i'm good. Things have been a little slow this week but we're plugging along. The Hogge's came down on friday and we had a painting party. It was way too much fun! we painted our whole apartment cream and it looks SO good. Hermana G loves it. She is the best. This week we got to have another tea party with her... well hot chocolate but tea party just sounds better. She makes the best hot chocolate in the whole world. Its milk, anise, sweetened condensed milk, cinnamon stick. cinnamon extract and I think a few other things. I can't remember. Tell the youngs i said Hi! They are such an amazing family.
Well thank you! I rarely feel like a good missionary. As a missionary the first thing you see is all of your weaknesses because they are so out in the open. It's hard to see when you are doing things right. Especially when your numbers aren't showing the success you want and should have. This area has definitely taught me a lot. Especially with the language and not excelling in the way that I'm used to. The Lord is definitely teaching me patience.
I love you tons and tons and i'm so glad we got to chat. You're the best mom in the WHOLE world!

October 5, 2010 Pictures

My Zone

Our incredible investigator- looks just like Wolverine from X-Men!

Dragon Fruit

Hermana Briggs and I

October 5, 2010

I loved the pictures and your letter! I loved all of conference and I felt like it was just for me. I'm going to forward you my letter to president so I don't have to rewrite it all and i'll try and send a few photos. oh and as far as the storm went we just had to stay inside for 1 day but it was truly a miracle that it passed by. on the little map where it says homestead is where I live. Way south and right on the ocean. Also transfer calls came and i'm staying here :)

President Hale,

What a miracle to be protected from that storm. The Lord truly is watching out for us. I LOVED conference and felt like every talk was just for me. I went to conference with several questions and received answers to each one of them. It was a great weekend. We had several miracles in our area this week. The first one was with the V Family. They are a part member family that has been inactive for 11 years. We met them going through the ward list and began teaching the children who are 9 and 10 years old. We taught the children about prayer and they prayed for the first time. Their parents were so excited about it. They also watched conference as a family. They all sat for all four hours and the kids did all the worksheets we gave them. They loved the talk about how to strengthen their family and decided on their own to begin family scripture study. They started that very day. They have made incredible progress. We are trying to help the dad prepare himself to baptize the children. Another miracle was with our investigator JL. After the training we had we felt like we needed to rely on mighty prayer more as well as help from the other side of the veil. We felt like a dream would help him to understand the importance of our message. We have been mightily praying for him to receive one since that time. Yesterday he called us and told us he had a dream in which we were angels. It was a great answer to our prayer. He still isn't fully converted but he is moving in the right direction. I love being in this area and being with Hermana Briggs and living by Hermana G. She is the funniest woman I have ever met. I think she is really enjoying having us here. We had a little "hot chocolate party" with her and talked about conference and how we can apply it to ourselves. She was just beaming with joy. Although the work has been really hard and I often feel like success will never come I find little blessings every day that remind me the Lord is aware of where I am.

Hermana Hendrix

**She did send pictures and I will try to put them up soon. Thanks for your patience Elaine!**

September 27, 2010

Thank you so much for your letter this week. It was everything I needed to hear. Yes our mission has been changed to quarterly conferences as well. We had a specialized training last week as well and it was incredible. We talked about mighty prayer and help from the other side of the veil. We are not alone in this work. Where was that elder from? coral ridge? coral reef? coral springs? All of those are in my mission. I can't believe that next week I will be half way. It feels like just yesterday I entered the MTC. I have seen so many miracles and changes in others as well as in myself. This week we had a really incredible spiritual experience with one of our investigators. She went to SLC for a conference and went to temple square. She LOVED it and came back home looking for the church and wanted a Book of Mormon. The first time we taught her she talked about how she felt something different there and the spirit was stronger than she had ever felt. She loved the restoration DVD and wanted to come to church. We were so excited. The next time was completely different. She wanted to argue about every doctrine she had learned. She wouldn't listen to anything. She had found anti literature on the internet and had been reading it. Finally I just asked her if we could kneel and pray and she could ask her Heavenly Father. She did and when she asked if the Book of Mormon was true the spirit entered the room so strongly. It was so tangible. She stopped for a minute and just sat there. When she started again she was crying and could hardly finish. At the end she said that the spirit was there. I know without doubt she received an answer to her prayer. The next time she was even worse. Her heart was so hard. She completely gave it over to Satan. She denied everything she had said and felt. I just left her some scriptures to read and asked her to pray. This time her prayer was horrible. She prayed that someday we would find the real truth. She prayed out of gratefulness to know the Book of Mormon was false. And that she was right in her beliefs in the trinity. It is incredible that someone can deny a manifestation of the Holy Ghost. I know some day the Lord will humble her and she will come back to what she knows. I am so grateful for the truth of the gospel. After meeting with her I have had the opportunity to study the scriptures and words of the prophets to strengthen my testimony of the restored gospel of Jesus Christ. It was restored by a 14 year old boy who wanted to know the truth. And because of his strength and sacrifice it will forever more be on the earth. I LOVE studying the gospel. Especially the Book of Mormon. It was meant for our day and EVERY scripture applies to us. I also read the continuous atonement again this week by Brad Wilcox. I'm on my 3rd time of reading it. I learn so much from it every time. This is the one and only true church on the earth.

September 20, 2010

Good morning! This week has been extremely busy but good. We found 6 new investigators and things are starting to look up. We are constantly having new successes with our less actives. This week Hna M and Hna I (two of my FAVORITE ladies in the ward) went to visit Hna Y (a less active). They have visit taught her for years and have worked with her since she quit going to church 30 years ago. In all that time they have never been able to convince her to pray. We have been visiting her and she LOVES the visits. When they went to visit her last week she volunteered to pray! they were so excited! they are the cutest old ladies. They came back and told us how excited they were. Hna M came home and said their visit was "divine". She is the lady that we live with. Last week she had a day off and we got to sit and visit with her. She's an incredible woman. She is in her 70's and hna I is in her 80's but you would never know. They both work, drive, and do everything else they desire. I is from brazil and m is from cuba. So fun! Also we have been out on bike a lot more because the miles were cut way back right before we got here by about 400 per month. It's actually been really fun other than that my skirts all fly up! i'm going to buy bike shorts today. That seems much easier than getting new skirts. This week we got to ride in the rain and it felt SO good! other than that we got to our appointment drenched. oh well. I love my companion. We laugh together so much. She is from syracuse Utah and we pretty much have the same views on everything. it's great. Also our main investigator right now is kinda crazy and that's been fun. Not sure if his intentions right now are the best but we're working on that. He's trying to find a young new wife. We gave him a book of mormon instead :) Anyway- I got your package and I LOVE LOVE LOVED it. It included everything I've been wanting to buy for weeks but have been to cheap to buy! Did I tell you I needed the mascara and head bands?? because if not you're just incredible. Umm I LOVE YOU TONS AND TONS AND TONS! Also- Did Tanner come home early??? tell him I said HI! and everyone else too! also the wallet was adorable.It will work perfect. I'm probably going to be sending more stuff home before next transfer. They've had a few warnings of hurricanes... none they've told us about we've just heard from members and i just want some of my stuff to be at home instead of here. I'm glad you enjoyed the pictures haha. fun times.

take a look at the mission blog and you'll see what a rain storm looks like here. president took some really good pictures this week (link can be found on the sidebar to the right)

September 13, 2010

Good morning!! Where are you!? I got on this morning and there wasn't a single e-mail. lame. It's a good thing I still love you! This week has been hard but good. It's just really hard to start from nothing. It gets discouraging. Early in the week though President Hale called me and yelled "You're Amazing!!" So that made me feel good. He said he's really suprised how much we've accomplished and where we're at. He told me to just be patient and said "Rome wasn't built in a day and neither will the coral ridge area return to its great success and glory in that time" but he said he is really proud of what we've done. We really needed to hear that because so many days we just feel like we're not getting anywhere. We got to see him and Sister Hale yesterday and visit with them as well so that was nice. We had stake conference. Afterwards I talked to him about the paint job in our apartment. The elders painted it the night before we moved in. Lime green and bright blue. It looks TERRIBLE. They didn't tape anything. There is paint on the floor, in the shower, kitchen sink, door jams. They also painted the light switches, outlets- including inside the outlets. It's probably the worst paint job i've ever seen. Anyway the lady we live with just felt terrible about it because she bought them the paint but didn't know how bad of a job they would do. so to make up for it she's been redecorating the place for us.We felt really bad. So president was NOT pleased. He's making the elders come back and paint it whatever color we want and they have to pay for the paint. He said they'll be learning a lesson from this one. I'd hate to be them. I'm kind of afraid to have them repaint it though but i think president will make sure they do a better job. Other than that not a whole lot is going on. We're still working with a bunch of less actives. We've just been SO exhausted this week basically to the point of not functioning. We couldn't even talk to each other we were so tired. We were just dragging but today i'll be taking a long nap so its all good. Last night we also went to a mission farewell. Very interesting. It was at 7 at night and 2 hours long. I think the whole ward spoke and all his family. they also did a slideshow a bunch of musical numbers and a HUGE meal afterward. It was crazy. Lots of crying. Not me- them haha. Anyway I don't know what else to say because nothing else has happened but one question- did you by chance find me a wallet or do i need to get one here? and also if you send a wallet could you send me some jolly time weight watchers kettle korn popcorn. Its one of the greatest things ever created but they don't make it here. Yep and I LOVE YOU LOTS AND LOTS AND LOTS!

September 7, 2010

Yeah I got your letter! It was great! definitely a day I needed it. I've been pretty stressed with the whole language thing and just all the responsibility. We literally started out with NOTHING. We found out one of the missionaries here previously got frustrated and burned all the records for this area. SO STUPID. Anyway we've had some really cool experiences though. Lots of less actives are letting us in their homes and one of them is coming back to church next sunday. She had been offended and hadn't let anyone from the church in her home for over a year and she let us in and decided she needed to pray and fast to forgive the guy and now she's coming back. So exciting!
Yeah I got your e-mail. I'm doing good. I'm still really stressed but I got a blessing the other day and that really helped. The Lord knows what I'm facing so I just have to trust that he'll help me through it. I'm very happy though, just overwhelmed. My companion is such a hard worker I love her a ton. And I love living with a member. Well right behind her. we live in her efficiency. She's a little old cuban lady with TONS of spunk. She is probably 75 or older and she works every day from 1pm to 11 pm. She also takes care of her sister with bad health, maintians our place and sometimes even cooks for us! She used to cook for the elders every day but because we're sister she only cooks for us like once a week, but it is SO good! It's pretty awesome
For the first week we did all on foot because the elders before us were 300 miles over their limit before we even got here but now we have car. we do bike as well. The elders before us definitely struggled. they burned a lot of bridges with the members so we're really trying to build back the trust.
Oh and we found an AMAZING grocery store here and it makes me really happy! random I know but they have all fresh fruits and vegetables and they're way cheap. It's called presidente's. It's a latin market. Also I'm in a ward now and It's way big but we serve in half the ward and the zone leaders are in the south so we get to work together. They are awesome elders and were really excited to have us here. They prayed for two transfers for President to put in sisters. And I'm jealous you are canning. I miss that. Me and my companion talk about gardening all the time because we have a backyard now and Hna G has tons of trees with all kinds of random fruits- mostly mango and star fruit and then avocados which are SO good. They are the HUGE ones. They equal like 5 or 6 normal ones. anyway yeah- miss fresh food

August 31, 2010

So this transfer brought huge changes for me and a lot of stress. I'm white washing an elders area AGAIN. President didn't even realize my whole mission has been white washes and i've only lived in elders apartments. He thought it was hilarious. He said he likes me cleaning all the apartments for him. He said i've set a record with 3 white washes in a row too. Also i'm senior companion and the area is all spanish. When we arrived to our apartment we were in for quite the suprise. The whole apartment is smaller than Niki's bedroom. The kitchen is way smaller than my one up in idaho at my last apartment. We have no oven or dishwasher or counter. We have a microwave and a little toaster oven. The elders just painted (they did a terrible job) and so one room is bright blue and the kitchen is lime green. It's hilarious! They also took all of our records with them. We have no records for the area since May and we were left with one investigator whose record hasn't been updated since 2009. They also left us with no miles on our car for the rest of the month. We had enough to go to church and back on sunday. So i'm back on foot knocking doors. My feet are covered in blisters again and i got my first sunburn of the year. I love it! My companion is AMAZING! her name is Hermana Briggs and she came into the mission one transfer after me. She's from Utah and grew up on a farm. We get along really well and thankfully she knows how to work. I'm super overwhelmed by everything but i'm still really happy which is a huge blessing. We have tons of fun together in the sun all day long. Yesterday (don't worry about this) we were tracting in the middle of a drug deal. It was hilarious. I love being a missionary. Every day is such an adventure. This whole area is cubans. I have the hardest time understanding them but its great.
Leaving Miami Beach was SO hard. I got to say goodbye to one of my investigators and had to call and tell the rest. M was really upset that i'm leaving. She was so excited to be baptized and was doing so good. She has problems with detachment and she just cried and cried when she found out I was leaving. Hermana Lowe said they haven't heard from her all week. R started yelling "This sucks!" over the phone. He'll be fine though. D also started screaming. His was hilarious. JP was really mad I was leaving as well. He told us he won't get baptized since I am leaving. He said he "chose me" and the next missionary wouldn't be as pretty so he won't listen to them anymore. Crazy guy. They transferred him to the elders yesterday. I got to say goodbye to D. He is the sweetest guy i've ever met. He LOVES the gospel. He's the one preparing to serve a mission in a year. He started crying when he heard I was leaving. It was so hard to watch. I loved it there but I'm SO SO SO excited to be here serving with Hermana Briggs as well. This area has a ton of potential and we just have to find it.