We have 2 cool investigators.

Getting to Tobago made last week really busy but things are going well. The members don't really like to work with the missionaries but we are working hard. We have 2 cool investigators that we are teaching. One is named Fay. She is pretty sweet but has had some problems living the law of chastity. She went on vacation to Trinidad for a couple of weeks and when she came back she said that she has decided to live the law of chastity and wants to get baptized. What really surprised us was that she had taken her Book of Mormon with her on vacation and had been reading it! The other one is a guy named Alphonso. He is the main music mixer and radio commercial guy on the island. He is so fun to teach because he understands things really well. Then it is fun to talk about how he mixes and masters music so it sound good.

While I'm thinking about it our zone conference will be next Monday, meaning that e-mails will be Tuesday next week. We are flying over to Trinidad at like 7:30 in the morning and then coming back at 4 the same afternoon. I'm really bummed that I won't be able to go and see the people that I taught and members of the ward. (The Tobago elders usually stay in Port of Spain and go teaching with the Trinidad elders the night before zone conference.)

Our exercise program is going okay. I was pretty sore after the first day of jumping around. The best exercise that we got last week was on Saturday morning when Elder Marshall (a former companion of mine) and Elder Green and their families showed up on the island. They challenged us to some basketball so we played for about an hour. It was fun and Elder Ackerman and I won the best of 5 series.

We are having normal church this week in our branch because we don't have a satellite dish down here. So after church we are going to the senior couple's house to watch Conference.

For our p-day activity we are going to a place called Speyside today. It is on the far east side of the island. It should be interesting. I'll take some pictures and try to send them next week.

Pictures of Elder Ackerman and I planning while the power was out last week. That has been a big problem around here lately! It's annoying!!!



The scripture of the week is Alma 9:26 & 28. I really like it.

Wow... What a week!

For information on Tobago, please see the Trinidad and Tobago Information post dated May 24, 2009.

Sorry about yesterday, we didn't get to e-mail because it was Eid ul Fiṭr.
(A Muslim holiday that marks the end of Ramadan, the Islamic holy month of fasting. Eid is an Arabic word meaning "festivity", and Fiṭr means "to break fast"; so the holiday symbolizes the breaking of the fasting period).

Here is a quick video tour of the apartment in Grenada:



Last view of Grenada:


Wow... What a week! When I wrote you last Monday I was still going to be in Grenada. Around 10:30 PM we got a call from the Palmer's in Trinidad and Elder Palmer said that I would be moving to Tobago. To be honest I wasn't very happy but it is actually a really cool place.

I don't like being the leader and worrying about what other missionaries are doing, but being a district leader here is a breeze! That's because there are no other missionaries here so I only have to worry about Elder Ackerman and myself.

My companion, Elder Ackerman, is only in his second transfer. He'll hit his 3 month mark sometime in the middle of October. That's weird considering the fact that I hit 16 months yesterday! Time just has a way of slipping away when you're having fun. Elder Ackerman is about 6 ft 5in and he is just like me. He loves all sports, movies, and music. He wants to try and make USU's basketball team when he gets home. We started an exercise program this morning that is supposed to increase our vertical jump so that will be exciting! I'm going to be a high flyer again!

I got to speak on Sunday which was fun. I spoke for about 25 minutes on the Holy Ghost. No one told me how long to talk, when to stop, or what time the meeting was supposed to let out. I guess I went about 5 minutes too long but I had fun with it.

I would give you our address but we don't really have one. All mail to Tobago (for us anyway) just goes to the mission office and then we pick it up when we fly over there for zone conference. Sometimes people come visit us so they bring mail with them as well.

You'll never believe who we ran into last night... Elder Marshall! He and his family are here for the week because he is going home. I was really glad to see him because I thought I wasn't going to before he left. We are planning on playing him and Elder Green (another guy going home) in basketball to have some fun. It was good getting to catch up with him again.

Pictures from today's adventure at Fort King George in Tobago!




The scripture of the week is Ether 12:32-34.

Flying to Tobago!

We received this surprise e-mail today:

Brother and Sister Larson,

This is to advise you that Elder Larson is boarding an airplane this afternoon and flying to Tobago where his next assignment will be. He will be a district leader there.

We are sorry to have him leave Grenada so soon but most of the missionaries seem to be in motion today with transfers every which direction. We will have three new elders here by tonight. We are happy to receive two additional elders and pray that the work will pick up here.

We had hoped to have Elder Larson here longer as he is a hard working elder. I have gone with on teaching appointments and he does a wonderful job with his teaching and testifying.

He will be in touch I am sure on Monday via email. We are happy he was here and appreciate the work he has done.

Elder Rasmussen in Grenada

Assigned to open a new area!

Things are going great here in Grenada. I had a little accident yesterday. Rather than type it out I made a video of what happened. It hurt a little bit! Don't worry though, I'm okay! And it will heal soon enough.



St. Lucia was great. I got to hang out with Elder Williams and Elder Cromwell and a couple of other Elders that I haven't seen in a while. Elder Anderson of the 70 was there and he is a pretty cool guy. It was funny to see the sister missionaries there. I already knew Sister Camejo, she was in Trinidad for my last zone conference there! Here are a couple of pics from St. Lucia:



Anyway, the only funny story from zone conference was that President came to me to tell me about transfers and he said that I had done excellent work in Grenada but he was going to send me to St. Maarten! Apparently someone had told him that I had served there before but they failed to tell him how long I was there. I let him know that I would go if he wanted me to... We went into a classroom and he and I discussed it and then he said an amazing prayer to find out what we were supposed to do. We took about 30 minutes to think about it and then we came back together and he told me that he had decided to keep me in Grenada to do something really special. The island will be getting 2 new missionaries this week and Elder Montgomery and his companion will be working in the St. Georges area. My companion and I will be assigned to open a new area on the north side of the city!!! You might recognize my new companion, it will be Elder Barker. The hairy monster of a companion that I had at the MTC. I have a feeling that this could be a crazy transfer. I have to find a new apartment this week and everything. It's going to be fun.

Patrick is doing great. He was baptized on Saturday and confirmed yesterday. He had a huge smile on his face! Here are a couple of pictures:


The rasta is a man named Hyacinth that is in our branch. He is pretty sweet and doesn't pull his dreads out very often so this was a special occasion!



Marvin is also doing relatively well. He loves having us over and he is going to be in my new area. We showed up on Saturday right when his girlfriend was walking out on him. He was pretty upset about that. I'm not sure whether or not we should be glad about it. He can get baptized now but he wanted to get married... I'll keep you updated.

This picture is from our trip to an old airport this morning:


Sorry, I guess I didn't tell you which buildings were which last week.


The scripture of the week is 2 Nephi 25:26.

The highest baptizing island in the mission!

There have been some visa issues in Jonathan's mission during the past week. Some of the missionaries in Guyana were detained by the police. Click here to view the article from KSL.com.

With his e-mail today Jonathan sent a copy of the letter that President Gamiette sent out to all of the missionaries with regard to the problems in Guyana:

Dear Elders, Sisters, and Couples,

The situation in Guyana as you can imagine will affect the work every where in the mission, but contrary to what some might think it will be a great blessing if the things we have discussed with the Government are put in place as they should.
-- we should have now a clear complement of 28 foreign missionaries in Guyana.
-- we should have local young men and women serving full time missions in their own countries to compensate that lost.
-- the areas outside of Guyana will have more missionaries and so a 3rd zone have been created in Trinidad. for next transfer.
-- we can expect to establish the church more fully every where with this extra number of missionaries coming from Guyana.

As to what can be said to your parents make sure to reassure them of your safety, and that you are back in the work focusing on baptizing and retaining. For those that were detained make sure that your stories do not let to think that you are or were in danger.

Please continue to pray for that situation to resolve entirely so that the plan of having local missionaries in Guyana could be put in place and the Quota of 28 granted.

Love you thank you for your prayers.

Prs. Gamiette

This picture shows the church and our apartment in relation to the beach.


Video of this mornings walk along the beach.



This is Anandale Falls. We went there last week.


Things are going great here in Grenada and Akim is doing great. We have a couple of other cool investigators that I think I mentioned last week. One of which is Marvin. I told you about how fast he received his answer right? It only took him a day! He, his daughter Leanna, and his girlfriend Camasha all came to church yesterday and they really enjoyed it. They were about an hour and a half late but that's okay because we have sacrament meeting at the end of the block here.

Our other cool investigator, Patrick, is also doing awesome! He is getting baptized this week so that will help Grenada keep it's title of the highest baptizing island in the mission!!!!!

Elder Montgomery and I spent about 2 hours cleaning our apartment this morning because we are going to have a couple of extra missionaries join us next week. It will be really cramped with 4 missionaries in our little place but it will be fun. They are coming because of what has been going on down south in Guyana. We have learned a little about accepting the will of the Lord here in the mission this past week. We have to send 40 of 70 missionaries out of Guyana and we can't have any more than that in there at one time. That's really sad because that's where most of the baptisms in our mission come from! Anyway that's why we are getting more missionaries here.

So you know, it was 40 missionaries that were detained. They were never technically arrested. The reason they were detained is because there is an excommunicated lady that just got into power in their government. The first thing she did was request a list of all of the missionaries names, phone numbers and addresses in the country. Then she revoked all of the visas that Guyana had just given to us about 6 weeks earlier and had everyone rounded up. We've been trying to get Guyanese visas for 20 years and when we finally succeed someone has to screw it up!

I assume that I'll be staying in Grenada. Our senior couple has requested that the mission president keep Elder Montgomery and I together for at least another transfer and we both said that would be fine with us. We'll know by next week what is happening though.

The scripture of the week is D&C 12.

Well, we're flying to St. Lucia on Thursday!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I'm so excited! As if you can't tell. I'll be sure to take plenty of pictures. That's the news from down here.