We had a baptism this past weekend!

I heard from President Robison this week. I sent him a quick little note asking him about home and this was his reply:

Hey Elder Larson,

It is great to be home, but I feel more comfortable in a tie and white shirt. My goal is to keep feeling that way. I consider your last notes and letters to me some of the highlight payday messages of my mission. I love the miracle that has taken place in you. Read Mosiah 5 and substitute our names and you will see what I am talking about.

Love, President Robison

It was great to hear from him. Anyway, things are not well here in Trinidad, or in Guyana, or anywhere in the mission for that matter. If you remember I voiced some concerns when we found out who our new mission president would be. President Gamiette did alright for a while but he is starting to make a bunch of new rules that are going to make missionary work almost impossible in some areas. One of the most difficult is that you can only work within a 30 minute walk of the church. That's a big problem here because there aren't very many houses that are within 30 minutes! We are in the middle of the city and most of the buildings are stores. Elder Williams and I sent an e-mail to President today asking what we should do with our investigators. We are waiting for his reply so as of right now Elder Williams and I are continuing to do what we have been doing. Our investigators are all cool and we don't want to have to drop them just because they live a long ways away from the church. It's just frustrating because we don't see the reason behind it.

Guyana isn't doing very well right now either. Part of the reason is because most of the experienced missionaries are either in the islands or in Trinidad. The work is really suffering down there because there isn't any leadership.

Well, that's everything that is going on around here right now. Hopefully things will settle down and get going again. The last time I heard, we were in serious danger of not even baptizing 100 people for the month. That would be really bad! I think that part of the problem is that none of the missionaries know what President Gamiette wants us to do. He keeps sending us e-mails about retention and things like that but then he stands up in front of us and tells us that we need to focus on baptizing. There is a lot of confusion right now. It also doesn't help that he is telling us to go to our bishops for everything when our Area 70 told us not to bug the bishop but to go through the ward mission leader. It's all a mess and confusing right now. I'm sure it will get better as President gets some more experience.

We had a baptism this past weekend! The pictures are on Elder Williams camera so I'll have to borrow it from him. I will try to send them next week. The baptism was a little girl named Tekeisha (her nickname is Pinky). She is the daughter of the couple (David and Pheumia) that we baptized a few weeks ago.

We do things a little differently around here with teaching than the missionaries do in the states. The missionaries there would probably think that we're crazy for some of the things we do! For instance, we sometimes invite people to be baptized during their first lesson. It works! We know then if they are really interested or not. If they are willing to work towards baptism then they are worth going by again. We don't do it all of the time but we never teach a second lesson without doing it!

Technically there are 5 lessons in Preach My Gospel but we usually split it into about 8. Lesson 1 - the Restoration; lesson 2 - The Book of Mormon; lesson 3 - the Plan of Salvation; lesson 4 - the Gospel; and lessons 5-9 the Commandments (such as the Word of Wisdom, the Law of Chastity, the Sabbath Day, the 10 Commandments, obeying the law, praying, studying the scriptures daily, and tithing). Sometimes we do the Word of Wisdom and the Law of Chastity as lesson 3. There was even one time that we taught them before we had taught anything else!

Tithing isn't really a big deal around here, most people accept that without question. It is one of the things in the Bible that they understand. With the Word of Wisdom and the Law of Chastity they know they shouldn't do any of those things but they just don't want to change.

On Tuesday Elder Williams and I played basketball with some of the members. It was the two of us against 2 black guys. Believe it or not we actually won 72-56. I was really on and had 58 points! Needless to say I was pretty tired.

I went on an exchange with the zone leaders on Friday. I was with Elder Findlay, my old MTC companion. We went to a place on the eastern side of the island called Sange Grande (I've sent a couple of pictures from there). The zone leaders are tied with us for the most baptisms on Trinidad.

The scripture of the week is Ether 12:4,6,9,12.

No Worries, Mon!

Things are pretty slow right now. Mission wide this week we only had 37 baptisms. This will probably be our lowest baptizing month in the last 16 months! We have one person lined up to get baptized on the morning of August 1st so that we can be the first ones to baptize!

Our investigators were a disappointment again this week. We had 2 new ones come to church but none of the others came. The weirdest part of church yesterday was when 16 girls from BYU on a 10 day study abroad program walked into sacrament meeting. They are here to test out if they should come to Trinidad more often. We went to the store this morning and 5 of them were there too! I haven't been around that many white people since St. Maarten! I'll be glad when they leave next Tuesday because there are way too many white people walking around Port of Spain right now!

I taught the young men's priesthood class yesterday. One of the members of the bishopric was doing it but the kids weren't being very attentive so I asked him if I could say something but I ended up taking over. I whipped them into shape and they actually all learned something. I apologized to Brother Samaroo (the bishopric member) for taking over his class but he was very happy that I did it. He said he was sick of trying to make himself heard.

We played some sweet basketball on Tuesday night with some of the members. They play every Tuesday night so we are going to set up a way to go on splits with them before they play and then all meet up to play ball. Two of the guys are people we want to have go teaching with us because one is in our bishopric and the other is in the stake presidency.

We eat out a lot right now because our focus area is an hour away from our apartment. We usually eat curry or Burger King, but we get BBQ sometimes too. I am maintaining weight though. We eat at a members house every Sunday night and she makes awesome roti and curry. My favorite now is potato. Goat is pretty good and lamb works too. Stingray was bad! We had shrimp and papaya once and that was awful too! A lady from Jamaica in our ward made us a cherry cheesecake yesterday. It was way good. I ate half of it!

Well, I haven't gotten the new retainers yet. The orthodontist's office hasn't been answering their phone. We are going to go in and set an appointment with them in person in the morning if they don't answer this afternoon.

Our internet was down for a few minutes. I think the building next to us just got struck by lightning! That was amazing! It rains everyday... a lot... everyday... for hours on end... and then it rains again! I'm sure you guessed that it's the rainy season here now. It isn't fun to walk around in wet clothes all day long asking people to let you into their houses! But no worries, mon!

This week's scripture is Ecclesiastes 1:17-18.

We have managed to get a brother reactivated!

As you know, we were the first zone conference with the new mission president. It was on Thursday this past week. It was a little weird because the Robison's didn't bring any children. The Gamiette's on the other hand have 5 and it was quite amusing to see them (the children) walking around the house carrying hula-hoops and hitting each other with them during the conference! Just things we have to get used to I guess! Here are a few pictures:

Lots of studying......



And a little eating and goofing off!

Trinidad North Zone - Jonathan is the 3rd from the right.

A bunch of missionaries got sick here in Trinidad. 7 of the 12 elders in our zone got sick the day after zone conference. I was among the fallen ones. We had all made it home before anything happened. I think it was food poisoning. I don't know what happened in the south zone.

Things are going alright down here. They would be a lot better though if our investigators had come to church. We were supposed to have 11 people there but only 2 showed up. Those 2 weren't even people that we counted on seeing! We were supposed to have a baptism this weekend but that is not going to happen like we wanted.

We have managed to get a brother reactivated over the last couple of weeks. His name is Brother Walker and we hope that he will come out teaching with us soon. He has come 2 Sundays in a row and has brought his little 18 month old son both times. The kid is awesome! He's a ball of energy but he is really curious. His wife hasn't come back with him yet.

At church yesterday we had an area seventy come and visit us, Elder Alvarado, or something like that. He is a super nice guy. It was sweet because during his talk, he looked at one of our investigators (Steve) and said, "Steve, you're not a member of this church yet but I want you to be and, more importantly, God wants you to be." He then shared a powerful testimony aimed directly at Steve which was awesome! He also told of how it was exactly 22 years ago yesterday that he had knelt down as a 16 year old and prayed about the Book of Mormon and came to know that it was true. It was sweet.

The scripture this week is 2 Nephi 28:7-9.

Some missionaries try and really push baptism and don't teach doctrine.

We went to the zoo this morning for p-day. Here are a couple of pictures:



The President Gamiette is here but I haven't really met with him yet. We have interviews on Wednesday and then zone conference on Thursday. There are 24 elders on Trinidad and 2 zones. Our couple, the Palmers are great. They are a proselyting couple and are from Flagstaff, AZ. Sister Palmer is a good cook and makes us cookies a lot.

The baptisms we were supposed to have this weekend aren't going to happen. They got sick and weren't able to come to church. They will hopefully go through next week.

We found one awesome dude to teach yesterday. His name is Michael and he is about 25 years old. He's actually been taught before but he said that the missionaries tried to force him to get baptized. Some missionaries try and really push baptism and don't teach doctrine. He said that he'll get baptized probably sometime next month if he knows it's true. We had the help of 2 West Indies returned missionaries during the lesson. One of them, President Danzell, is the first counselor in the stake presidency. He is so awesome. He was an assistant to President Robision about 30 months ago. (Our ward has 7 returned missionaries. 4 of them served in this mission, 1 in Florida, and 2 in Jamaica. It definitely helps.) President Danzell brought Michael to church yesterday. They work together. We are starting from the very beginning with him. We figured it would be better. He is really smart though and should fly through the lessons.

I thought you'd like these pictures too. The kid is Kyle, we baptized his parents a couple of weeks ago... he's the Ammon story kid.

I swear that he hugged me!!!


I haven't found an orthodontist that will be in town to fix my retainer.

I wish we had fireworks here, actually ours was some crazy person letting shots off about 1 mile from a teaching appointment. They wished all of the Americans happy 4th of July in church though. That was funny! We didn't sing patriotic songs this year because my comp hates singing. Elder Williams is from L.A. He was a swimmer in high school. He has done independent study through the Y but he says he doesn't really like the school though, so there's hope!

(We told Jonathan that Michael has grown about 7 inches since he left!) Is Michael going to be able to beat me at sports when I get home? Tell him I have grown about 3/4 of an inch since I left!

The food is really spicy. They love pepper! I have iron insides so no ill effects.
I'm wearing my pedometer and I am averaging about 12 1/2 miles per day. We have a 30 minute walk every day to catch a bus to the area we work in. We really don't do any other exercise, just walk. My legs have shrunk about 4 inches in circumference since I left!

I found an old packet of the missionary discussions and the flip chart. They were sitting in an old filing cabinet in the church. I don't think it had been opened in 10 years judging by the dust on it!

The scripture of the week is D&C 20:17-19.

The new Mission President arrives today.

Claude Remy Gamiette, 40, and Delphine Claudine Ginette Chamoulaud Gamiette, five children, Lamentin Ward, Basse-Terre Guadeloupe Stake. Brother Gamiette is a counselor in the West Indies Mission presidency and is a former district president, branch president and counselor, branch mission leader and missionary in the Florida Jacksonville Mission. Coordinator, Church Educational System. Born in Pointe a Pitre, Guadeloupe, to Sebastien Agnes Michel and Georges Arlette Nichse Montierre Gamiette.

Sister Gamiette is a branch Young Women president and institute instructor and is a former branch Relief Society and Primary president, counselor in a branch Young Women presidency, ward Sunday School teacher and missionary in the Washington Seattle Mission. Born in Angouleme, France, to Patrice Raymond and Claudine Patricia Ginette Cheminade Chamoulaud.

The cover picture on the February 2009 New Era is of President Gamiette's 12 year old daughter, Coralie, "Coco". Click here for the article.