A Few Days In Barbados

Happy Thanksgiving!

We are celebrating it today with all the St. Lucia missionaries.  I will take pictures.

And I thought last week was crazy.  I was in Barbados this week.  I left on Tuesday and came home on Friday.  Each day I worked with a different companionship of sisters.  There are three.  Hopefully it helped them.  It is always fun learning from other sisters.  I got to eat some doubles while I was there.  There is a lady from Trinidad who sells.  We went a few times when I was serving in Barbados.  I love doubles.  The sisters are doing well.  I love them a lot.

It is nice to be back in my area.  I love St. Lucia.  I love the people in my area.  I missed Sister Worthington and Sister Hodge.  They are great friends.  I am going to miss all of this when I go home.  My mission is almost done.

Funny story:  We got home one night and Sister Hodge said "don't come in the kitchen!"  I went over to see what was wrong and on the floor was a giant spider like the one that was in our car.  Sister Worthington panicked and jumped up to the counter and Sister Hodge ran away.  She had the idea to use the mouse trap.  I got the mouse trap and slapped it on the spider.  I made Sister Worthington pick it up.  It was still alive and the legs were moving.  It was disgusting but funny:)

Miracle of the Week:  We taught Kisha's family about modesty and they loved it.  Modesty is not part of the culture here at all.  Kisha and her daughter Trisha committed to be modest and they came to church looking very modest.  It was great.  It is nice when people are excited to follow the counsel of the prophet.

Thanks for everything.  Missionary work is great!

Love,

Sister Shirts

Guava Jam

Yep that is a pig head

Getting un-plaited

Almost Over But Still Working Hard

Good Afternoon,

This week was very different from usual.  We had Mission Leadership Conference in Trinidad where all the zone leaders and sister training leaders got together and received council from President Mehr.  It was amazing and the spirit was strong.  We are focusing on getting to the temple, not just baptism.  At the end of the meeting we had a testimony meeting and everyone shared.  I also got to see Sister Kime and Sister Shelton.

Flying was an adventure.  The weather was bad so there was a lot of turbulence.  I am surprised the airplane stayed in the air.  It was like a roller coaster and was actually pretty fun.

The Hippolytes taught us how to make bread and also explained some bush medicine.  We should have limes, nutmeg, lemons, and cinnamon in our homes always.  At least that is what they do here.  We also had an awesome restoration lesson with Zac and Stephan.  They are doing great.  The Hippolytes will be at the temple in less than a month.

Kenneth is doing great.  He is working on teaching his friend and at our last lesson he shared his testimony of the Book of Mormon after we watched the Restoration movie.

Kim has started a literacy class and it is going well.  This week we worked on our reading out loud skills which was actually very helpful to me and I learned a lot.

Miracle of the Week:  The Vieux Fort missionaries have been working hard to raise our sacrament meeting attendance.  This week we had 56 at church.  Ten of them were investigators.  It was amazing.

Thanks for everything.  I only get to be here for a few more weeks and I am sad it is almost over but I am going to work hard.

Sister Shirts

• Isaiah 52:7

  How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him that bringeth good tidings, that publisheth peace; that bringeth good tidings of good, that publisheth salvation; that saith unto Zion, Thy God reigneth!

Out of all the shoes Sister Shirts took with her this is her favorite and her only ones left

P-Day at Pigeon Island

Stairs to get to the cannon

Fort Rodney Sign

Barracks

Lime Kiln

Pigeon Island Beach

When Plan E Turns Into The Miracle Of The Week

This week was full of crazy adventures.  On Tuesday all the trainers, zone leaders, district leaders, and sister training leaders in the mission had a skype meeting with President Mehr.  It was fun to see the missionaries from the different islands.  We learned about how we can help new missionaries.  I got some new food experiences and renewed some old ones.  Marla taught us how to make bakes, George gave us guava and a lobster, a nice couple gave us sea moss tea, and I had pigtail again.  I love the food here.

We had a great week with the Book of Mormon.  We placed 13 copies this week.  There are a lot of Catholics who are excited about it.  Our Book of Mormon class this week was about Lehi's vision of the tree of life.  We made an "iron rod" and blindfolded everyone and let them experience it.  They really enjoyed it and they had a spiritual experience.  Kim helped us out a lot.

Miracle of the Week:  Joanna.  We had a rough day when all our appointments fell through.  We went to follow up on someone we used to teach and he wasn't home so we headed back to the car to try plan E.  While we were walking we walked past a house where a young mother was sitting outside on the porch with her son.  We went up to talk to her and she started crying.  It turns out she was on her way home to England from her vacation in Grenada with her young son and they got kicked off the airplane.  They had never been to St. Lucia before and had no money or a phone.  Luckily a nice lady took her home an that is where we met her.  We listened to her talk and she cried and then said she felt a lot better.  We gave her a copy of the Book of Mormon.  She said she wasn't religious at all but by the time we left she said she would read.  It was nice to be a guardian angel for a little bit.  It was a cool experience.

Thanks for everything.  Things are great here.

Love,

Sister Shirts

Divide And Conquer

Good Morning,

This will be a short email because the internet is very slow today.  Sorry.

We had a great week as always.  Having Sister Worthington with us has been a lot of fun and we are able to work more effectively.  It is easy to go on splits now because if we can get a member to come out with us we can divide and conquer.

We have great news.  There is a family in our area who is going to the temple this month.  It is exciting.  They are going to be sealed.  It is a mom, dad, and two daughters.  We love working with them.  They are awesome.  The Book of Mormon class we were teaching is going great too.  We had a good turnout last week and we are excited for this week.  It is a great opportunity for members to get to know the Book of Mormon more because most of them have never finished it.  Kim (from peace corps) is also starting a literacy class to help the members who can't read well.

On Saturday we had the Day of Service.  We went to the beach and cleaned up where they do the baptisms and the pathway.  It was disgusting but it looked great when we were done.  People just drop their garbage on the side of the dirt path.  It took us a few hours.  After the service project the Elders had a baptism.  It was nice and clean.  The funny part of the story is as we were walking back to the church after the baptism a truck came by and dumped a bunch of garbage where we had just cleaned.  It was a nice thought :)

This week was my last fast Sunday.  It was nice to hear all the testimonies of the branch.  Jack shared his testimony too.

Miracle of the Week:  Zac and Stephan.  We are still doing mission preparation with them and the Hippolyte family (the ones going to the temple) have joined us in the lessons.  On Sunday, Stephan said the opening prayer and shared his testimony.  He talked about how reading the Book of Mormon has changed his life.

Thanks for everything.

Love,
Sister Shirts

Day of Service

Motivated To Work Hard To The End

Good Morning Everyone,

We had a great week.  On Monday I had to select classes for the next semester.  I can't believe it is coming up so soon.  Motivation to work even harder until the end.  I can't believe this is my last transfer.

We had a giant spider in our car one night.  It was fast and we couldn't catch it.  We had to go to pick up a member for an appointment so we were paranoid as we were driving.  We found it after the lesson and the member we were with smashed it with her hand.  It was disgusting.

Being in a trio is a lot of fun and effective.  Now that there are three of us we can do splits easily.  Sister Worthington is a great missionary.  We all get along well and we are working hard.  This is going to be a great, busy transfer.

We had a few events this week.  Saturday we had a branch welcome home party for Sister Joseph.  Everyone had fun.  There were games, food, and karaoke.  On Sunday it was a Creole holiday so everyone was partying.  They only speak Creole and they eat Creole food.  I got to try fish cakes.

Miracle of the Week:  We are working with an investigator named Valerie.  She has a daughter and she has come to church twice and she even came to the party.  she is the granddaughter of a member.  she told us she wants her daughter to grow up in the church.  She is cool.

Thanks for all you do for me and all the support.  I enjoy the letters I receive.

Love,

Sister Shirts

Viex Fort cemetary

Beautiful "view" of Vieux Fort

Final Transfer

Good Morning Everyone,

Transfer week!!!  Sister Hodge and I will be staying together and we will be joined by Sister Worthington.  We will be in a trio.  In addition I will be serving as the Sister Training Leader over St. Lucia and Barbados.  I am super excited for this transfer.  This last transfer will be amazing.

Funny Story:  On Thursdays we have our weekly planning.  We had a great planning session and were ready to get to work.  We went out to teach and had a good afternoon.  After a few hours we went home for a bathroom break and we couldn't get into our apartment.  The door was unlocked but the latch inside closed when we shut the door so we were still locked out.  We had to go to the Elders to get a wire hanger so we could bend it into a hook and lift the latch up.  We got in but it was an adventure.

We had a lot of cool experiences this week.  We went out to a new area to see if we wanted it to be one of our focuses this transfer.  In less than an hour we placed five copies of the Book of Mormon.  We went out again on Saturday and placed seven more.  We are definitely going to focus there next transfer.  The problem is it is pretty far from the church but a lot of people have cars.

We also had a great lesson with Marla about faith.  We read Alma 32 and talked about how to start our faith growing and how to keep it growing.  She has been getting letters from previous sister missionaries and she said it has been helping her recognize answers to her prayers and questions.  Thanks everyone who has been sending letters.  It really does make a difference.  It just shows how important it is to stay in touch with those you teach.

Miracle of the Week:  We went out to Choisel (the new area) to meet with a great family in the branch.  It turns out they have some less active cousins who are ready to change their lives and come back to church.  They are great young men and they want to serve missions.  We had a great lesson with them and they even came to church on Sunday.  It was great.

Thanks for everything.

Love,

Sister Shirts

P-day at the beach

Peanut