Letter and Pictures - Week 56

Dear family,

This has been a great week. We got our transfer calls yesterday. I will be staying here as a ZL but I will be with Elder Dixon who I came out with. He is from Maple Mountain. He is a great Elder and we will do some great work together. This transfer flew by. I felt like I just got here. It was a great transfer with Elder Kasteler. It's been a blast serving with him. He will be missed. Well we some great successes this week. We had several investigators accept baptism this week and several accept a date for baptism to work towards. We had one of our investigators named Joseph who is the young adult son of a member come to church this week. He is doing awesome. He is really progressing and I feel that he could be baptized soon. He had an experience where he was feeling angry and so he prayed but it didn't really help and so he opened the Book of Mormon and as he did he felt peace so he kept reading. He was talking to his teachers at church about how he is going to be baptized. He is very bright as well. We've found a lot of people around the members who have friends or family who are now showing interest. We also had one of our less actives with his wife come back again to church who was in the branch presidency. We had a lesson at his house last night having a lesson with some of their families' friends and he was very active and enthusiastic as he was helping to teach like he had been in the past when teaching. It was good to see. We've been working on getting the area maps that go in the apartments done for each area. It ended up being a lot cheaper than we thought and they work well. We just have to give them out to everyone tomorrow at district mtg. We believe they will help a lot to keep track of all the members. One nice thing that I tried this week was setting daily goals and making daily plans that reflect the weekly goals. We had a weekly goal of 20 total lessons and we found that after Friday we only had 10 total lessons so we planned the next two days to reach our weekly lessons goal and we made plans to teach as many as we could each day. We worked harder towards that goal and even though we barely fell short with some lessons falling through we did more work that we probably would've. We had 5 lessons on Saturday and 3 lessons on Sunday and that is with having been busy both days with service on Saturday and Branch Council on Sunday. We had those 5 lessons in 4 hours. It was cool. I had one of my favorite personal studies that I've had on my mission this week. I was reading in the Gospel Principles book on a subject for one of our investigators and I decided to also read about the two topics on the Savior about His life and the Atonement. They were powerful. As I was studying and pondering the message of these two topics I increased in my knowledge about the Savior and I really felt of the love that he has for each of us and as followed my love for Him increased. I can't describe it but I know you all understand. It was wonderful. I had the privilege of going with Elder Miller on a trade off this week. We did some great work. We spent the first couple hours contacting and making daily contact. We met many people and we were led to some that had been taught before and were thinking about baptism already. We were led to a lady named Abby first and later we were led to the mother. They know a member family close by. We are excited to start teaching them. We then had a couple good lessons and contacted as we went. In the morning we went and worked out at the track close by. That was a treat for me. We went out again after our studies and we were led to an area that I had never been before and straight to a prepared family. I marvel at the hand of Lord. It's been a great week. I hope all of yours is just as wonderful! The Church is true! 

With as much love as I can muster,

Love,

Elder King

FHE on a trade off with Elder Lameta at the group in Gouyave. Such great people with such great faith and devotion.

Sunset in Grenada! Wow!

The heavens are opened! haha it looks super cool :)

Letter Home - Week 55

Hey everyone!

This week has been great. After the retreat with Carnival we went out and did our best to work as much as we could. Wednesday we taught Debbie and Emon. Debbie we has a really good restoration lesson with her. She has been experiencing some strength as she is reading and taking the lessons. With Emon we finished teaching about the plan of salvation. We connected it with how knowing about the plan helps us move forward in life with greater hope and peace. We are going to help him understand about the gospel of Jesus Christ to help him quit smoking. It was hard to meet with him the rest of the week as well as with others we are teaching. Thursday we taught Sherlan and her kids about the new pamphlet learning and serving in the church to help her with her concern about serving being too big off a weight in the church and to help her come back. It was a great lesson as we were able to help the kids be a part of it too and they shared some great answers to the questions we asked. Friday we tried to teach Lania as she changed our appointment to today but we found that she is having disapproval from her parents about the church and from that she decided not to have us visit with her. It was really sad and disappointing. We really wanted to teach her. We had offered to help her move and she accepted before and now she is saying she will have someone else help her. That was hard. Hopefully in the future things will work out. Saturday we did some service at the church to help rebuild the steps to the baptismal font aka "the ocean". We taught a couple new people as well. We heard about Kerani James and that was a bummer but second is good. Sunday the Maturines came as well as JJ who is the son. We taught him later that day as he wanted to know more about the book of mormon. Today I ran a mile around a track here and boy I've gotten slow....I ran 5:22. I felt really tired and after I felt really lightheaded. I threw up and yeah...not so good. I will try again another time so I can run a faster time. I started out strong but I got slower as each lap passed until the last two where I finished strong. It was still fun. We also roasted another pig today and it was good. It was a good week. I love you all. I want each of you to know that the church is true. The book of momon is the word of God. Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ both love us. He is our Savior and the way back to our Father. I hope you all have a great week!

 

Love,
Elder King

Letter Home - Week 54

Hey Family!

This week was a busy one. We had a lot of traveling around everywhere and doing a lot of zone leader business. We had to drive up to Grenville and back (2 hours round trip) twice this week and a trade off in Gouyave as well (1 and half hours round trip). Those took away a lot of time. We also had to be at the church for a skype baptismal interview with President Herrington for a lady who was baptized this week named Maria. We also went to the baptism and had a zone leader training mtg plus we attended the district leader training mtg. We also taught zone mtg which lasted around 3 hours plus we emailed after. Monday was pday and Thursday we had a mini trade off while one of the Elders did some immigration stuff. We had a couple of missionary coordination mtgs with the members to go through the branch list and talk about the status of each member to know more about them. Monday and Tuesday of this week was crazy because of Carnival (which is basically a bunch of partying going on so we all had to stay in those days. Monday there was a branch activity at the church which is right by our apartment that we were able to go to that. We played ping pong and the members made some oil down which is Grenada's National dish and it was pretty good. My favorite part was the passion fruit juice which was so good! We did get to visit with Kiesha this week at the Maturines and we had a good lesson on the restoration. She is humble which is great. We found that Lania didn't go to England and we are going to have a lesson with her tonight. Hope all goes well! I love you all so much and I hope you all have a great week!

 

With much love,

Elder King

Letter Home - Week 53

Dear loved ones,

This week has been a great week. We've been working with some less active members this week and it paid off. Hearts are softening and changing. We had two of them come to church this week. One was Sister Sharon Mitchell and the other was Sister Maturine with her son and one other person that I didn't know. Bro. James was sick last week and didn't come but this week he was feeling better and he was there. We are working with his children to help them. Hopefully we are making a difference in their lives. We are doing our best. We have also been working with Emon (Bro. and Sis. Smith's son) and he is doing great. He was determined to come to church but he got sick the day of and couldn't come. He will hopefully come next week. We watched the restoration video with him and the spirit was present there. He was watching intently and it was great. We also during another lesson went over the book of mormon with him. He can't really read but he has a smart phone so he can listen to the book of mormon. We helped him download it and simply invited him to make the good choice to listen to it and he faithfully did. He was happier the next time that we visited him and there was a noticeable difference in him. It was great to see. We visited Debbie a few times this week. She is a new investigator and she already began to read. We have only had a few short lesson with her so we don't know a lot about her but we feel the spirit there and that she has a sincere desire to be better and follow Heavenly Father. Yesterday we went for p-day with the med student here to their school to play some basketball with them. It was really great to play. It was a lot of fun. It was a nice court which is rare here and everyone could play pretty well (which can also be rare). It was a good time. We also went and played ping pong at the church. We played one on one, two on two, and even around the world with everyone. It reminded me of cross country came where we played around the world as well. Lots of fun. Today we had one of the most spiritual and powerful mtgs that I've had on my mission. It was a really great zone mtg. It was what everyone needed and something that I believe will help each of us to reach our full potential as missionaries. We talked a lot about obedience, humility, and love. We watched a few powerful videos and the discussion among everyone was great. Well I love you all so much! 

 

Love,

Elder King