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

A Hot Week

Good Afternoon,

Sorry this one is short.  We don't have a lot of time today and the internet is slow.

Great news.  Nadiyah and Jason got baptized!  Also another investigator we were working with Izaiah!  Chaguanas has some great youth in the branch.  I am glad I had the opportunity to work with them and I am happy for them.  I bet Brother Deonarinesingh is happy.

This week was extremely hot and dry but it was great.  We were sweating buckets all day every day which made fasting fun but we were able to see great blessings as we fasted.  It was our first week without the Gublers and the branch did a great job.  This is a good opportunity for them to grow and learn about how the church runs.

We are working with a lot of awesome people.  Kenneth is still doing well.  He is almost ready for baptism.  Just a few more things to work out.  The Byron family is still doing great too.  Their brother/uncle is in England on a mission and they all want to be baptized.

Miracle of the Week:  Fast Sunday was great.  The testimonies were wonderful and everyone was smiling.  There were a lot of primary kids who shared their testimonies.  My favorite was little Aiden.  He is two.  His testimony was:  Jesus gave me a bike and it broke.  Amen.  I love serving in St. Lucia!

Thanks for everything.

Sister Shirts

Funny Caterpillar

The island across the ocean is St. Vincent

Thanksgiving in St. Lucia

Happy Thanksgiving!!!  At least it is here.  Today is a holiday so everything is closed.  Everyone goes to the beach on holidays.

I had a great ending to my birthday on Monday.  We went to Kisha's house and they had presents for us.  They gave us each some perfume which was nice.  They have a friend who is a fisherman and he gave them a free giant lobster and they gave us some.  It was delicious.  Free lobster.  Don't get that very often back home.

Elder Vaughn got stung/bit or whatever by a caterpillar thing and his arm got all swollen.  It was oozing fluid and he had to go to the doctor here.  They called us after we got in for the night and they had to borrow the car so they could go.  Fun stuff.

A lot of people gave us fruit and food this week.  Like I always say, West Indians are so kind.  We got lobster from Kisha, pumpkin from a random guy we met, avocado from Kenneth, mangoes, honeydew melon, and pigtail soup from Marla.  The soup was great.

How was conference?  I loved it.  We watched it on a TV at the church.  It was funny because it was on top of the pulpit so it looked like the speakers were here.

I loved how they focused on the changes we need to make to be more Christlike and how we should rethink our priorities.  It was amazing.  I know President Monson is a prophet of God and I am grateful we have twelve apostles that are also here to guide us.  The church is true.

Miracle of the Week:  Kenneth as usual.  He came to Saturday evening conference and both on Sunday.  We called him on Sunday to see if he was coming and he said he was.  We waited and he didn't show up.  He came just in time for President Monson's talk at the end of Sunday Morning.  He had a hard time getting a bus so he was waiting for a long time.  It was a miracle he made it in time to hear the prophet speak.

I love serving here.  Things are going great.  Thanks for all you do.

Love,

Sister Shirts

Eating lobster eggs

A Birthday And A Baptism

Good Afternoon,

This week was really good.  We have been working hard all day every day and it was a really hot week.  We saw a lot of blessings.

It was Marla's birthday on Wednesday (a member) and she didn't tell us.  She invited us to help in her garden and she gave us some surprise cake and treats.  It was fun.  Then we had a great lesson on repentance.

Kenneth is still really excited about coming to church.  We invited him to General Conference and he said he will come.  Best part is... he is inviting all his friends and neighbors.  He is awesome.  He told the Elders he would be coming to our church for a long time.  We gave him a gospel principles book and he read the lesson ahead of time so he would be prepared.  He pretty much taught the lesson.

We decided to clean up the path to the ocean where they do baptisms for service this week.  We got down to the bottom of the path and found some houses.  It turns out we just cleaned a really long driveway.  Someone got a secret act of service :)  We found the right path and cleaned it.

We had great birthdays.  Sister Hodge had hers on Saturday.  We went out to lunch and had a very special event later in the evening which I will talk about later.  For my birthday we went to the beach and had a beach BBQ with the Elders.  It was fun.

A homeless guy lives here on the beach

Those are crab heads

Creepy spider

Women's Conference was amazing.  I love General Conference and I am excited for this weekend.  We will be watching it at the church.

Miracle of the Week:  Jack got Baptized!!!  He was beaming when he came up out of the water.  He is a good kid.  He was confirmed yesterday.  The Spirit is always strong at baptisms.

Thanks for everything.  We had an amazing week and we are ready to work hard still.

Love,

Sister Shirts

Getting her hair braided

People think she is a local.

Rainy Adventures

Good Morning,

This week was full of miracles.  We were blessed with a lot of lessons and new people to teach.  Heavenly Father helped us a lot.

There was an embroidering activity at the church for relief society.  There was a great turnout.  Everyone enjoyed it.  The relief society here is very strong and close.  They really care about each other and they love the church and the gospel.

Love that the Elders did it too!

It was a rainy week.  This gave us some fun adventures.  One evening we were driving to an appointment and we had to pass on a dirt road.  On our way out we got stuck at the bottom of a huge hill because it was so muddy.  I had to get out and take off my shoes and push from the back of the car.  My skirt got all dirty.  Luckily someone came out and helped me push the car and we got out.  It was pretty fun.  Then the next day it was raining again.  We had an appointment with someone we met in the village so we had to figure out where they lived.  We called and they gave us some vague directions that involved climbing up a huge hill surrounded with trees and plants.  It was pretty much a muddy hike.  We got dirty again but it was worth it.  The lady is pretty cool.

We have a ghost creature in our apartment.  I saw it once while I was exercising in the morning and we saw it again a few days later.  It is either a really big cockroach or a rat.  It moves so fast we can't tell.   I thought I imagined it the first time.

I got to try turtle soup at George's fish hut.  It was great.  I also got homemade passion fruit juice and pig tail.  I made some of the cocoa tea for the first time and it came out pretty good.

Pig tail, provision soup and more

Jack is just about ready for baptism and he is really excited.

Miracle of the week:  Kenneth is still doing great.  He loves church and he came again this week.  We taught him about the Word of Wisdom and he accepted it immediately.  He said that God would help him keep the commandment if he tried his best to be obedient.  It was a great lesson.

Thanks for everything.  Love you all.

Love,
Sister Shirts

Birds in the trees

A Week With Chickungunya

Chickungunya is not fun.  It involves a high fever, bad joint pain, a really bad headache, and a rash over the whole body (including the palms of my hand and the bottom of my feet).  It lasted for six days.  My fever finally left Saturday and it made me really tired.  I pretty much slept all day for a week.  It was annoying not to go out and work.  Now I know how Sister Hodge felt.  I am glad it is over.  My shoulders are still a little sore and my fingers are stiff.  Like an old lady :)

On the bright side we still had a pretty good week.  I had a giant mango (to make me feel better), cow heel soup, and cocoa tea.  Maria made the cocoa tea for us.  She is a less active member who we love a lot.  Cocoa tea is the most delicious thick hot chocolate with dumplings and a lot of good spices in it.  I am excited to try to make it.

Cocoa Tea

We had a great zone conference in Barbados yesterday.  On Sunday we spent the night at the Gublers.  It was fun.  Sister Gubler made delicious spaghetti and salad.  We left bright and early Monday morning and had an amazing meeting.  Elder Zivic cam and presented there.  He talked a lot about obedience and our purpose as missionaries.  There was 1/4 of the mission there.  Over fifty missionaries.  We spent Monday night with the Silver Sands/Oistins sisters.  It was fun.  I slept on the couch and Sister Hodge slept on the futon.  No air conditioning out there so it was very hot but it was still fun.  We got home this afternoon.  We had to take an hour and a half bus ride from Castries because we didn't have the car.  Lucky us we get to drive all the way back out there tomorrow for zone meeting.

Miracle of the week:  We have been working with a man named Kenneth since we got here.  He is a nice man in his fifties.  He really wants to follow Christ and has family problems.  He is like a nice grandpa.  Kenneth was in a bad accident over ten years ago and hurt his leg.  It got infected again so he couldn't leave the house much...until Sunday.  He came to church and had a great experience.  His leg has finally healed and he is excited to prepare for baptism.

Thanks for everything.  Love you all.  Things are going great in St. Lucia!

Love,

Sister Shirts

The Pitons are two mountainous volcanic plugs, volcanic spheres in St. Lucia.

These weird cows are everywhere.  They look like dinosaur cows.