Miami Lakes: Week 1 May 30, 2017 (Happy Birthday Hermana Monson!!)

Sadie's companion and the other sisters they live with made her yummy crepes and decorated for her birthday!

Hola everyone!

I hope you have had a wonderful week! 

It has been great in my new area so far! I love it! It has such a wide range of people because some of our area is extremely nice, rich, gated communities and another part of our area is composed of the biggest trailer park I have ever seen! 

I have absolutely loved my new companion, Sister Smith. She has been so sweet and so much fun! We live with our STLs, Sister Call and Sister Diamond, so that has also been lots of fun! 

Wednesday was a super long day, and mostly consisted of transferring from one area to another, knocking, etc. 

Thursday we had District Training. My new district is composed of 4 sisters and 2 elders, which is weird. It is so small! But we had a great time. We found out that our specific stake has been selected to test a new program from the General Authorities. This program is where members will be going on splits with the missionaries to make rescue visits to less-active members. When we are there, the members will ask the less-actives if the missionaries can "practice" teaching them the lessons. So that way the less-actives will be hearing the missionary lessons again, the members will be involved, and we get more practice teaching! Apparently we will be having more trainings about that to come, so it should be cool! That night we had ward correlation, and I am pretty sure my new Ward Mission Leader will be one of the most effective ones I have met so far! He is an adorable old Guatemalan man, and his wife came too. I just love them already, Hno and Hna Ortiz.

On Friday and Saturday we ended up teaching a couple of lessons to people while we were knocking doors. It was crazy because there were 3 lessons that we taught that we felt were going so well, the spirit was so strong, and we thought for sure they would at least come to church. However, at the end, all of them said they were just not ready for this. We couldn't understand it. They said they believed everything we were saying, and felt so good about it, yet they were not willing to act. One of them, Juana Maria did end up coming to church though! She is an adorable little old lady, and she was immediately fellowshipped so well by the amazing members of our ward, so she had a wonderful experience. At the end of the day, she still is not ready to keep learning or be baptized, but she will be one day!

On Sunday we went to visit a less-active member, and when we first opened the door she did not seem very interested. We asked if we could just share a quick prayer with her, she reluctantly agreed. Next thing we know, she opens right up to us and ends up telling us her entire life story for an hour and a half. She even promised to come to church next week! She invited us to come back again, so we will be visiting her tonight. It is amazing how the Spirit can touch people's hearts! 

Yesterday we got special permission to use the computers and work on something called the "Blackbird." Since we don't have ipads, we used the computers to create a specialized map for each of our areas that includes less-active members, members, former investigators, etc. These maps are going to be so awesome! They help us use our time way more effectively, so we are excited about that. It took us 5 hours to do it, and we will have to finish them tomorrow, but it will be worth it. I have used them in past areas, and they are very helpful. 

Last night we had a cool experience where we had just a couple of minutes before an appointment, so we decided to knock some doors. In the few minutes that we had we ran into an atheist, and another man that believes in God, but "stays away from religion because they all claim to be right and he really just doesn't even know what to believe." We had the chance to testify for just a quick minute that God really does live, and that He loves them. We came away knowing that Heavenly Father had put us there to help his children in that moment. 

It has been such a great week! I know that Heavenly Father lives and loves all of us!

Love, Hermana Monson


              Saying Goodbye to Coral Reef:  Hermana Carling and the other Sisters.