They call me white lightning around here!

I hope that you enjoy these pictures from Pinky's baptism last week. I confirmed her yesterday. I've done so many of those now!

Pinky and Jonathan

Elder Williams, Jonathan, Pinky, and her family.

So we got calls on Saturday night confirming that I am getting transferred to the island of Grenada! I am super excited! I am a little bummed to leave the members here though. The members of the Port Of Spain ward are awesome! I'm going to miss them! I'm really good at basketball now, we play every Tuesday. They call me white lightning around here.

There is one member of the ward that is going to be seeing me soon. Sister Camejo will be serving on St. Lucia so we'll see her at zone conference. Speaking of ZC, Elder Hamilton said that he thought that it was going to be on St. Vincent this transfer for some reason. I'm going to another island so I'm not going to complain!

I don't know anything about my new companion, I've never met him. There is one senior couple on Grenada so there will only be 4 missionaries on the island. The branch there is supposed to be about 70% white people. That will be a change. President Monson apparently came to Grenada a couple of years ago and said that our church building has the best view in the entire world! We are right on the best beach in Grenada. I'll send a picture. I'm sure I will be taking a lot. I don't know what my address there will be so I'll have it for you next week.

Anyway, things are going great. I'm glad that Elder Williams will be going to the islands too. I'll get to see him at Zone Conference. I will also get to see my (adopted) missionary son, Elder West. Did I tell you the story behind me adopting him? His trainer, Elder Gray and my companion, Elder Marshall, went to Zone Leader Council back in February and that left Elder West and me alone on St. Maarten together for about 4 days. It was awesome and since it was his first transfer I decided to adopt him.

Not much else is going on here right now. We are busy just getting packed. We have turned most of our investigators over to the Palmers, the senior couple. They will take care of them. I actually get to hang out with them tomorrow since both Elder Williams and I are being transferred.

The scripture of the week is Moroni 7:16-19.

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.

Farewell President and Sister Robison.

All of the missionaries in Trinidad gathered at 5:30 this morning in front of President Robison's house to wish him a final farewell. He really appreciated it and he even shed a few tears. (That's only the 2nd time that I've seen him do that. The other time was at the fireside at the mission home on Father's Day). He'll be missed by all of us.

We copied this from the mission blog:

"We honestly thought we were all done with goodbyes.

Early this morning, President Robison walked into the big living room where we held many wonderful zone conferences and wished he could see the missionaries one more time. Little did he know what was happening outside our gate.

The assistants (Elders Hamilton and Jones) and two of the zone leaders (Elders Williams and Worthington) arrived just before 6:00 AM to take us to our flight.
We climbed in the big mission van.

Pulled out of the driveway.

Drove through our gate.

Took one last look down our pretty street.

And what did we see?

This:


Every missionary in Trinidad standing along the sides of our street waving handkerchiefs (paper towels actually) and singing "Called to Serve". I can't think of a more beautiful (and tearful) sight.

They followed us down the road.




And we just had to stop for a quick photo. (Can you see Jonathan?
He's holding the paper towel in the air that is furthest to the right.)


Thanks to the couples (talented Sister Myers in particular) who helped gather the elders and made this sweet memory possible (and fed them all breakfast afterwards!)"

Back to Jonathan's e-mail:

We got news on Thursday that we will be getting sister missionaries soon. One of the twelve called President and said that he has been inspired to call a sister to this mission even though there aren't any here. President said "Send her and give me 12 companionships." They agreed. So we should be getting the first 6 sisters in September or October. It will be a big change. I don't want to be in their zone! Girls are weird!

On Friday I built an electric fan during lunch. It was hot and we had an old engine lying around so I pieced it together.

David and Pheumia are doing great. David blessed the sacrament yesterday. He was really nervous but he didn't mess up. Their friend, Latoya, came and brought along one of her other friends. Their daughter came as well. After visiting with them last night, all 3 of them have baptism dates for the 11th of July! I'm excited for it. We had a sweet FHE Friday night. It was on Nephi going to get the plated from Laban. We acted it out with a couple of David and Pheumia's kids. It was so fun.

We have been working in a nice area called River Estate and in a place called Petite Valley (I think that's what it is at least.) There are a few cool people up there that we have found. One is named Junior. He is a little slow, like a Guyanese person, but he is really humble and is willing to do everything that we ask of him.

(We got a brief e-mail on Saturday morning from Jonathan saying that his permanent retainer is broken.) I haven't gotten my retainer fixed yet. I have a couple of phone numbers for some orthodontists and for some dentists in the area. I am going to call a few of them and see what they can do for me. I forgot to grab the scripture of the week so maybe I can send it to you in a couple of days when I report back on my retainer. (It is legal for me to email you since this is considered an emergency.)

I had the opportunity to confirm Pheumia!

We had a busy day yesterday so I only had time to e-mail President, that's why I didn't e-mail until today.

Sorry about the surprise last week. I didn't expect to get transferred either, usually we have a few days notice. I am all settled in here in Port of Spain. We have a really small apartment but it's okay. It's pretty much right in the middle of the city so it's about 20 minutes from my old apartment. We do a lot of walking but there is a pretty good bus system.

We work mostly in an area called Diego Martin and are pretty much starting over finding investigators right now. David and Pheumia's oldest daughter is 9 and we are trying to get her baptized next week (she is in the pink dress in the first picture). They also have a family friend that's been to church a couple of times that we are working with.

We are part of the Port of Spain ward which is nice. It runs almost like a ward from back home. We have about 10 returned missionaries and about half of the people in the ward have stake callings. It runs smoother than my last ward.

Elder Williams is from Bakersfield, California. (That's where that little basketball team comes from that the Aggies have pounded the last 2 seasons in a row). The missionary with plantar fasciitis is doing alright. He has been going to physical therapy and he should be back on his feet in a couple of days.

The wedding went well last week as did the baptisms. These are pictures of David and Pheumia's (pronounce Fay-me-a) wedding and baptisms:

This is Bishop Hooker, David, Pheumia, and their children at the wedding on Tuesday. (Kyle is in the gray, he's the one who told us the story of Ammon).

Me, Elder Williams (my companion), David, Pheumia, and Sister & Elder Palmer on Saturday. I had the opportunity to confirm Pheumia during sacrament meeting on Sunday.

This picture is from Jermaine's baptism, it was on Saturday too. Luckily I was able to go because it was in my old area.

Me, Elder Romney, Anthony, Jermaine, Bishop Alleyne (below), Milton, Elder Cotton (plantar fasciitis man), Rita, Elder Barton. All of us played a part in Jermaine's baptism whether by fellowshipping or by doing the baptism interview (Elder Barton).

The scripture of the week is Alma 29:1-3.

It was such a sweet story!

I got a letter from ya'll today telling me that everyone is liking the blog because of all the information about investigators that I've been including lately. That is one of the benefits of the office. I'm sorry to say that the e-mails will be back to a worse state because I don't have that luxury anymore.

Basically what I'm saying is that I am not going to get fat here in Trinidad any more! I was part of a 3-way emergency transfer on Saturday morning, so now I am serving in Port of Spain. One of the elders in Guyana got plantar fasciitis and they didn't want him down there (too much walking), so they brought him to work in the office, sent one of the Port of Spain elders to Guyana, and they moved me here. It's been a weird week to say the least.

My companion is named Elder Williams. I actually met him when I first came to the mission. He was in the Canje zone with me but was clear out in Crabwood Creek which is right next to Suriname.

So I will have e-mails on Mondays again since I am back to a normal schedule. It's only on Tuesday this week because our zone conference was yesterday. Here are a few pictures from zone conference:

Elder Williams (new companion), Jonathan, and Sister Robison

Elder Williams and Jonathan

Trinidad North Zone

Elders Larson, Williams, Duncan, and Westover

It was President Robison's last and it was really good. Luckily I will get to hear him speak 2 more times before he goes home though because he is doing a couple of firesides for our ward.

You can use the same mailing address. The office elders are in our district so they will bring mail to us every Friday at district meetings.

Well, Jermaine is going to be baptized this Saturday. She is going to be interviewed tomorrow night. In this area we are going to have 2 baptisms this weekend. Their names are David and Famia. They are getting married in about an hour and a half so we're pretty excited. They have 3 kids and one of them is so smart! His name is Kyle and he's 6 years old. He told us the story of Ammon on Sunday when we went to visit them. This is pretty much what he said: (Remember that he is a Trinidadian and he is a little kid). "Ammon worked for a king and watched the sheep. Some bad guys came and said that they were going to take the sheep away. Ammon said that he can't let them do that. The bad men tried to take the sheep and Ammon took a rope, tied it like so (he imitated tieing a rope) like so-like this, put a rock in it and bust he head! (People don't use pronouns here, they say he and she for everything instead of also using him and her). The bad men kept trying to take the sheep so Ammon used he sword and chop off the bad men's arms. Then Ammon made the bad men cry and they ran away." It was such a sweet story! We are going to try and get it on camera tonight so we can send it to you.

Well, that's the news. The scripture of the week is Joseph Smith-Matthew 1:33-40. It's kind of long but I was reading it the other day and it just really stood out to me.