Beauty of the Island Skys

Hello everyone! The transfer is already halfway over now, and it doesn't feel like I have been with my companion for all that long. We are doing great, and having a lot of fun. 

This was actually a pretty great week. We met probably like 3-4 new families this week contacting in this new area who were interested in us coming back and sharing our message. We haven't been able to go back and teach any of them yet, but we are excited to. One of the families is a big huge family of 7th day adventists, which is a pretty big church, here in the Caribbean, but the are like pretty much pastor and wife. haha They have Bible studies at their house every week, but they wanted to hear what we had to share with them, so it should be interesting when we are able to sit down with them.

We had teaching visits with the APs this last Saturday, I taught with Elder Marks who is from Idaho. But we had 3 awesome lessons, one of them being Nelson. We went over and taught him about the Gift of the Holy Ghost and enduring to the end, and he understood it just PERFECTLY. There were so many inspired things that he said, and the Spirit was really guiding him when he answered our questions. We asked him what are some of the blessings of enduring to the end, and he said that ultimately it is to "have eternal life, in the Celestial Kingdom." It was really cool to see him put the Plan of Salvation, which we had taught him already, and the Gospel of Jesus Christ, together in his mind, so that it all made sense to him. I would say that was the second best lesson I've ever had with him so far. We also talked a lot about his baptismal date, which he is very excited for. He knows that this is the path that God wants him to follow, and asks God to "Let me know" if this is the wrong path as he follows it, which shows how much faith he has. He also came to church for the second time yesterday. 

One of our other investigators, Theodora, who we have been visiting for a while now, is doing great. She is supposed to have an eye surgery tomorrow. She has told us like a million times now that she wants to get baptized, but not until after she has had this surgery, so that she can read the Book of Mormon. She promised us that she would set a baptismal date after she gets this surgery, which we are hoping to set somewhere at the end of September since we have already taught her a bunch. 

Otherwise, this week, again, has gone by very very fast.

Have a great week!

Elder Porritt

Everyday I'm amazed by the beauty of the sky on these islands.

Chocolate Birthday Cake!

Ya my birthday was pretty alright here. I really enjoyed the chocolate cake that Sister Parr made. It was pretty great.

This week was just another average week, not a whole lot of extraordinary things happened. We are doing good and feeling good. To be honest I haven't really ever gotten sick on my whole mission so far. It's been pretty nice. Knock on wood. Other than a few coughs and upset stomachs. 

Well have a great week!

Love,

Elder Porritt

Service for Nelson

Well this week was a little bit slow. Not a bad week, but a kind of uneventful one. 

Things are still going really good with Nelson this week. We are going to go do some service for him in his yard this coming week, so that he won't have to do that on SUNDAY, because he has a bunch of things to get done in his yard. He is progressing really well, and we just started talking about the Gospel of Jesus Christ this week. He is still excited for his baptism coming up in the near future as well. 

On Saturday we had an Elders Quorum activity for the branch. Sometimes its kind of tough to schedule activities like this because of everyone's work, but a bunch of people showed up and it was pretty sweet. We even brought Nelson along with us, even though he has only been to church once, he was excited to come with us and get to know more of the members of the branch. We watched the sunrise over Curacao from the top of a hill, had a nice breakfast and we got to introduce Nelson to a bunch of the members. Afterwards we went and cleaned the church as well. Unfortunately Nelson wasn't able to come to church yesterday, but he was able to make friends with some of the members of the elders quorum, and will be coming to church next week!

Otherwise than than that, the time really flew by this week. Elder Bigelow is doing great. He is learning the language and he is participating well in the lessons, and is having a great time. He has a hard working attitude. Especially looking back at when I very first got to the mission and had to learn 2 languages and it was hard to find the drive sometimes to work as hard as you can. We are doing great having success, and having a lot of fun doing it.

Elder Porritt

Training my New Son & My 20th Birthday!!

Good afternoon everyone! 

Well my new companion is here safe and sound. Elder Bigelow is a brand new missionary just out of the DR MTC, so he speaks Spanish somewhat already, but he has much to learn, including Papiamento. haha. I've never taught someone a language before, but I guess we will see how it goes. He is from Syracuse Utah, and went Nuames High School in Layton. 

Our week was pretty great. It's been pretty interesting. In this area we teach about 50/50 Papiamento and Spanish, so its been tough for my companion, but he is catching on really fast to the language. He's a really hardworking missionary and is really excited to go out the door everyday.

We had two just awesome lessons with Nelson this week, and he came to church on Sunday!!! He had a really great experience, and the members here are really good at fellowshipping investigators that come to church, so he already has made friends with a bunch of members.    

A spiritual experience we had this week was when we taught Nelson about the Plan of Salvation. He understood already pretty well, and openly accepted what we taught him about what happens to us after we die, We asked him what he needs to do to return to live with God again. He said "We have to do more than we are now, to reach there." I thought it was a very inspired answer, where most people would give what we sometimes call "Primary answers" like "keep the commandments" or "read your scriptures" which is what you get from a lo of investigators. He realized, however, that exaltation requires CHANGE. It requires progression and becoming more like the Savior through learning from mistakes, and repenting and partaking of the Sacrament, and exercising the Atonement of Jesus Christ in our lives. This reminds me of a devotional given once by Brad Wilcox I believe. I think it was a BYU devotional. He talked about grace and its power to "save us after all we can do", and also its ability to help us in our day to day lives. But he referenced 3 Nephi 27:19 that says "No unclean thing can enter the presence of God", and he added, no "unchanged" thing can enter into His presence either. And that is so true. We have to constantly change our lives to align them with the will of God, and "Never stop becoming" as President Egbert would always say. 

We didn't email yesterday because we had Zone Conference. There are too many things that I learned to mention, but we studied Chapter 4 of Preach my Gospel, and talked about the role of the Spirit in missionary work, which is the MOST important thing. Without the Spirit there is no such thing as conversion. No matter the passion or conviction of any mans words, there cannot be true conversion and a "Change of heart" without the Spirit. We listened to a small broadcast, where Elder Bednar taught a small group of missionaries about the importance of the Spirit in missionary work, and holy cow Elder Bednar is a MASTER teacher. I learned a whole host of things just observing his teaching skills, aside from what he even taught about. But it was an awesome Zone Conference and I wish I had more time to talk about it. 

Well have a great week!!!

Elder Porritt

Mom,

Well now I'm 20 and I feel really weird about it. That sounds kind of old to me. haha. I had a pretty good birthday. I opened my package a few days before, because it came in last Monday. I really had some good laughs with all the stuff that was in there. On Saturday we got to go proselyting and that's about all that happened. haha, but it was a good day. Thanks for the package and everything

Well I don't have a lot of time, but thank you for everything that you do, and for all the updates of stuff back at home. I hope it cools down a little bit back at home, unfortunately August is also the hottest month of the year down here to, so it has been steamy.

Have a great week!

From Sister Baird

Parents of Elders Bigelow, Porritt, Jackson, Weis, Richards and Marks

We had a zone conference today and so P-Day has been changed until tomorrow.  I just wanted to let you know so that you didn't worry.  Being a mom of missionaries I know it can be a concern when you don't hear from them.  Attached find a few pictures, we had a wonderful day with them.

Love,

Sister Baird