Another One

Elders Charles, Mendoza, Seal, Stevenson
on Lake Trafford pier

Well, of course we'll start with the big news. This week is transfers, and I will be STAYING in Immokalee! Elder Charles will also be STAYING! Elder Seal is staying and Elder Mendoza is transferring to Homestead as a new DL! I honestly wasn't expecting to stay, especially with Elder Charles for another one, and people think I'm disappointed, but honestly I'm so happy! Especially because it means that we'll both be here for Saintanna's baptism! And it's not very common that you get to stay with your trainee for another transfer. Not only that, but our entire branch stayed the same. All 6 of us stayed right where we are for the 3rd transfer in a row! That's pretty unusual. Looks like we've got some more work ahead of us!

This past week was a good one. On Pday we had a fun little district activity where we played some basketball and some volleyball and some "chair soccer". Chair soccer is where each person has a chair they protect and you try to hit it with the ball to get them out. It was fun but I was so sore for the next couple days haha.

Then the next day we had a zone wide exchange! I went to the ZLs area and spent the day with Elder Poulter. He's known for being a "perfect" missionary haha. It was a great time, even though we ended up waiting in a hospital for 2 hours for one of their investigators, and then she kept getting pulled away by doctors and [...] so we ended up staying in that hospital for a total of four and a half hours! Yikes! It was a critical lesson though so hopefully it was worth it. We went hard after that though, knocking early the next morning to try to meet our goals.

We get our groceries every week from a custom ice food pantry that we do service for, and this week they had gotten a large donation of Easter candy, so on top of our other food we took home a full bag of candy.

Yesterday we went back to the Brown's to do some more service, but also to give Mr Brown a blessing. Early that morning he was on his dirt bike on his way home from work and out of nowhere took a tumble. He wasn't wearing a helmet, and he hit the road head first. Apparently no bones were broken, except for a hairline fracture in his eye socket, but his face did get pretty torn up. I'll put a picture of us with him, just know that it might be a little graphic. He was still pretty positive, and still had his usual sense of humor and his "No big deal, I'm still going to work" attitude. It was kinda shocking to see him like that though after we had just seen him about a week ago working hard and laughing, I can't imagine if something like that had happened to my family what I would've been like.

Other than that things were pretty normal, Saintanna came to church and had a good time as usual. She's going to be baptized this Sunday! We're working on getting the last of the lessons done and interview scheduled and program filled. It'll be a great day, their baby is also going to be blessed that day. They've invited some friends and family and the husband, Astrel, is going to be doing a big barbecue afterwards! This will be another one of those rare occasions where I was there when the person was found, and for the whole teaching process, and when they get baptized. So exciting!

We also had another good week of finding, so once Saintanna gets baptized hopefully we'll have some more people to take her place. The rides will be an increasing issue though, we have more people getting baptized and less people wanting to pick them up. The Lord will provide.

That's pretty much it. It's hard to believe that I'm on my 3rd to last transfer now. This is also my first time being with the same companion for 3 transfers, but I can't think of anyone better than Elder Charles to be with. Another fun fact, this transfer ends on my birthday! Crazy stuff around the corner, it'll be a great one! I'm including in the pictures some highlights of Immokalee from the other Elders. Hope you all have a great week!

The other day we biked to Lake Trafford for morning exercise and got some cool pictures!

A nice pic of the sunrise with the birds

Sunrise on Lake Trafford

Group pic on the pier

Another pier picture

Biking home from lake Trafford

photo by Elder Charles another day

A baby alligator we saw in a pond by our house

Doing service last night. I borrowed a hat from Elder Mendoza haha

Us with Mr Brown, daughter Jackie and dog Jenny

Burning leaves we raked and Elder Charles trying to remember some songs on the uke.
I remembered some chords and Jackie showed us how to do a little bit of the Stranger Things theme song haha

Our candy haul from Guadalupe's haha

From the first time doing service at the Brown's

Lanmou,
Eldè Stevenson

Like A Fire Is Burning

My large calzone.
Very yummy, one of my new favorite meals in Immokalee

Hello everyone! So this week ended up being kinda crazy, not really what we were expecting haha.

We did a lot of service this week, mostly for a family from the Spanish branch. On Monday we spent the evening helping the Brown family, with some members of the Spanish branch, cut down trees and move logs left over from the hurricane. Who would've guessed that I'd still be doing hurricane cleanup. 

Saturday we went back, just the four of us, and raked leaves into piles and burned them then went to his fishing shop and helped load metal sheets onto a trailer. It ended up taking most of the day, but we made good friends with the dad. He's like your classic country dad, his wife is a member from Columbia and their daughter I believe was baptized as well but he is not a member.... It was good that we've been able to start breaking down the barrier, like Ammon, through genuine service. Even if we did smell like campfire afterwards haha. 

Speaking of smelling like campfire, yesterday we were surprised to come back from church to a very smokey Immokalee. Apparently there was a pretty decent fire burning in the everglades, and we were getting smoked by it all night. So I bet there's gonna be a lingering campfire smell for a little bit still. Coincidentally we also had the first real storm in a while yesterday evening, it only lasted a few minutes but I think it did the job. Things are nice and clear today.

On Wednesday we did an exchange and I left the area to go with Elder Latu in Lehigh acres, and coincidentally they also had a service project set up that day. It was a youth service project for one of their investigators. We were trimming back some hedges away from their house. It was a nice little project with good participation, and the investigator had chips and things and made everyone sandwiches.

Thursday we were surprised to get a call from Elder Latu with a "code red". Apparently there had been a mixup with the ZLs, and interviews with President were supposed to be that day, right then, and he was there waiting. This was after we'd already had our district training on Tuesday. So we quickly changed into our suits and went. Not every week do you get two DTs haha. Our interview was good, just checking up on things.

On Friday we tried a restaurant in town we'd never been to before named Roma in Havana. It turned out to be a nice little sit-down Italian restaurant. I ordered a large meat lovers calzone, and boy it was large haha. I ended up taking half of it home. It was very tasty, but a little expensive to be a regular thing.

Missionary work is still moving along. Yesterday our branch president was coming to pick people up, but somehow while he was getting ready he broke his hip or something. Apparently he was bending down to dry himself after a shower and couldn't get back up. But after laying down a little bit and putting a heating pad on it and doing some stretches he still came. It was a bit of a last minute scramble. He didn't pick up Saintanna because she wasn't all the way ready, but he did pick up our new friend Marie. She's been taught by missionaries in the past but is progressing pretty well right now... She came yesterday and liked it. It was a bit long, especially because she had to be picked up at 10 because of ward council and church doesn't start till 12, then there was another meeting after so she didn't leave until 4, getting home at almost 5. We got some calls from her family at home asking where she was, including the husband, and we had to assure them that she was fine and on her way. Definitely wasn't ideal, but that's what it takes.

Saintanna's still on track, we'll probably be having to do her baptism the first week of May though because there are 2 other people being baptized that day and she wants her baby to be blessed, so might as well use the fast and testimony sacrament meeting to do all of that. Should be a big day for the branch.

Overall the mission is doing great, everyone's pumped up, we've been finding 400+ NI [not sure what this stands for] for the past 3 weeks or so and this week we had the most dates in a while, 76. President Garns has been awesome at making sure that we're converted first and teaching the whys and hows of missionary work. Good stuff!

Hard to believe that transfers are next week, kinda bittersweet. This is probably my last week here and my last week with Elder Charles. We'll make it a good one. I've been a missionary for 19 MONTHS now! Crazy stuff! Things are picking up.

I think that's pretty much everything, kind-of a longer letter. Hope you all have a great week!

Lanmou,
Eldè Stevenson