A Mission for Our Church: Fabian

Institute tonight! Fabian was there! We were all so excited. Last night we had come home so discourage because Fabian had been picked up by immigration authorities while walking home for lunch. I wrote in my journal about him and how we prayed for his safety and hoped he was at peace whatever was happening to him. He has a wife and family in Haiti and I was thinking this might be the Lord’s will that he go home. But he had just gotten a job and things were looking up for him here, so we were all bummed that he was leaving. And there he was tonight! Immigration kept him over night and then told him to go home. I wonder if they just did not want to process him....or if they were just tired, in a good mood, or were inspired. Whatever the case, he was back and so happy. He is a good man and we all rejoiced to have him back. It is amazing to see the world from such a different perspective. I have always thought we needed to be more careful with our borders in the United States. Here I have such a different view of the situation here. We feel so at home with these people.

English.....The institute teacher was a little late tonight so Mike and I worked with them teaching them English. We went over “I am a Child of God”, reading and singing it several times. Then we taught them several commands, like “Stand up, Sit down, Hop, Raise your right hand,” etc. Then we started to play Simon Says. It was fun. The men really enjoy all the interaction. President Graff does not want us to teach an English class per say....but he said we could work with them on English scriptures and songs. He feels they will learn better that way anyway. So we are going to take a few minutes before family night and institute each week and work with them on some basics. It helped me to have taken my Spanish class. It gives me ideas to use.

Kids. We talked to all the kids for just a few minutes tonight. It made us homesick. They all sounded wonderful and happy. Skype is amazing. It was really funny though because we had better reception talking so far away than we did when we tried Skype in the States.

Island Time We still do not have a phone in the house, which means we do not have the internet. We laughed about “Mormon Standard Time,” which means a little late. Island time is MUCH worse. If we say we will be at someone’s home to teach them at a certain time, it means nothing to them. This man asked us if we could give him a ride home from the church when he was finished with his job there. We went over and waited and he was not ready for two hours. Totally different concept of time!