Monday July 30, 2012
Hello Todos.
What a great time it is to be a part of the Florida, Ft. Lauderdale
Mission. We set a mission record this week: 39 Baptisms! In a week!
Also, that brings our month total to 141!!! How crazy amazing is that!
141 people entered into a covenant with God and are now receiving more
blessings than they possibly could have before. AND they now qualify to
live with God. Forever. And their families. Forever. In perfect
happiness. What, honestly, could be better?
For me, the best part was yesterday when Marvin got baptized! He is
hilariously funny and so happy in general, but yesterday he was all
smiles. He showed up 2 hours early to church because he was so excited!
He was very much prepared before we met him, but I'm so glad that we
were able to steer him towards the truth that he was lacking in his
life.
Although he doesn't speak a lot of English, he understands it pretty
well. All of our lessons are pretty Spanglish with us mostly speaking
English and him always speaking Spanish (with Diana there to fill in the
gaps!). We saw him almost everyday this past week and taught him
everything from The Word of Wisdom and Chastity (which he had already
explained to someone else by the time we discussed it) to Following the
Prophet and paying tithing (which he can't wait to do). One day, he was
telling us about how he has gone to Subway almost every day for the past
9 months. He's been there so much that they gave him a $50 gift card!
When we asked him why he goes there so much he said "porque es
delicious". It was so funny since he said the word "delicious" in
English! Maybe you had to be there, but we laughed for a really long
time.
Last Monday, Sister Buckley and I drove downtown and visited the
Challenger Memorial and the Heat Stadium. It was closed, unfortunately,
and it was SUPER hot, but we took a lot of pictures. Then we picked up
Diana and went to the Mall of the Americas. My favorite part: Diana said
her heaven will look like Claire's.
We celebrated Pioneer Day by knocking the doors on Pioneer Road. There
was a Catholic church on that street and only two people even answered
their door, but it was worth it. If only we could have seen a parade or
something to top it off.
The next day we harvested with Diana. She was very helpful since there
were a lot of old Cuban ladies I just couldn't understand. Plus, Diana
wants to be a missionary so badly that she will do anything we do. So
even when it is 97 degrees and there is over 80% humidity, she will walk
down streets of Florida and ask people if we can leave the Savior's
peace and blessing with them. That's some true dedication.
We also had a wonderful experience with harvesting this week. We had a
goal to get 5 blessings on Thursday. We used the time before our
Correlation meeting to bless as many as we could, but even with an our
and a half, we only found 2 people to bless (plus, we found some members
that hadn't been visited by missionaries in a while and left a prayer
with them!). However, after our meeting, we made sure our investigators
and recent converts were doing well in Institute, then left to go out
and find some more. We did so reluctantly because we haven't ever had
much success harvesting after 8 o'clock at night, but we knew if we did
our best, God would bless us. So we knocked on a few doors with no luck
and were feeling like our time would be better spent doing anything
else. As we turned to walk back to the car, I got the feeling we
couldn't stop. I turned back to the street and saw a house with a light
on. We went there and found a YSA girl willing to let us bless her! And
although she had to work on Sunday, she said she'd try to come the the
activity on Saturday! It was incredible! I know as we continue
following the spirit and putting forth all our effort, God will continue
to bless us to find people who need us.
Friday was a fun day. We harvested and met 5 people who were all pretty
cool. Some just needed a prayer and that's fine. Others we invited to be
baptized, including a YSA guy and a cute little mom and two of her
daughters! Then we saw Anabell, and her nieces and nephew were watching
"Avatar the Last Airbender" cartoon, and little facts kept popping up
on the screen. My favorites were "don't play with spark rocks" and
"kids, don't eat mud." We went to Amy's to teach her the Gospel and she
surprized us with lunch! It was much needed. Then we drove all the way
down to Florida City (as in, where the turnpike ends) to meet a new
investigator that wondered into the Homestead chapel. We met Tyler, the
Elder's Quorum president, there and then proceeded to have the most
awkward lesson.
ever. Daryl came outside and immediately told us that his mom won't let
him have people in the house anymore. So we had to sit in the back of a
truck. Daryl is just an awkward person to begin with, but we spent 40
minutes trying to get to know him and get him to come to the activity on
Saturday and church on Sunday. He says some strange things and we
weren't sure if he was getting it, but he finally agreed to come.
Anyway, long story short, he came to the activity and church and liked
it, but is still SUPER awkward. It'll be fun trying to teach him.
On Saturday, we went to the ward Kickball activity and BBQ for a while
to make sure Daryl was okay. It was hot, we got sunburned. But it was
fun. Then we drove up to Riverside for Marvin's interview, but there
happened to be a baptism there, too. So we saw that, and then Marvin
came out of his interview giving us a fist pump. Success.
So, now we are going to go to a famous hotel and botanical garden.
Hope you all have a wonderful day!
Love,
Hermana Sheffield
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