Tuesday, April 22, 2014
4.22.2014
4.22.2014
I really needed your letters this week. Being able to hear from you
all helped lift my spirit. I'll most likely be staying on St. Vincent for
another transfer at least, but I might get a new companion. A few of the other
missionaries got packages but it's probably better just to put money in the
account. Thanks for doing that for me. I'm doing pretty well. We had an
investigator that was supposed to be baptized this Saturday drop us. That was
not very fun. However we still have a baptism this weekend on Sunday morning.
His name is Yekini but also goes by Des. He is a thin dark 19 year old who
lives in an area called Golden Vale. We met him probably 8 weeks ago and then
we had a member lesson with him and he put a date down for his baptism. He has
been to church 5 or 6 times and he comes on his own. He already knew most of
the youth and is really close with the Smalls, a family in the branch. He could
be a great Young Men's leader and he should be a great addition to the ward. He
needs to read more of the Book of Mormon, but we'll work on that. We are
starting to work more with the members now too. We really hadn't made much of
an effort until we had that lesson with Sister Small and Des. It really showed
me how much more effective missionary work can be if we build relationship's
between members and investigators and then have lessons with them. We had
another great lesson last night in a Family Home Evening. We recently found
this family that lives a short walk north of us up by this place called the
Hotel Alexandria. They have met with missionaries several times before so
hopefully they will get baptized soon. The parents just need to get married
first. We'll see how that goes, but anyway her brother is in the branch
presidency in Kingstown and is very cool. His name is Brother Adams and his
sister's name is Monique. We met at the church last night and taught them about
the tree of life. It started off a little rocky because of some organizational
problems, but once we got that figured out, everything else worked out very
well. We had Monique, her 9 year old daughter Tawana, and her toddler son come.
The rest of her family was busy that night. We also had the Adams and the Birds
(senior couple) come. During the discussion, Monique talked about how she
realized that life is full of distractions that they can keep us away from the
iron rod and more importantly from eternal life. She also talked about how people
in the church are so nice and happy. It was a great lesson and the spirit was
felt that night. We're seeing her again on Thursday.
We went to an island called Bequia (pronounced Beckway) for P-day
today. We went on a ferry and then we got to play with sea turtles and just
have some relaxing time on the beach. As we were coming back on the ferry, I
was thinking of the early pioneers coming across the ocean to be with the
saints. I really love the song "Come, Come Ye Saints". I really love
it now because it reminds me of home. Could you have your parents send me some
family history stories please? I would love it if you could do that.
Love You All!
Hurrah for Israel!
Love, Elder Parker
Monday, April 14, 2014
4.14.2014
4.14.14
We have currently 1 person lined up for baptism. She
doesn't feel ready though and she won't consistently come to church. We did
meet several people who we believe will be very progressive. I have noticed
that we have a problem getting past a certain point as far as baptisms go. We
can get contacts very easily, we can give lessons no problem but then I feel
like we stop. I feel like I'm planning on people just being taught and never
actually joining the church. I never thought that having the opportunities for
success would be more difficult than having to deal with more apparent
adversities. We have a lot of people we are teaching, but we just aren't getting
them to baptism. Maybe it's because our main focus is to get them to believe in
modern day prophets rather than to help them get baptized. I think that is our
main problem right now. The field is definitely white, and ready to
harvest.
Love, Seth
4.14.2014
4.14.14
There's so much that has happened in the past 2 weeks
and I feel overwhelmed. My favorite talks were the ones about trucks. The one
about jumping out of one was really good because so often as a missionary, I
need to make sure that I show people love rather than just making sure that
everyone knows who is more right. The other talk about the load is what gives
us traction. Trials are for our benefit. I think that missionary work is like fly-fishing.
This analogy should sum up the main problem that I'm facing and also the
solution. We cast our lines out all over the place. We try out many different areas
of the pond and streams. We get a lot of bites. So many people are willing to
talk with us. The problem is that I don't think that we have been reeling in our
lines fast enough to create that pull to bring people to baptism. We haven't
been bold enough. If we reel to slowly, the hook (or the good seed in the
parable of the sower) falls out of the fish’s mouth or the fish finds something
else to fill its mouth. Boldness is what I need. This last week we met a man
named Charles form Colombia, he's catholic. We haven't taught any Catholics
here before so this was a little scary. At the beginning of our lesson with him
we were being very soft and trying to not offend him. He was nice but we could
tell that he lacked interest in hearing stuff he already knows. It wasn't until
we introduced the Book of Mormon to him that he got very interested and
explained to us that he has been looking for another book like the Bible to
just talk about God. He's read many other books but they focus on trying to
prove that certain religions are right. That showed me the importance of being
bold. Charles quickly accepted the Book of Mormon and agreed to read it and
pray about it. The other great thing is he seems like a guy that will keep his
commitments. He is a big music producer here and is a good businessman. I love
you all and really appreciate your prayers! I can tell that they are helping
out a lot. Tell everybody I love them and have Gabby write me sometime please.
Hurrah for Israel!
Love, Seth
Wednesday, April 2, 2014
3.31.2014
3.31.2014
The work is going well, except that
while many of our investigators have agreed to baptism, they don't want to put
a date to anything so it's making things rather difficult. I spoke about
baptism in sacrament meeting yesterday. In third hour the topic was
diabetes. That was not what I was expecting. Even so, one of our investigators,
Doniesh, still had a great time. She is working on overcoming her smoking
addiction and has made friends with Akelia, that member I talked about a few
weeks ago. We also had one of our investigators who lives in Georgetown
finally attend church up there. That was the last thing she needed to do before
she can get a baptism date. Unfortunately, one of our investigators who has
been attending church for the last few weeks was not there yesterday. I'm
trying to soak in all the experiences I can. I didn’t really realize that I
have been out for 2 months. It goes by too fast. What you said about loving the
people the way the Savior would is something I have been trying to work on. The
last thing I'll share is about a young man (16) named Tristen. He has only met
with us in a formal lesson once. We gave him a Book of Mormon about 2 weeks
back. This week, we ran into him while walking up a hill from Calliqua. when we
sat down with him and started talking with him he shared with us how he knows
the Book of Mormon is true. We asked him how and he said "I prayed about
it, that's why I believe". That experience showed me the power of reading
the Book of Mormon and praying. Also in Sunday school, Doniesh and Akelia both
shared how they were experiencing a loss of hope in their lives until Elder
Jacobson and I came along, because we shared the gospel with them. The power of
the atonement is so amazing. Every day I get to see people changing their lives
for the better.
I love you all very much! -Love, Seth
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