Family in Florida

We were so happy to see Steve, Traci and their family this weekend. Their flight was delayed so they arrived at the Miami airport at 2 am and stayed at a hotel near the airport. They arrived here at 10 am Sunday and we had a wonderful reunion. We got to go to church together and then after dinner Steve, Ammon, Emma and Elder Black went down to the Reflections of Christ exhibit and on the way home drove through the middle of Miami. Steve said it reminded him a lot of his mission in Oakland. Today, the kids really enjoyed swimming and seeing all the creatures (gekos, turtles, squirrels, ducks and finding coconuts). After lunch, they headed for Orlando and Disney World. We are looking forward to their longer visit next week.

We have had a busy week hosting at the Reflections of Christ exhibit each day and visiting the missionaries. One of our wonderful couple missionaries took a wrong turn on their way to host at the Reflection of Christ exhibit and ended up in the middle of the Miami sky scrappers. They called Elder Black and he was able to get on Google Earth and help them navigate their was out of there. We also worked on the Chapel Pass-Along Cards and to keep the cost low have decided to print them ourselves. We found a good paper supplier and then had Kinkos cut the box of paper into 10,000 3" x 5" cards. We will be delivering the first batch of cards to the Elders in the Biscami Zone tomorrow.

On Wednesday, we are having the kickoff meeting for Daily Dose English at the Lauderhill Spanish ward and we are excited to finally get it officially started. We are enjoying our mission so much and appreciate all the prayers said in our behalf. We love you all very much and appreciate your love and support.

A Wonderful Week in Florida

We had a very spiritual treat this week in our Zone Conference with Elder and Sister Zwick (Elder Zwick is a member of the First Quorum of the Seventy). They really helped energize the missionaries, including ourselves. To begin the conference, Elder and Sister Zwick greeted each missionary personally and briefly visited with them. The Friday before they left to come here, Elder Zwick stepped into an elevator at the Church Administration building and when it stopped at a floor, President Monson stepped in and asked him where he would be this week. When he told him he would be visiting the Florida Ft. Lauderdale mission, President Monson asked him to extend his personal greetings and love to each of the missionaries, which Elder Zwick did. He also shared some very personal and inspiring experiences he has had with both President Monson and President Hinckley. Elder and Sister Zwick have a handicapped son and they talked about how loves to go to the temple and is always happy. The couple missionaries also got to have lunch with them at the Mission Home. We got to visit with them about David and Cathy Erichsen. David worked for Zwick construction and Cathy's father also was a business partner with Elder Zwick.

On Saturday we trained two Elders in Homestead, FL on how to use the Daily Dose English program. Elder Black also met with the Lauderhill ward leaders (a Spanish ward) and gave a brief overview of the Daily Dose English program. He even gave an introduction in Spanish and they got a good chuckle over that. We hosted at the Reflections of Christ exhibit at the Fountainebleau meeting house on Sunday evening for 4 hours and this morning for 2 hours. On Sunday, about 350 people viewed a video and went through the art exhibit of the portrayal of the life of Christ. There was beautiful vocal and instrumental music playing in the exhibit room and the spirit was very strong. We got to greet the people just before they left the exhibit and many of them were shedding tears and very emotional as they exited. The 27 minute DVD was on the background of how the photograph and music exhibit was produced. This whole week we will be hosting 2 hours a day.

Logging Miles in Florida

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We have had another busy week with meetings with the missionaries in the Hialeah Zone (west of Miami) and also traveled to every chapel in the mission (about 20) to take pictures for our Chapel Pass-Along Card project. On the front of a 3" x 5" index card is a picture of the chapel and on the back the name of the ward or branch, the address, a map and a Sunday meeting schedule. The missionaries will use these to invite their investigators to attend church. With the help of some missionaries, some of the cards will be in Spanish and we will eventually have some in Creole. Elder Black spent so many hours doing the maps, etc. he developed a lot of pain in his wrist. We hope to get some proof copies to the missionaries in Zone Conferences tomorrow and Wednesday. Elder Black called Roger on his birthday and Roger has also been helping out trying to get the church logo superimposed onto the chapel photos.

In our Zone Conference, Elder Zwick (one of the Seventy) and his wife will be meeting with the missionaries and will be touring the mission including visiting missionary apartments, etc. The couple missionaries will have a lunch with them on Thursday. These should be great Zone Conferences (one in the north and one in the south part of the mission). Next week, we have been asked by the Mission President to be hosts at a special Art Display portraying Christ at the Fountainebleau chapel in Hialeah and will be greeting people who come to see it and answering their questions. We will be involved every day from Saturday to Saturday (except on Sunday) from 11:00 am to 1:00 pm. We will be holding companion studies in Biscami (north of Miami) each morning and then travel to the Art Display in Hialeah.

We also had a meeting with our Stake President and a Brother Nelson who he and his wife will be helping out in the Daily Dose English effort. We have a meeting with the Lauderhill Spanish ward council next Sunday to introduce Daily Dose to them. We are excited to finally start making some progress towards starting up the Daily Dose English effort. Our work in the Coral Springs ward has taken a back seat the past two weeks, but on Sunday in High Priest Group meeting their leader mentioned that based on the work Elder Black had done on the ward list and identifying where people live using Google Earth, that they were able to revamp all of the Home Teaching assignments so the priesthood can visit people who live close by them and cut down a extensive travel times. You never know when your efforts help the work go forward. We also got help this week from Traci who researched a question an investigator asked one of our missionaries. We appreciate all of your notes of encouragement and love.

PS. We might mention that in one of the attached photos, the tall Elder is not standing on something. Elder Bachynski is 7' 2" tall. His companion standing just in front of him, Elder Pinard, is the shortest Elder in the mission.

Alligator Adventures

We have had a good week visiting missionaries, feeding the missionaries, making a few member visits and today we went on an air boat ride out into the Everglades and our unfortunately our camera battery was dead so we didn't take any pictures of the alligators (one big and two smaller) we saw out in the wild. We will try to get some on the other missionaries pictures. The attached are two pictures that were taken by Elder and Sister Holdstock of Sister Black on the air boat and Elder and Sister Black at the alligator show afterwards. Brother Torsok from the Hollywood ward is a convert to the church and for the past three years he have been paying 1/2 the cost for the missionaries to take an hour air boat ride and to see the alligator show. He was the person who arranged for us to speak at the Hollywood Ward the week after Christmas. There were 3 couple missionaries and about 24 Elders and Sisters who participated. It was a lot of fun. We saw a 12 to 15 foot alligator cruising around in some water lily type plants. It was very fat in the middle and they think it had just eaten something big. We also saw a large iguana sunning itself in a tree. At the alligator show the alligator wrestler put his head inside of the jaws of a medium size alligator. Because the missionaries are regular visitors, they let everyone hold the small alligator for free as pictures were taken.

We will be starting up the Daily Dose English soon. We will also be doing a project of preparing chapel pass along cards for investigators. It will have a picture of the chapel on the front and on the back the name and address of the Ward or Branch, a map and a meeting schedule. As we are traveling around the mission, we will take pictures of all the chapels and Elder Black will do the back of the card using AutoCad.

Mixed up week

This has been a rather mixed up week. For most of the days activities we had planned out, we ended up doing something else. We attended the Transfer meeting on Wednesday and it was very exciting to see a good part of the mission receive there new assignments. There were 9 new missionaries (6 Spanish and 3 English). One Elder is from Riverton, Utah and another from Rigby, Idaho. One of the new Elders is from Kenyan. He is 26 years old and will be a powerful missionary. His village pooled their money and bought him a suit before he left. His Bishop had told him he could not serve a mission because of his age, but someone else heard about his desire to serve and got things straightened out. One of our couple missionaries sat in on a lesson he helped give just two days after his arrival and they said he is an amazingly powerful teacher. Afterwards, we were able to help out by taking a group of missionaries and their luggage to the Mission Office and then drove to the Biscami area (north of Miami) to deliver luggage to some other missionaries. We also delivered some bicycle helmets to some other missionaries up in our area and later in the week we delivered a bike and later that evening a bike rake to still some more missionaries. The afternoon of the Transfer day, we picked up some dessert we had ordered and helped Sister Hale prepare for the Finishers Dinner. The dessert has a history. We ordered it from an Italian bakery on the Saturday before. A couple of days later, Elder Black was prompted to call the bakery and make sure there was no alcohol in it (it had a cherry on top) and sure enough it would have had rum in it, if the prompting had not been followed. We also enjoyed going to the Finishers fireside to listen to the 8 departing missionaries testimonies.

Another contributor to the mixed up week was the fact that several weeks ago I was asked to give a deposition for a law firm representing an insurance company in a law suit brought by TerraTek's former landlord (who also has a law suit against TerraTek). I will be giving the deposition this afternoon at 3:30 pm in Ft. Lauderdale. The landlord is claiming that TerraTek removed his fixtures (our equipment) from the building, the building was left in bad shape and he was unable to rent it. I had taken the landlord and some contractors on a tour through the building and then wrote up some notes on what was discussed on the tour and gave them to Sid. I was told that the deposition would be about one hour which sounded okay, but then last week I spent about 5-6 hours talking to and being questioned by various lawyers from both sides and TerraTek's lawyer offered to represent me at the deposition which I gladly accepted. Today, I am expecting at least two more calls. I will let you know how it goes. We used to watch a lot of Perry Mason episodes, but I'm not sure how much that will help out.

The Lord's Hand in Our Work

This has been a difficult, but rewarding week. Attached are a picture in the evening from our apartment, of the missionaries in the Miami Zone and of our chapel. They all contributed to our week. On Monday, we attended a District Meeting in the Miami Zone and came away concerned in two areas. So later in the week during Companion Study with six of these missionaries, we dished out some loving counsel (after getting the Mission President's okay) and we felt it was received well. It was hard on us because we have such love for each and every one of them and they are working so hard, but we all need some correction from time to time. We also had our first visit in this area to a man (and his 5 year old daughter). As it turned out, he had served a mission in Utah and worked in the Murray South Stake, new President Burton and many others. He married a lady from Bolivia who is not a member and he has fallen into inactivity. When he talked about his mission, he really came alive. He would make a great Ward Missionary. His daughter loves coming to Primary. We tried to arrange to meet his wife, but he is quite protective of her. We sensed a sadness in the man and he admitted that her lack of progress towards joining the church could be from his lack of involvement. We have been praying for him and his family.

On Sunday, Sister Black had a very spiritual experience and could see the hand of the Lord assisting her. At the beginning of Relief Society, the Relief Society President found out their instructor had not shown up so she asked Sister Black to give the lesson. Just a week or so earlier, our home Relief Society President, Sister Jodi Hermansen, had mailed Sister Black a lesson outline she had used to give the same lesson in our home ward. So Sister Black had already read the lesson outline and had placed it in her scripture case, was able to pull it out and give a good lesson to the RS sisters. It was a little miracle. Also, for the second week in a row, someone walked in off the street inquiring about the church. The Elders invited her to our Gospel Principles class. She was only able to stay for a few minutes, but during that time one of the Elders recent converts came up to her and told her how much his conversion and involvement in the church meant to him and bore his testimony to her. Also, the Ward Mission Leader who is a convert from the same church she belongs to was able to talk to her about his conversion. She said she would come back next week.

One Monday, President Hale asked Elder Black to put together some graphics (plots) on baptisms, church attendance by investigators and lessons taught for the past 8 months while he has been the Mission President. It involved creating a table of numbers and some Excel plots. President Hale was surprised how quickly I was able to get him the information. What he didn't know is that it was like being at TerraTek and generating hundreds of such plots over the years. You never know how your lives experiences can contribute to the work of the Lord. The picture of the sun set reminds us of the beauties of God's creations and the He has provided this beautiful earth for us to learn and grow and gain experience. We love being on our mission, the experiences we are having and love you all very much.

Miami or Bust

During this past week, we continued to make trips (4) to the Miami area for training and companion study. Our last visit was to the Atrium in the heart of downtown Miami. The Elders came down on the street to save a parking spot for us and by the time we pulled in to it, I was a nervous wreck. We found out that in downtown Miami a red light doesn't mean stop, but stop and then go if the coast is clear. It took us a while to catch onto this and we were honked at a lot. We have two more trips this week and then will start visiting the Hialeah area which has a reputation as a rough part of the mission. Following that, we will be back up to our Coral Springs area (paradise). Sister Black taught the Gospel Principles class this week. After Sacrament meeting, we were out in the foyer and an older lady who described herself as a Jewish-Christian asked Elder Black for a program and he invited her to attend Gospel Principles class. She accepted and was the only investigator in the class. She spend about 10 minutes introducing herself and telling about her life. We had six missionaries, another ward couple and her. The Elders will be making a follow-up appointment with her and will have us go along. We also have our first appointment this week with a part member family in the Coral Springs ward.

Saturday evening (Valentines day), we had a very fun Senior Couples party at our apartment. We visited and told about how we met our spouses and really enjoyed the company. Yesterday, we were asked to deliver some flowers to one of the Sister Missionaries in the Boca Raton area (east of us) and we took the opportunity to take them to lunch. They are very sweet and dedicated to the work. They have two baptisms next week. One of them was told they couldn't be baptized if they continued to drink coffee, so she said she would switch to de-caff., but when they shook their heads no, she said I'll go out tonight and buy me some hot chocolate mix. What faith! Our mission was blessed with a record 17 baptisms last week. In the Hialeah area, a family of seven joined the church. This coming week looks like a big week also. Our Mighty Prayer and the dedication of the missionaries is really making a difference in the lives of many people.