Week 25 in St. Thomas

As a Mission, we are starting the Book of Mormon again from the beginning.  We have a reading schedule and will finish it by Christmas.  Dick and I were already reading it together daily, and we were in Alma but we are going to start over and mark it as our Mission President has directed.  We are excited to do this as a mission.  We love the Book of Mormon and always learn something new every time we read it through.  It really teaches us so much about Christ and His teachings.  


On Monday night we had Corey and Tara Holmes over for dinner.  They have been in our branch for a few months.  Corey has been working here and Tara joined him recently after being home (In Kaysville, helping out with a new grand baby.).  They will be leaving Friday and will start living in Puerto Rico for 5 years!  So sad that they are leaving because they are very missionary minded and service oriented.  I made individual Pavlovas for dessert with lemon curd, fruit and whipped cream.  They were delicious if I do say so myself......



Probably one of my favorite things about serving a senior mission is that I have time to listen  to old talks and study the gospel in more depth.  Jeffrey R. Holland has some of the most thought provoking and inspirational talks for me.  Two talks that I have studied this week are just so good that I thought I would give them a share.  If you have listened to them before, give them another listen. I promise that you won't be disappointed.  The two are: 
Remember Lot's Wife from a BYU Devotional in Jan. 2009
A Prayer For the Children from General Conference April 2003

One of my favorite quotes from the second talk is this one below:

"Carl Sandburg once said, 'A baby is God’s opinion that life should go on.' For that baby’s future as well as your own, be strong. Be believing. Keep loving and keep testifying. Keep praying. Those prayers will be heard and answered in the most unexpected hour. God will send aid to no one more readily than He will send it to a child—and to the parent of a child."

We so believe this, and have had answers to our prayers on behalf of our children so many times.  Our Heavenly Father really does care about us, each one of us and he cares about all his children. Let Him into your life and let Him heal and bless our children.  

On Wednesday we had an population explosion at English Class!  We had 8 people!  The three at the front left just arrived here from the Dominican Republic 3 days ago......so needless to say, Elder Garrison did a lot of charades!  He teaches the spanish speakers and I teach the Creole ladies.....sometimes we all just laugh out loud at how hard it is for them to say certain words!  There are just some sounds that aren't in their languages and are so hard for them.....


On the Fourth of July, we were invited by the Holms and a new couple in our Branch, the Eastons to go over to St. John and go for a hike, have lunch, watch the parade and then have dinner and watch fireworks!  It was a lot of fun to get to know the Eastons better and we are excited that they will be in our Branch for 5 years! ( But sad that the Holms left the next day.).  We haven't had a day like that our entire mission, it was a lot of fun.  


Loved these picture from home of Mike and his family celebrating the 4th of July and of Bob's family visiting the Fort Collins Temple:


This is our mantra for the week.  We are trying......

Hope you all have a great week, stay strong and steadfast.
Love,
Dick and Donna

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Last Days in St. Kitts

Image
I am kind of sad writing this last post for this incredible 15 months that we have been blessed to experience.  I have so many thoughts flying around in my brain that is it really so hard to express how I feel.  I know one thing:  I am sad that we didn't have a chance to go to church in St. Kitts for one last Sunday but on the other hand, having church at our apartment with just two other friends was an experience that I will not soon forget.  I am also sad that when we get home that we won't be having church so that we can say hello to everyone there and that we won't be able to mingle with our family or friends for at least 14 days.   Things are just so different than I thought they would be.   On Friday when we flew home, we were in 5 different airports.  THAT made me extremely nervous but I just had to trust that all this is happening for a reason.  I know that the Lord knows better than me.  EXAMPLE:  When Grant and Olivia to...
Read more

Week 7 In St. Kitts

Image
I really cannot believe it is March already!  I didn't take too many pictures this week for some reason, but it was a good week of little spurts of joy along the way....... Monday evening we had a lesson with a friend that I met while getting my hair done last week.  He is from India and came here with a group of people from Mumbai to work at a salon that happens to be directly across from our apartment!   I told him about why were were here while he was doing my hair and told him about the Book of Mormon .  So when I was leaving he asked if he could get "the book."  I said of course you can....and so we are teaching him now.  He grew up as a Christian.  We had one of our members, Catalina, come  to the lesson.  When I asked the question to her: "what does Christ mean to you?"  She said that He was her friend......I just loved that simple response.  I think FRIEND is one of my favorite words for Christ. We teach a little fa...
Read more