Elder Porritt -- Trinidad Port of Spain: Elder Soares comes to the Trinidad Port of Spain Mission!

Good afternoon everyone! Well, afternoon here. We just got back from our Zone Activity. This transfer we hiked up to Moracas Falls, which like a 150 foot waterfall maybe. Here in northern Trinidad are the only mountain range in the mission really, so there are some pretty cool hikes. So the 8 of us plus President and Sister Baird made the trek. The mountains are really beautiful and green kind of like a jungle. We didn't run into any alligators or snakes, though we saw some cool frogs. I will send some pictures.

Samanthas' baptismal service was great, really felt the Spirit. She was really nervous about it like everything else, and the water was really cold which she didn't like. haha. She was baptized by her older brother who has pretty much baptized everyone in his family who has joined the church so far. We are going to start teaching some of the other ones now.

Thursday there was a stake devotional presided by, no other than Elder Soares. The stake center was filled to the brim, and all of us missionaries had to give up our seats and stand in the back with like 50 other people who got there too late to find a seat. Elder and Sister Gonzales of the 70, were also there and spoke, followed by Elder and Sister Soares.

I have been privileged to go to General Conference once, but I don't remember much about it. Certainly then I didn't understand the significance of living day prophets fully yet. Thus, at the Stake Devotional it was a wonderful opportunity to listen to Elder Soares speak, especially to hear him bear his testimony. I really really loved his talk about having faith in promises made and following the council that has been given us in the last year, but I especially felt the Spirit when he bore his testimony. It was the same thing that I felt when listening to President Nelson bear his testimony during the broadcast in the Salt Lake temple. It was as the scripture says "I will cause your bosom to burn within you." That perfectly describes what I was able to feel. I can say that I know that he is one of Gods Apostles, and I can definitely say that President Nelson is Gods chief Apostle and Prophet in these last days.

The following day we, along with Elder and Sister Williams, Elder and Sister Weeks, and Sister Atkins (local service missionary) were priveliged to have a special missionary meeting with Elder and Sister Gonzales, Elder and Sister Soares, and President and Sister Baird, right before Zone Conference which started right after. Elder Soares spoke for about 20 minutes followed by about an hour of questions from us. Elder Soares would let President and Sister Baird and Elder and Sister Gonzales answer our questions first, and then he would add in the things that he wants after that. It was an amazing experience.The Spirit was very strong. Elder Soares shared some cool personal experiences from his mission about how the Lord blessed him for his diligent effort after 30 and 35 and 40 years down the road, meeting people which he didn't realize he had had such an effect on, and things like that. Afterwards we were able to shake his hand again and give him a big hug and sent them off to the airport.

Zone Conference was shortened just a little bit because of this meeting but was also great. Something that Elder Soares talked about, and we proceeded to talk about in Zone Conference was what President Nelson had talked about in conference last Easter I think, about recieving personal revelation. Something Elder Christofferson had said was that God is not offended if we stop praying to write something down. I had always kind of seen prayer as like a payphone call. You can't put down the phone. But you can with prayer. Infact, God expects us to write down the ideas that come to our hearts and minds as we pray. That is something that I am going to try doing this week.

This is the last week of the transfer. Things are flying by quickly. I love being a missionary.

Elder Porritt

Elder Soares in Trinidad