I realized that I did not have the Christmas picture of the whole Florida Fort Lauderdale mission in my blog so today I asked President Anderson to send one to me and he did. So here are the great, above average missionaries serving in the Florida Fort Lauderdale Mission in the middle of December 2012! It is a privilege to be in a picture with all of these fine young and not as young missionaries.

 

I could not figure out how to give you the whole picture in a form that did not take over the whole blog space so I cut it into two parts so if you want to see your son or daughter in a larger format you could.

 On Thursday and Friday Elder Haleck of the 2nd Quorum of the 70 and his wife were in the mission for a tour. Two zone conferences were held. On Thursday the four Northern zones – Stuart, Palm Beach, Coral Springs and Fort Lauderdale met up in Boynton Beach. We did not go to that one because we needed to be in the office. For that reason there are no missionary pictures to post from that conference!

But on Friday we did go down to the Miami Lakes chapel where the Southern four zones – Miami Beach, Hialeah, Miami and Homestead – met to be taught and instructed. We arrived early so we could put out packages, chapel cards and Ensigns and Liahonas for the zones. We were greatly helped by some of the elders. They are always willing to help and often we do not even need to ask because they come up and volunteer.

  

When we started taking things in, I heard someone playing the piano in the chapel. it turned out to be elder Allen who was playing some of his own jazzy pieces with elder Skousen looking on. I do not get many pictures with me in them but I asked someone to take this one with elder Faniaka who serves with elder Welch in Doral. I think he is wider than I am tall! Elders Bennett and Pingree are serving in Flagler, while elders Brough and Plowman are serving as Hialeah zone leaders. Elder Plowman and ourselves go back to the very first of our mission.

  

Elders Page, Shepard and Chinchilla helped with packages and elders Shipley, Gust and Chinchilla carried in the water that was to be served with lunch. Sister Quiocho has been training sister Brown  for the last two transfers in Miami Shores.

 

The APs – elders Shipley and Gust – have been rather busy this week with not only their regular duties and missionary work but also the Training the Trainers meeting and the two zone conferences. Elders Lee and Toeava are serving together in Miami Gardens.

  

Sisters Carnes and Judkins serve the Hialeah East area. The only missionaries who arrived on bikes were elders Bay and Diaz who serve in Miami Lakes. At least they do not have to worry about going over on their miles like some areas do. They are allowed to bike as many miles as they want each month.

  

Speaking of miles, elder Bare went to both conferences to work on cars and bike racks. With elder Sommerfeldt going home, elder Bare is as busy as a one arm paperhanger keeping up with the vehicles and bikes. Elder Beer, Williams and others arrive from the Homestead zone. Elder Benitez gets some things out of his trunk before the meeting.

  

Elder Boice and I went to Panda Express to pick up all the food for lunch. The Miami Lakes chapel is where the employment office is located and they go to the ward on Sunday so they know the area well. Sister Anderson made sure there was plenty of food for the 70-80 missionaries who were there. The Boices and I sat out the food. Sister Hymas was the first in line as sister Anderson looks over our work and gave us a thumbs up.

  

Sister Quiocho says she does not pose when she sees me taking pictures…I will let the picture speak for itself. Sister Brown is in the background as is sister Smith. The sisters get to be first in line as Mary starts to help with the food. The elders soon joined in and the heaps of food on their plates show that they were ready to eat.

 

Since the food line was moving along, I went to get in line to meet elder Haleck. When I got there I started taking pictures of some of the missionaries as they shook hands with him. Elder Haleck’s wife greeted them also. There are too many pictures to name them all but I am pretty sure parents and friends will recognize their missionary.

I never did get to shake their hands but later I did have a chance to talk to Elder Haleck about when he was mission president in Samoa. During their 3 years of service the mission had about 5000 baptisms and re-activated about the same number. The mission raised sacrament meeting attendance so high that 3 or 4 new stakes had to be formed. Of course he has a special place in his heart for missionaries as he did not join the Church until he was 17.

  

  

  

  

  

After greeting the McCormicks they did get have some lunch. Elder Rockwood was coming back for seconds I believe while elder Diaz got his first plate. The sisters did not all sit together as they sometimes do at conferences. Sisters Andrus and Dunford, who we saw yesterday at the office, were joined by elders Tesch and Hanna.

  

Elder Brown were at a table with elders Fullmer and Koerper – the companions who serve at the end of the world and mission down in Key West. Elder Dowdle was willing to show off his hand that required 10 stitches when he accidentally cut himself with a machete. He was cleaning it when it went off?

  

Elders Lee and Toeava again. This time with sisters Lira and Schneider who serve in Miami Lakes North. Sisters Smith and Hymas serve in Killian West had lunch with elders Maki and Curtis who are serving in Blue Lagoon East. We joined the table with elders Tesch, Hanna, Skousen and Brown.

  

Elders Curtis and Bare hold a conversation – maybe about cars or elder Bare was getting a Spanish lesson. The Halecks and Andersons had an official picture taken by elder Shipley – I took mine from the side. I also got one of sisters Anderson and Haleck talking…it came out a little blurry but as bishop Brown often says – it is what it is!

  

The Halecks had their picture taken with elder Toeava who comes to us from Samoa. I am sure they know a lot of the same people. We got most of the sisters together for a picture. What a group of amazing women and missionaries. When we got back to the office, sisters Holyan and Dougal dropped in so I got a final picture of the day of them with sister Ellis who was doing the mail.

It was a very good but very tiring day for us! We are looking forward to a quiet p-day.

 Wednesday at lunch time I took the picture of the rainbow in the fountain because we seldom see a rainbow that early in the day and we had not seen one at all for a while. We went to district meeting at Fort Lauderdale and I took of a picture of elder Smoot doing some work while elders Thorne, Andelin, Burt and Hunt cheered him on. Sister Dougal was on an exchange with sister Bean so I took her picture as they posed.

  

 

On Thursday I took this picture of the big missionary board as we have moved almost to the end of death row. Sisters Dunford and Andrus who are serving in Snapper Creek YSA came in after a visit to the dentist. They are not letting a little thing like a tooth stop them from teaching and baptizing. If you look carefully at the picture on the left you will see sister Andrus is just hanging on to the board as she will go home just before we do in April. Speaking of April transfer, at this time we have a total of 28 and possibly 29 missionaries coming in to the mission. If this keeps up they can just charter a plane to fly all our missionaries to Fort Lauderdale.

 We were getting ready to go to Fort Lauderdale’s district meeting when we found that it had been moved to tomorrow because President Anderson moved Train the Trainers to today. Thjs monthly meeting is for all trainers and their trainees from the last two transfers. From past experience we knew that after the meeting a lot of those companionships would be coming into the office to get supplies, chapel cards and to see elder Bare about vehicles and bikes. Because of that we did not take lunch at our regular time so we could help the missionaries with whatever they needed and to just enjoy their company. It also allowed me to take lots of pictures for our blog.

  

First in was elders Doria and Levy who were soon followed by our new elder Lamb and his trainer elder Fisher. They are serving Coral Reef area of the Homestead Zone. Elder Comstock is being trained by the ever smiling elder Rockwood – he usually has his eyes open.

  

Sisters Clayton and Johnson poised for a picture. Sister Houghton – sister Clayton’s companion is standing in elder Bare’s doorway while looking at the big missionary board. Sister Price with her trainer sister Tuai and sister Sablan with her trainer sister Beck.

  

Sisters Price, Sablan and Ellett were together in the MTC and were happy to have a picture taken of the threesome. Thumbs up all the way!  Elder Smoot came in to say hello and is seen here with sister Johnson.

  

Sister Bare was busy printing chapel cards but the missionaries had to cut them out. So elder Doria is in the first picture. Elder Winslow with his trainer and our old friend elder Rellaford are in the middle. Elder Hall is leaning against the cabinets while elder Rellaford continues to cut out chapel cards and elder Shipley works at a computer.

  

Elder Wilson and his trainee elder Brakey sport matching ties – elder Madson and his trainer elder Hall do not. Everyone smiles when thumbs go up. We have served in districts with both trainers and grew to know and love them greatly. Elder Page and his trainer elder Shepard serve Homestead West area.

  

Elders Madson and Winslow came into the mission together in January. Elders Wilson, Brakey and Hall enjoy a snack as do elders Madson, Winslow and Rellaford. The snacks and candy disappear quickly when this many missionaries come through.

  

Elder Rugg is training elder Brown in Hollywood Hills east while elder Elliott is being trained by elder Loucks up in Boynton Beach. It would not be a complete day if sisters Herrera and Stegelmeier did not come by. This sister Herrera’s second transfer as a trainee. The APs helped elder Bare put a new bike rack on their car.

 It was a very 2nd Monday here in the office. We have a staff meeting every 2nd Monday and most of the time all the couples are in attendance. Even the McCormicks make the long drive up here to be in the meeting and then at the Senior FHE.

  

This week our meeting included Elder and Sister Ellis. Elder Collins gave him a quick tutorial on how to make copies on the work centre printer. I have been trying to read what is written on sister Ellis’ scarf but I think it may be in Bulgarian!

  

Sisters Stegelmeier and Herrera made another stop in to see elder Bare about their car. Sister Bare is recovering from some surgery around her eye and was not really keen on being in the picture. The APs – it was p-day and they were using the computers to do their e-mailing  – were in so elder Gust talked to sister Stegelmeier for a minute.  Sister Stegelmeier wanted a picture with me…she has been in the area for 6 months and we have no pictures together! I do think she is in a Last Lunch group picture with us from when sister Dye was still here.

  

  

  

Senior FHE is always filled with good food, good conversation, and great friendship. Dinner was hot dogs, chips and fruit.

President and Sister Anderson came up with a take-off of game we had played before. The group was broken up into groups and one of them got a headband with a slot for a card. The object is for them to ask questions of the others in the group that can only be answered yes or no that will help them guess what is written on the card. Sister Anderson made up cards with names of people, objects and places from the Book of Mormon. The player who got the correct answer first won that round. After four rounds – which gave just about everyone a chance to be it – the winners of each round had a last contest. The winner of that round was the grand champion. Mary and I won our rounds along with sisters McCormick and Barry. In the playoff Mary won easily so she was the grand champion.

When we were picking up investigators on Sunday I saw this rooster and it reminded us of the colorful ones we saw all the time in South Africa.

President Anderson’s letter to the missionaries included a personal experience he and his family had over the last month.

“For this reason I refer to you not just as Elders and Sisters, but also as my Sons and Daughters. We had a grandson who passed away this last week that caused us to reflect and ponder the great Plan of Happiness. Thank you so much for your thoughts and prayers, they have been a tremendous comfort for us. The 23 days he was alive were days that I learned enormous things concerning God’s ways and God’s plan for us. I took every day and tried to understand “What does Everett (our grandson) want us to learn today?” Sure enough, it would come as a principle that I needed to be strengthened with, or an attribute that I needed to improve. I know when God gives us hard things to bear, he is trying to help us gain experience… “know thou, my son, that all these things shall give thee experience, and shall be for thy good” (D&C 122:9). He wants us to learn and grow from it.

I learned that Everett was in a small percentage; probably less than 1%, who have this condition, live as long as he did. He taught me the importance of defying all odds and to never give up until God calls me home. I am so grateful for that opportunity that God has given me another day to learn, another day to grow, another day to understand, another day to share the Gospel of Jesus Christ. 

You, like Helaman’s warriors, defy the odds and beat the percentages by following the Spirit and knowing who is praying you there:

 “we had just arrived to the area we had prayed about earlier and couldn’t decided which side of the street to knock so we decided to pray about it, after we finished we felt we should knock on the north side and on the second door we knocked this man opened, we told him who we were and he said ‘I know I had a dream you would be coming today’ I couldn’t believe it so we left him with the blessing and invited him to be baptized which his response was ‘of course I prayed you here’ he is now preparing for the 17th! Later that day it was getting kind of late but we didn’t have anything else to do so we decided to harvest the area we knocked a couple doors with little to no success when all of the sudden we see this young couple holding a little light so we again identify who we are and they get super happy and lead us back to their house. As we get in the house they show us what the light says ‘let your light so shine’ they said that they went out that night with their light to find followers of Christ and that a true follower of Christ would find them because of the light so we left the blessing and they are both preparing to be baptized!”

 You, like Helaman’s warriors, defy the odds and beat the percentages by using the Spirit and with love and boldness likening the scriptures to “pull” them to Christ:

 

“David is the husband of a recent convert. A couple weeks ago he came to church with his family. Since then we hadn’t been able to talk to him about baptism because he was never home when we set up a time to go see him. On Friday night we stopped by to check up on their family’s scripture reading. When we pulled up David was outside smoking a cigarette. We said a short prayer and jumped out of the car. As I walked up to David I felt the Spirit super strong and said ‘David, you know who we are, We are representatives of Jesus Christ. I know he has sent us here to invite you to be baptized.’ He said ‘I have already been baptized.’ I said ‘I know that you can be baptized again to be washed clean from your sins and to be filled with the strength of the Lord.’ I turned to 3 Ne 27:20. I asked him how he felt. He said that he felt good and knew that the Lord was telling him to be baptized. I then asked him if he had the desire to quit smoking and drinking. He said yes but he didn’t know how that would be possible. I turned to Ether 12 where the brother of Jared moves the mountain Zerin. We read the scripture and then we turned to Moroni 7:33. It was amazing to see that as we likened the scriptures to him (his mountain being smoking and drinking) that faith in Jesus Christ would enable him to make the changes (repentance!) that he wants to in his life!! We called our district leader and he came down and interviewed him that night. He was baptized on Sunday and his son Lindon baptized him (he got the priesthood that day!)! It was so amazing!! This family is going to the temple!!!”

 You, like Helaman’s warriors, defy the odds and beat the percentages by helping the members in retention and in turn they embrace our investigators with love:

 “These past few weeks we have been asking the leaders what we can do to help the branch and they said, ‘We want the recent converts back.’ While working with the branch mission leader we have brought 4 recent converts back to church consistently for the past 3 weeks who hadn’t been to church in about 3 months. When the members saw these members come to church and bear their testimonies the spirit of missionary work increased and the trust in the members really became stronger. Yesterday we had an investigator come to church who we had met on the street who asked if we were Jehovah’s witnesses. We kindly said, ‘nope, we’re Mormons!’ Want to come to church on Sunday?’ He looked at the card and said, ‘I’ll be there.’ And he came! He went up to bear his testimony of how the Lord lead us to him because he’s trying to change his life around. The members surrounded him and were hugging him and he told us, “I love this place!” I know that this work can only be done with the help of the members!”

You, like Helaman’s warriors, defy the odds and beat the percentages by talking and inviting everyone:

 “…we were out with a member, Marvin, waiting for out investigator to meet us and the ice cream truck man pulled up and Marvin decided he wanted ice cream and went over to the ice cream truck. Then he called us over to get some ice cream too so we were talking to the young man giving us the ice cream and out of nowhere he started asking us about the church and said he’s interested and wants to come!… So we gave him our card and got his information then we headed out. Then we didn’t really think much of it, but decided to send a text to all of our potentials inviting them to sacrament and Josh, this ice cream truck guy, was the only one that texted back…so we called him and set up an appointment to meet with him, called our branch mission leader to come with us and had an incredible lesson with him! He is preparing for baptism and knows that this is the step to changing his life. It’s so funny how even something small like talking to the ice cream truck guy can lead to a new and awesome investigator.”

 You missionaries, like my grandson, are defying all odds and all percentages. Just by being here on a mission you are a small percentage of this world compared to the world’s population. You are only one one thousandth of a percent (one out of one thousand people) who have made a choice to come out into all mankind and are set apart and ordained “Representatives of Jesus Christ”.

The missionaries call us to reserve seats on our van for taking their investigators to Church. They try very hard to get a member to pick them up so they can get to know someone who will always be there. But if they can not, then they ask us. Today we picked up investigators from three areas and still made it to Church on time. It is fun to get to know the investigators and today’s load included Anthony who recently lost part of his left leg to infection, Mike who has his son and family living with him, and a Creole sister and her daughter who we could not communicate with very well.

We got an e-mail from our good friends the Alexanders telling us that the new bishop for our home ward is our next door neighbor Bishop Nathan Tanner. This means the next time we need an interview for a mission we can just have him come over – there is not even a fence between our yards.

But the most exciting news we received today was a picture of our grandson Elder Shane Webb who just arrived in the Spain Malaga mission. It shows his trainer elder Keller and the Jaen area where they will serve.

 We took E/S Ellis out for a couple of hours to show them how to get to a couple of places that they will be going to over the next few days. After showing them the Mission Home and the Plantation Stake Center we went to the Pines chapel where they will go most Sundays. On the way back we stopped by the temple site so they could see the how it was going and so they could meet brother Mark Barry. A great bonus was a picture of Mark smiling…something I have not been able to do for the last year as he tends to be camera shy. We have a lot of fun kidding each other about my attempts to get him to talk about when the temple will be finished and my taking and posting pictures of the progress. I told him was going to train elder Ellis to take my place as an annoyance after I leave.

  

As you can see by the pictures they are busy moving dirt around as the sculpt the landscape. They have run a lot of the conduit for outside power. We did not see it but brother Barry said they have started to layout the main parking lot. E/S Ellis will be here for the open house and the dedication!

  

  

Thursday night we welcomed elder and sister Ellis who drove in from the MTC. They are from Idaho Falls and have served two prior missions. The first was to Bulgaria for 23 months and the other was a Temple Square mission for 13 months. They will be serving as the Family History missionaries for the whole mission. They came in on Friday to get acquainted with the office and spent some time with elder Bare getting their Tiwi and gas card as well as a Sunpass for their car so they can travel the turnpikes as the go throughout the mission encouraging family history and temple work.

  

Sisters Holyan and Dougal came into the office to pick up some supplies and chapel cards. They serve the Nova YSA branch and are doing a wonderful job at building it up. In the middle picture they are looking for the chapel cards behind sister Ellis. Earlier sisters Bean and Lake came in to get supplies and had some questions for elder Bare. Now that he has both bikes and vehicles to worry about elder Bare is probably the busiest of the senior elders but elder Collins, the housing co-ordinater is close behind as he and his wife need to find homes for all the new missionaries who will be coming in over the next two transfers.

  

Sister Stegelemeier came in to see elder Bare – she actually came in their car and not on the scooter she is trying out. As we were talking she mentioned that she had a mission blog. I was surprised because I try to keep up with which missionaries have blogs. A quick look at her blog made me realize that families who have missionaries serving here would enjoy reading her letters home so I added her blog to my blog list. The assistants were in much of the day working on their planning and checking in with missionaries. They spend a lot of time on their phones talking to or texting other missionaries. At about 4:00 they were done and could leave to do ‘real’ missionary work in their area. The gardeners trimmed the hibiscus tree outside our door but they managed to leave one bud untouched that bloomed into this gorgeous flower. We will miss all the beautiful flowers that are available here year round.

 If you have been following this blog, you will know that one of the special events of each week for us is the opportunity to go to a district meeting with the missionaries of the Fort Lauderdale district. However this transfer things just kept coming up and today was the first time we were able to go. As always it helped recharge our spiritual batteries to sing, pray, and learn with these great above average missionaries.

  

We were among the first there with only sisters Lake and Bean as well as elders Andelin and Burt being early. Singing – other than sisters Bean and Lake – is not this districts greatest strength but we try very hard. Mary played the piano while elder Jones led and his companion elder Van Wagenen sang along.

  

The Zone Leaders – elders Smoot and Hunt – were a little late because they were at another district meeting before this one and had to make a stop at the mission office. Sister Lake and elders Andelin, Burt, Thorne and Rondo were ready to sing when they arrived. Later sister Andrus and Dunford came in and picked up their own mail as well as that for others in their area. Sister Dunford got a package with lots of great ideas, talks, etc that she was excited to use in teaching.

  

After closing the office we went to the post office and then back to the Fort Lauderdale chapel. I took this picture of Bishop Brown and his desk. He actually knows where everything is on his desk – he only has a problem if someone else moves things around. Pink thing was given to him to take care of by a sister who was leaving the area. It is supposed to be until she comes back – if she comes back. The WMC meeting is always good because the bishop makes sure that it is centered around the actual investigators and new members. Elder Gust was on an exchange with elder J. Brown – the bishop thought that was a great last name – brothers Acevedo and Hafen are in the background.