Rainy

No parking

This week was a pretty basic week, nothing too out of the ordinary. But it did rain a lot this week! Catching some of what I hear is becoming hurricane Alberto. Crazy, it seems pretty early to be having a hurricane...

So there has been an interesting development in the mission. We're getting rid of a lot of the "extra" rules that we had and sticking straight to the white handbook. Not too many details on exactly what is included in that, but one thing that has been made clear is the MUSIC rule! We can now listen to any music that conforms to these guidelines:

"Listen only to music that is consistent with the sacred spirit of your calling. Music should invite the Spirit, help you focus on the work, and direct your thoughts and feelings to the Savior. Do not listen to music that pulls your thoughts away from your work, merely entertains, has romantic lyrics or overtones, or dulls your spiritual sensitivity by its tempo, beat, loudness, lyrics, or intensity."

Anyone that would like to donate their favorite music to the Elder Stevenson Foundation would be greatly appreciated haha.

Perfect place to lock up

This week we had a good zone training about meaningful prayer and studies. I've already seen a difference in the way I prepare for prayer and studies, it's been really great. One of my takeaways was that I should treat prayer like an interview with the mission president, or even a Skype call, and get excited! I haven't seen my Father in almost 20 years, how should I feel to get to talk to Him? How would I prepare for that?

We had a zone wide exchange after the training, and I went to Fort Myers Creole with Elder Couillens. It was a fun day, definitely different than Immokalee, but I learned a lot from him. Elder Charles stayed here with Elder Lantor and they found a bunch of investigators, so that was cool.

Speaking of investigators, we had to drop one of our friends named M[...]. It was kinda depressing, our last lesson with her was pulling out all the stops to try to get her to understand that not just any church is good enough. We were as straight forward and bold as you can imagine, using only Scriptures from the Bible to show that the Great Apostasy happened and that the true church was restored (check out 1 Timothy 4:1-4 if you get the chance) ... but she still wasn't willing to act. It's sad seeing people that you've worked with for a little while fall away like that, but in the end it just strengthened my testimony that this truly is the only place that has and teaches all the truth.

Other than that, we only had 12 people at church on Sunday, 6 of them being us missionaries (Haitians hate rain, they believe it makes you sick) so we just had Sunday School and a short sacrament meeting and everyone went home haha.

That was pretty much it for this week. As of right now I only have 3 months left in my mission, crazy! Next week is transfers, we'll see what happens. I'm really trying to take as much advantage of this time as possible. Have a great week!

Soaking in the sun (literally)

Lanmou,
Eldè Stevenson

God's Plan

We got soaked in the rain.
Elder Charles and Elder Stevenson

The most interesting thing that happened was zone conference. We had a member of the seventy, Elder Klebingat, come and speak to us. It was a long conference, took the whole day, but it was worth it. He knows the scriptures so well. He started off by explaining exactly who we were in the pre-earth life, and what that means we have to do now. Super good, here's some of my favorite quotes:

• Tell yourself "I am here to fulfill a pre-mortal covenant to gather Israel"

• The pain of discipline is always better than the pain of regret

• Once we yield to temptation, we give the adversary ammunition with a memory

• You need to be better than yourself tomorrow

• Fear, typically, is not to be overcome, but to be managed and controlled

• You are choosing today where you want to be for eternity

• Everything you do today is a reflection of the depth of your conversion

• Never make the first mistake once

• You cannot teach what you don't know, and you will not teach what you are not excited about

Lots of good stuff.

God's Plan

We also had our best lesson with Astrel and Saintana this week. We taught the plan of salvation with some little toys that my family had made for me and gave me last Christmas. It really made it all click for Astrel, he really liked the part about the spirit world and how nobody burns in hell haha. He took pictures of the final setup, each one moving the people down. I reenacted it to show you what I mean. He asked us to get some Scriptures from the Bible that talk about it so he can share it, so we went back yesterday with one for each of the major parts. They also got a car now, so hopefully Astrel  can drive them all to church. Good stuff!

We also had our first member meal appointment since coming to this area haha. We got permission to go to Lehigh to have dinner with the Knoop family, and they made us a really nice meal. Grateful.

We didn't have any investigators come to church yesterday, but Saintana was there which was great. They had the baptism of the lady that wanted to get baptized after seeing Saintana's baptism, that was pretty neat.

That was pretty much it from this week, just a couple highlights but it was a good one. It's been raining off and on all week here, which is kinda nice. We've been needing some good rain, it keeps us cool while biking haha. Anyways hope you all have a great week!

Getting chases by a dog on our bikes. haha

Rain

Vulture drying out in the sun. There are tons of vultures here.

Saintana had this on her TV last night, snagged a pic haha

Lanmou,
Eldè Stevenson