First Florida Report

We received this letter in the mail, from two days after Eliza arrived in Florida.  She asked us to post it as well!

Thursday, January 17, 2013

Dear Family,

The mission is crazy!  I am so busy and a little bit overwhelmed right now.  We flew in at about 8:30 Tuesday night, and were met by President and Sister Anderson and about five APs (3 were leaving the next day, and their replacements).  We spent the night in a hotel and started raining at the mission home yesterday morning at 7:30.  (Oh, and the sisters weren't allowed to touch our luggage while it was carried out to the cars and then to the hotel. . .)

After some basic training (intro stuff) and lunch, we had a transfer conference.  I got assigned to the West Palm North area, and my trainer is Sister Clayton.  She's super cute and hapy, and has been out here since August.  My Spanish is probably a little bit better than hers, so lots to learn!

After some more training on the 12-week program (designed to make us newbies ready to train after being here for 12 weeks!), we drove the hour to our area.  We immediately went out tracting, with a method that started in our mission but is now spreading, called harvesting.  We knock on people's doors, come in, and leave a blessing on their home, identify what they're feeling as the spirit, and invite them to be baptized!  We had half an hour, and knocked on five doors. Two people agreed to the blessing, but outside their homes, and both agreed to be baptized!  We're planning on going back to see both of them today.

I'm excited to be a missionary!  It's exhausting, and Florida has really weird ducks (but nice weather so far and I like the thick grass).  But this is the best.  I'll give you more details later, but just wanted to let you know that all is well here, and the Gospel is true!

<3 Hermana Houghton

P.S.  If you wanted to type this up and put in on the blog, that would be cool with me.  Just let me know whether you did via email.  Pday is Tuesday.

P.P.S.  The bike is beautiful!!  Thank you Mom and Dad!


Weird Florida Ducks?

This duck does look a bit unusual.  It's a Muscovy duck.

And this is a wood duck from Florida.

Or is she talking about this one?