Went to Portmore meetings. Before the opening prayer there were 19 people in the chapel. Before the sacrament there were 30. Before the closing prayer there were over 60 people in attendance. (There is a lot of work to do!) I taught the “Law of Chastity” to the Gospel Essentials class. After all the meetings we went with the elders visiting. We had 16 names to try and find. We learned 2 had moved many years before....... So their names have been sitting in the branch records for a very long time. No one had gone to find them. Out of the 16, we only found 4 home. (We contacted 5 others but could not see them today.) Each of the 4 that we visited were very warm and open to us. One said that ours was only the third visit by a church member he has had in the 10 years he has lived in his home. We talked to three of them about going to the temple. Seeing those four people (and contacting the others) took us 6 hours. We came home exhausted and thrilled with our experiences. What a grand time.... to invite people to come back to church. I know not everyone jumps with excitement when they see us, but it is still a wonderful opportunity to request that our brothers and sisters come home. One of the inactive men we saw during the week was there today at the Sunday meetings. Mike requested he visit with the mission president, which he is excited to do. It was clear he was happy to be there and so thrilled to begin his way back to activity.
I wish I could paint you an accurate picture of the people and places here. The poverty abounds....( however nothing is as bad as our dear friends in Providenciales). Of course some live better than others, but many houses are joined together, woven in a maze of tin. The streets that run by their homes are really just dirt allies. It amazes me how the elders ride bikes all over. They go into areas that would scare their mothers to death. There is awful crime. We are very careful and know the Lord protects us. Even in the poorest areas, most homes have high metal fences and gates with big padlocks for security. One funny thing is that here, as well as in the Turks, they see the white shirts and name tags and think we are the FBI, or CIA or “Men in Black”. Everyone we have talked to has been very polite and helpful to us.
There are so many potholes that most senior couples have had several flat tires. Many of the extreme potholes are due to the unseasonably heavy rains. We are amazed that there are not more accidents than there are. As far as we can tell, there are no rules to drive by. Tonight we learned that we are going to get a brand new Mitsubishi, Lancer to drive for a few months. It is really Sister Hendrick’s (mission president’s wife) car. She does not want to drive here and they are short some cars so we will drive hers for a while. It is a very fancy car, and to be totally honest, we are not very excited. There are so many opportunities to ruin a nice car. I was just getting so I could drive the other one around, with it’s many scrapes and scratches. I do NOT want to be the one to put the first marks.
We laughed so hard at a member’s story to us last week. He told us he had gone somewhere in the states. He did not want to hurt our feelings but he said, “I just can’t tell all you white people apart.” If I made a statement like that in the states, it might not be politically correct and some might be offended. We thought it was great fun!
New Lanser on the “road”. We bottomed out several times. (Mike was not happy!)
Elder and Sister Herbert in Spanish Town
No comments:
Post a Comment