Kites and the Atonement

This week was a very interesting week! we had quite a few cool things and fun activities. 

 

First of all i cannot find my camera cord so that is why i am lacking on the photo uploading! 

 

 but we bought an 8 foot Tall kite that we are going to fly for Easter! flying kites in the Caribbean during Easter is a huge thing, i cannot remember it being a thing to do back home. 

But it is amazing to see the symbolism in why they really do fly kites at this time of the year. to remember that "He is Risen" such a cool thought !

But its Fun. It seems like everywhere i go now a days the Atonement gets brought up. 

Either its at Zone Conference or a random meeting with President Mehr or just in teaching people! 

The Atonement is real and is an amazing Blessing!  

 

I Actually have learned a lot about the Atonement and one of the coolest experience i have had recently is when we went to visit a less active person. We actually had a fall through in our plans while we took out 2 members so we went to visit an inactive family. And while we were talking about the atonement i felt like i needed to share that sometimes it is really hard to talk to people about our problems, because often people we talk to will try to console us but in reality they don't know what we are feeling or what our pains our like..But the beautiful miracle of the Atonement is that Jesus Christ Knows exactly how each situation feels and exactly our pains. And i could tell they really liked that.

Yesterday at church that  same lady Got up and bore her testimony about how recently she had been going through a lot of trials and how she felt nobody would understand, but the missionaries came over and taught her about the atonement and how she is so blessed to know that Christ knows. she is Great! anyways that was a lot of fun! 

But today so far was interesting ! We had President Mehr here and he taught a little bit but he came for interviews, so surprise i kind of know my transfer call all ready. 

I am going to stay in canje as a Zone leader but i am going to have either a Temp or a next missionary. 

and the Other Zone leader will be in Rosignol Area with either a Temp  or a regular missionary.. So Whew its going to be interesting!

But Yes "ZR" and their two future missionary sons.

They are Great! we had been talking to members about them and they were taught before and the problem before was he was not interested in marriage but we went over this week and he actually brought marriage up and started talking all sort of plans  to get married! sooo!! Whoo!

They are awesome! They are planning on getting married on the second of May! 

 

All is going well in this area! things are really picking up! 

 

I Love Being a missionary!

Love Elder Pierson  

A Few New Investigators

Well its wonderful to hear of all the events of home! 

so much happens when i look away!  

That is crazy to think Clarke is almost done right now!

But hey yes this week was a lot slower and better for working! the only thing that kept us from once again having a full work week was that we had Zone conference Which i was actually asked to conduct! so i conducted the Zone conference with Elder Cornish There .. So the President of the whole Carribean Area got to see me all nervously conducting my second ever meeting haha. but it was good! we learned so much from him and we are working hard to implement what we learned! 

 

highlight of the week was we had an investigator who we met last week named "YA" come to church this Sunday! She is awesome! She is 17 and eager to change her life. She actually told us in the first meeting that she had thought about baptism before with all her friends but figured that she didnt want to promise God That she would be Good when she knew she might break her Promise. But yesterday we went to meet her and finished teaching her about the Restoration. and a the end of the lesson i was starting to talk to her about baptism. and i asked her about her situation before how she didn't want to make that promise with God then, and before i could even ask her how she felt about it now she said "I know what you Going to say, and yes i am ready to be baptized now" SOOO she is cool ! she will get baptized in April! a lot of interesting things have really happened lately!

Anyways! We finally Got a Directory from the branch, it took so long because we dont have a computer in the branch.. it getting repaired for over a month now !! :0

But yes things are going great! we have some wonderful plans for our work! and we are starting to see a lot of success!

Another Highlight of the week was When we went so teach a family known as "ZR" Now they were taught by missionaries before, actually the two years ago when they met with missionaries is actually why "ZR" is Christian instead of Muslim now.  But they are soo cool! they have two sons aged 6 and 8! soo definitely some future missionaries!  and we commited them to doing a nightly family prayer and family reading! And they did it and they described the feeling of the holy Ghost When we asked them how they felt!  now our intent on having them do this was to help them Strengthen their relationship and its working! they are alot happier.    and come wednesday we are going to discus a baptismal date for them as well!

So we are happy for them too! 

 

Something cool that we learned lately is that when people go through spiritual experiences together they grow closer together! So that is why it is so important to have members with missionaries or have members baptize people! so they will grow to the members as well as the missionaries! 

Its really fun being in this canje Area!

I will continue to keep you updated on all our happenings!

But i got to Go!

Elder Pierson

Teaching and Preparing the People of Grenada

The missionary world is absolutely fantastic! We learned so much at the Zone conference past, oh yes and Barbados was amazing! So flat it blew my mind. I've always had some sort of ridiculous mountain on my islands! 

But absolute highlight about Zone Conference was learning about how to teach about the contracts/ covenants we make and the investigator's will make. We have been asked to make sure every convert full fills the requirements found in D&C 20:37 . So we are working hard for that.

An interesting things we are studying and teaching now is the Why's of the Gospel. Or in other words the doctrines more purely. Which is actually really cool. I have been learning a lot by doing that. 

So its wonderful.  

Unfortunately we had no investigators come to church. first time since my first week in Grenada. It seems no one wants to come down to St Georges for church.. only to Grenville. but hey next week will be better!  

Some real highlights from teaching this week would be probably how many people we have been teaching and who are very prepared. we have at the moment 12 Baptismal Dates all in December! some are more solid and some are less but we will see some baptisms in December!  

We have actually set a zone Goal to baptise 22 this transfer! Which is amazing because there is only 4 sets of missionaries. I do believe that we will reach it if we are diligent and obedient. 

The church in St Georges actually has to knock down some walls and make the chapel bigger to accommodate all the people coming to church and in Grenville we are looking for a bigger building! 

I am guessing that this is where they hold church meetings.

It's absolutely amazing to think how much the Lord is Hastening his work!

All over the world is like this and its fantastic! 

But all is well in Grenada. I love it here and I cant wait to see Denver! (His friend Denver just got called to serve in the same mission as Jeff.) 

I talked to Michael, and him and James are going to be in a 4 man apartment just now. haha. That would be so ridiculously fun! (Michael and James are serving in Jamaica.) 

Anywho!

Love you so much!

Take care!

Love Elder Pierson

The beach

After Lydia (Jeff's niece) saw this picture, she was really upset with Uncle Jeff for stepping on a puppy. Turns out he was just giving the dog a belly scratch. (Dogs out there are pretty mangy so he didn't want to use his hands.)

Staying in Grenada

So this week was a really good week! 

 

we had a lot of cool things happen! 

 

actually first off let me tell you that i am staying in grenville again with Elder Padilla! at least one more transfer i will be here! then who knows! but we have some really awesome baptismal dates set for the Month! we have a lot of cool people we are working with! So its nice to be able to stick around to see them get baptized. 

 

This year this mission has set a goal of 600 baptisms for the year. usually we would get about 40 or 50 a month but the last two months we only got 20 or 30.. so we are way behind! this month we need just around 90 baptisms mission wide! this has kind of lit a fire under all of us! we are working harder than ever to reach that inspired goal! 

 

And so far grenada is preforming very well! President Mehr actually reffered to the grenadian missionaries as "the Dream Team" So we are not going to let him down! and as we work for and expect miracles the lord is providing! we have found the land of milk and honey! (many baptisms) a place called la fillette. we have met o lot of amazing people. Who we will go and teach just now! we have a bit of a short week coming as we are actually going to Barbados for Friday and Saturday for a zone conference!  

 

So its going to be awesome! me and Elder Padilla are working really well! we have been fine tuning our teaching finding out what works best ! and its going really well!

Sifting a lot of people to see who are prepared celestial beings! 

 

So many fun Things 

Absolutly no one from Grenada is getting moved this transfer! so we are working well! 

 

we have more baptismal dates in the children of "GN". She actually asked how old someone had to be to get baptized and both her children are 9 or 11 soooo they both want to be baptized as well! it is going to be awesome!. 

 

so sunday at church was rally cool as well!

We had 21 people there! we are almost too big for our building! actually if we wouldnt have put two chairs to the front for the Group leader we wouldnt have fit. Not to mention one usual family of 3 went to st georges this sunday. we almost didnt fit! so we are currently searching for a bigger building! :) 

 

Gotta Love Progress!

God is active so much here in the west indies! i am so blessed to be a part of the growth he is blessing this land with!

Keep being awesome!

 

Anyways!

Love you much!

Elder Pierson

September 16

this week has been an interesting week with plenty of eventful happenings. 

so im not sure if you have heard but there is a disease going through the west indies right now it is called chikun gunya, or "the walking bent over" but its interesting.    when you get it you have a fever really bad joint pain, and also a rash. and it last for a while usually.    but guess what! your darlin son endured and recovered from this ting in 2 days, and it probably would have been quicker if i had stayed inside like elder smith asked me to :)    it was interesting !    made my wrists hurt quite bad. But 65% of all of grenada has it actually.    maybe more than that by now. but that was interesting  and it kind of killed some of our time! :/    but  am all better now! 

now to answer your question as to how the islands  are doing;  i would have to say very well. Grenada is and so was barbados yesterday.    yesterday was zone conference and St lucia, St.vincent, Grenada, and barbados met all together for a very special zone conference.    It was special because Elder Zivic of the 70 came and spoke to us!    it was very good!    plus i got to see all my friends i had been transfered away from! 

Ohh and i also got to see elder Pohl. from coutts. took a picture with him!

But it was fantastic!

Hmm about the people we are teaching i would say the best one we have contacted thus far would be a girl named "DN".    she is 18 i think but we contacted her sister and her on our way up a hill to teach "MH".    now we didnt have much time but they had all sorts of questions for us.    so we gave them a restoration tract and said we would be back in 30-40 mins.    when we came back they had read through the whole thing and wanted us to tell them even more about the Book of mormon.    it was awesome.    unfortunatly the one sister lives way far north so getting her to come to church would be near impossible,    since there is no buses that run on sunday.

They understood so clearly and wanted more.

The person we were going to see was a lady named "MH" . She should be getting baptized this saturday. :)

She is cool! she acts on everything that we teach her! she is awesome!

We are still searching for a family but we met some reeally cool ones. On lady has 8 kids and they want  to come to church so we  might just  double the congregation haha.

hope you have a great week!

Love elder Pierson.

Oh ps they moved the baptismal goal up again this meeting. from 50 baptisms per month to 84 per month!

In Lockdown

SO first off and most importantly one of those contacts my companion had with The Ap is cousins once removed with Kevin Durrant sooooo That is cool. we started teaching her yesterday! and she is awesome! 

But things in the West indies mission are going great! Things are really progressing here! Just 2 years ago the mission baptized 300 people and that was a new thing, more than ever before. This year we are on track and setting the goal to baptize 600 people! soo that is real cool! 

And we are officially and noticably entering into hurricane season! it is starting to rain so much!

I am doing wonderful though. 

Coolest story on the week would have to be ummm well zone conference first of all. it was as always such a spiritual experience.  Also during This conference we had plenty elders from St Lucia here and many stayed in my apartment. They broke a chair, but no scene. anywho we got to teach with them so i went on splits and me and a guy named elder fauchier and his comp elder Vaughn went and taught a lady named "H", She is cool we actually taught her and found out why she wanted to meet with us. Her desire was to Meet with us because she believes that we can help her to gain some faith, and she really wants to be able to have that. 

So It was a good lesson and she is very sincere. 

Its awesome to hear about the indexing challange, Its so cool to see a stake pick up the challenge and just run with it as well as we did with Omni! so im glad they issued another challange. So work hard! i recently found out doing family history is a commandment that we should follow especially if we want to be exalted! 

Oh and good thing you asked about carnival, it is this next monday and tuesday, and the whole town will be locked down. we will probably go to another elders apartment because we live right in the heart of town and apparently another elder went to carnival so they move us now. 

But thanks for the birthday wishes ! its so weird that im gonna be a 19 year old! that age change really changed my life! imagine i could still be home right now preparing for my mission. :0 Crazy! 

Anyways Thanks!

I love you!

Have a Wonderful week!

Elder Pierson

Sore in St. Vincent

Things in St Vincent are going very well. I actually have been extremely sore since I got here. My area I am serving in right now is the worst area in the whole mission as far as amount of hills/mountains and Steepness of Hills/mountains. And I get to hike them all day! Every day! :) 

 

It's actually a lot of fun! And it's going pretty good with Elder Regis. I had gone on trade offs with him before back in St Lucia so I know him pretty well. 

Oh and as far as Elder Bingham, Turns out I cant get away from him haha. We have never been in a different Country since our mission started. The real test will be the next three transfer calls. because I don't think  we will ever be separated! Which is sweet, cause he is an awesome guy! 

 

The Missionaries in this island are amazing! we have two Polynesians and one guy from England so I have a lot of guys who like to play rugby! :) 

 

But I actually know a lot of people here! Many of them have served in St Lucia before. I am Serving in The Kingstown Branch. And yes we have a church owned building. The reason for that is back 25 Years ago The church came into this country and the president wanted to know what he was letting in, So an apostle came and converted him one time! so The church got a legit building. pretty cool I know. It even has a font, so no more ocean baptisms for a while. I'm going to take some pictures so you can see next week. But there are 2 sets of missionaries in Kingstown, 6 in calaqua, and 4 in Georgetown. so there is the Kingstown branch, Calaqua branch and the Georgetown group meeting. 

 

It has been so weird sitting in a legit building with a water fountain haha. weird how i picked the water fountain as the crazy part but its so cool to have one! 

 

Oh Zone Conference was amazing! President Mehr is basically going to be the next Prophet so ya! he talked about how everything we do has consequences and we cannot no matter how bad we want to turn back the clock of time. Also we learned about prioritizing our time by Sister Mehr She used a great anaolgy with stones, pebbles, sand, and water. its a really long story so i will send you a letter! 

 

Anyways zone conference was great! best part was how I found out that "NC's" mom has committed for sure to live the word of wisdom, so that she can get baptised! Whoo!! 

 

It was a good trip even though I had to fly 5 times in 2 days haha. fun times in the west indies mission. 

 

Oh Elder Sheen is serving in Barbados. so he is starting off in the flattest area with one of my absolute favourite missionaries as his zone leader. He will also probably get a car. 

 

Ah so wanna hear a funny story about my new bed? It falls down in the middle of the night sometimes haha, so you could say i downgraded! 

 

Oh and they speak like Jamaicans here :)

But I have not much to report on except the fact that I am doing very well.!

Next week I will have more about my area, once I learn it haha

Anyways I love you very much ! 

 

Have a Great week!

Love Elder Pierson

"S" got baptized! :)

I am doing pretty fantastic! This last week has been an amazing week, with zone conference and a baptism and just so much amazingness ! Anywho yeah I am pretty excited to stay another transfer with Elder Schroeder! He is a really cool guy and knows so much! It's cool how much I have to learn! Oh and I'm pretty sure my mission president will be an apostle soonish haha.

"S" Baptism was amazing! She was so prepared for this! I also really enjoyed by the power of the priesthood confirming someone a member of the Church! And having them recieve the holy ghost! Not gonna lie I was super nervous, but as soon as I started just kinda felt normal, so it was an amazing Sunday!

Oh and also on Sunday I met some tourists who live in Medicine Hat and know uncle Teague and aunt Cheri. So that was pretty cool!

Ok back to President  Mehr being an apostle soon, Zone conference was amazing! We learned so much. I'm really trying to apply what we learned there. Like reading a scripture and then asking a question that helps them search the scripture, then an analyzing question to help them understand what the scripture means and then an apply question to apply it to their life. The best thing I learned other than the deep doctrine was that to be effective we need to help the people realize what they want in life and how what we tell them can help them get there! Oh and st vincent was cool! there are lots of hills and its a beautiful country! and they have a big legit chapel! :0 crazy!!

And yes also for the storm everyone here believes it was God warning the people because they are celebrating the birth of Christ wrong (Alcohol and drugs) anyways yes it really does humble people!

Fast sunday was amazing! We had some great testimonies at church and a quite good attendance! 60 :) Elder Schroeder says the first sunday he spent here there was about 25 people at church.

I've found out the power of fasting while out on my mission. Before I would basically just starve myself. I didn't really have anything I was praying for and I never closed my fasts with a prayer. We teach fasting out here a bit and Elder Schroeder shares a scripture in Isaiah that talks about the blessing of fasting. My favourite is where it says that "the lord will be your rereward". Or in other words rearguard. so rugby analogy now. What a rearguard is, is kind of like a support or extra strength. So imagine somone goes into a ruck and gets Stopped, there is no progression either way. Then a man comes from your team comes in behind and pushes your through. The promise is that when satan opposed us and we could be stopped that the lord will come in and push us through . So I like that one the best. We can't be stopped by the adversary when we are fasting properly! love it!

Anyways this week has been great and eventful. I also got called to repentance by my mission president . I didn't memorize my scripture that I was supposed to by zone conferance.Ii was suposed to memorize 2nd Nephi Ch 2 but I only got about half, but don't worry I'm still working on it! You all should memorize scriptures. You learn so much from the scripture when you memorize it! 

Anywho I love ya!

Elder Pierson!

Loving the Missionary Life

So first of all... I kinda miss the snow. haha I mean I guess it does get cold here when it rains, it drops all the way down to 24 ! Like brrr Freezing! ;) 

Zone Conference was amazing! We had so many missionaries there and we did actually kind of have an army. We and Elder Schroeder split and had lots of appointments so we each took two missionaries with us and went to visit the people! Almost got lost in a place called Bisee but I figured it out. haha

As far as cool P-day activities go so far I have only climed a coconut tree as my cool thing but this week we are all learning the haka so we can teach it to the youth on Saturday and next week we are going ziplining down in Denery. I think the week after that we are going to climb the Petite Piton. Which contrary to its name is not small.. you should google it. It's really cool. Oh and we also sometime are going fishing in the ocean i think so that will be fun. So that's my fun p-day activities.

"M" we didn't have a chance to meet with him again this week which really is unfortunate and he didn't come to church this week but we will visit him a couple times this week and see whats up. But we found so many amazing people and especially two amazing families. We contacted the mother of one and she says that shes Catholic and she isn't sure if its the true church, so she is looking for a good church for her family to be in together! :) yay. And another guy names "R", his family is amazing and he is so knowledgeable in the bible! He quotes scriptures left and right and just knows a lot, He is a little hesitant to believe there is a prophet on the earth today because of misunderstanding a verse of scripture, but we are trying to resolve his concern and have him know the truth ! He is so spiritual so as soon as we clear that concern I have no doubt he will know for sure.

Ah I love being a missionary :)

The size of the branch I'm in always depends on the weather. A good day and there will be 60 if it rains it ends up being like 20-30 so rain is sad.

Go Stampeders!! are they gonna win the Grey Cup?? they better :)

and let me know how the Rams do! 

And yeah I am starting to realize that I'm actually a Poly so I guess I'm just realizing that here. haha 

Yeah Everyone speaks Fluent in Patwa but English is a trouble I guess so who knows maybe we can help them learn more.

Anyways, I will work ! I'm excited to !

Thanks for being amazing! Love you!

Elder Pierson