Goals & Plans: Part 2

ONE HUNDRED

We have been trying super hard my entire mission is to hit 100 baptisms in one month. We have been grinding super super hard and setting high high goals to be able to reach it. And this last month, in June, we hit 100 baptisms!!!!! It was super cool to see us hit that goal finally, and we are the first mission in the south east zone of missions to hit that!! Our mission president told us before that if we end up hitting 

100 baptisms, we can have zone activities again which was an incredible incentive to work harder lolol. So right after we hit it, we had a zone activity and we had a BBQ and played volleyball, soccer, football, and just hung out!! It was an absolute party!!!!

Tabernacle Choir

The Tabernacle Choir is coming here to South Florida, and it is the biggest deal ever!!!!!! I cannot stress that enough. They are on a WORLD tour.... And they are stopping in 2 places in the United States, Atlanta, Georgia... And Fort Lauderdale, Florida. They gave us like an infinite amount of invitations and we get special codes to give out as tickets to the concert. Of course it's free, because this is the best church, and the invitation they gave us is a special, a new painting of Jesus Christ that solely belongs to the Choir which is super cool. I know personally that the Lord chose this mission for a reason. The First Presidency has complete and utter control of the Choir and they are sending them here. We are so excited and we are working so hard to get the word out and get everyone there. There's also going to be watch parties, and the Choir said that the speakers at the church are too trash for how amazing the Choir sings, so they are bringing their own extremely expensive equipment and even the watch parties are going to be sick!! They are also considering buying buses so that we can bring more people that don't have transportation. This is the biggest event here in South Florida and I'm so hyped for it!! All the missionaries have a goal of getting at the very least 50 people going in person to the concert per companionship. Aim for the stars!!!!! All the missionaries as well get to go in person to the concert and have special seating right by the Choir so we are getting treated right!!!!!

Random Stuff

Just some random things as well, we have gone to the temple a few times recently and it's always AMAZING, it truly is the house of the Lord.

Hurricane season has started and there's a lot of stuff going down, the mission is having everyone prepare and get completely ready for evacuation. Florida is supposed to get absolutely destroyed so please pray for us and the people in Florida!! It's already been flooding quite a bit, there were literal waves in the streets which was insane, got some good pictures out of it though lol.

The ZLs, and I had some fun and we made a ukulele out of a turtle shell which was super fun and gave us a little project for after hours lol, it was super fun!!

I also learned to make some Latin food like huevos con chorizo, and Colombian Arepas!! Can't wait to make them back home!! 

I buzzed my head because $30 is way too much for hardly anything, so I gave the clippers to Elder Nuñez and told him to get to work lol.

Spiritual Thought

Mosiah 7:33

33 But if ye will turn to the Lord with full purpose of heart, and put your trust in him, and serve him with all diligence of mind, if ye do this, he will, according to his own will and pleasure, deliver you out of bondage.

The first step in the Gospel of Jesus Christ, is having faith in him. We need to put our trust In him, believe, and ACT!!! Faith is an action word, if we have true faith, we show it to God, we read, learn, and pray, trusting he will help us!!

I love you all!! Have a wonderful week

Elder Harby

Goals And Plans - Part One

MUUUUUUUUUUCHAS cosas have happened within the last month or so, so this email might be a chunky one

Ricardo

So a little update on our boy Ricardo.. He ended up ghosting us out of the blue for about a week and we were getting very worried, he wasn't home when we passed by, didn't respond to texts or calls, but he would leave us on read so we were super worried about it. Then he reaches back out to us, telling us he's going to come to english class today and we asked if we could have a chat after and he said he's down. So that evening we had English class and we sat him down in another room. We went over the plan of salvation drawn out on a chalkboard lol, and he really liked it, he had a ton of great questions and he really liked the answers we gave him. Then we pulled out the baptismal calendar, something the mission officially made that is basically a calendar, and on the back there's all the principles that need to be taught before baptism. So we pulled that out and said that we prayed about the baptismal date and the Lord wants him to be baptized on June 8th. And he LOVED that idea and was super down for it. We showed him the principles that he was missing still, and said we could get it done in x number of chats and we scheduled all of the lessons in advance, so he's basically ready to go and he was super excited!!! 

Well..... After that day, he didn't respond to us for over a month. We tried everything to get in contact with him but he just wouldn't respond and just leave us on read. Finally, we go over and he was home, and he invited us in and we talked with him. He talked about how work has been super difficult and he's been too busy to even respond to us He was very defensive and we were very confused. But we gave powerful testimonies and he told us that he will be more available in a couple months. So we put him on the back burner for now and we are waiting for him to be willing to put more time in for the Lord. We continue to pray for him everyday.

Juan Dalmiro

OUR BOY JUAN!!!!!! He is so amazing!! We have been working with him on and off for a while. He's pretty old, 86 as of a week ago. He has some health problems but he's stronger than he looks not gonna lie. It's been kinda difficult to meet with him because he has had health appointments and problems that have made it difficult to make time. However he has a strong desire to be baptized and go to the temple. He has a son that was assassinated about 7 years ago in Venezuela, and due to that, his entire family has been pretty spread apart and not in very good contact. Juan still has so much pain and anguish for the death of his son. He has family members that are members of the church, and knows people that are members. The only struggle was to get him to church, he has a walker and no car. And he lives in Doral which is 30 min from the chapel, and very few members live.

One day, we were headed over to his house to teach him something, and we both felt like he needs to be put on date. He's been to church 1 time, and to baptize someone in our mission, they need to attend church at least 3 times. So on the way, we called our mission president and we got approval to have him be baptized without the 3 complete attendances. We were super excited, we got a baptismal calendar ready and when we got there, he was waiting outside the gate (it's a gated community), and we go up to him and say hello. We told him we have something for him, but he responded first and asked if he could ask us something. We said of course Juan, no problem!! He asked "What do I need to do to be baptized? I need to be baptized." My comp and I looked at each other with the biggest smiles on our face. We presented the baptismal calendar and we basically met with him almost every single day up until his baptism!!

When his baptism came, it was an amazing service!!! The talks were amazing, and Juan threw out a couple jokes because he couldn't hear the speakers sometimes and everyone thought it was funny lol. He was baptized on a chair and it went super smoothly!! He received the gift of the Holy Ghost directly after, and he shared his amazing testimony and how grateful he was for each and every person, how he feels that even though he's alone everyday, he has a family here at church that truly does love and care for him.

We have continued meeting with him a lot and got him really focused on the temple and to do the work for his son. He has been in contact with our family history person in our ward and there's a ward trip coming up here pretty soon and he's super excited!!! My mom sent me a triple in large text so that he can read it because his eyes are pretty bad and the normal text size was too hard for him to read. We gave it to him on his birthday and he's been telling everyone it was the best gift he got for his birthday lol. He's the sweetest person ever!!!!!

Transfers

We had transfers and I ended up being put as district leader and my new companion is Elder Nuñez, who goes home with me!! We have been working super hard and trying to build member relationships as well. It has been going good and we have been having some great FHE's and it's been great to get to know the members more. 

Yanaris y Flabia

Yanaris is the mom of Flabia and they are super amazing Cubanas!!! They got here not too long ago and absolutely love church!! Flabia got super well connected with the youth and has been going to all the activities and having the time of her life. Yanaris is working jobs right now trying super hard to be able to pay for her family to come to the US. Making it impossible for us to meet with them. Have been able to meet with Flabia after church and activities and we want to put her on date but we want to do it with her mom there. We are planning on doing that here real soon though. They both have such a great desire and love everything about the church, they just gotta make the time  for it and they'll get baptized super quick!!!

Eduardo

Eduardo is so fire!!! I just realized I haven't talked about him at all!! He has been progressing super well recently and we put him on date!!!! We sat him down and talked about everything we needed to teach him, and we planned out all of the lessons and set times for them to be able to teach everything he has left to be baptized and he was all down for it!! Everything went super smoothly, he kept coming to church and going through with all of the lessons, but then he didn't come to church out of the blue, and he's always been able to come. Turns out his first granddaughter was born so I guess that's a decent excuse lol. Then it came to the day of his baptismal interview, we had everything all set up and scheduled out, and he was super excited!! We went over all of the questions and he passed with flying colors. Literally zero problems, and he has a great testimony. But then he texted us after, asking us to have a quick chat about his baptism at the same time as his baptismal interview and we said OK yeah sure, which scared us a ton. We called him and he expressed that he didn't feel ready and that he just wanted to continue going to church and learning more. We tried to convince him otherwise because the Lord and Us knew he was ready. He also mentioned something about his wife who's catholic, and we think that is the problem. He since hasn't been able to meet with us and hasn't come to church... So that is really heartbreaking for us. But we continue to pray for him to come back.

Funeral

We had a "Funeral" for Hna Orozco, who is finishing her mission, and it was our last district council. We went Hawaii themed because she mentioned something about that, and we had a super great and spiritual time. It super fun, we had snacks and just a little party celebrating her completing her mission. 

Overall, these past couple transfers here in Hialeah have been super amazing with a lot of different problems and struggles. I have learned a whole ton here and I won't forget it!! Also my Spanish has grown a ton, because the district I'm in, all sisters, who are all Hispanic. So I was speaking Spanish most of the time and it helped a ton. And also the amount of Cubans is insane, and I have gotten pretty good at understanding them lol. That being said...

Transfers 2.0 

We just had transfers drop last night, and I'm headed more south into an area called Sunset. I have heard a ton about this ward being absolutely goated and loving missionaries so I'm super excited!! I also already know a family in the ward from over a year ago when they took my comp, who served there, and I to texas road house for my comps birthday. I told them I will serve there eventually and here I am lol. 

It's coming up on the end of my mission here really soon and it's started to hit me a little bit but it's making me want to work harder and finish strong!! It's been such a  blessing getting to know and serve the people here in Hialeah and it's been an amazing experience, but I'm super excited for what's coming as well. Sorry I didn't send an email for like 2 months, I'm also planning on finishing strong with emails as well lol. 

Part 2 coming.....