Coral Reef South April 24, 2017

Hello everyone!

I'm sorry I did not have time to write a group email last week, but it has been a great couple of weeks! 

First off, one piece of SUPER exciting news is that Chikira got baptized on Saturday! Chikira was an investigator that we were teaching about a month ago, but then she moved to North Miami and we lost contact with her. We were so sad because we love her! However, after receiving her new address we were able to send some missionaries from North Miami to meet her, and they helped her be baptized! We were SO SO SO happy to hear it! I wish we could have been there, but I am so happy for her.

This week has been pretty crazy. On Friday we literally went from 3:00 in the afternoon until 9:30 at night without even pausing for dinner! It was such a crazy day, but so worth it! We have spent most of our time focused on helping our Cuban family. We have had a lesson with them almost every single night this week, and we have had to make sure to bring lots of ward members with us, because it is so hard to understand their Spanish! In fact, one night Sister Carling and I were feeling so overwhelmed because we had taught them the Word of Wisdom, but when we tried to ask them how it was going the next day they gave us a huge long story, we could only understand part of it, so we really weren't sure if Renaldo (the dad) had quit smoking! At that moment our Zone Leaders (who share a ward with us) called to ask a question, and we were telling them what had happened, and so they offered to come to our next lesson with us. We gratefully accepted. One of them is Mexican, so he speaks fluent Spanish. That helped a ton! So we ended up having another great lesson with them, in which we learned that Renaldo had quit smoking! We went over the baptismal interview questions with them, and we believe that they are ready! 

We were SO stressed yesterday when they were late to church, and they missed the Sacrament, because they have to see that sacrament at least once before they can be baptized, and they are getting baptized this upcoming Saturday! They missed the sacrament in our ward, but thankfully there is another ward that meets at a later time, so we were able to go to that ward so that they could take the sacrament. We LOVE this family, and I am so excited to help them get baptized this upcoming Saturday! The little 8 year old girl, Yailen, loves us. Every time we come over she is waiting for us at the doorstep, and she always runs up to give us a big hug. The 5 year old boy is also super cute, and I love his Spanish. He has so much energy, but as long as you show him where we are reading from the Book of Mormon, and help him follow along, he will hold still for the lesson. 

This week I was also able to go on an exchange to Riverside with our STL Sister Leslie! It was a great time! I love the area of Riverside because there is a ton of Spanish. It was funny because they had a correlation meeting with their ward mission leader, and he was asking if any of the missionaries play the piano. They all said no, so he asked if I did, and when I said yes he told me that from now on he will be praying that I get transferred to their ward so I can play the piano for them. I will be praying too! Sister Leslie also taught me how to make flan! 

One cool miracle we saw this week was that one day we were our knocking doors, and we talked to a man outside his garage. He did not want anything to do with us, but he told us that his neighbor might like a prayer. We go knock on this neighbors door, and it turns out that  a less-active member lives there. His name is Jorge, he is confined to a wheelchair due to lots of health problems, and he has not been to church for a long time. We were able to visit him, and his son David a few times this week, and they ended up coming back to church yesterday! It was a total miracle that we ended up in their neighborhood because we had no idea that they even lived there.

We had a crazy experience on Saturday when we were stopped at a red light, and suddenly right in front of us there was a huge crash. Mostly the sound is what alerted me, so I looked up in time to see a white semi spinning onto the on-ramp of the nearby turnpike. A little black SUV was also spinning through the intersection, then it crashed into a stoplight, and then the stoplight fell over. We just looked at each other in shock, pulled over, and called 911. Lots of people ended up stopping to help. From what we could tell no one was hurt, we weren't able to stay for long because our car was blocking traffic. The paramedics showed up a few moments after we left, so we are hoping everyone was ok. 

The funny story of the week is when we were out knocking one day we ran into a little old Indian lady. She grew up as a Hindu, but she converted to Christianity when she was 17. She told us about all of these visions that she has had, and didn't even pause for breath! We listened to her for about 20 minutes, when she declared that she would like to "bless us." Before we could say anything she puts one of her hands on each of our foreheads and declares a blessing upon  us. The funniest part was when she wanted us to repeat after her and "accept Jesus" and "truly mean it." We weren't entirely sure what to do, we felt like we shouldn't repeat after her, so she just kind of told us that "when we were ready to accept Jesus" that we could give her a call. She was so cute! Her name was Goldy, and now we have her phone number "in case we ever need anything." 

Just one quick thought, I have been studying a lot about peace this week. I don't have a lot of time to write all of the scripture references, but one thing that I learned is that in order to have peace we have to become more like Jesus Christ. He is truly the Prince of Peace, and it is as we are striving to do as He would do that we can find peace within ourselves and our families, even in the midst of a crazy world. I know that He is the Savior, and I know His gospel is here on the earth to bless us, and I am so grateful for that!

Love, Hermana Monson

100 Montaditos is a Spanish Restaurant we tried last P-Day (the food is from Spain), oh me word!

Staying in Coral Reef!! April 17, 2017

Here is a bit that I loved from Sadie's letter to me:

I love that thought about the Book of Mormon bringing us closer to Christ. I just barely started reading the Book of Mormon again, and this time I am going through and highlighting all of the times it says His name. I was so surprised at how often His name is mentioned, even within the first few chapters! It made me realize how truly involved He is in the story of the Book of Mormon, it really is another testament of Him. Something that made us laugh was that at the beginning of this week we had an unusual amount of people deny that we were Christians when we were out knocking doors. It usually goes like "Oh, you're Mormons? Well, I'm a Christian."  "We are Christians too!" "But you believe in...like...a different Jesus, right?" "No, we know that Jesus Christ is the Savior of the world, the only one." "So then you believe it is only through Him you can be saved? No other way?" "Yes." We seriously had that conversation at least 15 times in 2 days, which was weird. We honestly thought that maybe something had happened on the media to make everyone believe that Mormons weren't Christians, but then I got the letter you sent in the Easter package where you said you had been praying that I would have extra opportunities to testify of Christ. IT WORKED! Your prayers were answered! So thank you! That is one of my favorite things to testify of, it is so easy to testify of Jesus Christ.
Hello everyone!

I hope it has been a great week! We found out last night that both Sister Carling and I will be staying to finish training in Coral Reef South, we were so relieved. I love this area and these people! I'm excited to work here for another transfer!

Monday:

After P-Day had ended we went out to knock doors. We had been praying to find a hispanic family of four, with one son that is baptismal age and a younger daughter. Well, first door we knocked on that night we ran into Ana. She let us right in to share a prayer with her, her 7 year old daughter, and 11 year old son. She is from Cuba, but also speaks perfect English. Her husband came home part way through the lesson, and so an hour and a half later we walked out of their house having taught them the Restoration. They loved it, and are just the sweetest family. The other part of that story is a little bit sad. We went back to teach them on Wednesday, and Ana answered the door. She apologized for making us come all the way back to her house, but that ever since we had started teaching them things had not gotten better, but that they had gotten much worse. She said that she did not feel like she should continue learning with us. We were heart broken, they are such a cute little family! We testified to her that just like God is real, and Jesus Christ is real, the devil is also real and he does not want these blessings for her and her family. She is not ready at this time, but we know that she will remember the message that we shared, and that one day she will be ready! If nothing else, they will remember the way they felt the first night we taught them as a family, and they all sat on the couch to watch the new "Prince of Peace" video. I love that video! It was still a really cool miracle that we knocked right into our vision family at the very first door that night. 

Wednesday:

I woke up on Wednesday morning, walked into the bathroom, and was startled to see my eye was super super puffy and swollen. I couldn't even open it! I called Sister Carling, and the other sisters in our house. None of us were sure what that would be from, so I decided to take some Benedryll and see if that would help. Well, an hour later I still couldn't open my eye so we called the mission nurse who told us to go to the nearest walk-in clinic. The doctors at the walk in clinic took one look at my eye, and said I would need to see an eye specialist, or at the very least go to the urgent care. So, we went to the urgent care. The doctor determined that I had some type of allergic reaction in my eye, he wasn't sure from what. I had to get two shots, and they gave me a prescription. The shots were not very fun, but they worked! About an hour later my eye was starting to return to normal size again. I was pretty drowsy from all of the medication, so we had to take a quick nap. Plus, I think I would have looked a little scary walking around with my eye swollen shut. Thankfully, by the time I woke up from my nap it was pretty much back to normal. We still aren't sure what caused it, but I just had to take pills for a few days, and all is well now :). 

That night we met with Angela briefly, she is doing well. She LOVES "the word" (which is what she calls the Book of Mormon, conference talks, etc). My family sent her a picture of the temple, and of Jesus Christ which made her cry. She loved it! She will hopefully be going to the temple next week!

Thursday:

We went to give service for a man who is selling his parent's old house. The house has been abandoned for five years, and so there were mouse droppings GALORE, and cockroaches all over the place. It took Sister Carling and I an hour and 45 minutes to clean one bathroom. We could smell nothing but bleach cleaner for the rest of the day, but boy did that bathroom look better by the time we were through with it!

That night we went to visit a less-active member named Tarri Bauer. She LOVES animals, and loves to tell us about her horse. He is pretty much like her child, so we spent an hour looking at horse pictures on her phone and eating pizza. It was a good visit, and she promised to watch President Monson's talk from conference.

Saturday: 

We went to give service at a Farmshare distribution. It was a drive-through style food pantry, so our job was to register all the cars. Almost all of them spoke Spanish so it was good practice to go down a HUGE line of cars and get people registered for their food. We were there for 5 hours, and we gave away so much food! Bonus: there was a bunch of left over food so we got a ton of frozen chicken, tomatoes, green beans, and cheesecake!

That afternoon the Elders in our ward had a baptism. I was playing the piano, so we went to help them set everything up. It was a really nice service, for a young woman named Kay Kay. She had to be baptized 4 times because her dress and her hair kept flying up!

Sunday:

Angela received a calling as "door greeter." It was so fun to watch her stand outside and tell EVERYONE (old, young, male, female, missionary, investigator, etc) that she was "givin' out hugs today!" So, everyone got a hug from Angela as they walked inside, it was so cute. 

We saw an awesome miracle at church. One of our ward members brought a friend to church. This friend's name is Judenea. Her and her family arrived from Cuba 1 week ago, so they are brand new! They loved church, and we were able to go teach them yesterday! Judenea, her adorable 8 yr. old daughter, and her two teenage sons all accepted baptism. We are so excited to keep teaching them this week!

That is all for this week! I hope you have a wonderful Easter weekend, and remember that it is truly only through our Savior, Jesus Christ that we can find hope and happiness. I love Him, and I love His gospel!! 

Love, Hermana Monson

1. Sister Adams transferring out

2. Yay! Easter Package!

3. Sister Carling's mom sent me a little easter bag

4. and 5. Easter Sunday

6. We printed off this picture and we are going to send it with a letter to Chikira

April 11, 2017

       Hermana Monson had to make a doctors visit for her swollen eye:  diagnosis?.....an allergic reaction.

                                                              Homemade pedicure night.

                                                      They made each other planner covers.


Hello everyone!

I hope it has been a great week! We found out last night that both Sister Carling and I will be staying to finish training in Coral Reef South, we were so relieved. I love this area and these people! I'm excited to work here for another transfer!

Monday:

After P-Day had ended we went out to knock doors. We had been praying to find a hispanic family of four, with one son that is baptismal age and a younger daughter. Well, first door we knocked on that night we ran into Ana. She let us right in to share a prayer with her, her 7 year old daughter, and 11 year old son. She is from Cuba, but also speaks perfect English. Her husband came home part way through the lesson, and so an hour and a half later we walked out of their house having taught them the Restoration. They loved it, and are just the sweetest family. The other part of that story is a little bit sad. We went back to teach them on Wednesday, and Ana answered the door. She apologized for making us come all the way back to her house, but that ever since we had started teaching them things had not gotten better, but that they had gotten much worse. She said that she did not feel like she should continue learning with us. We were heart broken, they are such a cute little family! We testified to her that just like God is real, and Jesus Christ is real, the devil is also real and he does not want these blessings for her and her family. She is not ready at this time, but we know that she will remember the message that we shared, and that one day she will be ready! If nothing else, they will remember the way they felt the first night we taught them as a family, and they all sat on the couch to watch the new "Prince of Peace" video. I love that video! It was still a really cool miracle that we knocked right into our vision family at the very first door that night. 

Wednesday:

I woke up on Wednesday morning, walked into the bathroom, and was startled to see my eye was super super puffy and swollen. I couldn't even open it! I called Sister Carling, and the other sisters in our house. None of us were sure what that would be from, so I decided to take some Benedryll and see if that would help. Well, an hour later I still couldn't open my eye so we called the mission nurse who told us to go to the nearest walk-in clinic. The doctors at the walk in clinic took one look at my eye, and said I would need to see an eye specialist, or at the very least go to the urgent care. So, we went to the urgent care. The doctor determined that I had some type of allergic reaction in my eye, he wasn't sure from what. I had to get two shots, and they gave me a prescription. The shots were not very fun, but they worked! About an hour later my eye was starting to return to normal size again. I was pretty drowsy from all of the medication, so we had to take a quick nap. Plus, I think I would have looked a little scary walking around with my eye swollen shut. Thankfully, by the time I woke up from my nap it was pretty much back to normal. We still aren't sure what caused it, but I just had to take pills for a few days, and all is well now :). 

That night we met with Angela briefly, she is doing well. She LOVES "the word" (which is what she calls the Book of Mormon, conference talks, etc). My family sent her a picture of the temple, and of Jesus Christ which made her cry. She loved it! She will hopefully be going to the temple next week!

Thursday:

We went to give service for a man who is selling his parent's old house. The house has been abandoned for five years, and so there were mouse droppings GALORE, and cockroaches all over the place. It took Sister Carling and I an hour and 45 minutes to clean one bathroom. We could smell nothing but bleach cleaner for the rest of the day, but boy did that bathroom look better by the time we were through with it!

That night we went to visit a less-active member named Tarri Bauer. She LOVES animals, and loves to tell us about her horse. He is pretty much like her child, so we spent an hour looking at horse pictures on her phone and eating pizza. It was a good visit, and she promised to watch President Monson's talk from conference.

Saturday: 

We went to give service at a Farmshare distribution. It was a drive-through style food pantry, so our job was to register all the cars. Almost all of them spoke Spanish so it was good practice to go down a HUGE line of cars and get people registered for their food. We were there for 5 hours, and we gave away so much food! Bonus: there was a bunch of left over food so we got a ton of frozen chicken, tomatoes, green beans, and cheesecake!

That afternoon the Elders in our ward had a baptism. I was playing the piano, so we went to help them set everything up. It was a really nice service, for a young woman named Kay Kay. She had to be baptized 4 times because her dress and her hair kept flying up!

Sunday:

Angela received a calling as "door greeter." It was so fun to watch her stand outside and tell EVERYONE (old, young, male, female, missionary, investigator, etc) that she was "givin' out hugs today!" So, everyone got a hug from Angela as they walked inside, it was so cute. 

We saw an awesome miracle at church. One of our ward members brought a friend to church. This friend's name is Judenea. Her and her family arrived from Cuba 1 week ago, so they are brand new! They loved church, and we were able to go teach them yesterday! Judenea, her adorable 8 yr. old daughter, and her two teenage sons all accepted baptism. We are so excited to keep teaching them this week!

That is all for this week! I hope you have a wonderful Easter weekend, and remember that it is truly only through our Savior, Jesus Christ that we can find hope and happiness. I love Him, and I love His gospel!! 

Love, Hermana Monson

April 3, 2017

                     Hermana Monson celebrating 9 months, and Hermana Carling celebrating 1 month!!

Hola everyone!

I hope this email finds you all well. I am doing so great! I loved General Conference this weekend, I am so pumped to keep going hard and spreading the joyful message of this gospel. Also, I was SO excited to find out that there will be a temple in Saratoga Springs!!! I did a miniature freakout in the chapel where we were watching conference, and everyone looked at me weird, but I was so excited! I cannot wait to see it finished and to be able to go inside someday! Yay for the faithful saints back in Saratoga :)!

We were a little worried because we didn't have any more investigators to work with after Angela's baptism, but apparently we had nothing to worry about because on Monday night we went out and found 3 new investigators in the short 3 hours we have to proselyte after P-Day! We were so excited. Total this week we found 6, but unfortunately all of them have dropped off by now, except Jose.

We met Jose while knocking, he is an old man from Cuba, and he is very sweet. He has Alzheimer's, has suffered from 2 strokes recently that have made him blind in one eye and mostly blind in the other, and he has had all of his furniture repossessed so he lives in a pretty much empty little apartment. Yet, he still has so much faith and love for God. That is one of my favorite things about the mission, is getting to see people that are going through such hard things, but they have not lost their faith. I don't think that we will be able to keep teaching him because his Alzheimer's makes it difficult for him to remember previous lessons, and he doesn't have a phone, and he is possibly moving to Orlando, but he is an amazing example of faith. We brought our crazy 72 year old Cuban ward mission leader to one of our lessons this week, and the two of them are practically best friends now, so that was awesome!

Other highlights from the week were that we were able to go help a member in our ward clean her house. She has 4 little kids, and when we showed up her house was nearly unlivable with clothes all over the place, food/drink spills everywhere, and garbage littering the floor. An hour and a half later Sister Carling and I felt pretty accomplished as the house looked a lot better! I love doing that kind of service, plus an extra bonus was that she made us BLTs for lunch, so hey, it doesn't get much better than that! 

Another highlight from the week was on Saturday night after conference we went to visit a recent convert named Maria Medina. She is kind of grumpy old lady at first, but once you get to know her she is the sweetest thing on the planet, and I love her, and also she makes the best flan of all time. We had dinner with her, and afterwards we were just talking. She doesn't usually open up to us very much, but that night she expressed some doubts that she was having about the Prophet Joseph Smith. We listened, and after she had finished speaking I was racking my brain trying so hard to think of what Heavenly Father would have us say. Nothing was coming to mind, so I just decided to bear my testimony. I told her about how I gained my own testimony of the Book of Mormon through study and prayer, and how this helped me to plant the seed of my testimony about the prophet Joseph Smith, which has since grown. Sister Carling also shared her testimony, and the spirit was very strong. By the time we had left, she was feeling much better, and she really appreciated the visit. We will definitely be visiting her more frequently this week to try to help her work through her doubts. 

One of my favorite visits of the whole week was when we went to visit Angela after General Conference. She had been very busy all weekend, so we weren't able to see her until Sunday night after conference. She was so excited to tell us about all of the things that she'd learned. She had taken 6 pages of notes on the first two sessions alone. She raved about how humble the prophet was, and about how beautiful the music was, and how many people there were in the conference center. She also couldn't believe that there are 155 temples around the world, she was so excited. She was also telling us about how she had visited another church for a Women's Conference with her son's girlfriend's mother. She told us "I just didn't feel the same. I never want to go back!" She is doing so well. She also showed her son Carlos a little bit of general conference, and she said he seemed pretty interested. We are going to start teaching him this week and we are so excited! Another awesome thing about Angela is that we took her to visit Sister Robinson, a little black lady from our ward who was also raised Baptist. The two of them hit it off so well, we literally didn't even say anything for the whole lesson. The two of them just talked about God and their "journey to find the truth." Next thing we know, a few days later we get a call from Angela who told us she had just finished taking Sister Robinson (who can't drive due to a recent surgery) to the grocery store, after which she had raked her front yard, and cleaned her house. Angela is so awesome! She loves to serve people, and she told us "I can feel myself changing, ever since you knocked on my door." So cool!

Just a quick thought that I loved from General Conference. The whole conference seemed to themed on focusing ourselves more on Jesus Christ. So many of the talks were about how it is only Jesus Christ that can bring us peace, hope, and happiness in the hard times, but also in the good times. I know that is true. I feel so grateful for Him. One of my favorite talks was about "looking up" to Christ, instead of looking around. Rather than focusing on what other people think, or what the world is doing, as long as we keep our focus pointed on Christ everything will work out! I hope that everyone has a great week!

Love, Hermana Monson

Coral Reef March 27, 2017 Angela's Baptism!

Hello everyone!

I hope you are all doing well. I am doing so great! This week has been absolutely amazing!! 

On Tuesday the highlight was having a lesson with Rose and Angela, we reviewed the baptismal interview questions with them so that they would know what to expect. They both answered them all perfectly! It was so awesome! 

On Wednesday we went to Angela's house to show the video of the Restoration. When we arrived she was so excited because she'd made us tacos and brownies and icecream. She loves us, and I think it was some small way she felt like she could serve us. We watched the short video of the Restoration with her, and she loved it! The whole time she just kept saying "wow, this is such a good movie." At the end she begged us to know where she could buy one. We told her that she could keep the copy we'd brought, and she was so excited to share it with her family. After that we had another great lesson with Rose and she loved the idea of doing baptisms for the dead, and also eternal families. 

On Thursday Rose and Angela both had their baptismal interviews with our district leader. Sister Carling and I were a little nervous, but they both did great! Our district leader said he was very impressed, so we were very excited. We spent a lot of time trying to get everything figured out for the baptismal program, but we got it all set!

On Friday we had interviews with President Richardson. He talked to me a lot about how to help our investigators stay active after they are baptized, by getting them a calling and getting them to the temple to do baptisms for the dead. I love President and Sister Richardson, they are the best.

On Saturday morning we both woke up feeling a little stressed. We had so much to do to get ready for the baptism and also a whole bunch of other appointments and meeting that we had to go to. We were very worried because we were not able to get a hold of Rose all morning. We had tried to call her probably 75 times! She didn't answer so we tried calling Chikira, nothing. Finally at 2:45 we were getting desperate so we stopped by her house, and no one answered the door. As we were pulling away her grandpa came out of the house, so we stopped to ask him where Rose was. He said she'd left, not super helpful. There was really nothing else we could do, so we just prayed that she would show up at the chapel. After a crazy morning of running around without two seconds to eat or pause, we finally made it to the chapel at 3:30to set up for the baptism. We set up the chairs, moved the piano into the gym (which is where our chapel's baptismal font is), filled the font, and made a cute little refreshment table complete with our homemade (jk, frozen and boxed) cookies and brownies! We set out the programs and hymn books and then met with out ward mission leader to review the program. Our ward mission leader is Brother Sanchez, he was so excited to conduct (he is a recent convert himself of 2 years), but also nervous because he doesn't really speak English. We helped him practice what to say. 

Then Angela showed up with her family. Her son, her son's girlfriend's mom, her niece, her nephew, and her granddaughter came. None of them are members, so that was awesome to have them all there. Angela was so cute and excited. She put on her jumpsuit, and then the members started to show up. We were very pleased with the turnout. Everyone was so excited for her, and she felt so loved. We were still anxiously waiting for Rose, but around 5:10 we had to call it quits and move on with the service. One of the young women in our ward played the piano, then we had a short talk on baptism, and on the Holy Ghost given by two women in our ward. Next was a special musical number by the bishop's family. Then Angela got baptized!! Sister Carling and I stood outside the font to hand her a towel. When she came out she gave the bishop the biggest hug, and then came up the stairs to give us a big sopping wet hug. I love her so much! After she was all changed Brother Sanchez went a little off script and asked Angela to share a brief testimony. I am so very glad he did, that was one of my favorite parts. Angela talked about how she has visited many many churches in the past, how she has had some very major struggles in her life, but how she truly has the desire to follow Christ. She shared her conviction that God had witnessed to her that this is the true church, and that she feels so grateful to have it. Then she got very emotional as she talked about the day Sister Carling and I knocked on her door. She said she was in a very dark place, but that she could see the light of Christ within us. Ever since that day she has felt so much peace, and happiness. She said she could feel our love and support every day, and that she will never ever forget us. We have changed her life. My eyes watered about 50 times. Those are the words that a missionary wants to hear! It is so amazing to know that all of the hard work made such a difference in her life. I feel so humbled to have played a small role in helping Heavenly Father reclaim one of His precious daughters. I just kept thinking that He must be feeling even happier than I feel. I cannot even describe how much love I feel for Angela, or how much joy we felt as she was bearing her testimony. It made it even better that after she was done our Zone Leader's came to talk to us and said "wow, good job Sisters. She is truly converted." It was the best!! Her family loved it as well. When Angela came out of the font they were all crying, and they all just gave her a big big hug. We got to talk to them a little bit afterwards, they are so nice! We are really hoping to be able to teach them as well this upcoming week. 

After that some sweet sisters in our ward offered to take us to grab dinner, which was super nice because we hadn't had much time to eat all day. We got some delicious subs with them, and they talked about how glad they were to have been able to be at the service, all of the ward members love Angela. Later we went back to the chapel to clean up the baptism stuff and then we watched the general women's session, which was awesome! There was such a focus on keeping our lives centered on Jesus Christ, and I truly know that that is the only way to find peace and happiness. 

Yesterday (Sunday) Angela was able to get the gift of the Holy Ghost in sacrament meeting. Another awesome experience.  Then we helped her to fill out her first tithing slip. She is doing so well, and we have some very very high hopes for her. 

The only downside was that Rose did not come to the baptismal service. We still have not heard from her or Chikira. It breaks my heart because we feel so much love for them, and we know what a difference the gospel will make in their lives, but they are choosing not to accept it. We are still praying that maybe one day (in the near or distant future) they will be ready for baptism. 

Last night we went to go visit a less-active member in our ward that we hadn't ever met before. Terri and Dave (her non-member husband) welcomed us right in. Dave was overjoyed when he found out that I play tennis. He loves to play, and even makes tennis courts as a living. I think that helped him open up a little bit, so that was awesome. Terri talked our ear off about her horse, TJ. She showed up pictures, told us stories, and at the end she honored us by letting us try some of "TJ's favorite apples". Apparently his favorite are the honey-crisp, but only if they are imported from Canada.....but she was super duper sweet. By the time we walked out she had gifted us some apples, some drinks, a jar of marshmallow crème, and some fruit dip. We committed them to watch General Conference this weekend, and Dave (who has never actually been to church before) agreed immediately for the both of them. They begged us to come back for another visit, they are such a cute couple. 

It has been an absolutely crazy, stressful, busy, but so so so happy week!! I love being a missionary! I know that this gospel is true, I have officially seen the difference that it makes in someone's life, and I am so grateful to be able to share that message with the people in Florida! I love you all!

 Hermana Carling, Angela, and Hermana Monsons at Angela's baptism.

Love, Hermana Monson

Coral Reef March 20, 2017

Hello everyone!

I hope you are all doing well, it has been such an amazing week here!!

Monday: 

We went to the zoo with a member of our ward. She has 4 adorable little kids, so that was lots of fun. That night we had a lesson with Rose and Chikira. They texted us before hand and said that Rose's grandma doesn't want us meeting in their house anymore, so we met at a park instead. We had decided beforehand to teach about prophets, but as Sister Carling was saying the opening prayer I received the overwhelming impression that we needed to talk about fasting. I don't think I've ever received such clear guidance about what we needed to teach. Thankfully Sister Carling just went with the flow as we entirely switched gears, and after the lesson we both agreed that that was absolutely what we needed to teach. They are both going through very rough times right now, they are looking for a job, Chikira is recovering from a miscarriage, there is a lot of fighting and heartache in their family, and so they were very excited to fast with us the following day. 

Tuesday:

We had an awesome lesson with Angela! She is progressing so well, she LOVES the Book of Mormon, and reads it faithfully every day. We were a little worried to teach her the Word of Wisdom because she has to be living it for at least a week before her baptism, and we were running out of time, plus she enjoys coffee and tea. We finished teaching the lesson, she looks at us and says "well, I guess I better stop drinking my coffee then. Why don't y'all come in the kitchen and help me throw it away?" We spent the next 10 minutes knifing her little coffee packets and then dumping them in the trash. It was super fun, and she hasn't had coffee since! She has so much faith. I love her. As we were talking she asked "do y'all want to know why I opened the door to you in the first place?" She looked right at me and said "because I could see Jesus Christ in your eyes. Girl, I will never forget those eyes!" I almost cried. I was so so happy, and so humbled to be able to help one of Heavenly Father's precious daughters understand the love that Jesus Christ has for her. 

We were fasting for Rose and Chikira, but we hadn't been able to get a hold of them since we had prayed over the phone in the morning to start the fast. Finally, at 10:15 pm, we got a call from Chikira. She told us that she and Rose had been in a fight, and that she would be moving to Northern Florida to stay with her mom. She was really upset, anxious, and bummed that she wouldn't be able to get baptized. We told her that she could contact the missionaries in Northern Florida, but there wasn't much else we could do. We were so sad, we love Chikira! We still couldn't get a hold of Rose that night. 

Wednesday:

We had an amazing zone conference! I love President and Sister Richardson, so it is the best to hear from them. It is always fun to see the other missionaries as well. 

We stopped by Angela's house for a couple of minutes to take her a water bottle. When we'd taught her the Word of Wisdom she said she needed to drink more water anyway, so we went and bought a bottle at the dollar store for her. She loved it!

That night we decided to stop by Rose's house. She had not been answering her phone, and we needed to know if she still wanted to get baptized. Her grandpa answered the door and told us that Rose had been "ducking" us, that she didn't want to keep meeting with us, and that she just didn't have the guts to tell us. We walked away feeling so sad! We had just lost two of our investigators! We were about to pull away when I looked in the rearview mirror  and saw Chikira running outside. We stopped and ran back to meet her. We asked her what she was doing there, we thought she'd moved! She told us that she and Rose had prayed together, and then they had been able to work everything out, so she wasn't moving anymore! Rose wasn't home, but Chikira assured us that they still wanted to keep meeting with us, that her phone was broken which is why she hadn't been able to contact us, and that they still wanted to get baptized! We had the most amazing lesson with Chikira, she told us more about her life (it has been ROUGH). I felt so much of Heavenly Father's love for her. We all sat outside, in the dark, in the cold, being eaten by bugs, and just cried because the spirit was so strong. We asked her how she'd known that we'd stopped by. She said she had been inside sleeping when "something" had told her to wake up. When she did Rose's grandpa had told that we'd stopped by, and so she ran outside to catch us. We know that was the Spirit because if she hadn't caught us, we would have stopped trying to contact them, and with their phones being broken I don't know how we would have been able to see them again! 

Thursday:

Soooo.....I accidentally locked all four of us out of the house. We went out for exercise, and I forgot to grab a key, and locked the door behind us. Ooops. All of our phones, phone numbers, keys, and everything were locked inside. Thankfully there is a member that lives about 1 mile from our house, so we ran over there, and she tried to help us pick the lock. Needless to say a locksmith, and 3 hours later we finally made it into the house. Good times. 

We met with Rose and Chikira again and Rose said she had felt so bad when she found out what her grandpa said to us. She still wants to keep meeting with us, and they are still set to get baptized!!

Saturday:

We went to go give service at the food pantry this morning. An adorable little Cuban lady that comes every week walked in the door, looked around, and bolted straight for my table. She showed me a little gift bag with fingernail polish inside that she'd bought me because 2 weeks ago I told her I liked the color of her nails. It was so cute!

Then we had a temple tour with Angela. An older lady from our ward drove us and Angela to the temple. Angela LOVED it, and she is so excited to go inside someday! The member and Angela got along really really well, so it turned out to be such a great day!

Sunday:

Rose and Angela came to church! Chikira was stuck at her mom's house in Northern Florida with no way home. We will have to push her baptism back a week, but Angela and Rose are set for this upcoming Saturday March 25th!! 

We are so excited!!!

Love you all, 

Hermana Monson

Coral Reef March 13, 2017

Crystal Worthen sent me an adorable package and it made my day!

We got food from Fritanga. Carne asada, arroz con gri, maduros, and queso frito (fried cheese). Yum!

 A GORGEOUS sunset. I love Florida. The pictures don't even do it justice.

We have been biking a ton, having a lot of investigators takes a lot of miles on you car. So then you don't have any left. So then you have to bike. 

This is a text message that we got from Rose last night. Angela had given her and Chikira a ride home from church. We were SO happy when we got that text! 

Hola everyone!!

I hope this email finds you well! It has been another wonderful week here in Coral Reef! I just love Sister Carling, and we have 3 progressing investigators whom I just love as well!

First of all, we knocked into a new investigator named Angela. We were biking around, trying to figure out which street we should knock, and we both really felt like we should stop and knock on a particular street, now we know why! Angela accepted a prayer right away, and she was very emotional from the beginning. She told us about how she'd had a car accident a while ago, and that had caused her some serious injuries, which had led to some depression. She went from living in a beautiful home in Georgia to being forced to move in with her son here in Florida. She feels like she has lost her faith, but she really wants to gain it back. She let us right in, and we both felt that instead of teaching the Restoration like we normally do, we should teach the Plan of Salvation. It was just what she needed to hear. She eagerly accepted a baptismal date for March 25th, and has been steadily progressing ever since!! She is absolutely wonderful! She takes notes during our lessons, and she came out of church yesterday with almost 4 pages of notes, she loved it! We were able to give her a tour of the chapel on Saturday morning, and that worked out very well because there was a bunch of ward members there cleaning the chapel so she got to meet all of them. She loves the concept of the sacrament, and being able to start over again each week. She was so excited that before we had even called her on Sunday morning to wake her up for church, she texted and said she was excited to see us in a few hours. She loved gospel principles because we watched a video of President Monson, and talked about modern prophets. At the end she said"Wow! That was powerful!" It was very sweet because in Relief Society they have a "good news moment" thing where sisters can share if they had any cool things happen during the week. Angela said that her good news moment was the two sister missionaries knocking on her door and bringing her this gospel. I think those are the words that every missionary wants to hear. At the end of church she was asking us all about her baptism and what clothes she will need to wear, and it is still two weeks away. I love her so much! Every time she says good-bye to us she says "I love you sisters!!" Please pray that everything will go well for her baptism on March 25th!

Our other two investigators Rose and Chikira have really been struggling. Satan is throwing everything he can think of to keep them from progressing. They have been to the hospital, they have been discouraged by their anti-Mormon grandmother, and their phones have broken down so we couldn't get in contact with them! However, the hugest miracle was that they were both able to come to church yesterday!! We were so happy, and they both really enjoyed it. They said that they have had a "calming feeling" ever since. They are also set to be baptized on March 25th, and we are so excited! They are just amazing!

The craziest thing that happened was last night when we were contacting some former investigators. We were sitting in a parking lot outside one of the apartment buildings, and we were putting a new address in our gps. All of the sudden two police cars pull up next to us and demand that we roll down our windows, and show them ID. Sister Carlings window was broken, so that was an extra hassle. They asked what we were doing, why we were sitting there, who we had come to visit, and if anyone could vouch for that. We explained that we were missionaries, we had just been visiting some members of our congregation, and that we were terribly sorry for idling in the parking lot. Once they saw that we were two innocent white girls from Utah they softened up. They said that they have to be very careful in that parking lot because bad things happen a lot, so an idling car is either doing something illegal, or is an easy target for other people who want to do illegal things. We apologized again, and they said we could leave. Before we left they wanted to know a little bit more about the church, so we invited them to come. That would be quite the story if they showed up on Sunday!! We got out of there quick, and just started laughing. It was a little freaky, but mostly just funny. 

Those are most of the stories that I have for this week! I hope that you are all doing well, just know that I love you and this gospel. 

Hermana Monson