Thanksgiving Turkey Bowl

WOW! My first transfer is already over! It ended yesterday and my father Elder Vance will be leaving me to go to Trinidad, and later today I will be meeting my mother Elder Correia. I think that Elder Correia has been out for like a year and half now or something. I had the opportunity to talk to him a little bit at the Turkey Bowl this week. He seems like a really cool guy.

Well I think the highlight of this week had to be Thanksgiving, even though we didn't really do any missionary work... But Thanksgiving was a BLAST. We left in the morning and it was pretty sunshiny, but by the time we got to the park it was pouring rain and it had been for some time. It lightened up and the field was flooded, but that didn't stop us one bit. We went ahead and had the turkey bowl anyways even though the field was just a huge puddle. There were 4 teams and two fields. We won't likely be having the turkey bowl next year because we had some injuries... About 15 minutes into the first game an Elder on the other field broke his arm when he went down and tried to catch himself. We made him a makeshift splint and loaded him up in the senior couples car. We still continued to play though. My team took the crown, mainly because everyone on our team was HUGE haha. After that we went to the chapel and had Thanksgiving dinner. The senior couples made a DELICIOUS dinner and we had pumpkin pie and it was just wonderful.

Otherwise this week has been very average. The Smith family didn't get baptized yet. Sister Smith has felt really sick and stressed out about her husband and kids in the bush at the gold mine. She is still waiting for him to call to talk to him about getting baptized, I guess she hasn't talked to him about it yet and she's not sure what he is going to think about it. But hopefully he will call this week, then they can have their interviews and such, and maybe get baptized this Saturday or the next. We didn't have hardly any investigators at church yesterday which was a little frustrating, because we have like 7 investigators with baptismal dates and none of them came to church...

But otherwise everything is going great here. I am really enjoying the work. This church is the only true church on the earth, and the only one with the proper Priesthood authority. Keep reading the Book of Mormon everyday. There is such an amazing power in the Book of Mormon.

Everyone have a good week!

Elder Porritt

Here's Mom and Pops

Transfers!!

Hello everyone!!! This week coming up is the last week of this transfer. Our last day will be this coming Sunday, and transfers will happen in the following few days. These five weeks have been really great,  we have had some pretty good success, people here are really receptive to the Gospel, they just don't like following up on commitments or coming to church much... but thats ok, everywhere has its challenges as far as investigators. On Saturday we received our transfer calls from the APs...... And I am staying in Parika this coming transfer, but I will be getting a new companion. My father Elder Vance will be transferred back to Trinidad for his last transfer before he goes home. I kind of wanted to be his companion for his last transfer, but that's ok. My new companion (My Mother) will be Elder Correa. I have only heard good things about him, so I think he will be a great Elder. He is from Canada and has been out for a little over a year I think. But I think that we will get along just great. He has an insanely deep voice, probably the deepest voice I've ever heard. (Other than Dennis Burt of course).

The highlight of this week was Shenia and Crystel Smith's baptism this Saturday. Shenia is 14 and Crystel is 11. We had to take about an hour bus ride to the La Grange chapel where the baptismal font is. The service was AWESOME. We had two great talks by some of the members of our Parika unit, and the baptisms were just great. Brother Mohammed one of our Melchizedek Priesthood holders baptized the two of them. We had to keep helping him say the words right like 5 times in a row haha, but he finally got it. For some reason they didn't bear their testimonies during the service, so on Sunday they had the opportunity to bear their testimonies during sacrament meeting. These two girls have GREAT testimonies and I felt the Spirit very strongly while they bore them. They are very excited to go to the temple and to be baptized for their grandmother one day.

We also have another Smith family that we have been teaching forever, and they have been very iffy about getting baptized but finally this week they committed to do it. We have been teaching the mother and her three daughters, and their interviews will be this Tuesday, and their baptisms on Saturday. Her husband and two of her three sons work in the bush, so maybe we will have the opportunity to teach them one day.

This Thursday we will be having THE TURKEY BOWL for Thanksgiving!!! I don't know how the Teaching Assistants convinced President Egbert to let us play flag football, but nonetheless they did. I think we are also going to eat Thanksgiving Dinner with the Frys or the O'Dairs, I'm not sure.

Everyone have a great week

Elder Porritt

Left to right Shenia, Crystal, Brother Mohammed

People in Guyana don't smile in pictures... It's really weird. 

Zone Conference Pictures

Denethor, Our Mouse Friend

Hello everyone!!! I hope everyone is having a great week. This week has gone by pretty fast, its pretty crazy. All is well here in our area, we have taught a lot of really good lessons this week, and our investigators are progressing.

We didn't actually end up having the baptisms this week, they are actually supposed to happen this Saturday, because we haven't taught them all of the lessons quite yet. They will have their interviews on Tuesday, and we will be finishing all the lessons on Wednesday and Friday. Also yesterday we went over the baptismal questions with the three of them. (Sister Smith is not married yet, so she can't be baptized until she does) :( And Rick told us unexpectedly that he is not ready to be baptized on Saturday, because he has something to straighten out in his life, but hopefully we can get that resolved in the next little while. So on Saturday, Shenia and Crystal will be baptized. Vinod and Natatsha's date had to be pushed back a while, among a few others whos dates were pushed back.

We had a lot of our investigators and members at church this week, which was great, but about 70 percent of them were so late they missed the sacrament. Everybody here runs on Guyana time, which is 20-30 minutes late to EVERYTHING. But the rest of the meeting, and Sunday school was GREAT. We don't have the third our of church yet, because we still aren't a branch yet, but I think we will as soon as Rick is able to receive the Melchizedek Priesthood. That would put us at five active tithe paying Melchizedek Priesthood holders, because we just had a Melchizedek Priesthood holder move to the area. His name is Anthony, and he was at church yesterday. He is a great guy. 

My spiritual experience this week came from studying in 1 Nephi 22, where Nephi is explaining Isaiah 48 and 49 to his brothers. It is amazing the prophecies that he and Isaiah made about the establishing of the United States on the American continent, and of the Restoration of the Gospel, which will be brought to all ends of the earth. To the seed of Nephi and his brothers, to the Gentiles, and to the tribes of Israel. I really learned a lot from that chapter. You should all go and study it, it is a GREAT chapter.

Good luck to everyone and keep working hard and doing what's right.

Elder Porritt

Typical study snack

This is our good friend Denethor. He was in our garbage and we trapped him and scared him into this bottle. RIP Denethor

Elder Vance and Denethor 

Every Member A Missionary!

Wow, this week has flown by super fast! It feels like P-day was not all that long ago. It also feels crazy that I'm already halfway through this transfer. We are doing great here in Parika, things are looking good. We have a couple of baptisms coming up in the next two weeks. We have the Smith family, sister Smith, the mother, and 3 of her kids, Rick who is 18, Shaniah is 14, and Crystal is 11. All of them are excited to get baptized this coming Saturday as long as we are able to make it over to their house and finish all the lessons we have left in time. The following Saturday is the date for the Singh family, Vinod and his wife Natasha. They are having a few marriage issues, but I think if they are able to iron them out this week they will be able to be baptized. 

Well the highlight of this week was ZONE CONFERENCE. Elder Alonzo and his wife, and President Egbert and his wife taught us about the Book of Mormon. It was so awesome. We had a lot of discussion on how better to teach the Book of Mormon lesson to our investigators in a simple way that they can understand, and of the converting power of it. Our Teaching Assistants (We have 8 Assistants in the mission, because there are 6 countries and it is basically impossible for the Assistants to the President to fly everywhere with the Egberts) Elder White and Elder Riggs taught a practice lesson of the Book of Mormon to a senior couple who were acting as investigators. It was great! Also we got a new senior couple over our district. Elder and Sister O'Dair from Arizona.

Elder Vance and I had the opportunity to give two Priesthood blessings this week. We had a contact who wondered if we could bless her daughter who had autism, and Elder Vance gave her a blessing. I had the opportunity for the first time to bless an old man who was a members father, who was going blind from bad cataracts. It was really cool to be able to bless him by speaking through the Spirit. Also Elder Vance and I were able to teach a fireside to our group who is almost a branch. (We just need one more tithing paying Melchizedek Priesthood holder to become a branch). We had about 20 members show up, and we taught them about the importance of MEMBER MISSIONARY WORK. Our work is not nearly as effective as it would be with the help of the members. They are so important

Well good luck to everyone and remember the every member is a missionary!!!

Elder Porritt