From Chilly Florida

We have had a cold snap this past week in Florida where it got down to near freezing. It only lasted a few days and we are now back up into the high 70's. It has been an interesting week, as we made three trips to the heart of Miami for a District Development Meeting (DDM) and two companion studies. The missionaries live in high rises and the areas that rough (lots of bars on the windows). Two of the missionaries got their bikes stripped recently and another missionary told how someone had removed his wheels and then for some reason leaned them up against the bike and only took a water bottle. He said that he prays for his bike a lot and really wants to take it home with him in a year. The traffic in Miami is something else and we have had to give ourselves about 1 1/2 hours to be there on time. Much of that time is sitting nearly still in traffic. The next two weeks, we will also be making three more trips to Miami each week.

We got our new Daily Dose supplies last week and spent time making up folders and other things for Daily Dose. We had the Spanish missionaries over for lunch and gave them some preliminary training in Daily Dose. The Data Base reporting program is working well and the Mission President is pleased. Today was our Mission Presidency meeting and I had a number of things on the agenda. It was great to get some issues resolved with the Mission Presidency so we can move forward with Daily Dose and other things we have been bogged down on. We had two people confirmed on Sunday which was special. We will be hosting a Valentine's Party for all of the Senior Missionaries (12 or 13 will be there) in our tiny apartment. It should prove interesting.

Some exciting things that happened this week included receiving and watching Kevin and Heather's babies ultra-sound video. He is so cute and active. We love him already. We also got news from Steven and Traci that they and their family will be coming to visit us in late March-early April. We will get to see them two weekends in a row and the week in between they will spend at Disney World in Orlando. We are so excited to see them. We also heard from Ryan that his contract has only two more signatures for his new job in Yakima, Washington. We also got to see pictures of Ammon's school play where he had the lead role as Horton the Elephant and also Emma and Caleb in the Missoula Little Mermaid play.