Time To Leave Trinidad

Transfer Week!  I am going to St. Lucia to serve with Sister Hodge.  Both of us will be new to the area so we will be working hard.  I leave Trinidad August 6th.  Sister Herrick will be here with Sister Reddy and they will be on bikes.  We will be in a trio for a few days until I leave.  Unfortunately they had to close two sister areas because there are not enough sisters.  Now there are just elders in Sangre Grande and Port of Spain.

I hit my 14 month mark.  It was crazy how fast time flies.  Mission life is amazing and I love it a lot.

We have been focusing a lot on the youth.  We found a lot of less active youth and invited them to the CES devotional and YSA activity.  It was a hit.  They watched the devotional and then we made pancakes for them.  They put pineapple, bananas, berries, and chocolate chips in them.  They were delicious.  Sister Herrick and I helped out the Francoms.  They are a great senior couple.  The Rays were also there.  I am going to miss serving around all the senior couples.  Love them a lot.

I am going to miss Chaguanas.  I have seen it grow a lot.  I remember my first Sunday there were like thirty people there.  Now we are averaging about sixty.  The work here is progressing.  There have been miracles happening in this area.  I am ready to take the challenge of blanking an area and serving in the islands.  I am super excited.

Miracle of the Week:  Our zone had a wedding and two baptisms.  One of the baptisms was a mom and her two daughters.  The Elders are working so hard and have been blessed a lot.  It was great to support them.

Thanks for everything.  Sorry this email is short.  Things are going great as always.  Just the usual missionary work.

Love,

Sister Shirts

Brother Patrick built a new hammock using an old bench

Not everyone gets to sit on a floating bench

Chuck E Cheese's in Trinidad?

Bikes and a Baptism

Good Morning Everyone,

We got bikes!  For about two days.  Sister Herrick's is too tall for her so she will have to get a new one that fits better.  Mine worked great though.  It was fun while it lasted.  We still have the car until the end of the transfer.  I had my last tradeoff with Sister Edmonds in Curepe this week.  It was great.  She goes home at the end of the transfer.  I am going to miss her a lot.  she is an amazing missionary.

The miracle of the week will take up the rest of the email:  Brother Patrick.  The week started off great.  We were supposed to see him on Tuesday but "the crabs were running in Felicity" so he wasn't home.  Wednesday...still not home.  This would have been fine except his baptism interview was supposed to be on Thursday.  We finally caught him home on Wednesday night.  He was trying to save up enough money to travel to his baptism.  He felt bad about missing our appointment so he made us curried crab.  We ate it while we watched him chop up the fresh batch.  When I say fresh I mean they were still alive and he was getting pinched while he was killing them.  The crab was good though.

Chopping crabs

Holding crab head

First bite of crab

Crab and rice

Crab and roti

Brother Patrick broke his hammock

He passed his interview.  We have a paper to help him remember the commandments and he didn't have any problems.  He got a nice haircut and Brother Gerard baptize him on Saturday.  Then Sunday came along.  He is usually an hour early to church and we got there at that time and...no Brother Patrick.  We waited and church started...still not there.  Sacrament...nothing.  After the sacrament finished in walked Brother Patrick.  He got caught in the rain so he was late.  He was able to be confirmed right after the Sacrament.  Dheeraj Patrick Herbert is the newest member of the Chaguanas Branch.  Miracle :)

Thanks for everything.

Love,

Sister Shirts

Collecting Recipes

Looks like the back of Preach My Gospel

Members Need To Help Hasten The Work

Good Morning,

I got to do a nice tradeoff in Curepe again.  I got to spend time with Sister Kime.  Once again it was fun serving with my MTC companion in my old area this time.  Sister Kime is a wonderful missionary.  She just got to the area so she didn't know it too well.  Luckily I know the area, just not the people so we didn't get too lost.  It was fun.

On Wednesday the Deonarinesinghs took us less active finding.  They know where a lot of people live that haven't been to church for a while.  We now have some new people to work with.  They are great.  Brother Patrick is doing great as always.  He comes to church every week and is learning quickly.  Everyone loves him.  He enjoys feeding us snacks every time we come.  We taught him the primary song Book of Mormon Stories and he loved the hand actions.  He couldn't stop laughing.  It is his new favorite song.

We got to do a service project at the Deonarinesingh's jungle garden.  We cleaned around pineapple plants, picked oranges, cut figs, caught oranges, and shook cocoa trees.  Brother Deonarinesingh almost fell out of the tree but his is like a monkey so he caught himself.  Sister Deonarinesingh made us fish broth.  It had provision, eddoes, white aloo, carrots, dumplings, and... fish head.  Don't worry the brain and eyes were already out.  It was good.

Can you see the tarantual?

Stick Bug

Miracle of the week:  We had a lot of people at church.  Because of the Deonarinesingh's hard work and willingness to hasten the work of Salvation we had several less active families come out.  We really need the help of the members if we want the Lord's work to progress.

Thanks for all you do.  I really appreciate your prayers and support.

Love,

Sister Shirts

Rainy season brings out frogs.  This dead frog was on the porch.

Indian delicacy sweets

Peilou

"Fasting Brings Miracles"

Good Afternoon Everyone,

We had a crazy, amazing Zone Conference week.  Zone conference was great.  It was focused on developing Christlike attributes--faith, diligence, and obedience.  As always the spirit was very strong.  Interviews with President Mehr were great as well.

We are still working with the young man named Jason.  He wants to be baptized so we are excited to keep teaching him.  He has been there for the fun house meetings I keep talking about and he loves it.  He even came to church with the Deonarinesinghs.  He is still reading the Book of Mormon.  Brother Patrick is doing great as well.  He finished his no cigarette chart.  He as gone over 60 days without rum and 30 days without cigarettes.  We celebrated with ice cream.  This time he didn't get rum and raisin.  Progress :)

We got stuck in the mud one afternoon.  Luckily some nice random guys came and got us unstuck and drove away.  We didn't even get a chance to say thank you.

Hole from getting stuck

We had a great house meeting with the Book of Mormon as always.  This one was about Ether 8 and the Law of Chastity.  We turned it into a play.  Sister Herrick was the narrator and we had some of the kids choose a character out of the hat.  One of the Deonarinesingh boys got to be the daughter of Jared so it was funny.  Then Brother Deonarinesingh explained what the law of chastity is.

We got to do some service at the Deonarinesinghs.  They are still working on their house so we helped pack bricks and pull nails out of boards.

We had the opportunity to fast as a mission for the end of year goal of 600 baptisms.  We invited the members to join.  It was very spiritual.  Fasting brings miracles.

Miracle of the Week:  We have been struggling to find new investigators these last two weeks.  Last week we only had one.  On Saturday we were pretty sad but we knew the Fast would help.  We went out and worked hard and we found two great families to work with.  On Sunday we found another.  We are very grateful for that blessing.

Thanks for everything.  I love being a missionary.

Love,

Sister Shirts

This is a cocoa pod

catching fruit

5 finger or star fruit

fig tree

Word of Wisdom house meeting

the Sisters won the district trophy