July-11-2010

Dear family and friends,

Good day from Trinidad! It is celebration here tonight as the World
Cup just ended. There are several parties in the neighborhood and it
is a lot like Super Bowl Sunday. Traditions are important! We just
need to think about what those traditions are celebrating. We are
looking forward to next weekend and receiving the broadcast
celebrating the July 24!!! It was fun to hear the members here talk
about the pioneers and their tremendous sacrifice. They were truly in
awe! We have much to be grateful for with that kind of an example.

This week was transfers and it went smooth for the most part. We are
being blessed! The only problem that happened of note was that one
Senior Couple had been waiting for an Elder to fly in for three hours
and he will not arrive until next week. They had not looked at the
date on the ticket and the Assistants had not talked to them about it.
This week we will welcome six local missionaries to the mission.
They have been in the MTC in the Dominican Republic and will arrive a
week later than those from the MTC in Provo. It is wonderful to see
these young people serve here and know that they are the future of the
Church in this part of the world. The Humanitarian Senior Couple, the
Angus, arrived back in Trinidad from Guyana on Friday. They will be
in Tobago in the next couple of weeks with a large project there.
They are helping an orphanage with much needed furnishings like beds,
a stove and other things. It is one thing to help those who are in
need but the challenge comes with working with all the different
governments involved. Childs, Senior Couple over audits, have
settled in for the most part. They have been here three weeks. We
went to Manzanilla beach with them yesterday. They planned to attend
the branch in Sangre Grande today and wanted to find it yesterday.
So, we had a great walk on the beach after finding the branch
building. Manzanilla beach is on the windward side of the island and
so there was plenty of surf. I have never seen foam on the beach from
the waves before. Today, we went to the other end of the island to
the San Fernando ward. It was delightful. Great talks and great
people. One of the Sisters who talked in Sacrament meeting has been a
member since December. After meetings, we had a great visit with her
family and she shared her conversion story. She said that she was in
a deep depression and was crying a lot. She saw the Elders on the
street and asked them, "Can you please help me." That lead to a short
conversation and they invited her to come to Church the next day. On
the way to Church, she was hearing words of discouragement like you
don't want to go, you will be totally out of place in those white boys
Church and other such things. She persisted in her journey. She felt
such peace after arriving and after the meetings the Elders taught her
the Restoration lesson and asked to pray and ask if it was true. Her
life has been a total turn around since then and she is so happy, as
is her family. She is married and has two daughters. They want us to
come to their home in the near future. We will bear witness of the
blessings of the temple when we go. We miss the temple immensely.
There are three couples from St. Vincent, that we worked with when we
were there, that will go to the temple in the Dominican Republic in
August. Our hearts will go with them! President Gamiette's
responsibilities are daunting. The blessing of "run and not be weary
and walk and not faint" come to mind often as we watch from a
bird's-eye-view. No one can do the Lord's work without His help
especially Mission Presidents and General Authorities.

We have felt such an outpouring of the Spirit and we are so grateful
to be here in the mission field together. May each of you be blessed
this week and always.