It was Independence Day here yesterday so we weren't able to email.
Samuel didn't end up getting baptized this week. It turns out that he is on probation for counterfeiting money, so he had to have an interview with President Gamiette over the phone. It will be this Saturday if all goes well.
We have found a cool lady named Herman. She goes by Baby. She came to church this week and her aunt is already a member. Apparently she got a Book of Mormon from some elders that were here a long time ago and she has been reading it on and off ever since! When we taught her the first lesson she already knew that it was true! That sure makes our job easier!
Our district has baptized more this transfer than any other. We have 3 more, including Samuel, that could be baptized by the end of the month. Seven in any branch of the mission now-a-days is unheard of! We are working hard, trying to get them all in the water by then.
Nothing new beyond that is really going on. Elder Morris is getting transferred next Wednesday and that makes us all excited. He's difficult.
All of the Elders in Vieux Fort, except me of course, got a call from President Gamiette this week about being disobedient. We were at a branch youth activity on Saturday and ALL 3 of them went swimming! Needless to say President was not happy with them. He's not mad at me though. :)
The scripture of the week is Alma 5:45-46.
P.S. Thanks for the Olympics updates. Go USA!
Tuesday, February 23, 2010
Tuesday, February 16, 2010
We baptized them all!
Sorry I didn't email yesterday. We got stuck in a city called Soufriere over on the west coast of St. Lucia by the mountains.
It’s been raining all day today which isn’t very fun. It came at a really bad time. My companion, Elder Morris, and I were walking over to our senior couple’s house to do our emails. We had to hide under a semi-truck to keep out of the rain. It was a little funny because we were hiding under there and my companion was sitting down. All the rain off of a roof next to us made a river of water that came from behind us under the truck and Elder Morris didn’t notice it, so his pants got all wet! I was just squatting so my shoes got wet but only on the outside. They are still waterproof! Actually it is dry season now so rain is not a very common thing.
We had two baptisms this past weekend. That was sweet! They both went great! On Saturday Jane Augustine was baptized. We baptized her in a river because she didn't want to do it in the ocean. It was freezing cold! She use to be a rastafarian and smoked marijuana, so we helped get her off of that. She really wants her kids and her husband to be baptized now so we’re working with them pretty much everyday; every time they’ll let us come see them. Sis. Augustine can’t really read so we got her the Book of Mormon on CD and she has been listening to that everyday with her family. She loves it! Here are a few pictures from her baptism:
Elder Morris, Jamal, Jane, Brother Firmus, and Me.
.JPG)
The water was really cold, but I was happy!
On Sunday we had baptisms for both companionships down here. Elder Welch and Elder Lundberg baptized a guy named Lucius Mathurin. He’s kinda crazy but he’s a real funny man. He’ll be a good member just like Lucy and Jane. We baptized a lady named Sheba Sinasis. She’s sweet and she’ll be a super strong member. We have been teaching her pretty much since the day I got here. She's readng the Book of Mormon and is already half way through 2nd Nephi. That’s really cool because it means that she’s reading at least a chapter every day! Her family is giving her some pressure but her brother, Samuel, is getting baptized this weekend which we’re super excited about. We actually had no part to play in the baptisms, all we did was take pictures! It was completely done by the locals instead of the missionaries. The baptisms were done by one of the members of the branch presidency and 2 of the other priesthood holders were the witnesses. The members of the branch did all the talks and prayers (they did them for Sis. Augustine too). That’s the first time I’ve ever seen that.
The people in our area are sweet. They are very humble and spiritual, a lot more than in the bigger cities like Castries. They have lots of dreams and visions and all kinds of interesting things that happen, lots of cool stories, but not anything like Guyana. Guyana has tons, everyday someone is seeing a vision or having a dream and telling the missionaries about it. That’s why so many people get baptized.
The work in St. Lucia is going forth "boldly, nobly, and independently" (from the Standard of Truth). Life’s good. It will be even better when I get my companion out of here cause he’s not very clean, which is not cool. And he thinks I’m old. I don’t understand, I work harder than he does. Elder Morris is still here because President left the decision up to me. Despite how hard he is to work with, I elected to keep him and get him through this transfer. He is coming along but he will be leaving St. Lucia for sure in 2 weeks when transfers come up again. Sheba was the one that said she is in love with him. So we can't go and teach her any more but the other elders are doing fine with it. Since we can't be over at her house we had to give them her brother, Samuel, too. We are super excited that he is going to be baptized this week! Getting 3 investigators to baptism in one transfer here in the islands is a lot! Between the 2 companionships here in Vieux Fort we will have 5! That's awesome because they hadn't had a baptism in this area since October or November. We are super excited!
We don't have too many investigators right now. We baptized them all! So we'll spend most of our week looking for new ones. Things are good here.
I know I am staying in St. Lucia next transfer and staying in the same apartment. This will be nice cause I’ve moved 7 times in the last 10 months! I am excited to finally be staying somewhere. I'm sick of moving all the time. Elder Welch will be leaving with Elder Morris, but Elder Lundberg, the guy from Logan, is staying. He’s cool, he played football, lacross, and basketball. We have a lot of the same friends. It’s kinda weird! He’s a good guy and I’m glad he’s going to be staying too.
These are a few pictures from p-day:
We saw this ship and thought it was "The Black Pearl"!
How depressing to find out it is actually named the Unicorn.
.JPG)
Petit Piton with the Gros Piton in the back.
We climbed the one in the back... it's bigger!
Me at sunset on the beach in Labourie.
Zone conference this past week was good. It focused on the requirements to obtain exaltation. It was very interesting. I learned some cool things!
You might have heard that there will be some changes to some of the mission's boundaries here in the Caribbean. They will be happening in July. The changes will affect us. We will be gaining St. Kitts, St. Thomas, Antigua, and Barbados. Pretty much all of the islands that they took away from us 3 years ago. I've actually known about this for about 9 months. They made the decision clear back when I was in the office but I wasn't allowed to say anything.
The scripture of the week is Matthew 7:15-20.
It’s been raining all day today which isn’t very fun. It came at a really bad time. My companion, Elder Morris, and I were walking over to our senior couple’s house to do our emails. We had to hide under a semi-truck to keep out of the rain. It was a little funny because we were hiding under there and my companion was sitting down. All the rain off of a roof next to us made a river of water that came from behind us under the truck and Elder Morris didn’t notice it, so his pants got all wet! I was just squatting so my shoes got wet but only on the outside. They are still waterproof! Actually it is dry season now so rain is not a very common thing.
We had two baptisms this past weekend. That was sweet! They both went great! On Saturday Jane Augustine was baptized. We baptized her in a river because she didn't want to do it in the ocean. It was freezing cold! She use to be a rastafarian and smoked marijuana, so we helped get her off of that. She really wants her kids and her husband to be baptized now so we’re working with them pretty much everyday; every time they’ll let us come see them. Sis. Augustine can’t really read so we got her the Book of Mormon on CD and she has been listening to that everyday with her family. She loves it! Here are a few pictures from her baptism:
Elder Morris, Jamal, Jane, Brother Firmus, and Me.
.JPG)
The water was really cold, but I was happy!
On Sunday we had baptisms for both companionships down here. Elder Welch and Elder Lundberg baptized a guy named Lucius Mathurin. He’s kinda crazy but he’s a real funny man. He’ll be a good member just like Lucy and Jane. We baptized a lady named Sheba Sinasis. She’s sweet and she’ll be a super strong member. We have been teaching her pretty much since the day I got here. She's readng the Book of Mormon and is already half way through 2nd Nephi. That’s really cool because it means that she’s reading at least a chapter every day! Her family is giving her some pressure but her brother, Samuel, is getting baptized this weekend which we’re super excited about. We actually had no part to play in the baptisms, all we did was take pictures! It was completely done by the locals instead of the missionaries. The baptisms were done by one of the members of the branch presidency and 2 of the other priesthood holders were the witnesses. The members of the branch did all the talks and prayers (they did them for Sis. Augustine too). That’s the first time I’ve ever seen that.
The people in our area are sweet. They are very humble and spiritual, a lot more than in the bigger cities like Castries. They have lots of dreams and visions and all kinds of interesting things that happen, lots of cool stories, but not anything like Guyana. Guyana has tons, everyday someone is seeing a vision or having a dream and telling the missionaries about it. That’s why so many people get baptized.
The work in St. Lucia is going forth "boldly, nobly, and independently" (from the Standard of Truth). Life’s good. It will be even better when I get my companion out of here cause he’s not very clean, which is not cool. And he thinks I’m old. I don’t understand, I work harder than he does. Elder Morris is still here because President left the decision up to me. Despite how hard he is to work with, I elected to keep him and get him through this transfer. He is coming along but he will be leaving St. Lucia for sure in 2 weeks when transfers come up again. Sheba was the one that said she is in love with him. So we can't go and teach her any more but the other elders are doing fine with it. Since we can't be over at her house we had to give them her brother, Samuel, too. We are super excited that he is going to be baptized this week! Getting 3 investigators to baptism in one transfer here in the islands is a lot! Between the 2 companionships here in Vieux Fort we will have 5! That's awesome because they hadn't had a baptism in this area since October or November. We are super excited!
We don't have too many investigators right now. We baptized them all! So we'll spend most of our week looking for new ones. Things are good here.
I know I am staying in St. Lucia next transfer and staying in the same apartment. This will be nice cause I’ve moved 7 times in the last 10 months! I am excited to finally be staying somewhere. I'm sick of moving all the time. Elder Welch will be leaving with Elder Morris, but Elder Lundberg, the guy from Logan, is staying. He’s cool, he played football, lacross, and basketball. We have a lot of the same friends. It’s kinda weird! He’s a good guy and I’m glad he’s going to be staying too.
These are a few pictures from p-day:
We saw this ship and thought it was "The Black Pearl"!
How depressing to find out it is actually named the Unicorn.
.JPG)
Petit Piton with the Gros Piton in the back.
We climbed the one in the back... it's bigger!
Me at sunset on the beach in Labourie.
Zone conference this past week was good. It focused on the requirements to obtain exaltation. It was very interesting. I learned some cool things!
You might have heard that there will be some changes to some of the mission's boundaries here in the Caribbean. They will be happening in July. The changes will affect us. We will be gaining St. Kitts, St. Thomas, Antigua, and Barbados. Pretty much all of the islands that they took away from us 3 years ago. I've actually known about this for about 9 months. They made the decision clear back when I was in the office but I wasn't allowed to say anything.
The scripture of the week is Matthew 7:15-20.
Monday, February 8, 2010
We have 2 baptisms scheduled!
Things are going pretty well here on St. Lucia. We have 2 baptisms scheduled for this weekend which will be sweet! One is Sheba and the other is Sister Augustine (I don't know her first name). They are both pretty excited and are doing well. The other companionship here in Vieux Fort is having one too so there should be 3 in our branch! What a great week!
The Patois is coming along okay. I think I have got all of the possible insults that they can come up with memorized. Now the trick is learning how to say something positive back.
The new ingrown toenail has been taken care of. The toe that was infected that I came home for still has the crust on top of it. I am anxiously awaiting the day when I see the nail.
We did hear that the Saints won the super bowl. In fact, we were talking to our branch president late last night (he's our neighbor) and he had it on in the other room. He's English and he has a DVR. We heard the roar of the crowd when the Saints picked off the pass and ran it back to get the score to 31-17. He made us come watch the replay with him because he was so happy about it.
We did have one problem occur this week. One of our investigators got up during testimony meeting yesterday and confessed her love of Elder Morris to the whole church. I almost died! Unfortunately I had to call the zone leaders and I am pretty sure that he will be getting an emergency transfer out at any moment. It probably won't happen until after zone conference on Thursday.
I went on a trade off with our district leader on Saturday and it was fun. We are going on another one tomorrow but I'll be with his companion, Elder Lundburg, which I am excited for because he is the one from Logan.
This is from last week's service project. I got pretty good at cement work!
A beautiful sunset.
A fun rainbow after a good storm.
One of the famous St. Lucia Piton's.
The scripture of the week is 1 Nephi 18:3.
This is a quote from the Faux's blog this week:
"Sorry we did not get any pictures of our elders this week- we must be getting lazy. We want you to know they are still working, still handsome and still make us have a happy day when they come to our apartment. I don’t recall if I have told you about the elders we have now. We still have Elder Welch and Elder Morris and they have been here for some time, I am betting that the next transfer they will be moved... They are good men and good to be with... We also have Elder Lundberg from Logan, Utah. He has been serving his mission for one year and is a nice young man that we enjoy and we are glad he is here. Elder Larson, from Logan also, will be going home in May and is a very polite and nice young man. He did go home a short time ago for a month because he had a bad infection that could not be taken care of here. They both brighten up life and we enjoy each of them. A couple of things the elders say that is interesting are “I love them bad” and “we will be seeing you just now“-which can mean up to an hour."
The Patois is coming along okay. I think I have got all of the possible insults that they can come up with memorized. Now the trick is learning how to say something positive back.
The new ingrown toenail has been taken care of. The toe that was infected that I came home for still has the crust on top of it. I am anxiously awaiting the day when I see the nail.
We did hear that the Saints won the super bowl. In fact, we were talking to our branch president late last night (he's our neighbor) and he had it on in the other room. He's English and he has a DVR. We heard the roar of the crowd when the Saints picked off the pass and ran it back to get the score to 31-17. He made us come watch the replay with him because he was so happy about it.
We did have one problem occur this week. One of our investigators got up during testimony meeting yesterday and confessed her love of Elder Morris to the whole church. I almost died! Unfortunately I had to call the zone leaders and I am pretty sure that he will be getting an emergency transfer out at any moment. It probably won't happen until after zone conference on Thursday.
I went on a trade off with our district leader on Saturday and it was fun. We are going on another one tomorrow but I'll be with his companion, Elder Lundburg, which I am excited for because he is the one from Logan.
This is from last week's service project. I got pretty good at cement work!
A beautiful sunset.
A fun rainbow after a good storm.
One of the famous St. Lucia Piton's.
The scripture of the week is 1 Nephi 18:3.
This is a quote from the Faux's blog this week:
"Sorry we did not get any pictures of our elders this week- we must be getting lazy. We want you to know they are still working, still handsome and still make us have a happy day when they come to our apartment. I don’t recall if I have told you about the elders we have now. We still have Elder Welch and Elder Morris and they have been here for some time, I am betting that the next transfer they will be moved... They are good men and good to be with... We also have Elder Lundberg from Logan, Utah. He has been serving his mission for one year and is a nice young man that we enjoy and we are glad he is here. Elder Larson, from Logan also, will be going home in May and is a very polite and nice young man. He did go home a short time ago for a month because he had a bad infection that could not be taken care of here. They both brighten up life and we enjoy each of them. A couple of things the elders say that is interesting are “I love them bad” and “we will be seeing you just now“-which can mean up to an hour."
Monday, February 1, 2010
They have all committed to be baptized!
(We realized that we forgot to do a blog entry on St. Lucia. Today it was posted. We dated it as January 20th, the date of Jonathan's transfer. Please see that posting for information on the island of St. Lucia.)
Things are still going pretty well in St. Lucia. Sounds like there is a lot of snow back home. Do you know what we have? A bunch of sand, surf (not for us of course), and shine! I am surprised at how fast I have gotten used to the warm weather again. We have A/C in our apartment and we sleep with it set on 78 degrees and I still have to sleep with a sheet on every night! My companion thinks that I'm nuts but he's only been out for about 6 months. Once he has a summer down here under his belt he'll understand. I will admit, I do miss being truly cold though.
So our family of 17 is doing okay. We are teaching 5 of them now. They are all excited about the gospel and 2 of them have baptism dates set for this month. Their names are Sheba (26 year old woman) and Samuel (he's 20 something). We are also teaching the Augustine family that live in Vieux Fort itself. The Mom and 2 of her kids are planning on getting baptized sometime in February too. We watched the Testaments with them last night and it brought up a lot of good questions. Even the father sat in with us and showed some sincere interest. Things are starting to look up in this area. I just hope that it continues to grow.
We had 5 people at church yesterday and they have all committed to be baptized during February. We are so excited about that! They all attended the baptism of a little lady named Lucy yesterday after church. That was pretty fun. This was the first baptism in the branch since November. The waves were huge so she and the elders kept getting knocked over! It was a fun day!
The pictures in today's blog were taken from the Faux's Blog (the senior couple in Jonathan's area). The first picture is from Lucy's baptism and the second is from Branch Choir practice on Sunday (unfortunately Jonathan's face is blocked by he microphone).
Things with Elder Morris are going pretty well. He has a short fuse and allows things to get to him pretty easily. It makes me a bit frustrated to be honest. It's weird to find myself describing someone like that because I know that's how I used to be! He also likes to spend most of his time by himself but I think that's because he and one of the other Elders in the apartment don't get along. Elder Lundberg (the other kid from Logan) and I just laugh about it and talk sports which neither of the other two do. I sometimes almost wish they weren't here at all! Elder Morris has started to mellow out a little bit though. It's bound to happen because I'm one of the most layed-back people in the mission and he's stuck with me all day, everyday! It will just take some time but he'll get there.
We spent most of our day on Saturday rebuilding our branch president's bathroom for a service project. We built him a brand new bathtub out of concrete and cinder blocks. We will be doing the tiling sometime this week. It has been quite a project but I am starting to get the hang of using cement. It's almost like building a giant sand castle!
Tuesday was our district meeting. This is a picture of lunch. Yum! Pizza!
Do you remember Tom Penrose? The guy that was the med student that helped me in St. Maarten? His mom is going to med school too and you'll never guess where she is going... Vieux Fort, St. Lucia! Just down the road. She's in our branch but I haven't met her yet. She is away right now but she should be back this week.
My patois is coming along slowly. I would say about 1/2 of the language is the same as Creole but they change a few of the vowel sounds. I can understand most of the stuff people say but I can't really respond because of the differences.
Anyway, life is good. My toes are fine. I wish we had a bigger super market though. It's like being in Tobago again. Food is already starting to get repetitive.
The scripture of the week is Mosiah 3:5-12.
Things are still going pretty well in St. Lucia. Sounds like there is a lot of snow back home. Do you know what we have? A bunch of sand, surf (not for us of course), and shine! I am surprised at how fast I have gotten used to the warm weather again. We have A/C in our apartment and we sleep with it set on 78 degrees and I still have to sleep with a sheet on every night! My companion thinks that I'm nuts but he's only been out for about 6 months. Once he has a summer down here under his belt he'll understand. I will admit, I do miss being truly cold though.
So our family of 17 is doing okay. We are teaching 5 of them now. They are all excited about the gospel and 2 of them have baptism dates set for this month. Their names are Sheba (26 year old woman) and Samuel (he's 20 something). We are also teaching the Augustine family that live in Vieux Fort itself. The Mom and 2 of her kids are planning on getting baptized sometime in February too. We watched the Testaments with them last night and it brought up a lot of good questions. Even the father sat in with us and showed some sincere interest. Things are starting to look up in this area. I just hope that it continues to grow.
We had 5 people at church yesterday and they have all committed to be baptized during February. We are so excited about that! They all attended the baptism of a little lady named Lucy yesterday after church. That was pretty fun. This was the first baptism in the branch since November. The waves were huge so she and the elders kept getting knocked over! It was a fun day!
The pictures in today's blog were taken from the Faux's Blog (the senior couple in Jonathan's area). The first picture is from Lucy's baptism and the second is from Branch Choir practice on Sunday (unfortunately Jonathan's face is blocked by he microphone).
Things with Elder Morris are going pretty well. He has a short fuse and allows things to get to him pretty easily. It makes me a bit frustrated to be honest. It's weird to find myself describing someone like that because I know that's how I used to be! He also likes to spend most of his time by himself but I think that's because he and one of the other Elders in the apartment don't get along. Elder Lundberg (the other kid from Logan) and I just laugh about it and talk sports which neither of the other two do. I sometimes almost wish they weren't here at all! Elder Morris has started to mellow out a little bit though. It's bound to happen because I'm one of the most layed-back people in the mission and he's stuck with me all day, everyday! It will just take some time but he'll get there.
We spent most of our day on Saturday rebuilding our branch president's bathroom for a service project. We built him a brand new bathtub out of concrete and cinder blocks. We will be doing the tiling sometime this week. It has been quite a project but I am starting to get the hang of using cement. It's almost like building a giant sand castle!
Tuesday was our district meeting. This is a picture of lunch. Yum! Pizza!
Do you remember Tom Penrose? The guy that was the med student that helped me in St. Maarten? His mom is going to med school too and you'll never guess where she is going... Vieux Fort, St. Lucia! Just down the road. She's in our branch but I haven't met her yet. She is away right now but she should be back this week.
My patois is coming along slowly. I would say about 1/2 of the language is the same as Creole but they change a few of the vowel sounds. I can understand most of the stuff people say but I can't really respond because of the differences.
Anyway, life is good. My toes are fine. I wish we had a bigger super market though. It's like being in Tobago again. Food is already starting to get repetitive.
The scripture of the week is Mosiah 3:5-12.
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