May the Fourth Be With You! (Long post!)

I'm SUPER sorry that I ran out of time to blog last week! :(

I have a little leftover time right now, so I'm going to do my best to fit in all of the details!

   So we've been having some CRAZY storms lately! Lighting and thunder get really close, the streets fill up with water fast and it sometimes gets too dangerous to drive (water and lack of visibility). One storm in particular caused us to have to "rain check" (get it?) our trip to the gator farm yet again!

  I also got a flan de queso recipe from Hermana Alcazar (a missionary from Tijuana. Side note: Hno Barrett my MTC teacher served his mission there!) gave me her flan de queso recipe. It is AMAZING!! Super easy and super yummy!

   I had a nasty head cold from Thursday to Sunday of last week, and it was really bad on the last Friday of April, so I had to stay home and rest. IT WAS THE WORST. I slept all day and I've never felt so unproductive and useless in my life! Hermana Lightheart stayed home with me for the first part of the day but then the Palm Springs North sisters were on an exchange. Sister McAfee was here with Sister Heacock, so they did splits and Sister McAfee stayed home and guarded my unconscious, ill body. 

    Hermano Cabellero was baptized by the elders! He was basically already a member, the whole ward knew him and called him Hno Cabellero! Jajaja!

   We had been in a giant game of tag with Elder Ortiz and Elder Coburn, and we are often sent by members to drop off food at the elders' apartment. And Elder Ortiz had given us the commitment to be more "creative" with our tags (as opposed to leaving sticky notes that said "tag" on their bikes). So we dropped off some groceries at their apartment and gift-wrapped their apartment door! We used wrapping paper, balloons, a bow, the whole bit! We also filled the balloons with confetti pieces that said "tag". They admitted defeat after we did that! ;)

    I've been having tons of dreams over these past months. All of them are either about my MTC zone and/or weird proselyting situations.

    And we had a full day of biking the day before transfers! My legs were so dirty by the end of the day, I loved it! And we saw a storm coming in the late afternoon, right after we prayed with an awesome lady named Mirium (she's Cuban, and she already has a great testimony of the Great Apostasy, LOL), so we started biking North. Right into it. The lightning was super close, so we took cover in a Chili's restaurant and ate dinner. It started pouring right when we got inside!

   Sister Lightheart got transferred. So did Elder Scutt, Elder Ortiz and Elder Krikava. The only regret that Sister Lightheart had about transferring is not getting a picture with Jacob (this 4 year old boy in our ward that has the BIGGEST crush on her). And it was basically a companion swap! I got Sister Lakes' old companion, and Sister Lakes got Sister Lightheart! I'm now serving with Hermana Lakes. She is awesome! :) Super chill, and we're learning a ton from each other. Greenie-breaking is going good!

    We've been doing basically nothing but finding all week. At one point this man named Wendell came outside when he saw us from us house and gave us juice boxes! Turns out he is a JW and thought that we were JWs, too! That's why he gave us the juice, lol! XD

   We also found an English speaking member named Nicole. She was feeling homesick, and so we said a prayer with her. We don't think that her records moved from Utah to Florida, so it was a miracle that we just stumbled upon her! She is so sweet! :)

   Betty, a Dominicana investigator got baptized yesterday and will be confirmed this next Sunday!

   And Hna Elizabeth Calvo came out knocking doors with us! She is the BEST!!! She and her family were baptized in Cuba, moved to Spain, then her family moved her to Fort Lauderdale while she stayed in Spain to study medicine. She decided to serve a mission and got to... here! She served where her family was living! :) She decided before coming out to "move" here once her mission was over. She was released last Wednesday night, and now she is in our ward! She is awesome and I love her! :)

      That's all for this week! See yall next week!

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No time!

I'll do a long post next week!

Love y'all!

~Hermana Curnow

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This week in Miami... 20 Abril 2015

    Tabitha sent me a picture of my missionary plaque in my home ward. I almost forgot about that, haha! It made me really excited to see it!

     So we started off this week with interviews with President Richardson. He is seriously the best. He and Sister Richardson do so much for the missionaries and for the people of Southern Florida in general. I appreciate them so much. And they're also the funniest people! I remember on our first night in the mission home, we were waiting for the interviews to finish. Sister Allen and President came out of their interview and the first thing that President did was turn to Sister Richardson and exclaim, "Honey, she's never had a lemon oreo before!!" He then gifted each of us with a lemon oreo, LOL!!! They're hilarious!

     Mariela and Gladys are two adorable Venezuelan women that were recently baptized into our ward. Mariela invited over a bunch of people to her house for a Noche de Hogar. It was so lovely, and they the missionaries to come. Elder Ortiz gave the lesson, and then we ate! :)

    Ummm... This last Friday was the FOUR-MONTH MARK OF MY MISSION. Where is time going?! President said that it would go by in the blink of an eye, and I didn't entirely believe him. But it is! Missionaries need to live every second and take advantage of every day! Time really does fly!

      I heard my last song playing in the gas station on Saturday. "I Lived". And I heard "Shut Up and Dance" in Walmart the other week. It was so weird to hear those songs again. It felt like something from another lifetime.

      We also swung by the Javier house last night to share a spiritual thought and see how they were doing. Maria was cooking and she asked us if we wanted some tostones (fried slices of platanos). We graciously accepted and BOOM! She gave us dinner! She gave each of us a giant plate of bown rice, black beans, spaghetti, lightly-fried chicken legs and tostones! SO YUMMY! And so we ate dinner with Maria, Jose and their sons and shared a brief message. They're such a kind and giving family. <3

    Oh, and Hermana Franchi fed us breakfast on Saturday morning, too! SUPER yummy pancakes and hot chocolate! And she made Hna Lightheart a dog-shaped pancake. :)

     Right now we're such spending most of our days searching for opportunities to serve and people to teach. The Lord's work is rolling forward. Doctrine & Covenants 3:3.

     Les quiero tanto! Tengan una semana buenisima! Hasta luego!

~Hermana Curnow

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SCRAMBLING TO UPDATE

So super quick summary of this week: We taught a lesson to a super sweet Santero family, Hermana Chavez made us papusas, we did service for Linabel, we did service for a sweet old couple, we had zone training, Nerida is hilarious, an old man named Carlos tried to Bible bash with us (we always just walk away from those, haha), we ate Pollo Tropical, we had Menchie's, biked for about 40 miles on Friday and got WAY sunburnt, cleaned the baptismal font with lavender Fabuloso for Emilee and Robert's baptism the next day (cutest kids ever!), had a tug-of-war with Spot (the Cardenz dog), Robert and Emilee got baptized, met a really drunk less-active, and we had to stop teaching a family. It broke my heart. But yeah, CRAZY full week! If you want details, MAIL ME!

Email time goes by so fast!

I love you all! See you next week! :)

~Hermana Curnow

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Pascua y Conferencia General :)

So want to here something pretty cool?

    Last month, during "Miracle March", our mission... baptized ONE HUNDRED AND ONE people!! HOLY COW! 101 new Mormons in Southern Florida! :) We're way excited and the recent converts in our ward GLOW. They are so full of joy to be members and it never ceases to delight me! <3

    We had lunch with Sister Patterson and her family at China Buffet. That was such a blast. They're the most hilarious people! :)

   Still working with Selena and Enoch. They're such truth-seekers, I love them! :) Martha is still a blast to work with. Funniest little Cuban woman ever! She cracks me up and LOVES to talk!

   Something funny about Cubans: They're sassy. Lots of Hispanic people are pretty sassy, but Cubans just blow my mind! It isn't a bad thing; it's just cultural, a social device. And I was already called "The Sassy One" in the MTC, and I think that I'm starting to pick up on the Cuban sass, as well! I'll have a tongue like a knife by the time my 12th transfer comes around, haha!

   GENERAL CONFERENCE WAS AMAZING! Seriously, the talks were amazing and a few of the General Authorities THREW DOWN. I loved it! <3 On Saturday in between sessions, we ate arrepas with the elders at the RCs' house. Gladis and Mariela are Venezuelan, and they're just so wonderful! And arrepas are AMAZING.

AGH! I'm out of time! The only other news is that I caught 2 lizards this week and put one on my ear! :) Love y'all! The church is true! Bye!

~Hermana Curnow

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Mega short post!

I seriously am going to type this so fast! MyLDSmail acted up on us (the sisters) and so we had to try and fail at logging in about 15 times before it let us back in. UGH. Technology. But that's okay! Things are better now!

   We had Specialized Zone Training! Kind of like a surprise Zone Conference, and it was amazing! We got to see the new video about Easter! I HIGHLY encourage you to check it out, it is only about 2 minutes long!

    English: http://www.mormon.org/easter?cid=HP_FR_3-27-2015_dMIS_fMRMN_xLIDyL1-A_

    Spanish: http://www.mormon.org/spa/pascua?cid=HP_FR_3-27-2015_dMIS_fMRMN_xLIDyL1-A_

Read Mosiah 15. I have a challenge for all of you members and missionaries: Go read Mosiah 15 and ask yourself, "How beautiful are my feet?" Sounds weird, but do it!

  The Gonzalez family is still awesome! They're so welcoming and warm! "Alberto" is a professional clown, and he showed us his little fake dog that he uses at parties, and I'm totally rambling but whatever, I LOVE THOSE PEOPLE!

  We also have some really stinkin' awesome investigators right now, too! Martha is from Cuba, and when a neighbor started telling her that the Book of Mormon was false doctrine and started bashing the church, she totally stood up for herself! She said that the Book of Mormon is not to replace the Bible, but to work with it! So true!! :)

  Went on a full-day exchange into the city with one of our two AMAZING STLs! Sister McAfee came to our area, and I went to stay with Sister Mahterian. They're both so dang awesome! And their area is English, so speaking to people in English all day was a neat experience. :) I still prayed in Spanish, though. I have to translate my prayers mentally from Spanish to English if I want to say an English prayer out loud.

   And Exchange Day miracles are SO REAL. We met the most amazing people, and finding was a blast! :)

   Gladis (Mariela's mom) got baptized! It was so exciting, and she loved it so much! Such an incredibly sweet lady! <3

Also, the general Women's broadcast was SWEEEEET! I love those! And I'm SO EXCITED FOR GENERAL CONFERENCE! Everybody go and watch every session! :) I love y'all! Have a great week!

      Estoy mejorando todavia. Mejoramos todo el tiempo. En el idioma, en obediencia, en amor. La vida de una misionera es una adventura! <3

        Con muchisimo amor,

    ~Hermana Curnow

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#MiracleMarch - Where did these numbers come from??

What a terrific week!!

  So for St. Patrick's day, Susie Robles had us over for dinner. She's such a sweetheart, and it was plenty of fun.

   Sister Miles died. :( She finished her mission and is home now. But we took funeral pictures and made a mega-bed (had a slumber party) before she left. so it's cool. I realized something when she was packing to go home: I'm already DREADING the end of my mission! The joy and enthusiasm that you feel as a missionary is something inexplicable. All that I know is that I LOVE serving as a full-time missionary and I LOVE the people that I come in contact with daily. I'm going to make an extra special effort to live every moment, have no regrets and put forth ALL of my effort into the work.

   We taught the less active Gonzalez family. Juan (Sr./padre) welcomed us in enthusiastically and pointed to the Bible that was in on the kitchen counter, declaring that his house was a house of God. Hermana Lightheart walked over and picked it up, and saw that the pages were dirty and crinkled (it was opened to Salmos). She turned to some other pages and exclaimed "Oh, look how CLEAN and UNTOUCHED these other pages are!" The ex-wife, Dalia (who was cooking dinner) got a good laugh out of that. Juan padre also had a friend, Jose, there, and so we talked to him, too. Then Juan hijo (who prefers English),came out and started to chat with us. So I did some follow-ups on his commitments while Hermana Lightheart taught Jose and preached arrepentimiento a Juan padre. So we had this really weird, bi-lingual, three-way lesson going! I chuckled a little at how funny the situation was. :)

   And we got in a car-wreck on Thursday. Not our fault, everyone was fine, we're still using the car (even though a couple of the doors don't work LOL).

   We're currently working with Raul and Maria Gonzalez, from Cuba. Selena, Martha and Enoch from Peru. Johanna, Lino and Joel from the Dominican Republic. Martha from Cuba. They're all AWESOME! I'm so excited to keep working with them and watch them grow in the gospel! <3

   On Saturday, we got to go to the baptismal service of Mariela! :) Elder Ortiz and Elder Coburn have been teaching her and her family, and she got baptized! The spirit was so strong! I gave a mini-talk on baptism. Then the font door was locked, we didn't have keys, so Hermano Roger Ortiz Jr. unlocked it with a butter knife. Skills.

    Then we had the BEST SUNDAY EVER!!  We had a rescue (Osvaldo is coming to church regularly), 2 LAs came (one of them was Liliana, and she is a friend of Johanna! What a coincidence)! And Johanna came with Lino and Joel to sacrament! President Richardson gave a talk to our ward in SPANISH and we visited Selena, Enoch, and Martha with Herman Trini AND THEY'RE WORKING TOWARDS BAPTISM! I can't describe how full my joy is! I LOVE the gospel, it is true, and the mission work is PLOWING forward!

Love y'all! Talk to you next week! :)

Con MUCHISIMO amor,

~Hermana Curnow

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