Last Name First, First Name Last

Dutervil Apreve: Last name first...that is how they all write it here. Tall, deep penetrating eyes. Always wears a baseball cap. After Elder Herbert asked him to remove his hat when coming in the church, he does so....but that is the only time we see him without his hat. When we first got here, he scared me. He would not smile. Now one of my favorites. Does not understand or speak much English but is very faithful in coming to class on Tuesday and Thursday. Only missed a few Sunday meetings as well. No job, no money. I have no idea how he pays his rent or gets food. The elders told me he does JuJu (or VooDoo) in the Bight. I don’t know how they know but they could be right. Elder Herbert told him how to say, “Cool Dude,” and so he thinks that is very funny..... mostly because I told him I didn’t like it. When I see him I always ask him how he is doing. He answers, “Not too good, not too bad.” I try to get him to say “GREAT!” But he won’t give in and just he is doing great. He is always joking. He says his name sounds like “beautiful” so he says he is beautiful. Whenever I ask him if he is reading the “Book of Mormon” every day, he says yes. I hope he is. I have a real hard time evaluating where these men stand because they speak a different language. I just know I like them. We laugh at him all the time. It could be boring without Aprive.

Pierre Paul and Fabian: Every Saturday they are there to help clean the church. Sometimes others come, but those two are always so faithful. I know that they can not know how we love them for their service. After we clean each week we stay and practice singing. I know some of the men are jealous that these guys sing often in church. But it is only because they are there on Saturday and we practice.

I would like to start a choir of sorts, but it is so lame with me trying to plunk out the notes for parts. What I started doing today was pulling out my computer (which has all the church hymns on iTunes) and we sing with that. I will play one part at a time to teach, then they sing with the computer. Sister Ockey will be there next Sunday and she will play while they sing in church. They are singing page 42, “Hail to the Brightness of Zion’s Glad Morning.” They are singing it in French.....but I am insisting that they sing one verse in English. I did not even know that song before, but some knew it from Haiti and they like it a lot.

Friday we had our first video training from Salt Lake. Looks like the wave of the future. It was cool because we had Jamaica, Bahamas, Turks and Caicos, and Salt Lake all on our screen at the same time. We interacted, listening and talking. Our mission president said he will even be able to do some interviews by video connection.