Happy New Year and Laurel's Baptism!

Happy New Year everyone! Boy has 2018 gone by very quickly indeed. The year really ended with a bang for us though.

Saturday, Sister Laurel was baptized at the chapel. The baptismal service was stellar, one of the best I have been to. The Spirit was very strong for all who were in attendance. Bishop Ali, the man in the picture did the ordinance. At the end of the service there was kind of an unplanned testimony meeting where a bunch of the members stood up and bore their testimonies of the Gospel. It was really great. Laurel and her kids were there, with her boyfriend and sister as well, who are starting to kind of show interest. I know that they felt the Spirit at the service for sure.

One of the spiritual experiences I had was during the baptismal service, well actually, back at home while I was preparing lunch. As I was cutting something, I remembered something Laurel had said at the end of the service. We asked her if there was anything that we could do for her, and she told us "pray for my boyfriend that he will change" She was glad that he was fully supporting her with her decision to be baptized, but she wanted him to change, and to accept the Gospel himself too. I didn't realize it until I was thinking about it during lunch. When the scripture came to mind in 1 Nephi 8:12 where Lehi partook of the fruit of the tree and immediately cast his eyes round about looking for his family, because he desired them to partake of the fruit of the tree. Even though he technically isn't her family (yet), hopefully they ar she instantly after baptism desired him to partake of the fruit of the Gospel too. It was like one of those "Today is this scripture fulfilled in your ears" kinds of moments. I love to see the scriptures fulfilled, for truly it is a fruit whereby we can know its truthfulness. I know this church is true and the Restored Gospel also. I know the Book of Mormon is true!!!

I went on an exchange with Elder Garner on Friday, and they asked me to do a baptismal interview in Spanish for a man named Gustavo who will be baptized in the Port of Spain ward. After not having spoken Spanish for like 2 months now, it took some adjustment for a second, but the interview went really well. He lives with a returned missionary from Venezuela and his family, so afterwards we had some delicious Venezuelan food.

Christmas was wonderful. We went to Elder and Sister Williams apartment to do skype calls and to watch "It's a wonderful life" which President Baird allowed us to watch. The Williams made us Christmas dinner, ham and funeral potatoes. It was just like home. The Williams are the best. Unfortunately we had to be back in the apartment by 6 Christmas eve, Christmas, New Years Eve and New years, because of the much eating drinking and being merry here in the Carribean. haha

Yesterday Elder Hoard and I started teaching a very nice Venezuelan family, who are here working to try to support their families. As well, an investigator we have had for forever, Kizzy, has finally decided to be baptized in January. The situation with her and her boyfriend has been hindering progress for a long time now, and this week he moved out, so that Kizzy and her kids can be baptized. This coming week will be "Aunty Pearl"s baptism. She is a relative of the Relief Society President. Since she lives outside our area the Valsayn Elders have been teaching her after we started teaching her, but since she is going to move her records over to the Arima branch, her baptism will be happening here this next Saturday. We are excited for that too

Have a happy New Year,
Elder Porritt

Laurel's Baptism

Jesus Christ is the Joy of the World!

Merry Christmas everyone!!! Hopefully, All of you back at home are having a snowy white Christmas. One of my favorite things is waking up on Christmas morning to some fresh white snow. Here, I'm hoping for maybe some rain. haha. It has actually been a pretty rainy week for us here, even though we are heading into the dry season, so it's been a blessing. Since we have a car, the rain doesn't really bother us.

Saturday we had another branch Christmas activity for the other Elders branch. We sang Christmas songs and did another Samuel the Lamanite skit to entertain everyone. I have really enjoyed all the Christmas food that has been everywhere we go these last couple of weeks. Some of my favorites are pastels, which are pretty much the same thing as tamales. They only make them around Christmas time though. Around Christmas everybody makes sorrel juice, which is also very delicious.

Larel came to church yesterday and is doing very well. She will be having the interview this week and the baptism should be this Saturday.

Just yesterday we had a spiritual experience. We were teaching a wonderful lady we met a week or so ago on the street. Her name is Dale. She was just walking past the two of us pretty quickly and we felt that we should just kind of yell out to her, after she had kind of already walked past. Before we had even shared anything about the Restoration she was telling us that she wants us to come by her house and talk to her. She is such a humble woman, who has trouble reading since she never went to school when she was younger. Yesterday, the second time that we taught her she told us that she doesn't EVER tell anybody about her reading issue because she's a little embarrassed about it, but she said she felt to trust us. Just two weird American guys that she's talked to for about an hour of total time. How can one have such trust in two strange guys they barely know, unless they are servants of God? She hasn't recognized us as just anybody but as messengers of the truth. She really opened up to us and told us that she has always known that God has something more in store for her, but she is waiting for and praying for it. We testified that this is what she is looking for and that the Restoration is what God has sent her. I'm so thankful that God loves us enough to give us weaknesses so that we can be humble as she is. Humble enough to see our complete dependence on God, It makes me so sad to see so many people that aren't so humble, who shrug off the Restoration, or even revile it. Every day we meet people like that, unfortunately, and so I'm so grateful for the humbling work of weaknesses and equally grateful for the power the Savior has to strengthen those weaknesses if we are willing to not be lifted up in the pride of our hearts. I know that Jesus Christ is our Savior and that he can heal us if we will be humble enough to seek Him. That's what Christmas is about, as well as giving and sharing that knowledge and love with everyone we can.

I hope you all have a very merry Christmas full of joy. Yesterday we had a mission-wide Christmas devotional, so to say. Sister Baird shared some thoughts with us about Joy, which is not the same thing as fun, which is what is often confused in today's world. Jesus Christ is the Joy of the world.

Elder Porritt

I Was Samuel the Lamanite:)

Well Christmas is almost upon us. This Christmas season has been going by really fast. We have a branch and a ward in our gigantic area, so this week we had two Christmas parties back to back on Saturday. The two of us and Elder Garner and Elder Riter, the two other missionaries in our district performed a Christmas skit as part of the programs at both of the activities. We sang 2 songs from the Childrens songbook and talked about the birth of the Savior. When we were talking about Samuel the Lamanite, I stood up on a chair as Samuel as the other missionaries threw things at me. It was a pretty great program. The food was GREAT. After two activities we felt like we were going to explode. In Arima the turnout was really great. There were probably more less-active members than active members that came, and Larel, her boyfriend, and the kids were able to make it, as well as a few other investigators. So it was a pretty great experience. It's amazing to see the unifying effect of having activities in the church.

The start of the transfer has been pretty good so far. We have been trying out some different areas to find new people in, and we've had some pretty good experiences. Two days ago, we were contacting at like 8:30 after a lesson fell through (which is the worst time to contact unfortunately), We were able to catch this guy and his family right as they got home. They were Muslims, and they were very nice, and open to hear more about the Restoration. We were about to leave, but they wouldn't let us leave without giving us some pizza that they had just ordered. So we each left with two pieces of pizza in hand, which took care of having dinner.

While we were testing out a few different areas that we wanted to contact, we found ourselves in Greenville, one of the areas that got like 6 feet of water in the flood 2 months ago here in Trinidad. That was actually pretty fortunate, because some areas nearby got up to 12 feet of water. There were people in those areas sleeping on their roofs for the night. We actually decided not to contact this area, because most everybody was working on putting in new tiles and fixing their houses otherwise, and so nobody had time for us. However we tried a few houses as we walked the streets. As we walked we felt like we should approach this one house with an open door. We hadn't tried any other houses on this street, and this would be the only one. We called in and met this young couple with a newborn child. We shared a little bit about the Restoration and they were instantly interested. They told us they would love for us to come back, even though there house is a mess and they are trying to install tile. It was pretty much the last street that we were going to go down before we left the area to go try somewhere else. Even though we decided that this was the wrong area, I thought, maybe this was the whole reason that we had been lead here to look around in this area. We should be going back this coming week, so we will see how it goes.

Anyone who will be involved with the Skype call will want to prepare questions beforehand if they have any, because I will have exactly 45 minutes.

Have a jolly week!
Elder Porritt

Laurel is Progressing Really Well

We got our transfer calls this last Saturday. Elder Hoard and I will be staying together here in Arima for the next 6 weeks. It should be a really good transfer. We are really excited for Christmas this year.

The best thing that happened this week was a referral we received from a less-active member. She referred us to her cousin who lives right next door. We went over and taught her and her husband and their 4 young children. They are a wonderful family, who are religious people. We have good hopes for them. Her nephew, actually, is a returned missionary from the branch, who we are hoping will be able to teach them with us.

Laruel is still progressing really well and preparing herself for the 29th. This week we taught her about the Gospel of Jesus Christ, which went great. We were really sad when she didn't make it to sacrament meeting yesterday, but we were sitting in Sunday school when she and her kids walked in. She seems to be making friends really fast with the Relief Society women.

There isn't much else to say about this week. It was really short. Transfers weren't super eventful. There's only one missionary who changed areas here in Trinidad. However the missionary that will be coming up from Guyana is my MTC companion who I haven't seen for 15 months now. We are hoping that in the next couple of transfers we will get a whole bunch of new missionaries so that we can open up some new areas here, since all the areas are HUGE. There was once about 50 missionaries in Trinidad and now there are 8.

Have a great week!

Elder Porritt

Praying as a mission for a "White Christmas"

Wow, it is already December. Christmas is now only 22 days away. This coming month is going to be exciting. We have been praying as a mission to be able to have a white Christmas. Obviously not snow haha, but some rain would suffice, but rather a Christmas with some people dressed in white. I can't think of any better time to make the decision to follow Jesus Christ than during the Christmas season when we celebrate His birth.

This week was better than last week, although we have been struggling to find new investigators. At the start of the transfer, we contacted a woman named Larell, Who we have been teaching on and off. This week she had a spiritual experience reading the Book of Mormon and praying about it, and she accepted a date for the 29th of December, so we are praying that she will be part of the white Christmas this year. That was such a spiritual lesson, talking about our purpose here on earth, which is something that she has wondered her whole life and never really felt that it had been answered before.

One of my spiritual experiences this week happened this week during contacting. We passed this house that looked like it was going to be difficult to contact. Big huge fence, house set back really far, really big mean dogs, but we called in and were able to talk to a lady who had some kids.I would say for sure that one of my favorite parts about missionary work is meeting people who ask us those "questions of the soul", who just are searching for them, but they don't know where to look. We all have them, and there are certain things that we all naturally want to have answered in our lives, but it's difficult to discern those questions every time we contact someone. She told us right off the bat, when we asked her if she is a religious person; "I don't really know what God expects of me" I always have to restrain myself from not shouting out WE HAVE THE ANSWERS or something like that haha, because I know that if they will listen to us and read from the Book of Mormon that they WILL find those answers. That's why it is so exciting for me to talk to people like this. They are humble and open that they don't have all the answers to the questions in their lives and they are searching diligently for them. We left her with a Book of Mormon and to read Alma 34. We haven't gotten in contact again with her yet, but we will this week, and I'm excited how reading that chapter went for her. I know that the Book of Mormon contains the answers to the questions of our souls, it has answered so many of the questions that I have had in the exact moments that I have studied it. I know those people are out there, even though they are difficult to find sometimes haha.

Everyone have a great week!
Elder Porritt

Well this has got to be one of the most extravagent things I've ever seen so far on the mission. This man has a baby monkey in a diaper on a golden chain.