Four New Baptismal Dates!

Well let me just say i have been having a most fantastic week!

So much wonderfulness has been happening! 

 

There was recently a baptism in St georges that i was able to go to! and it was nice! 

 

We  have been having a lot of fun and success! this week we set 4 more baptismal dates!  

 

One girl named "RL" is awesome! she is trying to figure out which religion is right! when we first contacted her actually her exact words when i asked her if she had ever had any questions were " why are we here, and where do we go when we die?" now she has felt the spirit while praying and when we read a chapter from the Book of Mormon. She described it as Peace! i love that! peace! the feelings of the spirit are amazing!  

she came to church with a friend we had taught once before and also her younger cousin! so it was Great!  

 

at church this Sunday we had 17 people! The bus is working Good, this Sunday there were only the usual dedicated members on the bus, but they love it! next Sunday we might overflow the building! :) 

 

Another Lady named "CN" is awesome! she has two kids and wants to make a lot of changes in her life to help out her kids! she wants to get baptized and asked us if we would be disappointed that even tho we are teaching her if she got baptized in another church. We took that opportunity to explain the priesthood very directly! letting her know we would be because it would mean she didnt understand our message. That the Priesthood is only in this church!

She took that and really pondered on it and took some sincere deep interest in finding out That Joseph Smith was a Prophet. She unfortunately didnt come to church for her child was sick with the Flu. 

 

Sunday was an interesting day for me tho! we had 2 lessons planned and both fell through, so we went finding! and we actually met a lot of awesome People! one police man who is interested  in learning more! also a lady named "GL"! we met her, while looking for a lady named "DA". Anyways we had actually contacted her mom a while (2 months ) ago and never gone to visit her cause we didnt know where she lived! but we made it there. they were sitting on their porch and i was going to go right by but both me and Elder Padilla kinda just felt we needed to talk to them! so we did! and that lesson we set her a date for december 20th. she has actually been to church 2 times down in Grand Anse but didnt know that was the church we represented and didnt know there was one in Grenville! but she is excited! she really wants to know which church is true! 

 

So we has a lot of fun!

The work is progressing! me and Elder Padilla are working hard on our obedience so we can see more miracles!

All is well in Zion over here!  

Love Elder Pierson

Enjoying the Gospel

All is indeed well in the small island of Grenada! Much fun and success is being had!

This Sunday was actually a rather good Sunday! we had quite a few new faces at church! "GA" came and brought her kids and "KA" also came! we got them with the bus and it was wonderful! we had a pretty full bus!  

 

"GA" is going to be going into Grenville today or tomorrow to check on her marriage papers! she is working pretty hard in order to get baptised! 

 

We had two Great speakers on Sunday! sister Francis Spoke and so did Elder Padilla! Both talks were very enlightening!

I love Sundays! its a little hectic when we are trying to get a lot done and its mainly missionaries trying to do it all and fellowship with the members and the investigators! but hey tough things are always the most fun!

We had some cool new people we met! we still have to go back ad teach them but we will do that just now!

I'm so excited to see what will happen in the future here. The Group is growing bigger and people are enjoying the Gospel so much!  

 

On Saturday I had a cool experience. some of the members of the Group and us cleaned the church real good! And while we were there it was just a lot of fun really really happy! One of the little girls wanted to take my camera and take photos. so I let her. and we were posing for photos and smiling and it felt as though I was with you guys! like I was with my real family! 

 

These members here are awesome! I love em! 

 

I love you too! 

 

Take care!

Love Elder Pierson 

 

A bus to pick up members

Grenada was wonderful this week!  

 

A lot of cool new interesting things have been happening since i last talked to you! 

 

highlight of the week would probably be the announcement that "GA" is getting Married!! She is one of our sweet investigators who wants to get baptised so bad but she couldn't because she was living with her boyfriend! well I guess she talked with him again and they are working on the paper work Right now!! Whooo!!! she is so excited! 

 

In another marriage announcement "KA" and her boyfriend are seriously talking about it now! we taught them both the law of chastity and they really understand how important it is to God. Before our last meeting with them we really didnt have much success with him. he seemed kind of just there. But this last time it seems like this time he was interested! we were talking with him about the piece of land he is clearing to plant up above his  house and he seemed to be real excited. He told us he is going to get us some lettuce and some lemon grass so we can make lemon grass tea (best stuff ever)  

 

He is still working on his  bus so that they can come to church real often. He told us that they would come a lot more regular once the bus was finished.

About a bus that is also a success of the week. This week we had a bus go around and pick up the members and investigators who live far!. Now the reason this was such a success was because when we told the members they seemed to have a spark to do missionary work rekindle. They have been working with their friends for a while and a lot of them accept the message but the distance was too far for them to really pursue it. Now there is a bus that will pass they are excited to start inviting their friends again!

We also met some really cool people this week who have truly been prepared by the Lord! we have so many contacts we have to go back and teach!

Whiew ! great times here in Grenville.

We had a small church attendance this Sunday but it will start to grow more and more just now!

I really do love this work and I am so excited to see all the people we are teaching grow more in their faith! Making changes to please God.

In church this past Sunday Sister Jasian was teaching about missionary work and she asked how doing missionary work makes me feel and really thinking about it, the Most joy so far comes from helping people make changes to come closer to God! and true sadness does come when someone rejects the gospel! 

I am so Glad and Grateful that God gave me Such a wonderful Mother and Father to teach me the ways that are right while I was in my youth!

I love you very much!

Enjoy your week! 

 

Love Elder Pierson

Training is fun!

So yeah its warm in grenada! i guess the snow is scared of us here! haha 

Well let me see! many cool things have happened in the missionary life! This week i got to see Elder Bingham Be a district leader and teach the district meeting and it was wonderful! 

Me and Elder bingham decided we would have had a blast is we were in the same highschool growing up haha.... 

 

lets see um well we met some really cool people! while finding one day we met a guy named "JY". "JY" is a cool pretty nice guy who apparently likes to read, we contacted him and went straight into a lesson and gave him a book of mormon, he wanted us to come back the next day and when we arrived he said he didnt read enough to get a full picture. so asking how much he read he told us The first chapter of nephi, so we looked at where he showed us  and he had read all of first nephi and was ready to dive into it again! Plus he lives like 3 houses from the church. He might be hard to meet with again because he works in st georges and is all  over the place but we will se him and it will be awesome! 

best quote from him i would say is when we invited him to be baptized if he knew it was true. "Well if i knew it was true i cant run from God, Jonah tried that it doesnt work, so of course i would" 

 

We are really trying to get a lot more people to teach! its kind of hard when we dont get to go out in the mornings at all But we have a lot of teaching appointments all throughout the days! 

 

Oh  and another cool experiance is when we were trying to find someone we were supposed to teach we were slowly passing some houses trying to see if anyone was home and all i heard from a house we passed was "are those Latter days Saints?!" so i turned around and it was a lady from the states who was supper excited to see us here, she isnt a member but she thinks she wants to be. She is from maryland and is just going home, But she watched 17 miracles and loved it. so we gave her a book of mormon for her to take home! it was great! 

 

Training is fun! hard sometimes but he is  basically already trained, he would go out with missionaries for like 3-4 hours everyday to prepare for his  mission.. now  he 's  just gotta switch those skills into english! :) he is great! 

 

yes actually we did get a new sr couple.

They are the monks!  Sister Monks reminds me of Linda osmond. 

They are really old but awesome!

But i Love you much!

Love Elder Pierson

Baptismal Dates

This Sunday was alright. We didn't have very many people committed to coming to church, and then it poured... people tend not to go places when you can swim through the air. haha. But we had a lot of our less actives there so that is very good! Elder Schroeder gave a talk and he noticed something that I felt subconsciously but couldn't pick out. It is a lot harder to talk when you are at eye level with the people. It's nice and easy when your standing above everyone. haha. Weird that it makes a difference but it really does.

As far as "S" and Baptism! Yes the ocean I am super excited for! (They do all their baptisms in the ocean because they don't have a font.) "S" has the 14th of December set as her date. She hasn't come to church yet because she is sick. I think she has dengue fever. But hopefully she can come next week so we don't have to push her date back. As far as baptismal dates though we have 4 People for the 14th and one for the 7th. Not sure how many will actually work out but were going to try to get everyone on their set days! :)

And yes Granny is very cool. It's her birthday today also!

I actually punched a banana tree over this week ! So yeah it was fun! 

Christmas here is a pretty big holiday, but they don't believe in or really ever talk about Santa. They just get gifts for each other. Oh and our apartment we decided we are going to have a tree in! But yeah they love their Christmas music here also! It's nice! 

So my favorite thing about Sunday.. well in the new investigator class we talked about prayer. At one point we talked about how we got answers to prayers. So sister Gayelle asked all the missionaries to share a story about how they have had an answer to prayer! So they were all really good. For mine I shared about how after I got my mission call, that night I prayed to know that it was the right decision for me, and after I prayed I decided it was good. I wanted to be a good missionary and I thought I should be more knowledgeable in the scriptures. So I turned to the scriptures where I had been reading and the first chapter I read (I don't remember where it is) said something along the lines of "you are called to serve these people " so I told that story about how my prayer was answered by the prompting I had to read the scriptures and how the scriptures answered my prayer! So yeah it was a good Sunday!

Anyways I love you! Enjoy the cold! I'll be here is St Lucia getting sun burnt! 

Love ya 

Elder Pierson!

Need more chairs :)

St Lucia is pretty amazing! Today is an incredibly hot day! We played basketball this morning! So we got super sweaty. I'm gonna be a basketball star when I get home we have been playing every morning at 6:30 (3:30 at home) There is a court right beside our apartment!  

I just realized I never told you about my mission granny. She got sick and was in the hospital but she is doing great! She is a lady who was baptized on a stretcher. She cannot walk because she has a blood clot in her leg that did something to it. But she is awesome and she loves her missionaries! She says we are her favourites, anyways I can't believe I never told you about her. Every time we go over she feeds us.She is super nice unless you get her vexed, then she just might through a knife at you.. and yes that actually happened haha not at us though.

My talk went surprisingly well. I tried giving a talk with nothing but the points I wanted to talk about and it went well. There was 16 investigators at church that day, and my talk was on the restoration. So it was a good talk for the time. 2 of the investigators really wanted to talk to me after the sacrament meeting. We discussed the restoration more, it was awesome! It was supposed to be a 10 minute talk but the other speakers left me about 20 minutes... but don't worry I talked for 25 haha!

As for baptisms they are all in the ocean! Kinda cool! We have no font, and yes we almost ran out of chairs last Sunday also! So I'm loving it! We will buy some soon!

So as for dads birthday I did actually remember it! The day before! One of our investigators (who has a baptismal date) has the same birthday as him! This lady make the best chicken ever! its 5 times better tasting than KFC and half as greasy! So amazing! And she knows that our church is the true church! Oh cool story about her, I don't know if I have said this already, but she was praying for God to send someone her way so that she could know the truth about the gospel, and we walked by her shop the next day 3-4 times, and on the fourth time she called out to us cause she thought we might be that answer to her prayer! :) So cool! anywhoo

This P-day is going to be a relax P-day. Just chill and stay cool! so its nice! I don't know when we are going to climb the Piton. I think we might go fishing first! Don't know when these things will happen!

Oh Another cool thing, we are teaching this lady named "D", she is older and is addicted to cigarettes, she wants to stop and wanted our help, or for us to pray for her, so she called us over and we starter talking to her, this was 4 weeks ago, we have taught her many times and just yesterday what we teach finally clicked, and she is starting to progress! But every time we went over she would have another child or friend over and now we have 6 investigators we teach at her house! So it's cool! :)

Oh and yes I got my transfer call on Saturday! I'm going to!!!!! stay here!!! with Elder Schroeder ! So that's awesome! I'm super excited! But it's crazy that one transfer has already gone by! My time here is flying by! So crazy.

Well I love you! Have an awesome week! 

Love Elder Pierson!

.

Zip-lining and elephantiasis

Zip-lining was amazing! We got to go at the not tourist price. So a lot cheaper. That was nice haha. But it is fun I recommend it!

Anyways my week has been great! We have had a lot of great lessons and we met an awesome kid. He is 15 and he is so interested in Joseph Smith. He prayed and received an answer that he was a prophet called by God. He is reading the Book of Mormon and wants a second confirmation that its true. So hopefully when he prays about the Book of Mormon he will know. 

Oh and so for the education, turns out its amazing.. if you try. You take a test at the end of the year and if you do well you go to a good school, and if you do bad you go to a bad school! I like that system, even though i might have not gotten into the good school. haha 

But my week is going so well. The zone leader just had a baptism and we had two of our investigators there. And one I think now wants to be baptized so that is amazing! 

There are 6 missionaries in Castries. So six in our branch. And then there are four more down in Vieufort. 2 sisters and 2 elders. Oh and then there are 2 senior couples. The Gublers and the Gartz'. so there are a lot of missionaries here and the branch is growing! I like it.

Church was great! We had some amazing talks about putting God first in all we do, and we almost ran out of chairs, so we might have to buy more chairs soon! :) I'm sure that is a problem the church is happy to deal with!

Oh I saw a man with elephantiasis! Just so you know and can worry about me ! :) 

Anyways I love you and I hope you also have a good week!

As my friends the Rastas would say!

Respect!

Love ya, Elder Pierson  

Here are some videos to enjoy!

https://www.dropbox.com/s/g9qhmni8oi95woc/SDC10042.AVI (Zip-lining)

https://www.dropbox.com/s/oax3r8lf7gje4it/SDC10680.AVI (Climbing a coconut tree)

The teaching picks up :)

So my letter is late-ish now because i just got home from zip lining! :) That was a pretty awesome way to spend the morning of p-Day! Zip lining is super fun, especially when you're going through trees and such! As far as teaching the kids the haka... it hasn't happened yet, that will be potentially 2 Saturdays from now. It's gotten pretty weird, but i hope they like it. It sounds like it should be fun! Oh and I think we will be climbing the piton next transfer! Woah it's crazy how close next transfer is!

So my area is actually really small, so we get to walk everywhere we go! but i like it. Bikes would be terrifying! There are steep hills everywhere we go so up would be no fun and down would be scary.. haha but yeah my shoes are great! I don't slip very often in them either so that is a bonus!

Church has been going well here for the last little while! We have lots of members or I guess it seems like lots because we almost fill the chapel! But then again the chapel is small.. haha hopefully we can make it grow enough they need to buy more chairs! :)

My favourite thing about Sunday was that all the testimonies were great! One sister, sister Jones, is moving back to Guyana so there was a big party after with lots of food! So that was pretty awesome! The Fast and Testimony meeting went 20 minutes longer than it should have! But it was still amazing! Oh and I also got assigned a talk. 10 minutes long on the Restoration of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. I'm excited to give the talk ! It should be pretty fun!

Oh yeah it is getting close to Christmas isn't it.. it's hard to imagine without any snow. I didn't even know it was Halloween till like 3/4 of the way through the day! weird... haha 

Well this week was a great week! We exceeded almost all our weekly goal by quite a bit, and we taught some really great people! We also taught some people while they were rolling their marijuana ... that was fun! But the good people are always really exciting to talk to! This one guy, "A", was in prison for a while and realized he needed to change his life. Now he is an amazing father to his family and is extremely dedicated to the Bible and studies it all the time. He is a little confused on some verses and they cause problems for him to accept a prophet, but we hope to meet with him again to discuss them. He has really good questions and always listens to the spirit so I hope once we help him with the prophet thing and he prays he will know its true. He would probably be a good stake president, and he has like 5 baptism age kids and his wife so that would be a lot of new members. I'm really excited to help him know! 

Oh another great guy, he was also in and out of prison. Weird how prison changes a man. anyways he has a lot of questions but he thinks Joseph Smith was called of God. he says "The name just sounds right and all those people were probably trying to kill him because he had the truth, and the devil didn't like that." So he is pretty awesome! And all his family is in Canada, so many St. Lucians are moving to Canada!

So I'm excited to see some progression but our only guy with a baptismal date keeps skipping out on church :/

But anyways! Have a Great week! I love you!

Elder Pierson