Adventures of Elder and Sister Black

This has been another interesting and challenging week here in the mission field. A big part of the week was spend on a special assignment from the Mission President to accurately determine how many baptisms took place in 2008 by name and by Ward or Branch. Sister Black and I went through each baptismal record and compared them to a list of names compiled during the year. It was an interesting exercise. Elder Black ended up going through the records a second time and spent many late hours trying to resolve various issues. He then worked with an Office Elder making sure each name was recorded correctly and everything balanced out by name and by number in each Ward or Branch. Finally, yesterday we came up with the final total of 327. In this coming year, we will be checking these records as the year goes along so we don't have such a challenge at the end of the year. This past week, the mission had 14 baptisms which is a record for the 6 months President Hale has been here. Each on of these people a special in the eyes of the Lord and need to be accounted for accurately.
We finished giving Sister Griffin the new member lessons. She is like a sponge and wants to learn everything. Although she is severely stricken with arthritis, she got up at 4 am last Saturday so she could take the Stake chartered bus to the Orlando temple. She spent all day on the temple grounds with another Sister meditating and concluded she had a number of things she needed to change before she would be ready to enter the temple. The Sister who we would pick up and take to Sister Griffin and who helped with the lessons is from Somoa. We call her Sister L. because her last name is long and hard to pronounce. Sister L. told us a story about how she joined the church. She and her husband had smoked for a long time. She was taught the gospel, new that it was true and wanted to be baptized. She called the Elders to her home and while they watched, she smoked 120 cigarettes back to back. After the 120th, she told them she was ready to be baptized and never smoked another cigarette the rest of her life. She has served as a Stake Missionary for many years and can quote scripture non-stop.
We had some wonderful visits to a District meeting and two companion studies. We also finalized our new place to live in at Coral Springs and will be moving early next week. It was sad saying goodbye to the good people of the Ft. Lauderdale ward on Sunday. They really know how to express love one to another. It is truly a melting pot of about every race and ethnic group you can think of. We will miss them a lot. Tomorrow we are taking some flowers to Sister Griffin and Sister L. Tomorrow is also transfer day. I got to meet two new missionaries who just came from the airport this afternoon. They got up at 3:00 am at the MTC, but they were still going strong. Each one of the Elders and Sisters are special. Sister Black is feeling much better and is getting her strength back. On Saturday, Elder Black will be attending a mission leadership conference that Elder Marlin K. Jensen of the Seventy will be conducting and then Sister Black and I will attend the Pompano Beach Stake conference meetings Saturday and Sunday. We appreciate all of the prayers offered on our behalf and for our mission. Mighty Prayer is really bringing about wonderful success in proclaiming the gospel to the people of South Florida. We love and appreciate all of you thoughtfulness.