Letter Home - Week 8

Hey guys!

Well this week has been an awesome week for me personally and it also has been a good week as far as the success of the work. It has been great for me because of the things I'm learning and seeing myself change as I apply the gospel in my life and am being obedient. I'm growing so much and in turn being able to really help people. It brings me a lot of joy serving and loving the people here! My love for people has grown so much. I'm growing closer to my Heavenly Father. I'm growing closer to my Savior. I'm also growing closer to the Spirit and learning to listen to it's promptings. There have been so many blessings that I have noticed from coming out here and I am so grateful for them. This week we have been having progress with Earl and Ambrose. Earl has been having faithfully coming to church with his family for a while now. He wants to be baptized in this church with his whole family. The only thing that is holding him back is his testimony. He needs to find out for himself and get on his knees and sincerely pray for an answer. It's been hard to find time to teach him with his schedule but the few times we were able to they were really good and I think he finally understands what he needs to do. With Ambrose I've been noticing some big changes. He has been working hard to quit smoking but recently I noticed an increased motivation to do so. He has started reading the book of mormon and he came to church this week! It made me so happy to see the joy on his face from being there. I love you guys very much and hope you each have a great week!

Love, 

Elder King

Hey I forgot about something that is very important and exciting! We have transfers every 6 weeks and so with this being week 8 and having 2 weeks in the mtc this week is transfer week. But those being trained like me they stay with their trainer for 12 weeks or 2 transfers. I got a call though this week from President Herrington. He told me that there are brand new missionaries coming into the mission this transfer and said I will not be continuing my training with Elder Odhiambo but will now be training a new missionary myself! His name is Elder Whipple and he is from Utah. He will be arriving on the island on Wednesday and from there I start training him. Crazy!

Love,

Elder King

Letter and Picutres - Week 7

Hey guys!!

This week has been good! It has been busy! I've been working hard trying to do the best I can and be the best missionary I can. It's been a blast! It's been great to read about each of your experiences throughout the week and all the good you are doing. You all are really doing amazing things and are such good people. I love you all! I've been getting pictures put on here and will keep sending them. Keep doing good! Keep serving the Lord! Have a great week!

Love,

Elder King

These are the ackees that I had.  They are good!

(It appears to be different from the poisonous ackees found on the internet.)

This is Ambrose!  Such a great spiritual guy!  We have been teaching and preparing him and two others, Christian and Max, for baptism.  They all work as mechanics.
 

Missionary Work!!

 

MTC companion Elder Clement from Lindon, Utah 

 Names left to right for my district: Elder Dawson, Elder Bishoff, Elder Lindsey, Sister Stewart, Sister Layton, Elder Miller, Elder Ritchie, Elder Ludlow, and Elder Clement. 

Letter Home - Week 6

Hey family! I wanna say that I thank each of you for your love, prayers, and support! I pray for each of you and love you all very much! This mission experience has already been so incredibly wonderful and I am so grateful for it. It has blessed my life already in so many ways and I am becoming a better and better person every day. My testimony has grown immensely and I am becoming more and more converted to the gospel every day. This is where I'm supposed to be. I'm very happy here doing the Lord's work. I do miss you all very much. I love hearing from each of you each week and hearing about what is going on in your lives. This week has been great! The baptism of Petrus went very well and it was a great day for him. I'm excited to keep working with him and continue to help him grow. He has a girl friend in New York who is a member who has been a big help to him. They already have the temple in their sights which is so cool! To go to the temple from here costs a lot which many people don't have. I was privileged to confirm him a member of the church on Sunday. That was a first for me and was a neat experience. We missionaries help out a lot with the church out here because the numbers are small and most of the members haven't been in the church too long. We help them along. There are usually about 50 people at church each week. It is a branch. They have two branches on St. Lucia. One here in Vieux Fort and one in Castries which is on the other side of the island an hour drive away. On the Vieux Fort side there is a couple missionary, Elder and Sister Horne, who are from Orem, Utah. They are a big help. He is the branch president. There is a strong family in the branch and the father is the first counselor and my companion is the second counselor. We only have us, the sister missionaries, and the couple in vieux fort and then there are three elder missionary companionships in castries. All of us combined make up the district and zone so we travel back and forth a lot. Shantel is the daughter of a recent convert and is 11 years old. We will continue to teach her as well to keep her strong. There is the Mcfarlane family that we are teaching right now. The mom recently became a member and we are teaching the dad and their three kids. They want to be baptized but we have to make sure they are ready first. Hopefully they will get baptized soon. I love the work! I love the people here! I love my Savior! I love my Heavenly Father! And I love each of you! Hope you all have a great week!

Love,

Elder King

Letter Home - Week 5

Hey Family!

The adventure continues! I just found out that Elder Odhiambo's mom just got baptized! super cool! The hard part of the missionary work out here is that everyone likes to "lime" around or just sit around and not do anything. So we will teach and they will listen, we extend commitments and they accept, but then don't keep their commitments. It makes it so tough because that is how we have and show our faith. Faith leads to repentance and both lead to being prepared for baptism. Baptism leads to having the spirit which leads to enduring to the end or continuing to do these four steps over and over again for the rest of our lives. Enduring to the end leads to conversion and it means continually coming unto Christ by continually having faith, continually repenting, continually renewing our covenants at baptism and making new commitments and goals to become better, and continually living so we have the spirit to be with us always. We show our faith by reading our scriptures everyday, praying sincerely, attending church and participating while we are there, fulfilling our callings, going to the temple, keeping the commandments, and anything else that leads us to Christ and being perfected in him. I know this is the way back to our Heavenly Father and the only way to find true peace and happiness in this life. Please read your scriptures diligently and pray sincerely! I know it will bless your life. You will grow closer to your Heavenly Father. He loves all of us so much and he wants us to talk to Him through prayer and He want to talk to us through our scripture study. The more faith and diligence we put towards the two together the better people we will become and the happier our lives will be. It is wisdom in God that we have them. This shows us why it was so important that Nephi and his brothers went back to get the brass plates and not give up when things were hard. They are our way to know the will of God. The people here say they will do these things but then they don't and it makes the work hard. We are trying to find ways to help them come unto Christ by keeping their commitments. I taught Shantel many times before she was baptized. We have been teaching many people out here. One of them that we are teaching is a great guy named Petrus (like tetrus but with a 'p'). He is getting baptized this coming Saturday! He has a five year old daughter and both make great sacrifices to get to church each week. Church is at 10:00 but they have to get ready super early to catch a bus to drive like 45 minutes to get here. He is a great example of faith. Others have a hard time walking 5-10 minutes to get there. There are many other investigators that we are teaching and working towards baptism but we are having a hard time getting them to keep their commitments. The Sisters in Vieux Fort, my area, had a baptism two days ago. We also work a lot with getting members to come out to church. There are a lot of less actives. I've now had the island mangos here and they are good! I've also had a lot of other fruit. We had a meal at Mamma Sherba's house where we taught Shantel. She is a member. It was interesting. It was like chicken and dumplings with lentils. It wasn't bad. The fruit that I had, ackees, was different from the fruit you described. It was actually given to me by the other missionaries and was the first thing I had when I got to Barbados. They are harmless. They are good. It looks like a green grape. It has an outer shell that you take off and then eat the inside. It only has one pit. There's no need to worry about me out here at all. I'm well taken care of and I feel very safe here. The rastafarian thing is true and now I get that reference from Cool Runnings haha. There are a lot of people out here with dreads. The work is good and I love it! There are hard things but there are so many great and wonderful things too if I keep looking for them and staying positive. If you guys could keep sending pictures too of each of your adventures back home that would be awesome. I loved seeing the pictures of Kaylee and the ones that Kim sent. I heard about drop box and tried using it last week but it takes forrrrrrrrreeeeeeever to download haha it's kind of frustrating but I got a flash drive here and I don't think it will bad to send it home in an envelope if I wrap it up. I'll wait to send it until after I get your email for next week to make sure it's ok. I love you all so much! The church is true! I have such a strong testimony of it!

 

Love,

Elder King