The Last Transfer!

I am so sorry that I have NO time today. I made a good recording for you and I'll send out some pictures. The good news is that I'M GOING HOME TO BOCA RIO EAST!!!!! I'll be spending the last two transfers of my mission in Boca Rio and training a new missionary. Aboslutely nuts. I'm glad that everything so far has turned out the way it has! I will be talking with Jamie Gange our investigator and giving her your info so we can spend a day up here with them when you come to pick me up. She will be getting baptized soon so of course I'm sad to leave before her baptism. But I'll give her your phone number and email. Also, what's the schedule looking like for when you pick me up? I'd like to start making other plans for that. I really want to go find Elder Travis Alexis and have you guys meet him because he's the greatest! I love that family a ton. Anyways, I love you all so much! Have a good week!

Sketchy?

The Christmas devotional was fantastic. We got to watch it at a members home this year and it was so great to have a big ward family there and the spirit was super strong too. I loved it. We have a Christmas party this week, but I'm going to the temple with Andrew, Ingrid, and Caliane that day instead. So I'm a little bummed, but it's worth it. This week for us was weird though. I feel truly humbled by this area I'm in. I love the members and the work we've done. But we are struggling to even find people who will let us pray with them at their front doors. I think this is exactly what I need. We did have a good week though. Sadly no one came to church, but we had some good trainings from the assistants and are preparing an awesome training for our zone tomorrow. I'm sorry I don't have much to say today, we don't have many people we are working with that make it exciting. This week I went out to this super sketchy place though. You should google it. It's called Belle Glade. And it's neighbor city is South Bay. Pretty much this is the hood of hoods in the middle of nowhere. The missionaries have to be home an hour early because if they're out too late they get shot at. It's nuts. At the beginning of the week we were knocking a ton of doors. So we knocked this one guys door and he said "come in". Naturally your instincts make you walk right into his home. So I did. I have never gotten such a weird look from somebody. I asked if he was talking to me and of course he said no as his wife walked in the back door. So I just said "I'm just gonna leave" and he said "yeah that'd be for the best." Talk about awkward! Next story! So twice this week we came home and our garage door was open, which is sketch cause we always shut it. So naturally we walked in there with a machete I have hidden in the garage and just went from room to room swinging a machete around hoping no one is there trying to kill us. Let me tell ya. Florida is a sketchy place. That's all I got from this week. Love you all and thank you for everything! Oh, I was thinking for Christmas, we always love gift cards. Super simple. To places like Walmart or costco or simple places. And Sister Seipert told me how awesome you are (which of course I already knew). Love you tons! I hope your week is good! 

Christmas All Wrapped Up!

Each gift had reference to the Savior

Thanksgiving and the Temple!

Our Thanksgiving was awesome here. We had 3 different dinners hahaha And all back to back. I gained 7 lbs. that day. Lots of fun. President Richardson said no Turkey Bowl for us because it's a contact sport. We were a little bummed, but it's ok, we still had a fun day. This week was rough for our mission. We know it was a holiday, but we saw a significant drop off in most of our key indicators. I feel really good though with the way everybody has been working. We've just seen a better spirit about the mission. I had a few days this week where I was bit frustrated with myself, but got over it pretty quickly. I don't want to say it's nice to have bad days, but they sure do help us recognize the good days. I did get some good pictures this last week though. So I'll send those home. Love you all and thanks for the help! Happy Holidays! 

Fort Lauderdale temple with Elder Souza and Karla

Awesome Week!

We have absolutely no one in our teaching pool besides the Gange family right now, but they've been out of town for a while. So we're basically starting from ground zero. Which I feel like I've had to do most of my mission. But I'm ok with it. It's super fun to see relationships flourish and wards grow around the missionaries and the work. This week was awesome for us too! Karla went through the temple! She surprised us on P-day and said she was getting her endowments tomorrow! So Elder Salgado and I (another Brazilian) went down for the session. It was so great to see her there. I cannot explain to you the happiness I felt, and even more, the happiness you could see on her husbands face. It was absolutely worth all of the hard work. I have one picture that isn't super good, but Elder Souza is supposed to send me the rest of them. So you might get them next week. Truthfully the temple is the end goal. It's what makes all the other things we do as missionaries worth it. Thank you all for everything! Especially the prayers and the love!

Thankful all year long!

Primary Program Week!

Hey! We had our Primary Program this week! It's always my favorite Sunday. Investigators always feel so great when they come. The new zone is different. It's a very different type of work up here and I'm still trying to figure it out. Everyone else up here is doing great though. They all want to find and baptize really badly! They did get his eagle project completed and it looked great! They're still doing great as a family. Very slowly progressing because they're so busy all the time. But that was a blessing. 

I'm officially accepted to Weber! Nice. You'll have to let me know how all the little details go. I don't really have a preference on which classes to take. I just to progress as quick and well as possible. I was also wondering if they had an volleyball classes I could take on the side as a fun class. Gotta love volleyball. Also, are there Portuguese classes up there? Again I don't want to be super distracted from what I really need to be studying, but I'd love to see what they have up there. 

This week was just another continuation of last week. More meetings. President has just changed his interview and meeting schedules, so we'll be meeting with President a whole lot more often. We spent a lot of the week trying to contact Part-member families and just trying to find new people to teach. It's been quite difficult adjusting to the time change and the location change! It's like I'm not even in Florida anymore. At least the Florida I'm used to. 

We did have a great lesson with the Gange family and the Bishop this week though. The Spirit was very strong and burning. I really hope they recognized it and understand why we come to teach them. It's such a blessing have people to teach who are willing to listen and act. We had a great day yesterday too! We didn't do this in Miami, but here the Zone Leaders meet with President Richardson and the Stake President and discuss the needs of the missionaries and the stake. It's quite cool to see such spiritually powerful men in action. Then we finished off yesterday visiting one member, which turned out to be the whole ward at his house for a party. It was a great eye opener/idea to send recent-converts and investigators there to be fellowshipped. Oh, and this guy lives on Jupiter Island and has a private beach and lives in the COOLEST BEACH HOUSE EVER. 

Anyways. It's been a long couple of weeks but I feel like this week will be a great one! Love you all and thank you for everything!