Music and Harmony

Hey there Familia!

This week was one of the ones that make the other weeks shine so much brighter :D meaning that it was a little bit flojo in comparison to how well we have been doing recently.  Despite the difficulties, however, there are some great families that we've found and our goal now is to bring a complete family, mom, dad, and kids, into the gospel.  There's somebody giving an English class in another room in this library that speaks very loudly.  President Hale is doing much better.  He had the surgery on thursday, and it turned out to be much less complicated than they thought.  Initially they were going to have to remove a tumor embedded in the nerves, but it turned out being on the side, which made it much simpler.  It could be that the tumor never was embedded in the nerves in the first place, but I like to think of it more as a direct result of a tremendous display of the faith of South Florida.  He'll be back soon and be able to finish out the last few months of his mission here.  In other news, I made lemon bars and brought them to zone council this week.  They were pretty popular, though I still can't figure out what I need to use on the pan to keep the crust from sticking.  Butter failed miserably.  We're also singing in lessons as much as we can, and I get to use my harmonica to play hymns as often as occasion would permit.  Music is great, and always brings the spirit.  I'm going to try to borrow a violin from a member here to see if I can play in sacrament meeting.  Nobody in Hialeah had enough to afford a violin, but I could see some of the English speakers in this ward having one.  Somebody told me why I haven't seen any orange trees in Miami.  Apparently there was a big scare a few years ago about some disease or something and all the trees in the city had to be taken out.  So there actually aren't any citrus trees that I've seen here, which makes me sad.  Oh well, I'm still in the same state as Tropicana, so I win.  Well, that's about it, everything is still going well, not much news to report.  Live long and prosper!

Elder Fine

Life's grand. The church is true.

Hi everyone!

  

General Conference was amazing.  It seemed like everything was covered and more than anything it was a conference of urgency.  I especially liked the talk about "being" vs. "doing" and how the two are inseparable and codependent.  There are many in South Florida that would have you believe otherwise.  All in all, conference, as always, was very uplifting and a great spiritual experience for all who saw it.  After the conference, we all met together by phone in a mission-wide conference call at the request of President Hale.

This request somewhat startled us because whatever he wanted to talk to us about, he didn't want to wait until Monday to send it in an email, nor did he want to relay information through zone and district leaders, but he wanted personally to tell every missionary at the same time.  Rumors about the bahamas and temple groundbreaking flew around, but what he told us was something that nobody expected.

This Wednesday, President J. Nathan Hale and his wife will be flying to Provo so that the best neurosurgeon that he could find can remove a tumor in his spine on Thursday.   Dad, it's in the the T-1 T-2 region of the lower back, you'll probably know better than me what that means.  It is thought to be benign, but there is a chance that it could be cancerous and, as you are aware, this type of surgery is very risky.  He will try to be back as soon as possible to finish the last few months of his mission.  The whole mission is praying for him, and we ask for your prayers of support.  Since the surgery is on Thursday, we will be fasting that day as well.  Anyway, that is what's happening right now in the Great Florida Ft. Lauderdale Mission.

That's good that you got to see some of the Sony Erricson Open in Miami.  It's a pretty big event here.  Tennis and handball are some popular recreational activities.  Most parks have courts for both, as well as the usual basketball court.

I'm gonna send a picture of a road that looks nothing like the roads in arizona, as well as a tree that looks nothing like the trees in Arizona.  This is a small one.  Yeah, there's mangrove trees lining the roads here.  They're really cool looking.  It's starting to warm up a little, but I'm doing fine.  We drive a car that in my opinion is way too nice for missionaries, but we take really good care of it.  We've been finding family after family it seems.  Now if only we could get them to church.  It's hard when someone so sincere has the difficulties of life blocking them from the blessings of the gospel, but when they overcome those challenges, it's all worth it.

Life's grand.  The church is true.

Love,

Elder Fine

Happiness

Dearest Fines,

Thanks for the letter last week Dad, yes, I got it, though I forgot to mention it last week.  I haven't gotten the other one yet.  Since transfers are tomorrow, they hold the mail for a few days.  I'll get it at the transfer meeting tomorrow.  Speaking of transfers, I am once again being moved.  I'm kind of used to it at this point, but that doesn't exactly make it any easier, especially since Elder Hansen and I worked so hard together to bring this area up from the dust and make it perform like it hasn't for a really long time.  Elder Hansen will be training this next transfer.  He's a great missionary, and I can feel good about him running Hialeah West without me (He'll probably be district leader too, because Elder Ball is also transfering).  The moon is awesome.  It always reminds me of Mom when I see it and makes me feel good, as cheesy as that sounds, but whatevs.  Speaking of Peter, I think Bruce R McKonkie gave a talk about Peter once.  It's pretty amazing.  See if you can find it on the byuspeeches website.  Being a missionary is amazing.  It's super demanding in just about every aspect possible, but also super amazing and just an all around fantastic life.  I'm secretly hoping Ethan gets called somewhere in the Gulf Coast/Carribean so that the Brothers Fine can all visit their missions together.  How awesome would that be?  Louisiana, Florida, Republica Dominicana, and....Cuba...yeah, it'll open soon enough.  Life's good.  Thanks for the recetas and the wedding invitation.  I wonder if they chose that picture because it makes Melissa look a little less short.  Anywho, good stuff.  I think I'll go order the joseph smith movie from the church website now.  Have a wonderful day!

Love,

Elder Fine