Each missionary in the Fort Lauderdale mission must have a bike. This means that each vehicle needs a bike rack and that there are lots of bikes that need repairing. Today we exchanged cars for two sister missionaries and this required installing a rack on their new car. To make a long story shorter I got to install the rack in a parking lot with it raining. This is not something that they give classes for at the MTC but I am getting fairly good at it.

The pictures above were taken at the storage space where bikes, parts of bikes, and bike racks are stored. The first picture is of the mobile bike repair man that comes out and puts bikes back in serviceable condition. Elder Collins – who handles housing and bikes – and Elder Beagsley were also at the storage shed. I am sure I will learn much more about bikes and bike racks before this mission is over.

  

We had the opportunity tonight to go to the Weston/Pembroke Pines Christmas party and after dinner the YM and YW of the wards beautifully and reverently portrayed the nativity story. After each scene was read by the narrator and acted out by the youth, the audience joined in a carol that fit the scene. It was a real spiritual experience to share this with the wards.

We were happy to see that there were at least 2 non-LDS in attendance that we were introduced to and the missionaries got an appointment with one of them. BTW the food was very good also.

  

These are just pictures from our daily life. The Publix grocery store is on our way home so we stop there a couple of times a week. We found that it has both A&W diet root beer and delicious rice pudding. For those two reasons alone it is a must stop for us.

The other picture is just across a driveway from Publix and I have no idea what the building holds but the scenery was too beautiful to not share. Water, water everywhere today.

   

When you have a fleet of over 60 cars there are always new ones coming into the mission and the old ones need to be sold. Before we can sell them we have to repair any major damage, make sure everything works, and clean them up. One of the things I have been doing the last couple of days is taking cars to a car wash where they are detailed inside and cleaned outside. It is one of the busiest car washes I have ever been to but also one of the best. The people are friendly, the prices are reasonable, and the work is very good.

As we were sitting in the apartment we happened to notice that a neighboring family was bringing home a new born. Mary went over to see the baby – we are looking forward to soon having a new grandson coming to Kristy and Jim – and took a couple of pictures of happy mother and sleeping Damon Jr.

 

As we were walking out of the apartment to go to district meeting I happened to notice these ducks and the white bird that appears to be some kind of egret…I must get a book of Florida birds. It is a bonus to have this wildlife near our apartment.

District meeting is always a treat because we get to share the testimonies and spirit of the young missionaries. We have found the two we have been to well organized with excellent teaching and meaningful role playing that help the missionaries better prepare to teach the gospel. Fort Lauderdale district has a three some of sister who today got to teach us. L-R are sisters Holder, Mills and Hong. Each of them bubbled over with joy and the spirit as they got so into teaching that it became very real. It was a joy to see them automatically take turns bearing testimony of what they were teaching. Hooray for Israel!

 

Christmas brings massive amounts of mail into the mission office and Mary spends a good deal of her time dealing with letters and packages. At this time of the year, the post office sends a special delivery of just large packages each day. Later the regular mail deliver brings a large stack of regular mail and smaller packages. Each piece must be re- routed to the address where the missionary is living and then taken to the main post office to be delivered. Yesterday we made two trips to the post office – one in the morning and one in the afternoon. Missionaries need to get the letters and packages as soon as possible. They consider it kind of like manna from heaven.

The other two pictures are of the Plantation chapel where we go to church. Once the Weston/Pembroke Pines chapel is repaired we will go there. Our guess is that is not going to happen before June of next year. So for now the two wards that are usually in that chapel meet together here. Notice the pond in front. It is so there is not standing water everywhere. No swimming or fishing is allowed here or in the canal across the street. There was an alligator spotted in the canal and this keeps down the desire of children to escape the heat by swimming in it.

Today we received this letter from one of the young members in Indonesia who we had the joy of having in our Intensive English class and how she is now teaching English. It also tells how she did not let adversity stop her – she is a great young woman and leader in the Church.

sister pier,

i am doing good. The english course is getting bigger. 6 month ago i started with only 2 kids, now we have 11 elementary students, 9 junior high students, and six adults in conversation class.  I am soooo blessed. 2 months ago, i lost almost all my students, because a very bad rumor. The rumor said that i taught my students about church, and encourage them to join to our church. All the students parent were angry with me. But, all is well now, i made an open house, and held i meeting with all the parents. Some of them were back, but some of them,didn’t. But then i made a new brochures, and went to every schools in my area, stand in the front of the school gates, share the brochures to every student, and….. got more new students. Aaaaaaand, i didn’t know that there is a company close to one of those schools, two of employees of that company found the brochures ( not all the students paid attention to my brochures, almost of all them just threw it away), and asked me if i have conversation class. I said i don’t have yet, but i will hold it if they want. So, we have a conversation class with 6 adults students( those 2 employee, bring their friends).

 So, i believe that when God close one door, He leads us to the another door, if all the doors are closed, He will open the window, if He close all the doors and the windows, it means, there is a storm outside and He wants me to be safe and warm inside. All i need to do is doing my best to find the door and the window…. and to believe in Him.

 I hope someday i will have my own english course. The english course is not mine. My friend own this, and i  hold and take care of this, and we share the profit.

I also have a small online bussines, well, i am learning interner marketing, hehehehehehe. Hopefully i can get enough money to buy my own computer ( i am in half way to go there, yeaaaah!!!!!!), so i don’t need to go to warnet.

I also have a small bussines with sister judy vandongen, may be you know her. She got a lot of order for hot pads, and she gives some order to me. So i sew the hot pads and send to her.

I also have a little batik bussines, i buy batik clothes from jogja, and sell them here in bekasi.

And, i am also busy being a wife, my most favorite job of all.

Sooo, that is my life, for now, hehehehehe, i don’t know in the future what i am going to do…. may be i will have another bussines, heheheheehehehe.

xoxo

vita mongula

We also received today a video from a young man who Mary taught piano to in South Africa showing him playing Church hymns. He will soon be putting his mission papers in and his talent is sure to be used wherever he serves.What joy things like this brings to our lives as we see the small seeds we got to plant grow and bear fruit years after we have left.

***Editorial correction. Mary tells me I need to correct this post because when I wrote it we had been in Fort Lauderdale only 24 days. It was a month since we left Utah on our trip across the country to the mission.

31 Days ago we drove up to the mission office and introduced ourselves to the couples who were there. I have to say we are so comfortable it seems like we have always been here.

Today our meetings at the Weston ward started with Ward Council at 11:30 and ended 6 hours later as we left the chapel after a wonderful baptismal service for a lovely woman who found the Church through members who brought the feeling of peace and love into her life. It was just as PMG says – she did not know what she was looking for but when she felt it she knew she wanted to be a part of it. Mary was asked to play the piano – the ward mission leader brother Wood was very relieved when he found out she could play – and I gave the closing prayer. Mary is also playing for Relief Society so her talents are being well used.

Ward Council was well run and mainly was about people and their needs. They did spend time on the temple trip but part of that was making sure the new converts were encouraged to go. The other calendar event that took time was the Christmas party that is coming up on Friday but again some of that time was encouraging members to bring non-LDS friends. We were asked to work with one of the new converts and give the new member lessons in the coming week.

Our first testimony meeting was much different than our first one in South Africa but a number of the testimonies touched my spirit. 6 hours seems like a long time but I must say that except for a spot in the middle of SS when I really wanted to just nod off, it went quickly.

I think this next month will see us getting much more involved with the ward and missionary work. The ward had a goal of 8 baptism and they had 3. In each case the investigators pretty much asked for the missionaries so the members did not have much to do with preparing their friends to receive them. We are going to try to work on that in the months ahead but we need to do it with lots of love so no one thinks we are being critical of their efforts. I think if they see we are working hard they will want to help.

I would guess that most members, including missionaries who have not served in a mission office, have no idea how much everyday effort goes into keeping a mission up and running.

Housing: Elder Collins spends his days keeping a roof over the missionaries head. This includes finding apartments in the right areas and negotiating leases or rents, furnishing the apartments, replacing furniture, moving apartments, solving problems from non-working toasters to missionaries who look themselves out of their apartments, and anything else that needs to be done to see that missionaries are safely housed.

Vehicles: Elder Beagley spends his days trying to keep things moving. This includes keeping track of which vehicles is where, getting wrecked vehicles repaired, solving any problem that occur to any of the 50 plus vehicles in the mission, moving new cars in and older cars out, and making monthly reports to Salt Lake. He also handles cellphones and the problems that come up from that.

Mail: Sister Collins and Sister Pier  are in charge of the mail. It is amazing how many packages and how much mail comes into the office each day. This must be sorted and forwarded to wherever the missionary is now serving. So each piece must be relabeled and have the old routing imprints blocked out before it is taken back to the postoffice and re-mailed. UPS and Fedex packages must be resent or hand delivered to the missionaries. They say that it is about to get really crazy in the mail room over the next three weeks as Christmas packages come in.

Finances: Elder Steimle handles all the finances for the mission and also a number of other things that need to be done each cycle as missionaries move, come into the mission and leave the mission. He arranges for the payment of all bills. Everything must be carefully documented so when the auditors come – and they come regularly – they will be able to make sure that the Lord’s money is being well taken care of.

Mission Office: Sister Steimle handles the front desk and the phone calls that come in. She is also responsible for making travel arrangements for all the incoming and outgoing missionaries. She handles all the President’s correspondence. She is the hub around the rest of the mission revolves.

Other things: Elder Sommerfeldt helps elder Collins with housing and is the expert on getting rid of bed bugs, moving furniture, and housing inspections. He also helps Elder Beagley with the autos and is an expert on bicycles. Each missionary has to have a bike if they serve in the Fort Lauderdale mission.

Sister Sommerfeldt is the mission nurse. She is on call at all times to answer the needs of the missionaries. Her phone rings whenever a missionary feels like they are not well or have some problem with their health. Sister Anderson, the mission presidents wife, is also the go to person when it comes to missionary health problems.

Sister Beagley takes care of reporting baptisms and confirmations to the Church so the new members can be recorded. She is constantly trying to get the missionaries to get the reports to her and then trying to get them to get to her with all the information and signatures correct. This is not a job for anyone who gets frustrated easily as some missionaries think that as soon as a person in baptized and confirmed their work is finished and the rest is just paperwork.

Elder Beagley is also in charge of cellphones which means that when a missionary drops their phone in the toilet – a regular problem – a phone stops working or is broken, he has to take care of the problem.

Elder Collins also takes care of ordering all the missionary supplies that are used in bringing the gospel to the people of Florida. He has to order them in three languages: English, Spanish and Haitian-Creole and any other special language that might be needed.

I am sure I left out many of the tasks that must be done each day to keep the mission up and running and that allows the mission president and the missionaries to go about their daily work of helping others come unto Christ.

Of course these wonderful senior couples than go home have dinner and then often go out to visit less active and part member families, home teach, and work with the young missionaries. But one thing is constant – the joy that comes from serving the Lord as a senior missionary.

     

We had the great experience of taking 7 wonderful missionaries who had finished their missions and would be going home tomorrow to the Orlando temple. Even though almost everyone had to wake up at 4:00 am or sooner to get to the Plantation chapel to begin the journey, they were all bright eyed and excited to go. It was a blessing to see them say goodbye to their companions as they parted for perhaps the last time ever. They had shared experiences that can never be duplicated or forgotten.

After our session President Halversen took us to a sealing room and gave a short talk about the temple and the covenants that are made there. He then took the time to answer questions. Some of the missionaries then went back to the Celestial room to pray and hold on to the feeling that is there a little longer. It was a beautiful experience and worth the 7 or so hours of driving.

When we were back in Plantation we all went to the Mission home where Sister Anderson had prepared a delicious meal which was followed by the President asking each missionary to share one spiritual experience and then bear their testimony. We left at that point so the assistants could drive us back to the chapel to get our van and head home.

It was a very long but a very rewarding day for us.

Went to Costco and besides getting what we needed I bought the traditional poinsettia and a non-traditional live Christmas tree. It is a Norfolk pine that is about 2 feet tall and came with some gold ornaments. Mary brought some South African ornaments and the nativity ornament we bought in Santa Fe earlier this year. We still need some small lights and a few more balls but I had to take pictures and post them so everyone could see we are going to have a very, merry Christmas.

..

On the 19th I wrote about Zone Conference and mentioned a program that President started here called ‘Harvesting the Field” where the missionaries offer to come in and leave a blessing on the home. It has been much more successful than just tracting but the missionaries need to be bold and bear testimony if they really want to get in and bless the home. President Anderson taught this and told the missionaries if they would prayerfully and with authority bear testimony of the blessings that the home would receive that people would invite them in.

In this week’s letter from the President he shared a number of experiences that missionaries had written to him. This is just one:

“This last week after Zone Conference, we had District Meeting the next day. We talked a lot about Harvesting with testimony. After District Meeting we went out and Harvested. We used that energy and excitement that we had just learned about and used our testimony as well. The first door that we knocked they let us in and we blessed them. After that we went to another door and they let us in as well. It was really cool. We haven’t seen success with harvesting like this in a long time. The next day we were out harvesting and the first 3 people that talked to us, we were able to bless. And yesterday we went back to one of the houses and they let us teach them and the lesson was really good. We are now teaching the others. We have seen so much success these last 3 days with harvesting. It is so cool to be able to see how open people become when you testify with the spirit.

It really is cool…we are winning!