Elder Tanner Nielsen: Miami Lakes YSA with Elder Nogueira 3-23-2015

The view driving to Miami Beach

This was texted to me from a sweet member in Miami. At least he still thinks he's funny :)

What the junk!?! Haha i was expecting today to write a letter with the huge announcement of what my new area is and you already know!! That's pretty cool though that someone had recorded the transfer meeting and posted it. So, yup surprise my new area is Miami Lakes YSA!! For those who may not know YSA is an abbreviation for Young Single Adults. Which basically is a congregation of the church which is only for people ages 18 to 30 who are single without a kid. So basically it's a way to just help people date and get married. haha!!

I'm not going to lie the first week in YSA has been super different! Throughout my mission basically all of my areas have been smaller bike areas. Until now. . . Our area literally covers all of the Miami Lakes stake. And the stake goes all the way from Miami beach to the everglades and then from North Miami down to Kendall. So basically all of Miami! Ridiculously huge!! Haha so it's been fun I've literally got to go everywhere this past week. We went to downtown Miami, then to Miami Beach, and then out to Hialeah. Basically we just go everywhere finding and teaching YSA people!!

My new companion is Elder Nogueira. Super cool guy. His family is from Peru, and he was actually born there. He was raised most of his life in Payson, Utah. Really humble guy and just loves missionary work. We already get along really well. He loves to play basketball and sports so we have similar interests as well. We also live with 2 creole missionaries. One of them his name is Elder Murat. He's from Haiti but lived in Boston. His bishop is actually Bishop Blake who you know Mom!! So I was talking to him about them. So you can tell them that I'm living with one of the missionaries from their ward.

Sorry Mom, I'm trying to do my best to answer all of your questions! ;) but yes I did get the package! The cord works great, and I will hook you up with some pics today! Elder Nogueira and I are zone leaders of the Miami Beach zone. It's a smaller zone because the stake is so big they split it into 2 zones. We have 8 areas in our zone. So compare that to the 13 areas that were in Ft. Laud zone, and it's significantly smaller. Basically our zone covers all of Downtown Miami, Miami Beach, and Inner Miami which is like the hood of all hood, a place called Liberty City, and Overtown. Our branch is a really cool branch. Easily the best YSA branch in our mission. There are a ton of RM's so they help us out a lot. The branch has about 50 to 60 active members. It's fun because you can relate to them all really easy. Whereas compared to in the past I was trying to relate to old latin people. Haha so it's fun to be around people our same age all day. Definitely my favorite part about being YSA is getting to teach YSA people. Because they're in a similar situation to us, we get to just be super good friends with them. Right now we have 2 solid investigators. One guy named Jorge who is from Mexico, and another guy named Tristan, who was born and raised in Liberty City. They are really fun to teach. The biggest struggle about being in YSA is definitely finding. Basically we just rely on referrals. Because we can go out and knock all day, but basically all we find are families or old people or people who have kids! Haha so basically we rely on referrals from other missionaries who find YSA in their area, and referrals from members of their friends.

It's definitely been an adjustment because my whole mission I have been able to find people through my own efforts of knocking and talking to people, but now things are the exact opposite! It's all good though, we have already made some sweet plans of how were going to work with the members and find more YSA. We might even go to a Miami Dade College campus and just walk around and talk to people and teach them on the campus. haha we will see what happens!!

Anyway I'm out of time and I feel like I'm getting carpal tunnel from this long email, but just know that I love you all!! I'm so grateful to have the best family in the world!! Really you all are amazing! I know this is the Lord's work and that He is going to put some amazing YSA people into our path this week! Have an amazing week!

Elder Nielsen