2nd Letter from Florida

My first drink of Brasilian soda...it was sooooo good!

Hello! Week 2 has come and gone!

I want to start off by saying I'm praying for President Monson and his family. I assume everybody knows Sister Monson passed away and I know she was a wonderful lady.

Quick updates on Orlando and me: 1) I played soccer for the first time on my mission and in like 2 years. Lets just say I wasn't awful but I know the little kids in Brasil are still going to mock me... :P 2) I finally saw my first storm here in Florida. It was really intense and it made me miss home because it was very similar to the ones in Missouri!

President Hall a couple weeks ago put forth a new thing called "miracle prayers." At 10:20pm every night every companionship kneels down and pray for miracles and for investigators personally so that our mission will have more success. It is amazing to see the results! In our Portuguese area alone the numbers have dramatically raised. We went from 0 baptismal dates since last August to 3 this week. (Yes, we have had two more since Alexandra) We also taught 20 other lessons...the average here was about 13-15. That number is so awesome and we celebrated! And basically every category in our area improved. Its amazing how ready the Lord is to give us miracles...we just need to ask and to have the faith to know they will come.

The Orlando Temple...isn't it beautiful?! I feel like that one and Kansas City are MY temples.

The two new baptism dates are Cristopher and Clayton. Cristopher has been an investigator for a while and we are trying to work things out to prepare him. Clayton was somebody I actually talked to while we were on exchanges. He only speaks Portuguese and he is from Brasil. He is around 30 years old but he is very humble. We showed him the Restoration movie and when it got to the First Vision his eyes were just amazed. The Spirit really knows how to work with people and its incredible. That movie almost brings me to tears!

Who thought a missionary could ever be a professional "snow cone maker?!" I am! The missionaries were asked to run booths and games at a carnival at a Elementary School. I ended up making all these snow cones and I created my own special cone called the "Blue Cross." That was a really fun day...its amazing to work for little kids and share the Gospel, especially when these kids come from very bad home conditions.

So finally I have one really cool story! Yesterday we were tracting and we knocked on some homes and we said some prayers with people. The people at these doors were super nice. Then we were leaving one of the houses and this lady pulls over and starts screaming at us and swearing like crazy. So after she left we continued to walk and continued to proselyte in her area. We came to this house and a kid opens the door and tells his dad to come. We ask him if they will pray with us and he said yes and sits us on his porch and gets his whole family of 6 to come! So we prayed with them and had a full discussion. Sadly it was all in Spanish because they had just come from Venezuela but I understood most of it. Then we left with a referral. The point of the story is that Satan will always try to throw you off and make you discouraged RIGHT BEFORE something good happens. Its amazing to me how he didn't want us to see that family. I'm grateful that we saw them and that we kept looking for God's children.

Thank you for all the love and support!

Elder Steven Untch