Halloween Week

We have been making the transition from the Coconut Creek ward to the Snapper Creek YSA Branch. We are so excited with the wonderful potential in the YSA branch and have had a flood of ideas on how we can carryout our Mission Presidents directions to us. We plan on doing a training for the full-time missionaries this week and next on how to work with the branch and our role in representing them at the leadership meetings, church meetings and activities. We had a full day on Sunday and enjoy our new assignment.

On Saturday night we had a Halloween party with the other Senior Couples and enjoyed visiting and playing games together. Elder and Sister Black are shown in their Halloween garb. Elder Black won the prize for the best look and Sister Black won or tied for first in the two games we played.

On Sunday evening, we were driving to take some food to a YSA fireside and got into an accident. Luckily, both vehicles were about stopped, but our left front bumper hit into the right front bumper of a large pickup truck. No one was hurt, but it ruined our front bumper and put a little bend in our fender so the drivers side door would not open. There was a little paint scratched off of the truck. This morning we went to a place that was able to get the door on the drivers side to open and close and we will get it fixed over the next three days and will rent a car. We are amazed that we went a whole year before our first accident. We drove to West Palm Beach today to arrange for the water to be turned on in a new apartment we rented. We had to show them our lease and they discovered that it had been signed by someone other than the property owner, so we need to gather more documents (power of attorney from the person who signed it) and make the hour drive again tomorrow. The missionaries need to be in the apartment by Wednesday. We have 15 new missionaries coming in tomorrow. Some of our Sister Missionaries are going to start riding bikes. One of our missionaries had his appendix out on Sunday. It is amazing all the things going on and what it takes to keep things running relatively smoothly.

Productive Week

We seem to get more and more going on each day. We have been surprised how involved the apartment inspections have been and how exhausted we felt the three days we did them this week. We started our work in the Snapper Creek Branch Saturday and Sunday. We enjoyed getting to know the Branch leadership and a few of the young adults. We are looking forward to helping them as much as we can in their missionary effort. We gave the last new member lesson to Dalton Rhoden and took him out for ice cream afterwards. He is a neat man and we have really grown close to him. We will teach the last new member lesson to Brother Ladden on Wednesday and then we are taking him out to dinner afterwards. That will wrap up our involvement in the Coconut Creek ward. Elder Black also took a Gospel Principles manual to Gary Francois Sunday morning and got to say goodbye to him.

The Pompano Beach Stake temple day was a great success with over 1100 endowments and a total of 1700 ordinances performed for the dead. The missionary work continues to go forward with great success. The week after next is Transfer Week and 15 new missionaries will be arriving and 6 departing. This arriving group includes 8 Sisters and 5 ASL (American Sign Language) missionaries. One of them is both deaf and cannot speak. I cannot imaging the faith and determination she must have.
We got to see some large Florida spiders today down by the beach. They are about 2 or 3" long and they make huge webs (see attached photos).

More changes

This week brought more changes for Elder and Sister Black. We have been assigned by our Mission President to work in a young single adult (YSA) branch (18 - 30 years old) in the Miami area. The branch was newly formed a few months ago and is called the Snapper Creek branch in the Miami South Stake. Three of the four Stakes in South Florida have YSA branches and the Snapper Creek is the largest. We will travel about 1 hour down and 1 hour back to the meeting house. We will be coordinating the missionary effort in the branch with all the missionaries in the Miami South Stake which comprise the Miami and Homestead Zones. We will also try to get to know those who are investigating the church and encourage greater missionary efforts among the Young Adults. They also have Family Home Evenings, Sunday and weekday socials and firesides we will be involved with. We hope we can keep up with their pace. In South Florida, there are literally hundreds of schools of various types and the potential for doing missionary work among this age group is great. We are excited, but a little sad to leave the Coconut Creek ward where we have been working with a number of new converts and others. It is a very diverse ward and very friendly and accepting of everyone. We are not sure how this change will affect our English classes, etc.

We also did three apartment inspections this week in the Miami area and have another twelve scheduled for next week. It is always good to be with the wonderful missionaries and to try to help them focus on better CARE of their apartments. Elder Black was able to fix a stove and a dishwasher during the inspections. Changing filters on the air conditioning units needs a lot of attention and training. Elder Black also worked on a lease for a new apartment in the West Palm Beach area. We taught a lot of lessons this week, both English and new member lessons. Elder Black had the privilege of confirming Gary Francois a member of the Church on Sunday which was a very spiritual experience. The Pompano Beach Stake have 350 people signed up to attend the Orlando temple on Friday and they and another ward from the Orlando area have a goal of participating in 1000 endowments for their kindred dead. It is an outpouring of the faith and dedication of the Church members here. Finally, we got a break in the hot, hot weather that was in the 90-92 degree range on Sunday morning it was 57 degrees. It feels so good to have lower temperatures and lower humidity.

Surprise

This was a full week with Zone Conference, new member lessons, training the Mission Office staff on printing of the Chapel Cards, completing a special report for the Mission President and a trip to Homestead and Key West on Saturday to start the apartment inspections. We introduced an initiative called CARE for the apartments with C-Clean, A-Arrange, R-Repair and E-Eliminate in an effort to get the missionaries to better CARE for their apartments and make them a place where the Spirit can be maintained. Elder and Sister Welch came with us to Homestead and Key West and then they will inspect the apartments in the north part of the mission and we will inspect them in the south this month and next month we will switch.

On Sunday Elder Black had a surprise. After Sunday School class, he went to congratulate a Haitian man who was going to be baptized after church. He told Elder Black, "I would like you to baptize me." Earlier he had told the missionaries that he wanted the Bishop to baptize him and they had gone to Bishop Graham and asked him, but he could not do it because of a meeting he needed to be in. Actually, the man thought that Elder Black was the Bishop. Elder Black had gotten to know him a week earlier when he picked him up twice to go to General Conference sessions at the church. Anyway, Elder Black drove home and got his white clothes and was privileged to baptize Gary Francois after church. It was a very special experience. There was another Haitian sister who was also baptized before Gary.

A Temple in South Florida

We are thrilled and humbled beyond measure at Saturdays announcement by President Monson that a temple will be built in South Florida (Ft. Lauderdale). A lot of prayers of thanksgiving and tears have been shed by us and many of the Latter-day Saints in this area. As we had mentioned earlier, the members and leaders have been very faithful in attending the Orlando temple, fasting and praying for a temple and doing Family History work to do the temple work for their ancestors, but I think the announcement took almost everyone by surprise. The prayer offered by one of our humble and spiritually in tune missionaries who prayed not only for a temple but that it would be announced in this General Conference gave a spark of faith and hope to everyone in the mission. In a meeting with our Mission President two days before the announcement was made, he said that he fasted for a temple last Sunday and that a momentary doubt came to him but left quickly and that he was confident that the Lord would answer the prayers of the members, leaders and missionaries. This will be an amazing blessing to this area and we believe it will hasten the work of bringing souls to a knowledge of the truthfulness of the restored Gospel of Jesus Christ and the opening of the doors of nations in this area to the preaching of the gospel. It is not hard to tell that we are excited.

Sister Black turned over the medical to Sister Welch and Elder Black turned over the housing to Elder Welch this past week. That was a big relief. We will continue to help Elder and Sister Welch with the apartment inspections and other things they ask us to do. We also taught Daily Dose several times this week and taught two new member lessons. We enjoyed General Conference and on Saturday and Sunday shuttled several recent converts and an investigated back and forth to the conference sessions. We have our Zone Conference tomorrow and are looking forward to that in light of the temple announcement.

A Challenging Week

We have had a challenging week to put it mildly. The Kynastons finished their mission and headed home on Thursday and Sister Black took over the Mission Medical and Elder Black took over Mission Housing. The first two days were crazy as we tried to take care of these challenges as well as our normal work. Sister Black got 7 calls the first day and 5 the next, but she did a good job listening, getting permission for treatment and Elder Black looked up health care providers on the internet. There was a new apartment rental that fell through so we have 6 Elders in an apartment with one shower. We are hoping to have this resolved by the end of the week. We are praying that Elder and Sister Welch (who will be taking these duties over when they get here) arrive safely later this week.

Along with the craziness, we also had a very spiritual experience. Elder Black was asked to give a priesthood blessing to a man (the husband of Sister Terron who hosts an English class in their home) who was facing a deportation hearing the next day. Elder Black blessed him that the Lord would open the way for him to remain with and continue to support his family. We learned later in the week that at about 10:30 pm on the night of the blessing, his attorney called and said that his hearing had been put off for a year or so. It was truly an answer to many prayers and we were so humbled and grateful to see the hand of the Lord bless these good people. We have also been teaching new member lessons and visiting the missionaries.
Sister Black's brother Richard was kind enough to send us 10 new Spanish Bibles and we were able to give six of them to some of our Daily Dose English students. They were very appreciative and we hope Richard will be able to send us more.
On Wednesday morning, as we walked out of our apartment, we were greeted by the spectacular clouds and sky out to the east (see attached). We then went to the Transfer meeting where 8 new missionaries were introduced. At the end of the meeting, about 80 or so missionaries knelt in Mighty Prayer to pray for the Lord to bless the missionary effort here and to bless the South Florida area with a temple. It was a powerful experience and many tears were shed.

A Fun Week

We had a fun week. It was Elder and Sister Kynston's last full week in the mission and we took them to a place we knew of to purchase some presents for their family and also visited a Miccosukee Indian Village where we went on an air boat ride to an island with an Indian Village and also got do see a lot of alligators and even hold one who's mouth was not taped. He really squirmed around and wanted to take a bite out of us. On Saturday, we had a party at Elder and Sister Hogge's for the Kynastons and after dinner we played a Florida type Jeopardy game and found out how little we know about Florida.

We also had a rewarding week in teaching Daily Dose English and helping out. One of the families told us that they felt we were here to help out their family at a difficult time when the husband is facing possible deportation and other challenges exist. Elder Black gave the husband a priesthood blessing last night and his immigration hearing is today. We have been praying for that family for many weeks and hae faith that the Lord will help them. Tomorrow is the Transfer Meeting and it is allows exciting when the missionaries get their new area and companionship assignments. We delivered the Chapel Card printer and files to the Mission Office for them to take over the printing. Elder Black printed about 3000 cards for nearly all of the companionships last week so that it will be an easy transition for the Mission Office to take over there new assignment. Over the next 10 days, Sister Black will be over the missionary medical and Elder Black will be over the apartments until the new couple, Elder and Sister Welch, arrive in early October. It should be a busy week or so.