We Had A...."4th Floor, Last Door", Experience!

Hello everyone!!! Arima has done really well this week. Elder Raymond and I spent a good amount of time contacting and we've met some really cool new people. Yesterday we were out in Sangre Grande and we met a really interested Venezuelan family. It was pretty nice to be able to speak Spanish again! Thankfully there is a local service missionary here in Trinidad that is working in Sangre Grande, she is originally from Venezuela and will be able to help us teach them, since my companion is an English missionary.

Elder Raymond and I were contacting on Saturday at this apartment building in a pretty new part of town in Arima. As we were walking up the stairs we joked, "Maybe we will have a 4th floor last door experience today" considering these apartments were 4 stories high. I guess God heard what we said, because about 10 minutes before we were about to leave for the day, we knocked on a door of a single mom and her two children. She had been having a REALLY bad week, with a very difficult job, as we talked she told us that she had recently gone through some paralyzingly difficult trials, as well she was really concerned for her wayward son, and needed someone to help teach him what is right. She was captivated by the idea of the Restoration, and had been searching for something more in life for a while now. She works everyday from dawn until dusk except Saturday evenings, (Which normally we ALWAYS have appointments during that time), so it was a miracle we found her at home, RIGHT after she got home from work, which was right before we were about to leave for the day. It was a heaven sent miracle indeed. We are excited to go back and teach her family. There were about 8 other apartment buildings we could have tried contacting that day, but this was the one we needed to be at. God really is there and is guiding us if we are willing to let Him do so. This little village is FULL of families. We ran out of all the Family Proclamation pamphlets we had about halfway through the day. We also met an interesting lady named Joyce. Joyce is from Trinidad, but used to work at a hospital in New York City before she retired. She had gone to church in New York for a long time, but since moving back to Trinidad at retirement she stopped coming, because she didn't know the church was in Trinidad. We told her where the chapel is in Arima and she said she was going to come with a bunch of her friends.

On Thursday we were in Sangre Grande and were able to meet with Wendy. We taught her about the Plan of Salvation which really brought the Spirit. She has already recieved such comfort from the Plan of Salvation having learned about it from Mormon Channel over the last 3 years. She committed to be baptized on the 6th of April, in between sessions of General Conference. It's going to be really exciting.

In Arima we have a woman named Afeesha on date to be baptized the 13th. Her and her husband were coming to church this Sunday with one of their friends who drove them since they don't have their own car. But instead of taking them to the chapel he took them to HIS church instead. haha. This week we are going to have one of the members take them instead to say the least.

Zone Conference on Wednesday was wonderful. This transfer we had it at the Williams apartment, so we could Skype the senior couple in Tobago.

This coming week is looking really exciting. The work of the Lord is moving forward!

Have a great week!
Elder Porritt

President Baird

This is THE ARK OF TRINIDAD. haha. It right next to the old mission home, just don't try to steady it....

Most Members in Trinidad are 1st Generation Members

This was a really good week. We decided this week that we would start going out to Sangre Grande twice a week to see our investigators out there. Pretty much we have to drive out there as early as possible and stay there the entire day so that we don't have to spend so much time traveling. On Thursday we went to see Wendy and her family again. We brought the Bishop and his wife with us. Bishop and Sister Christoffer, from Sangre Grande. They helped us teach them the Restoration, and shared their testimony of the truthfulness of it. Pretty much all the members in Trinidad are 1st generation members of the church; converts. I always love hearing the stories of how they received answers and recognized the truth. This time Ricky and Justin weren't there, but before we started her daughter-in-law Cillia and grandson Ishmael showed up and sat with us for the whole lesson about the Restoration and the Book of Mormon. We gave them all copies of the Book of Mormon and invited them to read it and pray about it. This next week Wendy is going to inviter her sister to come join us, so that will be a total of 6 people we have met at that house hold. Wendy accepted to invitation to be baptized, probably either General Conference weekend or the weekend after. We are hoping the many more of her family members will also make the decision to be baptized on that day. Things are going pretty great in Sangre Grande.

Back in Arima we have been working a lot more with the branch missionaries. There are actually 14 branch missionaries and we are on a mission to go find them all and unite us all together at the branch missionary coordination meeting every Wednesday. Along with the missionary fireside that is going to happen at the end of the month with the stake president, we are hoping to get everyone excited about missionary work.

This last Sunday was Stake Conference. We weren't able to get any investigators out to it, because it's kind of far away from Arima, in Port of Spain. The conference was really great though. We heard from the Stake Presidency, the Patriarch, and a 70 from the DR, who spoke to us in spanish with a translator.

That's about all that happened this week. Things are moving forward pretty well here in Arima. It's exciting.

Elder Porritt

Moving Back to Arima!

Moving back over to Arima, wasn't too hard this week. It didn't take long to feel at home again after having served here for 3 months. Things really have started off with a bang in the area. Just before I got here Elder Hoard and Elder Raymond contacted a woman named Wendy. Wendy is not a member, nor any of her family and have barely seen the missionaries before, but she has been watching videos on the Mormon Channel for YEARS now. Some of the videos there helped her and her family make it through some really tough times in the past. Her son Ricky was given a copy of the Book of Mormon back in 1995 by one of the members and he has been reading it ever since. He was quoting scriptures from the Book of Mormon like he's been a member for years (But they're not). It's pretty crazy. They want to be baptized either at the end of March or the beginning of April. Yesterday we taught her, her son, and grandson, and hopefully, we will get some more of them to join on Thursday when we go back because there are more people in the house. God is truly working miracles.

We live in Arima, but we have been working a lot more recently in Sangre Grande which is the other ward that we are over. It's about a 25-minute drive away, which kind of makes things difficult, but we are finding a lot more people there that are interested.

This week the members of the branch painted the house of Sister Budram, a lady from the branch. Since everyone in Trinidad is pretty short they made me climb up on the ladder with the roller to paint the very top of the wall. haha. Afterwards, we had some of Sister Budrams chicken roti, which was delicious.

Well the Lord is hastening the work and we are really excited about the next 5 weeks and what is to come. We are planning, also, a big missionary fireside for the Arima and Curepe units at the end of this month. The members are going to be really excited about missionary work and the work will move forward even faster

Have a great week!
Elder Porritt

Service for Sister Budram

It pays to Be Tall haha

Transfers..Back to Arima

Hello everyone. Transfers have come again. I will be staying in Trinidad for another 6 weeks, but I will be going back to Arima again to be companions with Elder Raymond. Elder Raymond has been out about 10 months and is from South Carolina. Should be a really exciting transfer, and I will get to see some familiar people again.

We had some great experiences this week. There were a few members that introduced us to some of their friends this week, which have a lot of potential and have greatly added to our teaching pool. Also there is this guy that we are teaching named Derek for the last 4 or 5 weeks. This week we talked a little bit about our life on earth and what we need to do in this life to prepare to meet God. We were talking about baptism, which he has already done in another church. When we told him that somethings have been taken out of the Bible about baptism like covenants for instance he was really struck. We read Mosiah 18 with him and explained that when we are baptized by priesthood authority we make certain covenants with God to serve Him until the end of our lives. I could see that he felt something the Spirit. Thats one of my favorite things about missionary work is to see people feel the Spirit. He could clearly see now that there is a difference with this church and the other churches, and sees that he needs to ask God of these things are true from the Book of Mormon.  He keeps telling us, "There is something out there that I'm looking for," and we assured him that this is it.

On the other hand we also ran into a lot of opposition this last week. There were a lot of people we found with anti church feelings that wanted to tear it down and things like that. This situation happened on several different occasions this week. I kept thinking upon what we learn from the Book of Mormon in the Book of Jacob about looking beyond the mark. There are many who will reject the simple truths of the Gospel and will be given things that they don't understand. But what is most important is to understand the simple truths first, so that we can look at all things with a background of faith. Yesterday we met a guy who know a lot about the church, and said he had a Book of Mormon. Of course we asked him "Have you read it" and of course he said "I have gone through parts of it" (Which when you have been a missionary for 18 months you know that means that they haven't read diddly squat)... We told him that all of his questions can be answered if he can answer the question of whether the Book of Mormon is true through PRAYER rather than science. Its kind of like what President Oaks said a few general conferences ago about where we gather our information, and what many don't understand is the first place we should go is to the Fountain of all knowledge which is God.  I don't really care what science, or anti-church writers, or whoever says, because they are wrong, because I know without doubt that the Book of Mormon is true through the whisperings of the Holy Ghost and its teachings have expanded my whole soul and grown within me. 

Today and tomorrow is the infamous Carnival in Trinidad. Needless to say we aren't allowed to go outside for the next two days to wait for everything to end. Looks like we are going to get to do a lot of cleaning. haha

Have a great week!!!

Elder Porritt

Driver's Licenses!  Looking Like the FBI haha