Monday, August 24, 2009

Exciting news about Akim!

Things are going well down here as far as the missionary work is concerned. The baptism last Monday didn't go through like we were hoping though. About an hour before the baptism the girl's mom called us and said that we couldn't do it. So we are going to keep trying and hope to get her baptized this weekend.

There were 2 children of record that were baptized last week which was really cool. We had to clean the font out so they wouldn't step on any sea urchins or anything like that. That was a blast! I didn't know what to do though when I had to hold my breath and put my head under the water. I hadn't been submerged in 15 months! I was actually a little nervous.

I can't wait to clean the font out again this week because... we have exciting news about Akim! His dad gave him permission so he is going to be baptized on Saturday and he has asked me to do it! I'm super excited about it. He came out teaching with us 4 times this week and he's not even a member yet! He's great. His dad wanted us to make sure that we told President Gamiette that he isn't interested in the church and that he doesn't want to talk to us. So we are just preparing Akim to get baptized. It's going to be awesome! There are just 5 days until Saturday, and that's baptism day!

We didn't do very well with our 20 new contacts this week. (I explained the change in how we count contacts last week - basically it is getting the phone number of 20 new people we meet each day). People here just refuse to give us their phone numbers and say that they will call us when they are ready. I really don't know what we can do to get their information. I think that if we could work a little further from the church we would meet new people. This area has had missionaries for a long time and it seems like everyone knows who we are. The only cool guy that we came across this past week is named Patrick. He just moved here from Nigeria a week ago. He is so cool. He'll probably be baptized in the next couple of weeks.

I love Elder Montgomery. He is funny and we get along really well. Today we had an activity at an old fort. I had a bit of an accident with a rotted out piece of wood and almost fell through it! It was a little scary. This is Elder Montgomery's version of what happened:



The last part is close to what actually happened. Here are some pictures.


I almost fell through the floor of this building at the fort.

The hole from the bottom.

Fun jumping around.

The scripture of the week is D&C 14.

This is an e-mail we received today from the senior couple on Grenada:

We are enjoying having your son here in Grenada. This is a hard island for missionary work but he is putting his best effort in and results are coming about. Grenada has had a reputation as a non baptizing area but that is changing because of the elders we have. Both he and Elder Montgomery are hard working elders that cause us no grief at all. They are excited about the work here and have a baptism scheduled for this coming weekend. We are happy about the fact that we have two good elders with us that require no babysitting by the senior couple. You can be proud of the efforts of your missionary son.

Elder Rasmussen