February 21, 2017 Coral Reef Week 5

1. I burned my hand making arepas. It was so worth it. I have 3 blisters now. haha.

2. Sister Hernandez with blonde hair

3. Me with black hair

4. Us driving to church

5. and 6. Sister Jess and I doing a face mask. I feel like half of my pictures are me doing a face mask ;)

1. We went to a little churro stand, (Juan the Churro man)

2. Regular, Chocolate, and Dulce de Leche fresh churros. Oh me word.

3. Us with the other sisters at the smoothie place

4. and 5. The super cool little beach, so pretty

6. Sister Hernandez caught a Renaquajo, (a tadpole)

                                      

Hola Everyone!!

I hope that you are all doing well, it has been another great week in Florida :). I can't believe that this transfer is almost over, I guess time flies when you are a missionary, because being a missionary is so fun!

We had a couple of cool experiences this week that I would like to share. First of all, we found an old teaching record in the back of our area book. We weren't sure who the person was, but it said that Augustina had been baptized a few years ago. We'd never seen her at church, so we decided to go stop by her house to see if she still lived there. We were so glad that we did. Augustina is 83 years old, she is from Cuba, she lives alone, and is really struggling with some health challenges that make it hard to come to church. She has not been visited in a very long time, and so we were so glad that we found her record. She was lonely, and needed someone to talk to. It was awesome to see how Heavenly Father knew that she needed a visit, and so he helped us to find her.

Another experience we had this week was on Sunday. It was Stake Conference, and before the meeting started we had gone to knock on our investigator, Carla's door. She didn't answer, and she didn't answer our phone calls either. We were sad that she wouldn't be able to make it. However, Charo came to church again. Charo is still trying to stop smoking, but she backtracked this week. We were both feeling very unsure of what to do, if we should keep working with her, or if she needs more time. The whole meeting I was praying that Heavenly Father would guide us and help us know what we needed to do. After the meeting was over, an awesome couple from our ward came over and started talking to Charo. They were baptized 3 years ago, so they know what it is like to be investigating the church. They kept asking Charo, "when are you going to get baptized?" Charo was still not accepting a baptismal date, she feels like she has not gained a testimony yet. I was just praying and thinking "Heavenly Father, please help us know what to say to help Charo. Help us to know if we should keep working with her. We love her, and we don't want to drop her, but if it isn't her time please help us to know that." Eventually that member couple left, and it was just us and Charo. We were talking to her a little bit more about baptism and everything, and then I had the strongest impression come into my mind. The words "if it was her time, she would have already received her answer." Those words were so clear, and I immediately felt the Spirit confirming them. We told Charo that we could not keep working with her, but that of course she is still invited to church and everything. She promised to keep praying, reading from the Book of Mormon, and coming to church. After such a stressful morning of not knowing how to help her, we walked out of the chapel feeling a lot of peace. Charo will get baptized someday, but it isn't her time right now. 

None of our other investigators came to church, so it is time to start over again! This week we will be looking for new people to teach. 

Something that I read in the Book of Mormon this morning that I want to share is in Alma 25, the very last verse. "And now behold, Ammon, and Aaron, and Omner, and Himni, and their brethren did rejoice exceedingly, for the success which they had had among the Lamanites, seeing that the Lord had granted unto them according to their prayers, and that he had also verified his word unto them in every particular." I love how it says that these faithful missionaries could see that the Lord had fulfilled ALL of the promises He had made to them. I have also studied a little bit about hope this week. In PMG it says that "hope is an abiding trust that the Lord will fulfill His promises to you." It all fits together so nicely! We can move forward, and have peace in knowing that the Lord will always fulfill His promises to us, but in His own timing. Even then, we can still have the assurance that "all things will work together for our good." 

I love you all!! Have a wonderful week!

Hermana Monson

Pictures from Coral Reef: Week 4 February 13, 2017

1. Us eating frozen pizza (slightly burnt, but hey.....pizza is pizza)

2. Sister Hernandez has helped  me to stop biting my nails, and we gave ourselves French Manicures (I feel so fancy!)

3. Us at the doctor's office (We waited for 45 minutes for the doctor to come in, say "follow my finger" *move his finger back and forth*, "yep, you have pink eye." I was like "are they paying you? I could have done that!!", but we needed the medicine, so it's all good.)

4. Last P-Day we discovered a hole-in-the wall Honduranian restaurant near our house with delicious baleadas!

Coral Reef: Week 4 February 13, 2017

Hola everyone!

I will start off by saying last Monday I was pretty excited to get out of the house after a day inside (Sister Hernandez was sick), but I think that the Lord knew I needed to learn patience because we had to stay in for 3 days this week!!

First off, Tuesday was a normal day of missionary work. We knocked doors, did some service at the Habitat for Humanity, and contacted a bunch of former investigators. That night we had dinner with a lady in our ward named Sister Robinson. She is the cutest little black lady, with an awesome Southern accent, and she is a midget. We loved talking to her because she has such an amazing conversion story. She was baptized about 5 years ago. Her mom had just passed away, and she had been thinking a lot about the afterlife when two sister missionaries knocked on her door. At first, she didn't want to hear anything they had to say, but then one of them mentioned living with her family forever, and she let them in. She was baptized 3 weeks later! Now, she is still in contact with those sister missionaries, and she LOVES them. She works in the temple every Thursday, which is amazing because she has a lot of health challenges, and she teaches early morning seminary. She is such a sweet person, and it was awesome to get to talk to her. She told us a fun fact: most of the Angel Moronis (on top of the temples) weigh about 350 pounds, the one in Florida weighs 650 so that it won't blow off in the hurricanes!

On Wednesday we had an awesome Zone Training! We talked about how "we do it for Christ." Every time we go out to knock doors, or talk to someone, or do anything we do it for Christ. It was awesome. 

On Thursday we had a lesson with Charo. She is still doing well, but she is feeling pretty depressed right now. She is in a very difficult situation with her daughter, and she is struggling with her health. I wish we could help her to see that the gospel is what will bring true happiness into her life!! This week we are focusing on helping her quit smoking. We are calling her every morning to check up, and keep her accountable, and we will try to visit her a few times this week. We are still praying that her heart will be softened, and that she will recognize her answer about the Book of Mormon. After our lesson with Charo we were out knocking some doors, and Sister Hernandez's eye starting doing some weird things. There was a TON of mucus coming out, and it was really red. We weren't really sure what was wrong with it, so we called the doctor. He told us that he would get back to us. Well, we had a lesson to teach with our investigator Jamie, so we decided to go for it. Even though we had to keep it really short, it was a great lesson. Jamie is really receptive to the things that we are teaching. She is usually just nodding her head and saying "yeah, that makes sense." We committed her to read from the Book of Mormon, and she promised to do it. The Spirit was so strong during the lesson, so we are excited. The only thing is that we have not been able to get a hold of her for a couple of days, and we know that she wasn't at church, so we are praying that everything is still good! After the lesson we got a call from the mission doctor, he told us to go to the urgent care, because she probably had an eye infection. By that time it was already past curfew so we had to call President Richardson to tell him we would be home late. We waited at the urgent care for 45 minutes, but finally the doctor diagnosed her with pink eye. When he told us that we should not have contact with people for 3-5 days our faces fell. 3-5 days?!

So, after going to fill her prescription Friday morning we barricaded ourselves in our house. Pink eye is super contagious, and even though we wanted to go proselyte, we knew it was better to stay in than getting everyone sick. So......for 3 days we cleaned the house, read the scriptures, painted our nails, talked, watched "The Testaments" 75 times, colored, and napped. We had fun together, but it was definitely a long 3 days, so we are super excited to get back to missionary work today!! Miracle of the week is that I did not get pink eye as well! We were praying so hard that I wouldn't get it, because that would mean another 3-5 days in the house. So far so good, so we will be back at it tonight! Having to stay inside for a few days helped me to realize  how much I love missionary work!! It is truly such a blessing to be able to talk, teach, and testify to people all day everyday about our Savior Jesus Christ. One of my favorite parts of the testaments is when Christ finally comes to visit the Americas, and he goes to heal a blind man, and all he says is the man's name "Helam." It makes me think of the day when we will see Christ, and he will call us by name. I think that the only thing I would be able to say is "thank you." I am so grateful for our Savior Jesus Christ, I know He lives, and we are so blessed to have His church on the earth so that we can receive all of the blessings He has to offer us. 

I love you all, I hope it is a great week!

Love, Hermana Monson

Coral Reef: Week 3 February 6, 2017

Hello everyone!

I hope it has been a wonderful week!!

My week started off with a fabulous P-Day, we went to a place called Fritanga for lunch. Such delicious food! We ate queso frito (fried cheese, as if cheese isn't already unhealthy enough, you fry it and then put it in a corn tortilla with cream on top). 

Then on Tuesday we had dinner with one of my most beloved ward members, Hermana Stand. She is in a wheelchair because she only has one leg. She is really struggling financially right now, but she is always trying to give us extra food, shampoo, soap, cleaner, and she even wanted to give us her night light! She is so adorable!! She also has a granddaughter that is 2 years old, and she loves us, so that is pretty fun. That night we had a relief society activity, which we were excited for. However, as we were waiting for the activity to start we were told that there was a man outside the church that wanted to know more. We were so excited, we ran outside, and met Brandon. He told us that God had led him to this church, and that he wanted to become a member. We welcomed him inside, and sat down to teach a lesson. About fifteen minutes into the lesson Sister Hernandez and I look at each other just like "we don't think he is entirely there in the head." An hour later we had sent "Brandon" (he told us his real name was Gabriel, the God of Love and Destruction) on his way with a pamphlet, and some food from the Relief Society activity. It was definitely one of our more interesting lessons!

On Wednesday we went to visit our investigator Charo. She is wonderful, and we love her. She is still searching for her answer about the Book of Mormon, and still coming to church. We brought our ward mission leader, a crazy old Cuban man named Hermano Sanchez. Well, Charo is a crazy old Cuban lady-so they hit it right off!! Sister Hernandez and I hardly got two words in, although we did manage to read 3 Nephi 11 together, which Charo loved. Eventually, we had to excuse ourselves to be home in time for curfew, but the two of them just kept talking for another hour and half after we'd left. One thing I am learning is that Cubans, and most Latins really, they LOVE to talk!! They are the best :). On Wednesday we also had a Zone Conference where we discussed the World-Wide Missionary Broadcast from the week earlier. I always love seeing the other missionaries, and especially President and Sister Richardson. They are just amazing!!

On Thursday we went to teach a woman named Jennifer, but when we got to her house she asked us if we could come back because she wanted us to teach her girls as well!! We stopped by about an hour later, and taught Jennifer (a single mom of 4), her two adorable daughters, and Marcus (the cutest little black baby you have ever seen!!) I love that family. Jennifer was pretty impressed with the message of the Restoration, she said "I've never even heard of that before!" She is excited to learn more! That night we went to teach another former investigator named Rafaela, she invited her mom and her sister to join us, so we ended up with 3 new investigators! They are all so sweet, and even though they were out of town this weekend, so they couldn't come to church, we are excited to keep teaching them!

On Friday we stopped by a ward members house to do some service for her. She has 4 little kids, and so she is pretty stressed. Her house was very messy, so we helped her clean. I wish we had taken a before and after picture because it looked so good when we were done!! My back hurt from mopping, and we were both exhausted, but she was so grateful. It was awesome because she told us that she'd been thinking the previous day that she just really wished she could clean, but it is hard for her with all of her little ones. It's almost like we were "an answer to prayer", such a good feeling!! That night we stopped by a less-active members house. She asked Sister Hernandez to show her how to make authentic Baleadas. Next thing we know we are cooking up a storm in the kitchen, and an hour later we sit down to some seriously delicious Baleadas with her and her family! It was great!

Saturday we went to give service at a food pantry called Feeding Southern Florida. It is so awesome to be able to see how many people this place helps, and some of them you can tell are in a really tough spot. We are usually in charge of registering people, and some of them only speak Spanish, so that is fun! I love service!

Yesterday Sister Hernandez was sick, so we only went to sacrament meeting and then came home. She slept all day, and I tried to entertain myself, but there is only so much you can do in a house with no tv on a fast sunday ;)!! Thankfully she is feeling better today, so we will be able to get back at it this week. Even one day inside the house made me realize how much I love missionary work!! I love this gospel, I know it's true, and I'm so grateful for the opportunity to share it with my brothers and sisters here in Florida! 

I love you all! Have a wonderful week!

Love, Hermana Monson

Coral Reef: Week 2 January 30, 2017

I hope that everyone is doing well, this has been a great week :)!

Last P-Day we had an amazing zone activity where we filled up water balloons and then used them to play capture the flag ("quidditch"). 

On Wednesday we had a great world-wide missionary conference, and we got to hear from some of the apostles. I loved it! I loved how they talked about teaching repentance to everyone that we meet, because that is how they will come to know the Savior. In order to be able to preach repentance we have to make it a daily part of our lives. It is such a blessing to be able to repent each day, and strive to be better! They also made some changes to the missionary schedule, which will allow us to choose when we do our studies, rather than having them at a fixed time. I think it will be a weird adjustment, but hopefully it will allow us to use our time more effectively.

On Friday we went to give service at a place called Habitat for Humanity. That was fun because we met a lot of new people, there was a girl visiting from Finland, and also a super cute old couple from Puerto Rico that call themselves "mami and papi". We had to help move a bunch of refurbished chairs out to a big truck so that they could be shipped to a church. It is a pretty cool place. 

On Saturday we had a fire exchange with out STLs, Sister Woods and Sister Jess. We started off with lunch at a place called Fritanga, they had the most delicious carne asada! After that I got to work with Sister Jess for a little while. She is AMAZING! She is so fun, and has a way of showing so much love to the people, I truly hope I can be more like her. It was so great to get to work with her for a little bit. We were able to pray with a couple of black sisters named Tina and Yoshmina. Tina's son was shot and killed just a couple of months ago, and so she really appreciated the prayer. She has amazing faith in Jesus Christ, and she told us all about how it has been hard for her to forgive the person that killed her son, but with Christ's help she was able to do it, and now she feels peace. She was an amazing example of forgiveness, and it was an amazing witness to us of what the Savior can do in our lives, if we will let him. 

Later on Saturday night an adorable member couple took us out for hamburgers. They are from Mexico, and they LOVE missionary work. They were baptized about 4 years ago, and they are always ready to invite their friends and family to hear our message. It was pretty hilarious because the Elders from our ward came as well. One of the Elders will be going home in about 4 weeks, and so the Enriquez family was trying to do him a favor by setting him up with their friend, a cute waitress that tended the bar! Elder Pineda was so uncomfortable, and it was really funny for the rest of us to watch!!

Yesterday was a great day at church. Elder Pineda gave an amazing talk in sacrament meeting about God's love for us, and it really touched a lot of church members. Charo came to church, all on her own, and we were very happy about that. She is still reading in the Book of Mormon, and praying, but she still doesn't feel like she has received an answer. We aren't exactly sure what else we need to do to help her, but the Lord does, and I'm sure He will let us know!

After church we went out to knock doors and it was POURING rain. We got soaked, and were pretty sure that we were going to catch pneumonia, then when we got back inside and looked at the thermometer it said 57 degrees, then we felt a little wimpy ;). I think it's the humidity that makes it feel so cold. 

That is all for this week! We were not able to find any new investigators, but we have high hopes! I know that this is the Lord's work, and that as long as we are doing what He would have us do, we can't go wrong. I love you all :)!!

Love, Hermana Monson

Coral Reef: Week 1 January 24, 2017

Hola everyone!!

I hope you are all doing well back at home. I am doing great! My new area is wonderful :)! It is a huge mixture of people: Jamaicans, Haitians, Americans, and people from every Latin country you could thing of. That is probably my favorite thing about Miami, it is so diverse!! The new ward we are serving in is bilingual, which definitely creates a big of a language barrier for the members, but they are great. Of course, I am the new ward chorister, which is a little interesting because half of the songs are in English, and the other half are in Spanish, so only half the congregation sings at the time. Sometimes I feel like I am doing a solo, but esta bien :).

This week we have not seen much success with finding new people to teach. The only person we are currently working with is an investigator named Charo. She is from Cuba, and she has a Jehovah's Witness background. She is very very cautious to accept the things that we are teaching her, but she truly wants to believe that they are true. She is currently reading in the Book of Mormon, and praying to receive her answer. We are hopeful that she will be willing to move forward this week and set a baptismal date. It was quite the miracle because when we went to teach her on Saturday we brought another ward member with us. Charo was having a really hard time understanding what we were trying to teach her about temples and baptisms for the dead, but the ward member was able to jump in, explain everything perfectly, and bear her testimony about eternal families. It was really just what Charo needed to hear. Now the two of them are great friends, and the ward member that came with us (Sister Wilson) is giving Charo a ride to church every Sunday. Charo really enjoyed church yesterday. She especially loved the lesson we had in Relief Society about faith, we are hoping that will help her to understand how she doesn't have to know everything in order to know that the church is true, she just has to have a witness of the Book of Mormon. She is very sweet, and I just love her. When we went over to her house one night she made us "crema de malanga." I am not entirely sure what a malanga is, it looks kind of like a potatoe, but this crema stuff was so good! I was similar to the best potatoe soup you have ever tasted. I will definitely be needing the recipe from her!

That is about all I have time for this week. Just know that I am doing well, and that I love being a missionary. It is such a blessing to be able to represent our Savior, Jesus Christ. I am so grateful for him, for everything he did for us to make it possible for us to be better each day. I am grateful for this gospel in my life, and I know it is the way to happiness in this life, and in the next!

Love, Hermana Monson

At first I was sad to leave Fountainbleau, but my new area has been great so far! It is back to being more like it was in Fort Meyers, with a big mixture of black people, white people, and Spanish. We have this one city called Goulds that we knocked in yesterday, and it is GHETTO. It is a neighborhood full of mostly black people, and some of them are pretty scary, but most of them are really humble and really sweet. There are always a bunch of kids just "chillin' on the screets" (Ghetto slang, I'm getting pretty good at it if I do say so myself ;)).The ward is bilingual, which I thing is really hard because there is such a language barrier between some of the members. However, we have met some really great members so far, and I love them! There is one little old lady that is especially cute, her name is Sister Stand. She only has one leg. She has diabetes, and all sorts of other health challenges, she struggles to pay the bills because she can't really work, she lives off of food stamps, and yet, she ALWAYS wants to give us food! It is so adorable! After church she came up to me and said "if you don't have any deodorant, or soap, or milk, or if something is bothering you-then you call me!" It was adorable (she speaks Spanish).

My new companion: Sister Hernandez. She is the most adorable, sassy, cute, sweet little latin of all time! I just love her! She is so much fun! She is originally from Honduras, and speaks fluent Spanish. Her family currently lives in North Carolina, and she lived there for about 7 years before her mission, which means she also speaks fluent English. She only has one transfer left after this on her mission, and the only reason she is excited about that is because she has a boyfriend that will also be getting home from his mission soon.....so I guess you could say things are getting pretty serious. She is just wonderful, and has a lot of love for the people.

January 17, 2017 Last Week in Fontainebleau!

Hola everyone!!

I hope you are all doing well :). I found out last night that I will be transferring out of Fountainbleau, I will definitely miss this area, the people, and especially my companion Sister Whitney. However, I am super excited about my new area! It is called Coral Reef South, and my companion's name is Hermana Hernandez. I don't know much about my companion, or the area, except that it is still in Miami, yay :)!

Last Monday we had an amazing zone activity. We met at a huge park that was right along the beach, it was so pretty. Then we took of a bunch of socks and nylons and filled them with flour. We used them to throw at each other for capture the flag and "hunger games". It was so much fun, by the end we were all covered in flour!

Towards the beginning of the week we had a lot of lessons fall through. It is especially frustrating when we bring a member to the lesson, and the investigator is not home when they said they would be. We ended up dropping a lot of our investigators at the beginning of the week, but that left us a clean slate to work with! 

We have been biking pretty much everyday this week because we don't have a lot of miles left with our car. On Friday the craziest thing happened, both Sister Whitney and I got hit by a car! On two separate occasions! No worries, we are totally fine, it was just so crazy! We were biking along next to a really tall hedge, and all of the sudden the hedge opened up into the entrance of a parking lot, a car came zooming out of the parking lot, and so I yanked on my brakes, but I wasn't fast enough. The car hit my front tire, and sent my handlebars flying, I nearly tipped off my bike, but I managed to stay  up. The man got out to make sure I was all right, I assured him it was all good, and we kept biking. A few minutes later, the exact same thing happened to Sister Whitney, only she got clipped on the back tire. Thankfully there was no damage done to her or her bike. We know that the Lord was protecting us that day, the only repercussions was that my thumb was pretty bruised for a few days from being hit by the handlebars of my bike, so we are very thankful that Heavenly Father was watching out for us. 

One amazing miracle that we saw this week was that we knocked into the most adorable old lady named Lupercia on Saturday. Hers was the first house we knocked on, and she let us right in. We taught her about the Restoration, and she agreed to come to church. Well, we waited and waited and waited, and we were so sad when she didn't show up! We went to go visit her on Sunday afternoon to see what had happened. Turns out, she had gone to church, but once she got to the parking lot she was too afraid to go inside! She has a prosthetic leg, and she told us that the church was much farther away than she'd thought. Her daughter drove her on Sunday, but she told us that if she couldn't walk to church every Sunday, she didn't want to commit to come. We assured her that the members would be happy to give her a ride, and she happily promised to come next week, and go inside. We promised to bring a member to our next lesson so that she could know someone from the church, she readily agreed saying that she would need to know the members because she was going to be one! We taught her about the Book of Mormon on Sunday as well. She loves it! She has lots of memory problems, but when we went to visit her on Monday she was so excited to tell us all about the chapter she'd been reading, and she really understood it well. She says the most humble, and heartfelt prayers. She had never been taught to pray before, so it is very special to listen to her pray. She is always sure to thank God for sending her the "dos angeles hermosas" (two beautiful angels), to teach her about the gospel. I love her so much!! I will be so sad to be leaving her, but we will make sure that the new missionaries will continue to visit her. 

Another funny thing is that Lupercia lives right next to a HUGE Catholic seminary, and during our lessons there are always Catholic priests walking home from their classes. We always just smile and wave, but be sure to let them know that Lupercia is OUR investigator. So funny!

Last night we were able to teach a young mother named Aumara. It was an amazing experience to be able to teach her because she is extremely set in her ways, but she also has a lot of faith in God. She told us right from the beginning that she was simply there to learn about what we believe, but that she would not be likely to change her mind. Well, by the end of the message of the Restoration, she had agreed to come to church, and accepted our baptismal invitation! The Spirit was so strong during that lesson, and we know she felt it. She has studied almost every religion you could think of, and finally ended up choosing to be Catholic, because that is what she grew up with. She told us that she doesn't really believe what the Catholic church teaches, but that she felt the need to have religion in her life. We promised her that this is what she's been looking for, and she wholeheartedly agreed. We were a little confused because for a moment she seemed really upset, she told us that "while you were teaching you made me have doubt, and I don't like doubt." We then realized that she was doubting what she thought she knew to be true about God, and accepting the truth, that he is our loving Heavenly Father! She wants us to come back and teach her whole family, so cool! Once again, I am so sad to be leaving her, but I know the new missionaries will do great.

Another wonderful thing that we saw on Sunday was that our recent convert Mari is being fellow shipped so well by the ward. We have been really worried about her  because she is going through a lot of challenges in her life right now, including a lengthy court case with her x husband. On Sunday, the bishop made sure to get her a temple recommend interview, and the family history coordinator sat down with her to help her find some names. Now she is ready to take her grandmother's name to the temple, and she is so excited! I love Mari, and I will miss her a lot, but it gives us peace of mind knowing that she is in good hands.

That is all for this week, I will be excited to let you know about my new area! I just want to end with my testimony that I know that God answers prayers. I can't even tell you how many times this week I was absolutely exhausted, and didn't think that I could keep going, but then Heavenly Father put a little something in our path to make it all worth it. He loves us so much, and I am so grateful to have that knowledge. I love you all, and I hope it is a great week!!

Love, Hermana Monson

Pictures:

Palacio de Los Jugos, the most amazingly delicious Latin food.

Our zone activity on Monday, such an amazing view of the ocean with the Miami skyline. Mari, our recent convert.

Sister Whitney and I drinking Coco Frio, a Latin drink where they just drink coconut water straight out of the coconut! It didn't actually taste that good, but hey, it was super cool.