January 16,2011

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Our thoughts are with you all as we hear about bad weather in the States and as we start our preparations to come home. Seth has talked with the Moreland first ward bishopric and they told him that we will be speaking on the third Sunday in February. This eighteen months has gone very quickly as we look back at it.

We had another busy week. Our Sister Mimi, who works with us in the Mission office, flew to Miami on Friday and will be staying with her older sister there for a few months before returning to her home in Canada. She has been the cheerful face to the front desk and will be greatly missed. We also spent part of the week at the Mission Home with the Gamiette family while President and Sister Gamiette were at Zone Conferences in St. Lucia and Guadeloupe. We are grateful for the opportunity to serve and to get to know the Gamiette family. They have fun, wonderful personalities. It has been interesting to see how the school system works here. They all go to private schools. Coralie and Jennifer go to a private girls high school and Terry, Tom and Amy go to a Catholic elementary school. Sister Gamiette decided to come back on Friday night late instead of Sunday so we could prepare to speak in stake conference. We would have had to take the children with us to the Saturday night adult session which would have been a challenge. We had a great Saturday as we got caught up with our weekly preparations for next week and preparing our talks. The Saturday night session was most enjoyable. President Gould is a wonderful speaker and the new stake patriarch, Brother Henry, gave a very humble talk. A young lady gave a talk about her feelings about her patriarchal blessing, which was the first blessing given by Brother Henry. President Gould is a very inspired and strong leader. Today was a satellite broadcast from Salt Lake City with Elder Oaks and President Uchtdorf speaking. They both gave talks that were good for all but especially for the unique traditions and lifestyles here in the Caribbean. President Uchtdorf said that the Church numbers over 14 million and is the same throughout the world. We are having the same lessons and meeting formats as you are at home. After conference, we invited the Childs in for a "raid the fridge" lunch. We enjoy their friendship very much.

We are counting our blessings everyday and are experiencing "tender mercies". Our Heavenly Father loves us all and want us all to be happy. We love you all!