What a surprise this week!!!

This is a picture of Me, Leana, Diane, and Elder Ackerman on Sunday! Leana and Diane are sisters and are new converts. Leana is 9 and Diane is 12. They are the nieces of a lady that got baptized a couple months ago. Their aunt is from the Reliance area in Guyana!


The waves were too big and Leana was too short to walk in the water.
I had to carry her!


This is me baptizing Leana on Sunday.


Sorry I didn't write yesterday, we didn't have time. The Leishman's were nice enough to take us around the island and we got stuck on the other side. Here are a couple of pictures from our adventure.

The ocean sure is cold!


We visited Argyle falls. This is definitely a place I want to take you when we come back to visit the mission!


Believe it or not I did remember your birthday. So, Happy Birthday Mom! I guess you are starting to get old now!

The toe is doing good. I got some new antibiotics and a topical anti-fungal cream from the doctor on Trinidad that have been helping a lot. I guess I'm supposed to call over there tomorrow and find out the results from the MRSA test that they ran on me.

By the time that we finished up at the doctor's office last Tuesday it was too late to fly back to Tobago. We had to stay the night over on Trinidad so I went back to Port of Spain and visited some of my friends up there. It was fun.

So, we got transfer calls on Friday night and I will not be staying on Tobago. I will be returning to the island of St. Martin. (Note the spelling difference.) I will be in the area of Marigot on the French side and I will be learning to speak French! My companion will be Elder Snow. What a surprise this week!!!

Sorry I didn't write more but the internet is really slow today and I knew you would rather have the pictures.

The scripture of the week is 3 Nephi 18:18-21.

I'm flying to Trinidad to see a doctor!

My toe is doing okay. I do still have the infection so I'm flying over to Trinidad in the morning to see a doctor because the cipro isn't beating the bug that I've got. Cipro is pretty much the only one we can get in the drug store over here in Tobago. The person here who is treating me has had the help of the mission nurse in Trinidad. The doctor that is over our mission is actually stationed in the Dominican Republic because he is over the entire carribean area. Unfortunately that means that he isn't really in a position to help me out. The mission nurse is also afraid that I might have MRSA so it will be an interesting day. [Note: Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus is a bacterial infection that is highly resistant to some antibiotics. Staph aureus is a common type of bacteria that normally lives on the skin and sometimes in the nasal passages. What makes this one so bad is our inability to find many antibiotics to treat it.]

I haven't said much about our current investigators because we don't really have any new ones. Since most of our time is spent either inside or doing all of the reacctivation work that President Gamiette wants done in the mission. The mission only baptized 6 people this past weekend. That's terrible when you consider that we used to baptize at least 35 or 40 per weekend!!! We only had 9 people at church in our branch yesterday and 4 of them were missionaries! It was sad. Fay is doing well. She was there yesterday and she loved it. She is happy that she got baptized but she is disappointed in the members that they don't have more faith. I think she took it harder than we did that so few people were at church yesterday!

Elder Akerman and I have been reading a lot out of the Book of Mormon because we are still trying to finish it by the end of the transfer. The Gossner's milk isn't too bad but it definately isn't like normal milk. It is still boxed. It's just fun to have it because it's from Logan.

Pictures from p-day last Monday. We found this really cool "hidden" beach:

Our "private beach" rocky entrance:
Check out this eel. It flopped up into these rocks while we were looking at the anemones! We got to borrow the car yesterday. Elder Ackerman was really excited to get to drive again. Sorry I forgot the scripture of the week!

Fay's baptism went great!

Fay's baptism went great!

I didn't go in the water because of my toe. It was starting to do a lot better but then Friday morning I woke up and it was bad again. Apparently the infection wasn't gone. So I started back on drugs again and I am anxiously awaiting the day when I can get back to a full working schedule. Notice I'm wearing flip-flops and you know how much I like them!

Fay is afraid of waves.

Me with a couple of the kids at the baptism.

Tobago beaches are awesome!

To be honest, I don't really want anything for Christmas. I will just have to carry it around and that's a pain. My socks are doing fine as are my G's, my pants, ties and belt. The shoes are doing okay. I'll probably want a new pair but I have to have one of them wear out first! Shirts are doing good except for the water here. It is leaving a lot of new stains so every week I have to keep putting stain remover on them to keep them looking good. My sheets and towel are also doing fine. So pretty much I don't need anything right now. Another problem this year is that transfers are 2 weeks before Christmas so I don't know if I'll be here or not.

Remember I told you I left a package at the mission office when I left Trinidad? I was planning to mail it when I was there last week. Thanks to the zone conference schedule I didn't get to go to the office at all. I would let the Palmer's mail it home but there are some things in it that I would like to have out of it before it leaves!

Well, as you can probably tell, being inside for the last 10 days had made me a little cranky. It also hasn't helped that the mission doesn't seem to be doing very well. Guyana had 1 baptism last week. Tobago was one of only 6 areas that baptized. That's terrible. Apparently Grenada had 2 baptisms of people that I taught which is pretty cool. I can add them to my list of "other fruits".

My "other fruits" list is getting quite extensive. The Leishman's came back with news about Linden (a big city in Guyana where missionaries just went for the first time in February.) They told me that the whole reason that 168 people down there have been baptized since then is because of 2 kids named Selwin and Cindy McBean. When I heard that I almost died because it was Elder Hamilton and I that found them and taught them in Reliance over a year ago! I guess they were the first 2 to get baptized down there in Linden and everything exploded because of it!!! It was really good to hear about Selwin and Cindy. A lot of times you don't get to hear the stories of how people you taught finally joined the church and then helped teach others. Its sad that so many missionaries had to leave Guyana last transfer. The work has really slowed down.

We'll definitely be getting 2 more missionaries here on Tobago next transfer. That means I'll actually have to teach district meetings!

The scripture of the week is Jeremiah 33:1-3.

We are baptizing Fay on Saturday!

This is a picture of me in Speyside, a little village, we went to last week on p-day. There's not much there, just a couple of houses and a high school. It has a great view and good fruit. This guy was crazy!!! He picked these while we watched.


Milk here in Tobago actually isn't that bad. (Its from Gossner's!)


I had to spend some time inside this past week instead of teaching. I got an ingrown toenail and it got infected. I have been on cipro which has really helped. I have only been allowed out to go to appointments and to zone conference since Friday! I have been walking around in flip-flops and a shirt and tie. That has been pretty fun! I got bored and made a T-Rex.


Well, how was conference? I heard it was awesome. I'm actually in a place so remote here in Tobago that I couldn't watch it. Bummer! We are going to try and download some of the talks from conference tomorrow. Thanks for the information on the new temples. The members down here go to Santo Domingo to go to the temple.

Zone conference yesterday was good but there has been so much focus on being prepared to go teach (studying) and about retention that there isn't time to focus on baptizing and teaching. Guyana only had one baptism this past weekend!

The work is a little slow here but it's wonderful. Things are going well for our investigators. We are baptizing Fay on Saturday! She is excited and so are we. It will be great if it's not raining that morning. The last couple of days it has been really rainy! It has kept it cool though with highs around 78 and lows around 70. For us its positively freezing!!!

I have been reading the Book of Mormon with Elder Ackerman. Our goal is to finish it together by the end of the transfer. We have been going through it and marking it with scriptures to support lesson points that we could use teaching. I'm planning on sending it to you guys when I'm done (for Michael). I figure that it would be something that you can study as you go through Preach My Gospel.

I am pretty sure that I'll be staying in Tobago for another transfer after interviews yesterday. (I was sure last time too!!!) We talked about putting another set of Elders here on the island so I might actually have to teach district meetings! So far they have just been dinner appointments after church when we talk about how the branch is doing. I prefer those!

We saw these fisherman out this morning. Check out the name of the boat!


That's about all. We didn't get out much this week so I don't have much to talk about. The scripture of the week is 3 Nephi 13:16-18.

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