Hermana Kent Takes on Florida: Big Changes in Missionary Work

This week was one of the longest weeks of my life haha. We had zero miles this week so we biked A LOT. But hey, I'm getting in shape and we get to talk to a lot more people on the street.

Tuesday was Hermana Brown's birthday. We did our best to make it a special day and not to get homesick. We had ice-cream for breakfast and decorated our apartment with some stuff her mom sent. Lucky for us we got to go to the temple and do service on the grounds with our zone. They brought cupcakes and ice cream for a small party afterwards.

We went to a lesson with our investigator Lucy. I love her so much! She is this old woman from Venezuela and she is so sweet. She wants to get baptized but she wants to make sure it is for the right reason so she doesn't want to rush into it. She loves reading the Book of Mormon and each time we come she has highlighted stuff and written down questions she had while reading. She also insists on beginning with a prayer before she reads or we start talking about anything. I mean we do too, but it's amazing that she understands the importance of prayer. GOLDEN INVESTIGATOR. The only problem is she moves back to Venezuela next month so we are making arrangements for her to meet with the missionaries down there to be baptized.

After our lesson with Lucy we had dinner with a recent convert from Brazil. He made us a Brazilian BBQ which is literally just steak. Nothing else. Just steak. Lots and lots of steak. Haha. I was in heaven. I have never had that much red meat in one sitting before. After that we went to the Farinacci's (a less active family that we love) for another birthday party. They made Hermana Brown a cake and Bianca the oldest daughter made each of us a necklace. So pretty much it was a good thing we did a lot of biking because we had 3 servings of cake, 4 servings of ice-cream, and tons of steak.

Ok, here is the big changes to missionary work. All of you RM's will understand why this was so crazy. Wednesday we had a world wide missionary broad cast with the board of missionary work. Thjey focused heavily on teaching repentance and baptizing converts. Honestly so many of my questions and concerns were answered and I got so pumped for missionary work. Towards the end they announced changes to the missionary schedule. Here is how the schedule used to go:

6:30 wake up, pray, exercise

7:00 get ready for the day, breakfast

8:00 personal study

9:00 companion study

10:00 language study (for non language begin proselyting)

11:00 lunch

12:00-9:00 proselyting, with 1 hour for dinner.

9:00-9:30 plan for the day

9:30-10:30 prepare for bed, write in Journal, pray

10:30 lights out.

I will attach a picture of the new schedule. I LOVE the new schedule because it allows so much flexibility. Their hope is that missionaries will learn how to use time wisely and get more out of their day and also easily adjust to life after the mission. They also changed plays to begin at 8:00 instead of 10:00 to allow more time to get things done.

The second big change was key indicators. They used to have 9:

Baptized and Confirmed

With a Baptism date

Attended sacrament meeting

Member present lessons

Other lessons

Progressing investigators

Referrals received

Referrals contacted

Lessons taught to less actives and recent converts (Larcs)

Now they only have 4:

People baptized and confirmed

Investigators with a baptismal date

Investigators who attended church

New investigators

Crazy stuff!!!! They are coming out with a new preach my gospel and District videos to accommodate these changes.

Thursday we went on exchanges and I stayed and lead the Spanish area. I was terrified but with the help of the Lord I was able to say what I needed to in Spanish and lead out the area! The gift of tongues is real!

Friday while tracting a Muslim man from Morocco gave us a Quran. So yeah. We read part of it and just found it really interesting. I don't want to offend but you can tell the Book was written by Man. The Book of Mormon is where it is at!

Saturday we taught Mario and he is ready to be baptized! We told him to pray about a date and we would too. So Tuesday when we see him again we will decide on a date for him to be baptized! He cried as he told us about the spiritual experiences he has had praying and asking God if our message is true.

Obviously there was a lot more that happened this week. I could go on forever telling you all about the miracles and spiritual experiences this week but I think I've gone on enough. This church is true. I have no doubt in my mind. I know that Heavenly Father lives and that He is aware of His children and their needs. I love you all so much and hope you are all doing well and seeing the miracles and blessings in your own life.

Con amor,

Hermana Kent

New schedule: we can go to bed an hour earlier now which is way nice!!!!!