March 7, 2010

Have you had signs of spring yet? Wish we could share a bit with you.
We are very warm and we are experiencing a drought throughout the
Caribbean. We have not had water at night for the last two nights and
did the spit bath thing before going to Church this morning. The
water was back on when we got home so that was good. Apparently, they
don't give much notice before shutting off the water. The rainy
season doesn't return for another couple of months so we will adjust.
We had a wonderful visit with our granddaughter, Kate. Skype lets us
see our grandchildren grow. We love hearing from you all.

We have had another interesting week. We would like to share two
experiences. We taught a wonderful family with Elders Gordon and Tyau
(new missionary from Hawaii, straight from the MTC). The surname is
McDonald and they have four children. They live at the top of a
mountain in a cinder block house with a tin roof, no windows, no
electricity or water and a dirt floor. The spirit was so strong and
they were very receptive to the message. They will need to get
married and so it will be awhile before they can be baptized but they
want that very much. The 10 year old daughter was so smart and reads
very well. She took notes through the lesson and I handed her my
ever-sharp pencil to use. She wrote a wonderful note to me and
thanked us all for teaching them and that she loved us all. Needless
to say, the pencil was hers. We look forward to watching them grow as
they continue to accept the gospel. On Saturday, we attended the
baptism of Marcia (mar-see-ah) Lawrence at Edinborough beach. She
lives in the Kingstown branch and their meetinghouse has a font but
because of the drought the baptism was done in the ocean. Following
her baptism, she bore her testimony. She said her first contact with
the Church was many years ago when she obtained a Book of Mormon which
she started reading. She then made a move to a new area and when she
returned and tried to locate the book she could not find it. Sometime
later, in her new location on the leeward side of St. Vincent, she was
caring for some other people's house. One day, while going through
some books in the house , she found a copy of the Doctrine and
Covenants. She read the entire book. As she read each section, she
agreed with everything that she read and knew that it was true
revelation and that Joseph Smith was indeed a prophet. That truth made
her feel that she should do something about her knowledge, but not
being willing to do anything about it or accept as scripture, she
somehow felt better when she would tear each section out of the book
and destroy it and then go on to the next section. She read one
particular prayer which greatly affected her. She committed it to
memory and made a poster of it which she hung in her home. It is part
of the Kirtland Temple dedicatory prayer found in Doctrine Covenants
109:54-55. Years later, two of our missionaries stopped by her house
and she had a good visit with them but finally declined to have them
teach her. Last December, Elder Findlay and Elder Barker were walking
down her street when she was out in her yard doing her wash. They
said good morning and Elder Barker said, "Washing clothes is like
baptism and hanging them out in the sunlight is like receiving the
Holy Ghost." Something about that comment touched her heart and she
consented to have them come back and teach her. When they taught her
about the restoration and asked her to pray and ask if Joseph and
Smith was a prophet, she said, "I know he is a prophet." It took
three months for her to decide to make the covenant of baptism. Once
she made the decision to accept the gospel, a spirit of peace came.
What a sweet experience to hear her story. We are also beginning to
see success with the Book of Mormon loan program. The members mark a
Book of Mormon with 50 scriptures and write their testimonies in it
and then loan it to a none member friend with their verbal testimony
of it's affect on their lives. Try it you'll like it!!!

We had transfers again; we lost three and gained three new ones. We
come to love these fine young men. Elder Vi has been here for almost
six months and will be greatly missed. Elder White came here from the
MTC and has become a great missionary. Elder Barker was able to say
just the right thing to Marcia. Our new missionaries are Elder Morris
who transferred from St. Lucia, Elder Logan from St. Martin and Elder
Tyau (tee-ow) from Hawaii via the MTC.

We are enjoying good health and our service here. We appreciate the
support and love of family and friends!

Much love,
Elder and Sister Wheeler