First of all, your emails always make me laugh. Sounds like you guys haven't changed at all. Good! I don't want to come home to a bunch of lifeless robots, though, let's be honest, obviously I was the life of the party, so it's bound to happen at some point. Hope thanksgiving was fun for you all though. Sounds like it was a little different from usual, what with Hannah and Jim in England and Becky being sick and still dancing around. Oh man!
Thanksgiving day was pretty good here. I was a little worried about it at first, because to be honest, me and Haitian food haven't gotten along too well so far. Fortunately, we just ended up going to the Bishop's house. He cooked three turkeys, had a whole bunch of the usual potatoes, stuffing, etc. as well as some Haitian food that wasn't infested with flies or contained the fat of goat feet. So basically rice. But it was really good rice:) Yeah, it was a good day. There is a lot to be thankful for! I tried to spend most of the day thinking of different things the Lord has blessed me with, and I didn't run out the whole day. Just goes to show you how much the Lord loves us all, and how thankful we should be for all he has given us.
So remember Guerda and Guillermo? Didn't think so, but that's okay. I forgot most people's names here too. They're the country club-ish ones. Anyway, Guerda's son Jeff was visiting from Luxembourg this week, and he's been contemplating serving a mission, though he was leaning more towards not. So Guerda gave us the task of taking him out with us and showing him how fun it is. So we took him out and harvested with him. Yup, 2 hours of nobody letting us in. Good times, if you ask me. Yet, the spirit was super strong, and with us sharing our testimonies to him, he made the decision to serve a mission, so heck yeah! He started his papers two days ago!!! Also, we left a blessing in Guerda and Guillermo's home. I was saying it, and at some point I said that only the spirit of the Lord would be able to reside in the house, and right then the front door slammed shut. Good thing it was already locked before though. Maybe I was a little creeped out, but it's okay because the door slammed shut and didn't fly open. That would have been super super creepy!
We took a member called Jack Voltaire out with us today. He was just baptized a few months ago, but he's really cool. I'm pretty sure he's 21, maybe 22. But in the car he told me about his story. He'd moved from Haiti to Florida 4 years ago to start college. He was on the soccer team and was doing super well in school and had a girlfriend and all these great things, but then he went to a party and somebody injected him with something. After that he went crazy for two months and was sent to a mental institution. He's better now, but after that he lost a lot what he had before. He can't really walk well, much less run, and he has a hard time with school. Poor guy. But then he found the church, and he realized that the trials he went through humbled him enough to help him make the right decision and be baptized. Heck yeah jack! Poor guy though. He's super cool.
So have I got a cool story for you:) On Wednesday we harvested into a family of 5. They were all really intrigued by the feelings that they got from the prayer, and invited us to come back the next day. We came by again and did a how to begin teaching lesson, focusing a lot on the importance of the Savior. Once again, they invited us to come back. The next day, I went over with a member and taught the Restoration. The spirit was so incredibly strong, especially with the First Vision. It was so amazing!! The next day was Sunday. And THEY CAME TO CHURCH! It was such a blessing to have met this incredible family and to be helping them come closer to the Savior. They are set with a solid baptismal date now, and I'm so excited to see them progress and prepare for it! Unfortunately they missed the sacrament meeting because they'd lost the address to the church, so it'll have to be another two weeks before they get baptized, but still! Super cool. They're called Lorient, Arian, Josh, Rashensky, and Sasha. Fun stuff, I tell you.
We went on Member splits on Saturday, so I went with Brother Harris to the Pompano area while Elder Van Wagenen went to Coral Springs with another member. While I was with Brother Harris, we taught Marie Andre (who apparently had just gone out of town and forgotten to tell us, so that's why we hadn't seen her all last week), and the Louis family, as well as some other new investigators. It was a super solid few hours. Elder Van Wagenen had ended up going to see Tatyana and her mum Elta, and had been there the whole 2 1/2 hours. Silly me, I thought that she would have given Tatyana permission to be baptized after such a long visit. I guess it wasn't a good visit though. Tatyana came up to me at church and said that Elder Van Wagenen had gotten really mad at Elta for not listening and now Elta's all offended and said she's not going to come to church now. I don't know how accurate that all is, but it's not a good situation right now... oh man.
On a more positive note, I love you all so much!!! And it's Christmas season! Whoo!! Mormon Tabernacle choir Christmas Albums with David Archuleta and the King Singers!! That's about all we can listen to. Still super fun though. And we put up our nice white Christmas tree. It's going to be awesome! I love you again, though, and I hope you have an amazing week full of awesome shtuff!! Don't let anybody feed you goat feet fat. I'm still scarred from that. haha, love you!
Elder Skidmore
^^Sam's district. He's on the front row lookin' like a baller^^
