Week 46 - Puppy Chewing My Chaco Straps...I Love My Mission!

ice cream!





Byenbonjou frè et sè mwen!!!

(Hello my brothers and sisters!!! In creole)

This was another awesome week on the island!!!

On Monday we drove up to Sainte Anne and did some shopping, plus ate ice cream while looking at the BEAUTIFUL ocean-- I felt like I was dreaming the entire time. It was a happy, happy time :)

Tuesday was a bit of a crazy day, as Soeur Johnson flew in from St. Martin for transfers! That was our last day as a trio with Soeur Morrell (which was sad because the last week I was basically doing one of my favorite things (talking to Caribbeaners in French about the gospel) with some of my best friends.... we had a good time together!!). We took one last trip to our friend Albie's restaurant and got some good ol' chicken and fries and then drove to the airport to pick up Soeur Johnson and get everyone settled! 

Wednesday morning was pretty funny. We went to stop by our friend Junie's house, but only her kids were home. Her HILARIOUS 2 year old son who speaks adorable baby creole welcomed us to their home by sticking his little foot out the window and waving it at us hahaha. That kid cracks me up. During lessons he loves playing with our hair and occasionally tries to lick it haha. Quite the hoot!!

Thursday was an AMAZING day!! It started off with a lesson with Fabrice-- he invited his preacher friend so we unfortunately couldn't get a whole lot in haha. But Fabrice is super cool! He read the entire chapter we left him in the Book of Mormon and he LOVED it-- he kept connecting things his friend was saying to what he read in Moroni 7!

After that we went to see Albie! We got there super late because of the darn traffic, and when we got to his house, the door was wide open with some nice rap music blasting, but no matter how loud we yelled for him he didn't come out. We started walking sadly away and just as we were about to drive away, Albie comes ZOOMIN around the corner on his little bike and yells out, "Helllooo, ladies!!!" Haha so we walked back up to his house and noticed he had built this little umbrella structure for us to sit under to help us not get sunburned-- haha he is super sweet and thoughtful. We sat down to start the lesson, and he asked us some questions he had written down in his Book of Mormon. Then we talked about the Word of Wisdom, which he super readily accepted even though he will have to make some big changes, which we were amazed by. THEN (this is the super exciting part) he ACCEPTED TO BE BAPTIZED MAY 4!!! So in a little less than 2 weeks our best dominican friend will be getting baptized. We are SO excited and have been in awe the whole time teaching him how incredibly prepared he truly is. He readily accepts what we teach him, gets a lot out of church, and ponders and reflects about the Book of Mormon more than I do sometimes. He is wonderful and we're so excited!!

After that we taught another amazing lesson with a Dominican woman (gotta love the Dominicans!!), she is also SUPER cool and we have a lot of hope for her!! It was an awesome first lesson!

On Friday, the Haitain lady we met last week who can sing soprano, alto, tenor, AND bass gave us about 30 tomatoes!! So we gave some to Soeur Victore (the incredible rainbow member I think I mentioned a couple weeks ago) and Luther, one of the area's recent converts. It was our last lesson with Luther reteaching all the lessons. He is a super sweet older man, who unfortunately is having a lot of problems with his shoulder which is putting him in a lot of pain, so keep him in your prayers. Anyways, we gave him and Soeur Victore some tomatoes and made our own homemade tomato sauce with a good chunk of the rest of them! 

On Saturday we taught a miracle lesson with this man Alex. He's been searching and searching a lot lately for a church that he feels is right, and was really interested in the message of the Restoration! At the end of lesson, we asked if he has any questions and he chuckles a little bit and says, "I ONLY have questions! But I think that they can ALL be answered by this verse." (after we read Moroni 10:4-5). It was amazing to us that he realized he truly can find the answer to all his questions, or at least peace about them, through sincere prayer to his Heavenly Father and showing faith in Him.

We also met tons of cute mamies and papis, and puppies and kittens (the cutest things in the Caribbean).

Saturday night we had an awesome lesson with the Famille Afoy. We are hoping and praying with all our hearts that Pegguy will be able to be baptized this Saturday and that everything will work out. 

Sunday was Easter!!! It was a gorgeous sunny and breezy day. We had an an amazing day at church. Our Sunday School lesson was about the history of Easter and reflecting on the question, "Do I understand enough how much the Savior loves me, and what His ressurection means for me?"

We (all the missionaries) got to go to the Laynes (the senior couple) for Easter lunch, it was SO good and fun to talk to all the missionaries!! We also had a Mission Leadership Council through video call, and learned some great things about time management that we're going to be implementing this transfer.

And Monday, we didn't have P-Day because the whole island was still pretty much shut down for Easter. So that's why you're hearing from me today :) For Easter most people here spend the whole day at the beach, which is an Easter tradition we didn't get to participate in... but c'est la vie :) We did lots of contacting instead and we actually met quite a few people open to learning more! Also a cute little puppy that played with my chaco straps :)

Tonight I'm a litttle nervous but also pumped because we're going to a friend's Evangelist chuch!! I'll let ya know how that goes next week haha :)

Love you all so much, hope you had a very happy Easter and that you got to reflect on how much the Savior loves YOU!!

Much love and many bisous,

Soeur Gardner