May 24, 2010

the last couple of weeks have been pretty... ok really slow but we're hoping they'll pick up soon. This week i'm spending 3 days up north on exchanges in plantation at the YSA branch there. Also- i never got your letter. maybe i'll get it today. and we had ppi's this week with president and i'm going to be in Miami Beach for quite a while. He said "I haven't accomplished what i need to here yet and i will be here for a time so unpack all my suitcases. put them away and get comfortable" which means i'll be in the hottest area of the mission for the hottest months of the year. i'll probably be here until at least August. That means i'll be spending all of hurricane season here as well. It was a good interview. I think hermana is leaving. Transfers are June 2 so my P-day will be next tuesday instead of Monday. I'll be spending 3 days with an english only companion. It will be good though. Fort Lauderdale is a pretty normal place and is pretty normal people unlike the beach. We got a new investigator a week ago and she loves everything we teach. she's a black girl named H. she's 18 and lives in liberty city. She's funny. she loves grits on toast with jelly and eggs...weird. she has a baptism date for the 13th but she kinda dissapeared the last 3 days and we haven't heard from her. We are meeting with L again. She's amazing but we didn't hear from her for like 2 weeks. We also have W. He has a baptism date for the 5th but we have to change it because he hasn't come to church. He's 22 and from Columbia. He's been here for about 2 months and only speaks spanish. Thats pretty much it for now.

Way down at the bottom of southbeach you find all old people- REALLY old people. They're pretty much all cuban and they'll all listen to us but none of them will come to church so we don't spend much time down there. For the most part we know if they're sincere. Thankfully we have the gift of discernment to see. One of the hardest things honestly is getting people to come to church. They're used to just going to mass on christmas and easter and they have "jesus in their hearts" all the time. There isn't really a normal age. We had our lemonade stand and some days were good others weren't. Mostly we ended up with brazilians. The problem with that is they can understand us but we don't understand them. They used to have a portuegese branch here and port. missionaries but they got in trouble for some stuff and got pulled out. There is a sister in the mission right now from brazil and Hermana Felton is predicting she'll be in here next with me, but we'll see. The YSA branch loves us but the spanish branch still isn't super excited.