The Epic of Bertina

​People wonder what it is that missionaries do at home. 

Let's just say you come up with the weirdest ways to entertain yourself.

So transfer time has come again. The only one leaving from our house will be Elder Alexis, who is going to be training and DL for his last 2 transfers. That came by surprise, but should be good. Also both the sister areas in our district will be training so that should be fun haha. Elder Hansen will be replacing Elder Alexis as ZL, he's a creole missionary so that should be fun too.

This week was a lot of knocking. Like a lot. Pretty much just straight knocking all week long. I mean knocking is fun for the first like hour and a half, but after that it gets pretty tedious. Especially once you've been with your companion for a while because you've run out of stories haha. We must've done something right though because we were able to get 5 investigators to sacrament, which is the most I've ever had in one week! 

The first 4 were Bertina and her kids. Bertina is literally the coolest investigator you could ever have. We met her knocking between conference on Saturday, she came to conference on Sunday and again to our Book of Mormon study class on Tuesday where we taught her the restoration and she loved everything. She has a rock solid testimony of the church and she doesn't even know that much about it yet! Absolutely loves the Book of Mormon, she was super excited when we taught her about it. "You mean you're telling me that there's more? That Jesus ACTUALLY CAME to America?" She said that when she was little she remembered missionaries coming to the door and her mom shooing them away and thinking "Why is she shooing them away?" She also remembers seeing some commercials that were apparently on PBS years ago. She also told us this story of one time she was feeling a little sick, and a little voice in her head told her not to go to work even though she wanted to. She decided to listen at the last minute even though it made her ride upset. Then on the way to work her ride got into a car accident where the entire passenger side of the car got crushed in, and ever since then she's always listened to the little voice. Then she was having a bad day the day that we came over, and ever since she saw us and we prayed for her the little voice told her that what we were saying was true, and since then her life has gotten so much better. She said someone had tried to dissuade her from the church by talking about baptisms for the dead, but she waited to pass judgment until we could clarify, and when we explained what it actually meant and how it is even in the Bible she totally understood and loved it. She even told her friend about us and brought her to her house so we could pray for her and talk to her too! She's super down to be baptized, we gave her a date for the 22nd. The kids all liked church too, and we're going to talk to them about all being baptized together. Honestly she's the biggest reason I didn't want to transfer haha.

The other investigator was Gilbert! I don't remember if I told you about him yet, but he's an old Haitian guy that we were teaching at the beginning of the transfer. He was pretty cool until his mom died and he asked us not to come back for at least 2 weeks. We stopped by again this week and he still seems interested in the church, and we were able to get him a ride to come! He could only stay for sacrament meeting, but it seemed like he enjoyed it. We'll be keeping up with him. Hopefully this keeps up!

One other random cool thing we did this week was we had talked to a really nice homeless family living in the park a couple weeks ago and gave them our number and told them to call us if they needed anything. They actually did call us a few days ago asking for a little food and water, and the Bishop was able to buy them some and we brought it to them. They were very grateful, we said a prayer, and they said they might be interested in the church because we seemed the most Christian out of any of the other Christian churches they've visited.

So today marks 7 months as a missionary and the beginning of my 5th transfer. Time really does fly sometimes.

Hope you all are having a good time! Keep me updated and keep up the good work!

​

Lanmou,

Eldè Stevenson

Questions From Mom 2

As a way to get a little more information about things he may not think to include in letters, I have started sending Elder Stevenson a page of questions along with a stamped addressed envelope. All he has to do is fill in the answers and drop it in the mail box. It's fun to get some hand written messages and I save them in a missionary binder I keep at home. 

The Minister Gone Bad

Half of the Zone. Photo by Elder Alexis

Hey everybody! This week was an interesting week, especially with Conference! I'll share some of the quotes and insights that I liked down below for easy reference.

So we're working with a couple interesting people now. First we had Stanley. He's the nonmember husband of one of our Haitian members. He still lives in Haiti but came up to visit for 10 days, and wanted to start taking the discussions. Elder Hatch and I were able to teach him about the Restoration and The Book of Mormon before he went back to Haiti. He's super solid and accepts everything, pretty much a free baptism for the Haiti mission. We gave his information to the mission office and they passed it over. Cool!

We also have the two B... kids, Sara and Denard, who were baptized a couple years ago but have been inactive. We randomly stopped by to visit one day a few weeks ago, and Sara said "because you stopped by I'll go to church again this week." She came by herself last Sunday and again with her brother to conference yesterday, is reading in The Book of Mormon, and seems committed to coming back to church. Once we can get them to meet with the bishop they'll be rescued!

Finally we have the N...-O... family. They're a less active family that the bishop is working to get back to church. The mom grew up in D.C. and her best friend was Mormon, and they even went to BYU together. She was going to get baptized there but her friend started to rebel against the church, and she didn't want to stay in school anyways so she moved out here (I think there's more to the story but I forgot it.) She didn't see missionaries again for years until some knocked on her door a few years ago. She had a girl in foster care that wanted to be baptized, so she and her family decided to be baptized with her. After that though the girl had to leave because of legal complications and it broke the mom's heart, so she suffered from depression and anxiety for a while and is just now getting out of it and wanting to get back into church. Very interesting story, and it seems like the whole family is ready to come back too (the dad and oldest son came with the bishop to priesthood session.) Nice!

But the highlight of the week was definitely General Conference. We were even able to get investigators to come! Yay! Between the two sessions on Saturday we went out knocking, and we met Bertina and her 2 kids. We shared a prayer and a little bit about the restoration (as usual), and she said she'd come to church (as usual). Except this time she actually came! She watched the Sunday morning session and seemed to really love it. We told her about how church usually is, and we're seeing her tonight to start teaching them. Very promising! 

Now for a couple funny things. We talked to this one random old black guy in his front yard a couple days ago, and everything was pretty normal until he randomly stops and dramatically says:

"Lemee tell you a secret. I'm a minister.......gone bad."

It was super funny. It was literally like a movie. He even like looked away and walked a couple steps while he was talking, and then turned to look at us for the punch line. Probably one of the funniest things I've come across. Our whole house quotes it at least twice a day, and it's earned a spot on our quote board.

Another funny thing was that yesterday between sessions of conference we randomly had a TON of member food. A family fed us lasagna and salad and breadsticks at the church right after, and then we left to go to our actual meal appointment with a younger couple in the ward. (They had Disney music playing on Pandora for us, and I was in heaven. Definitely sang under my breath every song that came on. It was awesome, I decided that I'm gonna be the super chill member that feeds the missionaries when I get home haha.) We had sausage and pasta and mashed potatoes, and cookies. And then we went back to church for the next session and someone had ice cream sandwiches for us. We were all pretty full.

So as promised, here's some of my notes from Conference. There's lots more, but here's some of the first:

The use of the marvelous technologies that will come will require the Spirit of the Lord within us.

-President Eyring

(Prophesy???)

The phrase "The Atonement" is doctrinally incomplete. The Atonement is non an amorphous entity that we can call on for help. We must connect it to the life and mission of Jesus Christ.

-Russell M Nelson

(Haha this funny, something I've thought about before.)  

Stand close to the Savior as you would stand next to someone with more perfect pitch

-Jeffery R Holland

(I loved his talk for all the singing analogies.)

When we are not all in or only partially in, there is a disturbance in the force.

-Gary B Sabin

(His talk was good too because of all the pop culture references.)

I'm so grateful for living prophets and for general conference, it was such a spiritually uplifting experience and very different as a missionary. Sorry for the long email, but there was lot's I wanted to talk about, so I did haha. Hope you're all doing great! Keep up the good work!

Lanmou,

Eldè Stevenson

Herding Cats

​Us playing pool at our apartment's lounge last Pday. 

Hey everyone! So this week has been kinda slow to be honest. We do all we can, and still can't find people to teach. (And it seems like anyone cool we do find is either leaving the country or we have to pass over to the ZLs). A little frustrating, but oh well. 

We were able to get someone to church though! Yay! Elder Hatch describes it perfectly when he says "I feel like I've been herding cats for the past year and a half." For some reason it's super difficult to get people to come to church, no matter how receptive they are while we teach them. Literally everyone works on Sundays, and no one wants to commit to anything. If I had a dollar for every time I've heard "I don't want to promise you anything, because if I don't come then I'm a liar! But one of these Sundays you'll see me." I think I could pay for my mission. 

We are obviously very serious pool players.

But it's all good, because Nadege came on Sunday! Even though we've only taught her once she still came, which is a very good sign. She's a Haitian lady that was a former investigator and is really receptive to everything so far. She could only stay for the first 2 hours, but it seems like she had a good experience. (Our ward has a creole Gospel Principles class, and it's hard to describe without just experiencing it. It's always an adventure. Anyone that knows Haitian culture will know what I mean, you just never know what's going to happen.) Anyways, they ended up talking about the 12 tribes of Isreal, each of their missions, the sticks of Judah and Joseph, Joseph's prophecies, patriarchal blessings, and baptisms for the dead. Deep stuff for our investigator who doesn't even know about the Book of Mormon yet, but she seemed to enjoy it nonetheless. We'll follow up with her about it later, again she's busy with work which makes it hard to meet, but we'll find a way.

 There's also a bowling alley that we got to use, it's pretty cool but super loud.
Photo from Elder Alexis

That's pretty much it for this week, just doing a lot of knocking and visiting all the part member families on our list. Hopefully more comes up, I guess it just shows that no matter what we do it's really the Spirit that prepares people to receive the gospel. April should be a month of miracles though, so I'm not too worried about that. Hope all is well for you guys, keep me posted!

Lanmou,

Eldè Stevenson

From Mafia to... Mormon?!

House pic! Elder Alexis, Elder Foster, Elder Hatch, me.​

Hello everyone!  So this week has been a tough week for everyone for some reason, the people that we find just aren't sticking. Lots of knocking with no solid new investigators. It's disappointing, but I'm sure it'll pick up. We're really pushing hard this month to hit our goal of 100 baptisms as a mission in April, so I'm sure God will provide miracles for us.

Speaking of miracles... we've had some crazy ones this week. Their names are Paul and Laila. Their full stories can be found in the voice recordings below, but here's a little summary:

Elder Hatch and I talked to Paul while walking down the street. He's really jacked and inked up. He comes up to us and says "I've been looking for you." We talk to him and turns out he just got out of jail after 14 years for being in the New York Mafia, and met a Mormon guy there named Ammon that introduced the church to him. He's read all of Gospel Principles and half the Book of Mormon. Wants to be baptized, but is on probation for the next 4 years which makes things difficult. Also he lives in the other Elders' area (bummer)... I've decided that if he gets baptized there needs to be a movie like the Saratov Approach made about him.

​The ganster life is getting to us.​

Laila was a media referral that we finally got in contact with. She's super cool, has a Mormon friend that's been talking to her and she's really interested in the church. She felt the Spirit super strong right when we first started talking with her. She's going on a trip for 4 weeks though and also lives in the other Elders' area (double bummer).

We did get a less active member to come to church though! His name is George and he's super solid now. He's committed to coming to church every week with his daughters now. His wife is a member too but she works Sundays, but she's working hard to get her boss to give her the day off sometimes. Really cool Haitian family, glad they're back.

We had to drop the J... L... family because they didn't come to church, which was super sad. Turns out the dad is super against the church and won't let them come. The older daughter reads in the Book of Mormon every day, and they all want to come to church but the dad won't let them. The little daughter even said "we could just try to sneak out while he's sleeping!" It was really sad, I almost cried for them on the car ride home. There's nothing we can do though, if the dad won't even let them come to church there's no way he'd give permission for them to be baptized. Bummer.

Gilbert might still be solid, but he couldn't come to church because his mom died the night before. He needs a little space for now, but we'll still work with him and see how it goes. Bummer.

​Pic I took outside the church cuz I was bored.

We do have a really solid "Haitian Mamie" that we're working with though, her name's Elvire and seems super interested in the church. We found her from just knocking, something that doesn't see a lot of success in this area (especially for finding Haitians). She understands the Restoration on a really deep level, and as we read in 3 Nephi 11 with her for the first time she would even explain what she was reading as she read it. Super cool, hopefully she stays that way.

Other than that, last night we had dinner with a couple in the ward that lived in Simi Valley! Their name is the Hunsakers. They're an older couple that lived there years ago, but they still knew where everything was and all the wards and church buildings so that was pretty cool. If any of you know them, send a note or something haha (I think they know the Moberlys, but so does every Mormon in Simi haha).

Hope all is well with you, keep me updated on everything you're doing!

Lanmou,

Eldè Stevenson

March Conferences - South Zones Pic

Parents of missionaries in the Florida Ft. Lauderdale Mission,

This week has been a spiritual feast for the missionaries in southern Florida. We met together on Tuesday and Wednesday in Zone Conferences which inspired us to move forward with commitment and faith.

Have a wonderful day,

Sister Burdick

Referral Secretary

Florida Fort Lauderdale Mission