A Mission for Our Church: During the World Cup

Dear Family and Friends,

Spiritual experience;

Thursday, June 24, 2010

Very few people in English class tonight. The World Cup has had a huge effect on church attendance this whole month, but tonight the problem was Immigration. Life for the Haitians stop when Immigration comes around. So we just had about 20 people there....only 1 member of the church. It was really fun because with smaller numbers we can play more games and get to talk a lot more, rather than me just teaching. On Thursday we have Institute after English class but tonight the Institute teacher did not show up either. So we pulled out the English Hymn book and begin to sing. I was very clear that no one had to stay and that English was over. Not one person left. We sang for a good half hour and I think they would have stayed for as long as I would have let them. I kept thinking how amazing it was .... 19 nonmember men singing out of our hymnal.....feeing the spirit and not wanting to leave.

Elder’s Quorum Party

Saturday, June 26, 2010....very interesting

Very few people came.(Immigration again), but it was a good thing. We ended up with just enough food. We had an opening song, opening prayer, food, closing song, closing prayer. ( During the week I told Mike I wanted to call and see what they needed for help and he kept saying they needed to work it out themselves.) Anyway after the closing prayer, I asked the Elder’s Quorum President if we could play some games. He said sure and we played simple children’s game, like musical chairs, Simon Says, Pass the Chalk. Anyway, they laughed and had so much fun. I get such a kick out the simple things that make them so happy. Every event is a real learning experience for them. Each time we hope they will build on what they learned from the last experience.

Saturday: Our son Scott fought in the championship Ring Wars bout which includes a five states circuit and is now the new Light Heavyweight Mixed Martial Arts champion for that area. We are proud of him. Fighting an opponent that was 6’4”, he thinks he probably broke his nose. But he is so excited that he won by unanimous decision and says it was worth it all.

Sunday, June 27, 2010

When Sacrament Meeting started we had less than 20 people there. As we average about 52, we braced ourselves for the worst. No one wants to leave home because so many have been picked up by Immigration and we were thinking we would have such low attendance. By the end of the meeting there was 46. More than half of those that were there, came after the sacrament. We teach and teach about being on time......

Today was Mike’s birthday. Sort of a bummer for him, I think. He misses the children and grandchildren very much at the holidays especially. The elders came for dinner and we had cake and ice cream. Mike has not eaten sweets for several months, so he was excited and enjoyed that.

My sister explains that she skims through my letters each week, but enjoys the pictures. So I will cut the letter short and send more pictures.

Love you all.

Elder and Sister Herbert

Allistede being baptized by Renel