The Week of Weeks!

My poor bike

Hello everyone! So this week has still been pretty not normal you could say. First things first though this week is TRANSFERS. And I will be TRANSFERRING to the area of CYPRESS CREEK ENGLISH in the CORAL SPRINGS ZONE. My new companion will be ELDER MARSHALL. All the other elders here will be staying, and Elder Blood will be training! Definitely didn't expect this one, It'll be a lot different serving as just an English missionary, but the Lord needs me there for some reason so I'll just have to figure it out I guess. I haven't heard anything about the area other than apparently the ward meets in an old baptist church so that'll be interesting.

The weirdness of the week started off last p-day when we got in a crash! We were finally on our way "home" from the chapel and Elder Anderson was driving, and because of the hurricane there are traffic lights out. Well there was this one light that wasn't really a light because it was just for a school and is never on anyways, but a Mercedes 2 cars ahead of us decides to slam on his brakes to stop at it, which caused the mini cooper behind him to slam on his brakes, which caused Elder Anderson to slam on our brakes. And since we had all our stuff along with 4 guys in the car, we couldn't stop fast enough and we hit the back of the mini cooper. Everyone was fine, but our car got bashed pretty bad. Elder Anderson didn't get faulted either so that was good haha.

Our poor car

So then we didn't have a car, and we were living up with the cypress grove elders, Elder Wride and Elder Petersen, because our house still didn't have power. So the next day we tried biking down to do stuff in our area and I got the first flat tire of my mission! A 3 inch rusty screw went straight through my tire. So then I was out of a bike and we stuck with the other elders for the rest of the day.

The next day was Zone Conference, and President showed us his portfolio of pictures he took before his mission. He's an amazing photographer, really cool stuff. He's done photo shoots for some pretty big companies too. Even Disney! We also got a new car after zone conference so that was awesome. And I ate at steak and shake for the first time, which is kinda like the in-n-out of the east coast. Pretty good, not as good as in-n-out though.

We were finally able to go back to our house on Saturday. We have power, but the AC comes in and out still. Better than camping out in a chapel and living outside our area though. This weekend we also did more Mormon Helping Hands. We got in a work crew with the L.......s, the same family that took care of us during the hurricane. That was fun, they're an awesome family. But so many trees. After all this is over I will never need to touch another stick haha. It's exhausting work and there's so much to be done, but I'm glad to be able to help out these people. They're always so grateful for our help.

​Gotta get those yellow shirts!​

​Working in the rain!​

​Working hard or hardly working?

Speaking of that, this weekend is General Conference. However, the General Authorities have asked that we forego watching conference to do more Helping Hands. Kind of a bummer since I was kinda looking forward to a break, and General Conference is like super bowl weekend for missionaries haha. But, since I'll be transferring back to the east coast there's a good chance that I'll be camping (like, ACTUAL camping with TENTS) down in the KEYS to help clean up down there. The Keys got pretty wrecked so this isn't going to be much of a vacation but it'll be an interesting experience all the same. Somehow among all this I am still going to be doing missionary work, I'm expecting a bit of a rough transition at first but we'll see how it all pans out.

So as you can tell, things are really shaking up around here. Things will probably never be the same after this, but it's been a huge growing experience for me which I can really appreciate. Heavenly Father is really putting me, and putting all of us for that matter, to the test and I'm just going to keep making myself do those things that I don't want to do because I know there's a good reason for all of it. Just know that things are working out and are going to keep working out, and I just might be an even better person because of it hahaha. I love you all, thank you for your continued prayers and support!

Lanmou,

Eldè Stevenson

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Holy Biking Batman!

Pic from Elder Webster

Hello everyone! This week has been an exhausting one, that's for sure. Mostly because of all the biking I've been doing. On average we bike around 25 miles per day, but depending where we go it could easily top 30. Naples as a city is already spread out, so you can imagine what it's like trying to get to Haitian spots. Our main spot is about an hour and a half away if we don't stop. If I'm not mistaken it's the largest bike area in the mission. Great for my first time biking in over a year! Needless to say I'm still pretty slow and I've had to dramatically change my lifestyle, but hey if that's what it takes. Hopefully that all doesn't sound complainy hahaha! 

This week we had our first interviews with president Garns. It was mostly just for him to get to know us better. We struck it off pretty well once he found out I'm from Simi. Most of the time was spent talking about the great stake presidents we have. Didn't get to ask any questions really but that's ok, I'll just ask them in my email today.

Our zone also had 4 baptisms this week, and Elder Dick got to interview all of them! One was from our district and the others were for the ZLs, so it was a busy night for him. 

As far as people we're teaching, we're still trying to work with Janette even though she didn't come to church, and she still has some concerns we're working to overcome, so we'll see how that goes. Also just last night we found another person named Iglesia (yes, she is Haitian). She's the sister of another person that Elder Dick found on exchange and taught the restoration to. Apparently she was pretty cool, and her sister is pretty cool too! We're excited to work with them, even though they live in that hour and a half away place haha.

Other than that, not too much else happened. After sacrament yesterday one of the Haitian members came us to us and said "can you teach the class, my dad isn't here." Of course we were like "...Sure!" So Elder Dick and I taught a lesson about Gifts of the Spirit. A lesson that can definitely go awry with Haitians hahaha. It went well though, everyone stayed pretty much on topic which was great. We also had a visitor in the class. We tried to see her yesterday evening but didn't end up having enough time to get there. Bummer.

Oh and I almost forgot, as we were biking home last night Elder Dick got a flat tire just shortly after we started! So we patched it up and the ZLs came and drove us back home. I was very grateful that I got to take the 20 minute drive instead of the hour and a half bike ride late at night. 

Another biking related incident I almost forgot about: The other day we were biking home at night (fortunately we were closer to home) and we went through a golf course to take a short cut. Elder Dick was in front and I was doing my best to keep up (golf courses actually have HILLS, what are those? haha) but somehow I biked past him at the spot where we were supposed to get off. 

I ended up following the trail, hoping that Elder Dick was somewhere ahead. I get to a fork in the path and I look at my GPS (which was pretty useless since golf courses aren't really mapped) and pick a path to go. Shortly thereafter the path stopped. I turned around and went the other way, and got to another fork. I picked a way and the path stopped again. I went the other way and made it out at the top of the course. 

I bike across a parking lot to get to the road, look at my GPS to plan my route home and just as I put it away and am about to start, the ZLs pull up in their mini van and honk and flash their lights at me. Perfect timing. Elder Dick had called President as soon as he knew I was lost, and the ZLs were driving around to find me. So everything worked out, and I made sure Elder Dick didn't beat himself up too bad about it either haha. I believe there are many lessons that can be learned from this story, I'd love to hear of the ones you find! Thank you all for your prayers and support!

Lanmou,

Eldè Stevenson

What A Week - Transfer!

​All the creole missionaries at meet the president.​

Hello everyone! So, first off this week is transfers, and I will be TRANSFERRING to the area of NAPLES CREOLE and my new companion will be ELDER DICK. Wooooo! First time being companions with someone from the MTC! It is a car share though, which means I'll be biking for the first time my whole mission, and lots of it. Naples is a big area. I've heard very good things about Naples too, it should be a fun time! Also President Garns told us that we can expect to "stay in our areas a little longer than we may be used to", so I guess I'll find out what that means. Just got the new home address, [ask my Mom for this if you want it.]

​Our 4th of July dinner.​

Lots of stuff happened this week. First we had 4th of July. We mostly just chilled in our apartment all night, we tried to go out on the golf course to see some fireworks but there were trees blocking them all. It was still a fun night though, our member fed us lots of really good food too. 

We also got to meet President Garns this week. We basically had a mini Zone Conference with just us and the Coral Springs zone. Him and his wife shook each of our hands and then told us about themselves and their family and all that. He was still kinda in general authority mode which was funny. He started off his talk by talking about all the amazing things about his wife, giving the men marriage advice, and then giving her a kiss on the forehead hahaha. He's a super great guy, I already love him. He gave a little training based on analyzing the painting of Christ and the Rich Young Ruler (Bible story video below) that was super good. He's coming in strong with a few changes, like our investigators need to come to church 3 times to be baptized instead of 2. He also wants to get rid of "mission slang" like "dad, mom, baby, born, died" etc. I think he's exactly what this mission needs right now.

 

​President Garns!

Elder Celestin made the whole district matching planners.​

​Me with my trainer, Elder Lund! He's going home!​

That day we also went to a super fun meal appointment with one of the sisters in the ward. She had a bunch of family from New York over and we were talking about New York slang and all that. Elder Celestin taught us a lot of terms already and they were surprised we new them "YUUUUURP." Plus the food was super good, we had ribs and stuff. Then, we heard some "skurt skurts" outside and there were 2 guys street racing right outside. the member kinda lives in the ghetto so we all went outside to watch. It was like a Nissan vs a beat up tricked up g-whip and the Nissan was creaming him. Then we hear someone say "sheriff!" and a cop car rolls around the corner. The guys in the Nissan just pulled into their driveway and the cop didn't notice them and went after the guy in the g-whip, he pulled up next to all us and is like "which way'd he go?" and we kinda pointed (snitches get stitches??) and he roared off. it was super cool. Then later we go outside and see that the g-whip had gotten away somehow and was back in the driveway! Talk about dinner and a show haha.

​Our poor Malibu​

So, this week I may or may not have gotten into an accident in our brand new Malibu... We were going to a member's house to pick up food, and got to an intersection where I had a stop sign but the other way didn't. I stop at the sign and head forward and out of nowhere a guy on a moped comes on and even though I swerved to avoid him he hit the back bumper and fell off the bike. He was laying on the ground for a bit which was kinda scary, he wasn't wearing a helmet or anything, but while I talked to 911 Elder Celestin and some other people helped him up and he was just scraped up and bruised a bit. He's an older Cuban guy that speaks like zero English, and we speak zero Spanish. The back bumper on our car got pretty banged up. Hopefully it doesn't come out to more than $3,000 damage otherwise the whole mission bikes for a day, oops haha. Everyone's fine in the end, and we got our member food so all is well.

Missionary work wise things went pretty well this week. We had dinner with Bishop and they invited their neighbor friends over for us to meet. We taught them a quick plan of salvation lesson and they committed to baptism! They've been a little slippery since then,. They had to cancel our return appointment but they seemed really sincere so hopefully they don't completely fall off. Bruce unfortunately fell off, he wasn't there for our appointment and didn't answer texts or calls and wasn't home whenever we stopped by. Oh well, it happens.

I think that's it, there's probably more I'm forgetting because it's been a crazy week but that's definitely the main points. Hope all is well with all yall, It'll be an interesting change going over to the [Florida] west coast, it's WAY different from over here, lots wealthier so Creole should be interesting. Apparently it's still a really good area for missionary work so we'll see haha. Thanks for all your support! Also, got lots of pictures this week!

​​​The ZLs getting egged for a competition they did last week.

​Elder Briggs chasing Elder Celestin haha​

​Brother Pablo, our "gangster" member that takes us out teaching every week.​

​Some cool evening storm clouds.​

 Lanmou,

Eldè Stevenson

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Opposition In All Things

Hello everyone! A couple interesting things happened this week, and they involve a wallet, two bros named Rob and Rod, and the number 428. 

So here's the wallet story. Yesterday we were out and about looking for a member on our "Blackbird" when we spotted a wallet on the ground with sundry cards and identification information held within. We found that the owner lived in the complex we were in, so we tried knocking on the door but no one was home. We decided we'd come back and try later, and if he wasn't home we'd return it to the police station the next day. We went back in a couple hours, and he was home! His name is Bruce, he's a younger guy and was very thankful to have his wallet. The first thing he said after we gave it to him was "can I have one of your pamphlets?" We were like "Sure! Let us take a few minutes to explain it to you first." We taught him the Restoration, he accepted baptism, and we set him with a date for the 15th right on the spot! Pretty nifty how God directs us to find the elect!

Speaking of elect-ness, we met some very un-elect people too. They are Rob and Rod, two buddies from high school living together. We knocked into them late one night, and they let us into their home and bombarded us with questions about ourselves between expletives and alcoholic drinks. Neither of them are religious, and were amazed by all the things we had to do as Mormon missionaries. They were mostly harmless and just curious and accepted a Restoration pamphlet and Book of Mormon. We came back the next night and they had spent the whole day looking up what we "believed" online and fired more questions at us, a little more hostile this time. We would answer their questions and concerns to the best of our ability, but they would just move on to the next topic. We decided to go over one more time, and this time we were with our member brother Pablo. This time it was all a big show, Rob had a list of all the Anti he had found and paced the floor firing round after round at us, and no answer would suffice. He even went so far to say that he had prayed about the Book of Mormon and God had given him a vision of a black "X". He was trying to be so deceptive and showy. Meanwhile Rod was outside on the porch doing drugs and drinking with his friends. 

What amazed me the most was how closely this all matched to the story of Korihor in the Book of Mormon. In that story, Korihor preaches against Christ and refuses to accept an answer until he is shown a sign. After 3 attempts to get him to understand and repent, he was struck dumb. I wish this guy could've been struck dumb haha but that wasn't the plan. Needless to say we're not going back there again.

As for 428, that's the number of new investigators we got as a mission this week, surpassing our goal of 400 to send President Richardson out with a bang!

Speaking of, President Garns is now officially in charge! We haven't met him yet. We're going to this Thursday as he makes his tour. As predicted, no sweeping changes yet haha. Everything's exactly the same, we still listen to Motab only and we still don't have iPads (or even personal smartphones as some missions are testing out.) Maybe something interesting will change in a couple months, but for now it's smooth sailing.

Other than that, Happy 4th! I bet people wonder what missionaries do for the 4th so I will tell you:

-exactly the same stuff.

-EXCEPT everyone MUST be home at 7:00pm

So yeah pretty boring. Cynthia, the ZLs' recent convert will be feeding us though so that should be fun. Plus it's a rare opportunity to just chill at home for a couple hours, that's pretty exciting! It'll be fun, I'll try to take pics. I bought an apple cobbler for us to eat tomorrow too so that's good haha!

That's pretty much it! Hope all is well with you! Thank you all for your support!

Lanmou,

Eldè Stevenson