Haitians - Ft. Myers - Andrea

Elder Hales Returns with honor. When he left, they put 24 pink flamingos in their  yard. He removes the last one.

 Tuesday: Haitianary Specialized training. Elder Brown teaching us the Plan of Salvation. He uses an army man and candy to teach us each step. I like associating the 'sweet candy with the sweet gospel'

 Below Elder Wilson teaching us. Sorry I got him with his eyes closed. He gave a powerful testimony

 Elder Hogge teaching us above and Elder Olschewski below.

 Elder Paupulaire

 The whole group: Elders Elliott, Hogge, Wilson Thomas and Stegall in back with Elders Brown, Paupulaire, Cornia and Olschewski in front.

 It was a sweet, spirit filled meeting. It was good to be with them again. It has been a while because of the influx of young missionaries keeping us so busy for a bit.

Wednesday Morning:After the Specialized Training we attended  District Meeting in Lehigh. Role play of Elder Brown and Cornia teaching Elders Stegall and Wilson

 Role play by Elders Vanderpool, Hill, Salas and Hall with President

 Elder Brown leading the District and multi-tasking.

 The District: Elders Vanderpool, Wilson, Hill, Stegall, Salas, Cornia and Brown

Wednesday Afternoon. After the District Meeting we drove to Ft.Myers for an interview and we were able to visit these Spanish Missionaries.

 Thursday Morning we had business in St. Pete. AFter making sure the missionaries were all hunkered down we headed to see President Emery. Andrea arrived and I am thinking, "this is what we are supposed to not do"

 I thought going over the bridge was treacherous, but these are city streets we floated through.

These are pictures taken from the car window. The irony of it is that last Wednesday, I trained the District leaders about driving in flooding  situations. On Saturday, Elders Junk and Packard were driving on Dale Mabry a major street and their car, affectionately known as Queen Esther, stalled in deep water. I scolded them for driving in water and assigned Elder Junk to teach about flooding in MLC. Well, then I eat crow as I found ourselves suddenly in deep water as we turned the corner from one street to another. It was bad for us to be out in this weather but good to see how bad it can get very quickly. After our meeting with President Emery, the sun was out and the rain had stopped and the streets were dry so we headed back .  While we were crossing the bridge the winds and the rains picked up again. Suddenly the waves were crashing over the wall onto this freeway we were on. As we were about in the middle of the bridge, our phone gets a loud beep and the warning says, "warning there is a tornado in your area, take shelter immediately!" Well, we were on a 'bridge over troubled water' and there was no shelter to be found so we kept driving which is what we teach the missionaries not to do. We arrived home safe and sound but a lot wiser and a lot better able to educate the missionaries on storm dangers. The missionaries were hunkered down in their apartments for the whole day. Thank goodness it was Thursday and weekly planning. We got lots of calls of missionaries pleading to us to let them go out and teach, but we had been out and saw first hand how things can change , so we kept them in.