First Week in St. Vincent

Dear Family and Friends,

Our first week on the island of St. Vincent has been amazing!!! We have been very busy and the Elders who are serving here have been doing a good job of orienting and training us. The mission office have had a few problems so the missionary couple that are serving there who were going to come to train us have not been able to come. Elder Cottam is a whiz on the computer and has completely reformatted our computer to handle WIM (West Indies Mission) information and reports etc.

You already know that our 3 hour layover in Barbados turned into an almost 9 hour layover. The Liat airline in notorious for never being on time and the locals say LIAT stands for Leave Island Any Time. We arrived in at Vincent just before midnight and Elders Cottam and Cronin were still waiting for us. Since were are talking about the challenges here, we will continue with that. Driving on the island is high adventure. First of all we are driving on the left hand side of the road, second-the roads are very narrow, windy, and steep, third-there are deep cement ditches on the sides of the road to carry away the rain water (it RAINS almost every day). Needless to say, we have been "white knuckling it" a lot. There are no stop lights, if you can imagine, with a population of 100,000. Thankfully they don't all drive. There are vans that are called buses and those drivers are dangerous. People beep their horns before going around corners or over hills that you can't see and when they are yielding to the other person to go. Amazingly, it works for the locals. There are no addresses and the streets are called gaps which come off the main road that goes around the island. The houses are on such steep terrain that a lot of them are totally or partially on stilts and have large retaining walls around them. It is very warm but it is the rainy season and that has helped. Everything is very close together and compact, there are very few parking lots. It is very crowded in downtown Kingstown and there are lots of small shops and vendors with a huge farmers market in the middle. Kingstown is the only city of size and is the capitol. Around the south end of the island it is all populated and in the north it is uninhabitable because of the rough terrain and bush which was caused by the volcano La Soufriere.

The people talk very fast and with an accent which is almost impossible to understand; we are getting used to it but there are still some that leave us wondering "what did he say?". We ask them to slow down so we can understand. It is worse than the disclaimers at the end of advertisements on the radio. We have seen very few "clear" people here so it is more like 98% black. There are many many different churches most of which we have never heard of but are Christian. They are very religious, gospel oriented people. Very kind. The whole island observes the Sabbath and everything is closed today, even the crazy buses are not running today.

Now, for the good stuff. The little house we are living in is charming. It is stucco with a tin roof and gated yard. We have air-conditioning in two bedrooms and a washer and dryer which we did not expect. The floors are all tile as well as the patios which are off the kitchen and the living room. The Francis family (landlord) live next door and have been very cordial. We can see the ocean and several of the adjoining gaps with the houses up each gap. There is lush, green foliage everywhere. There are many banana and breadfruit tree as well as coconut, mango and others we don't know yet. The ocean is a beautiful blue color; the locals don't spend much time in the ocean or at the beach because the do not swim and are afraid of the water. (I feel right at home.) There are hardly any tourists right now but even in tourist season there aren't a lot. There are a few small resorts and so it doesn't feel like a tourist attraction which makes it even more beautiful. They are just beginning to build an international airport on the other side of the island which will probably change things.

We have had some wonderful spiritual experiences with the missionaries. Our first lesson with an investigator was with Elder Moala and Elder Vaea (both from Tonga and great missionaries). We went down a gap to a home that was very humble and Mora and her son (9 years old) and Melissa (2 years old) were sitting on the steps waiting for us. The Elders had been there once before. We went inside and there was an unbelievable spirit as the Elders taught them about the Book of Mormon. Mora asked very good questions about what she had read since the day before and when we read with her Moroni 10:3-5 the spirit was so strong. Her son, Delano, is very bright and had soaked up all that the missionaries had taught. What a wonderful experience to share the "Good News" with such a wonderful family who needs it so badly.

We participated in baptism of Korey Cyrus who is 10 years old; his mother was baptized two weeks ago. It took place at a very secluded beach in the ocean. Elder Vaea baptized him and Elder Moala confirmed him a member today during sacrament meeting. It was quite a site to see them dressed in white in the blue, blue ocean and the great smile on Korey's face as he came out of the water. Unforgettable!!!

We have also been with Elder Cottam and Elder Cronin in teaching investigators Jenny and Mavis and visiting inactive members and encouraging them to come back. We have felt the spirit very strong with these good people and are loving them already.

We are going with the Elders to teach another investigator in a few minutes; so; we've got to go!!! Our prayers are with you and we love ya lots!

Much love,
Elder and Sister Wheeler