Hello everyone! We just got back from our district activity going to Maracas Falls. This is the second time I have been there, but that waterfall is beautiful and so is the hike. Strangely, there wasn't as much water coming off of it as the time before, even though it has been raining constantly this whole week, even during the hike. We had some cool T-shirts made for the activity. I will send some pictures.
This week we had a special treat. President and Sister Baird were coming through Trinidad and had a layover. Kind of as celebration for how well this mission is doing. The Bairds came through to have pizza and watch a movie with all the areas of the mission. So on Tuesday we had the zone together at the Williams apartment and we watched Secondhand Lions. It was a blast.
Nobody showed up to church this week, which was pretty disappointing. We were expecting a bunch of different people at church. There was, however, a less active young man, who came to church again this week. His name is Jonathon. He lives out in the mountains of Port of Spain. Luckily we have an SUV, which was a good thing, because I don't think we would have been able to make it up there in a regular car. He just recently decided to start coming back to church, and we are hoping to start working with him to help him prepare for a mission.
We started teaching a couple of new individuals and families that we found these last 2 weeks. Most of the promising people that we find are either referrals or people we meet in random and unexpected ways. That's kinda how God does it. There are people all around us that pass us everywhere that we go, that might be searching for the truth. You never know where you will find them.
Nothing much else for the week. Kind of a slow one. We are going by to see Gopall today. We're going to have to move his baptismal date farther into the future.
Have a great week!
Elder Porritt
Happy Fathers day everyone!!! Our Fathers day week was a little bit slow, but not too bad. We are working hard and love the work though.
We weren't able to meet with most of our progressing investigators this week unfortunately. Many of them were busy with plans for Fathers day, and other stuff. Also, Carlos was sick this week, so we only got to see them once at the very beginning of the week.
We worked with Gopall on the commandments this week. He just loves learning about the Gospel. Unfortunately he is still having a lot of sickness, which kept him from coming to church again this Sunday. He is really excited about being baptized though, now he just needs to make a full recovery and become fully functional with his medication.
This week I finished reading the New Testament in personal study. After now having read the Book of Mormon several times over, it is a whole lot easier to understand what the Bible teaches and see how powerful the two of them are together. If I were to sum up what I have learned from reading the New Testament it would be that Jesus Christ is our perfect example in EVERYTHING, that he spoke to prophets and apostles back then, and he still continues to do so today. The church is true, and it is the same church as that of the Savior 2000 years ago. He is the Savior and Redeemer. I am so grateful that God has given us so much direction from the Standard Works, and through modern day prophet, even when that direction might run contrary to that which we might think. I know that God speaks today!!!
Have a great week!
Elder Porritt
RAIN!!
This week we had an OUTSTANDING Zone Conference. We talked a lot about loving the people and serving out of love for them and love for God. We also talked a lot about how our mission has now been selected to have smartphones. There was a lot of training and is still a lot of training that all the missionaries will have to go through, which I'm honestly not super excited for since that will all be happening next transfer, which will be my last. But I will say that smartphones and social media are going to GREATLY hasten the work here in the mission. I will just be getting used to that 6 weeks before going home. Elder Stott and I per usual were President and Sister Bairds' chauffeurs, and their hotel is all the way in Port of Spain, so we got a little bit less proselyting time this week.
Tuesday we called up Gopall to see how he was doing. Last week he had gone to the hospital because of this new medication that he has been given that is giving him a bunch of side effects, and this week he was very sick in bed. He wanted us to give him a blessing, so we went by Tuesday morning. We got there and he didn't have enough strength to sit up at all. He didn't look good at all. We gave him a blessing as he laid in bed and he asked us to read something from the Book of Mormon to him, which made him feel better. He told us to come back on Saturday. When we came by on Saturday he came out the door with a bounce in his step, looking a thousand times better than he did when we saw him on Tuesday. He then told us about how that night after we gave him the blessing he had a perfect nights sleep in contrast to the all the nights for the past week he hadn't been able to sleep well, and when he did he would have nightmares. Then he told us that the next morning he got right up out of bed almost as good as normal and had felt really good for the last 4 days straight even though he was still taking the medication. I've never seen anything quite like it before. It was a true miracle. Now he has decided to be baptized on the 29th of June. I am so thankful for a merciful Father in Heaven and His Son Jesus Christ who love us and want to heal us physically and spiritually. They are there! And Gods power and authority are on the earth today!
Carlos and Barbara are doing pretty well. This week they finally were able to finish up the Trinidad immigration stuff, and yesterday we talked about marriage and eternal families in preparation for baptism. They are making pretty good progress
This time around President Baird brought his two baseball gloves with him to Trinidad, so after our Zone Conference interviews we played a little bit of catch, which is the first time I have done that in 21 months. Unfortunately, my camera was dead so I didn't get any pictures. :(
Things are moving quickly here in Trindad, we are excited about the next couple of weeks!
Elder Porritt
This week was transfer week, which means that we had a lot of different Elders to pick up from and drop off at the airport. Monday morning we had Elder Weiss come in to stay for a day to catch his flight to Curacao. He was fortunate to be here, because that night Elder and Sister Williams fed us RIBS, and invited some less active members over as well so we could talk to them. The next morning we woke up at 5:30 and took him all the way to the airport to find out that his flight got delayed by 12 hours. We also had two Elders from Guyana that came through on their way back home. They came with us to teach Roger and several other investigators. The following day we got up at 3AM to take the two of them to the airport for their flight to Curacao. Needless to say, we didn't get much sleep this week, but it was a blast.
Now I'm with my new companion Elder Stott finally. He is an awesome Elder, we are going to have a great transfer together, no doubt. Yesterday we had a funny experience at church. We were sitting in Sunday school with all the adults in the chapel, when this man walks in. He had long rasta dreads, and he sat down and started yelling. The teacher would ask a question and he would yell out the answers and ask funny questions. We went to sit by him to see what was up, and he had a lot of alcohol on his breath. We ended up going to another room and trying to talk to him, but he was too drunk and just kept yelling and saying funny things. It was a real adventure. Eventually he went outside, peed on the grass and left. haha
Saturday we had MLC which was great. We were at the Williams and skyped with all the other leaders in the mission, it's great to be able to see some of them again. Interestingly, our mission has been selected as a pilot mission for this new idea with smartphones. So either this next transfer, or the one after, all the companionships will be receiving smartphones. haha. This isn't going to hardly affect me at all, but that's ok, it's going to GREATLY help the missionaries behind me to be more effective and communicate more effectively with the members and investigators.
We had a cool experience that happened yesterday while we were in POS teaching Carlos and Barbara. They actually weren't at the house when we got there, so we just sat down with Gustavo, who was there, and taught him about how to use Preach My Gospel effectively, which we had given him a couple of weeks prior. He has that recent convert FIRE in his eyes, and asked us what he should study from it to become the most effective missionary he could. Then we read through part of 2 Nephi 9 and talked a little bit about the Atonement, and that was when Carlos and Barbara got back home. We just talked about how Jesus Christs' Atonement was an infinite one, and that without it we would never have any hope of being cleansed from sin. Then we talked about how baptism by immersion is symbolic of being cleansed from sin, and how we have to go all the way under the water in order for it to count, that was when Carlos realized that his former baptism, which was a sprinkling baptism, wasn't complete in that sense, and he said "I want to be baptized". The Spirit was really teaching him and helping him connect all the dots together in his head. I am so grateful for the Spirit in the work.
Gopall has been having some health problems this week with the new medication that he has been prescribed. We haven't been able to see him because of that, but we should be going to see him probably on Tuesday. Also, his sister is coming up from Guyana. She has been taking the missionary lessons for the last couple of weeks as well, and seems pretty interested, so we are excited!
Elder Porritt
