Craziness in Port of Spain! Week 78

This week was pretty great! But as usual, I have to start from the top.

On Tuesday we were able to go on a trade-off with the Zone Leaders and Elder Grimm came to our area with me! We had an interesting lesson with Anna, she was kind of out of it for some reason, so we didn't get much of a response from her. But it was a good lesson and helped us to see where her desires are! Later that night we were able to see the family of a missionary who just recently left on his mission who are all not members and they accepted baptismal dates! They are just like him, quiet and super humble! They seem super cool and are enjoying the message of the restored gospel! One more sweet lesson we had was with a different Anna she hasn't been to church in a number of years and we talked to her about the atonement and she just started telling us about how she misses the way she felt when she was doing all that she knew she was supposed to be doing. It was a very powerful lesson and I think she really enjoyed it! 

On Wednesday morning Elder Grimm and I were able to shadow the sisters which went super well! We set another baptismal date with a guy named Peter who seems super cool!  The rest of our day was actually pretty dunky, we had most of our lessons fall through and the ones we did have weren't too effective for one reason or another. Either there was a distraction of some kind, or they just weren't very interested. It was sad.

On Thursday we walked. We have this area that is pretty far out there with a bunch of pretty strong members, but the only problem is that we were able to go for a nice, long, ten mile walk. It was super far and it was close to the end of the week so we didn't really have much money to take a taxi, so we walked! But we saw all of the members on our way out that we wanted to see so it was a super productive day! But when we got back into Grande to teach Ricky we were supposed to go get doubles with him but he told us he was too tired so we went home and were getting ready for bed when he called and told us to open the door and when we opened it he was just standing there with two drinks and a bag of doubles. haha it was super funny! 

Trinidad Doubles - Fried flat bread and Curried Chick peas with pepper sauce - My favorite

On Friday there was some kind of national criminals day in Port of Spain where three guys broke out of jail and the police station was attacked and the hospital was taken hostage... So we were told that we had to go inside at like 6 at night which was pretty crazy. Everyone in Grande was freaking out even though this event happened on the other side of the island... But we were able to have some dinner and write some letters so that was good! 

On Saturday we had some sweet lessons with some new people we contacted in the morning which was way cool! They seem to really enjoy the message and one guy we met in particular who actually helped to build the church. He was part of the contracting team that built it like 19 years ago... Later that night because it was cancelled on Friday we had a make shift game night with a bunch of neighborhood guys and shared a spiritual thought and played some football! 

Sunday was good, regular church other than the fact that we helped Ricky all week to prepare his portion of the lesson and totally pansied out on us! So he told the teacher he couldn't teach because he wasn't prepared and so the teacher called on me to do a spur of the moment discourse. It was pretty annoying and I couldn't even ask someone else to do it because the teacher had already sat down... It was a bummer. But the rest of the day was good! Great lunch at the Suepauls and had brother Suepaul show us to this sweet part member family close to his house who seem super super ready to come back! 

It was a great week with tons of success! I know I say it all the time, but we're looking forward to another great week.

Not excited to go home or anything but I think I have like 26 p-days left...:)

Plenty time.

Much love,

Elder Dorrance

Elder Peterson played basketball at college in Canada and was giving me a little advice

Still no Cooking Gas - Week 77

So from the subject you could expect that 1. We have no cooking gas and 2. we are out of milk, cereal, and bread because  that is all tha we have been living off of for the last two weeks... But we're still kicking! So that's a plus!

Haha but Monday night actually started the week off pretty frustrating, We had our appointment for the night cancel on us and when we got to our other appointment something happened with my bike to the point where the back gear got shoved out of whack so that it was literally in the bike spoke. It was ridiculous and that literally took up our entire night. Pretty ridiculous!

But Tuesday was much better! I had a great district meeting(I was told) about purifying ourselves from things that drive the spirit away! It was pretty good! Then because we have no gas and were tired of sandwiches we took food to the sisters apartment and sat and ate it outside while they cooked it for us. It was very nice of them haha. But later that night we were able to go have a lesson with a less active woman in the ward and just shared a message with her and set up to have her whole family around to have family home evening later in the week! 

Wednesday we did some sweet dirt moving in the morning as a service project and had an awesome lesson on the Sabbath with Anna after lunch! The spirit was so strong! It was one of the first times on my mission that someone had been in tears. I think she really understood why she needed to come to church and how we show our devotion to God on the Sabbath, But the key word there was THINK. She didn't end up coming which was a bummer... But a huge success for the day was going to see the Samaroo's! Sister samaroo is a recent convert and brother Samaroo is a recent reactivation and he is really having a hard time with smoking. So this last fast in June we fasted with them to help Steve stop smoking. Steve told us that when he watched Meet the Mormons last week at the movie night that it had him in tears and inspired him to be better and he has been smoke free for almost 2 weeks now! He says it was because we all fasted together that he is getting the strength to resist! It was super cool!

On Thursday we ate a ton of bread for lunch because that is all we had... and met this sweet family named the Salazar's! They live up by a really strong family and all seem pretty interested in the message! We are going back to see them early this week! But they seem way cool! A super funny story from Thursday was when we were waiting for a taxi and there was a drunk guy on the ground across the street laying against a street light and he called us over and after a second we went over so we weren't rude and he stuck out his hand as if he wanted help up, well of course thinking that this guy was just a little drunk just pulled him up thinking that he would at least put a little effort into getting himself on his feet. Nope. I literally pulled him straight up and over himself so that he could fall straight on his face in the middle of the road... haha I felt pretty bad, but at the same time I didn't because it was 2 in the afternoon and this guy didn't even know his left hand from his right hand he was so drunk... But after we got him back on his back on the ground there was some people around that were laughing and just told us to leave him there... So that was pretty funny...

Friday was kind of a bummer day. The highlight of the day was probably game night! We had a good turnout and since we have the basketball hoop up a bunch of kids got in playing some ball which was pretty fun. And the sweetest part was Sister Paul making a backwards half court shot in a game of horse when she can't make a shot from two feet away. It was sweet!

On Saturday we spent most of the morning looking for a gas tank to cook with, but to no avail, it turns out that everyone that cooks in Grande just got their tanks as a birthright when they were born because no one seems to sell them. Ridiculous. But we contacted the coolest guy! His name is Gregory and he is so sick! He loves the idea of the Book of Mormon and is willing to give it a try! He's sick! 

On Sunday we had a less than productive Ward Council again, everyone seems to get off track too easily, but that's okay. We had a sweet lesson with some recent converts about the Atonement. They are so willing to learn and are always asking questions! It's super sweet! 

It was a good week over all but hopefully we will be able to find some sweet new people this week!

Love you all have a great week!

Much Love, Elder Dorrance

Elder Peterson PB & J for dinner again. Ate this for almost 4 weeks because we couldn't cook anything 

Exceptional Week - Week 76

Elder Peterson

Well this week was pretty exceptional and was completely topped off today by what we had for lunch...

On Tuesday we spent almost the entire day moving. Moving stuff from the other elders' apartment into ours and buying appliances and what not, it was completely ridiculous. But that night we were able to throw together a little pizza party for Ricky! He turned 20! And we were able to bring over a few pizzas and have some fun! It was way sweet, especially being able to finally be in our own place! haha not mentioning that we have spent the last 3 weeks on the floor it is definitely a plus...

Wednesday was pretty sweet. We met a lady in the morning who, while trying to invite her to read the tract, kept trying to bring up how the picture in the Book of Mormon of Joseph Smith is really cute and where he is now... It was pretty awkward when we had to let her know that he had passed away about 200 years ago... But we were able to take Ricky out with us later in the day to go and see a family of a missionary who just recently left last week! It was cool to get to talk to them about what their son is sharing with the world and how it can bless them in their lives! Then that night we got to ride out to a pretty distant part of our area to show the sisters to a relief society sister that they wanted to visit. It was pretty funny because of how far out in the jungle they live. It was funny to see the expressions on the sisters faces. haha

Thursday morning was sweet too! We were able to have the new mission president and his wife come to our zone meeting!  They are super excited and energetic and ready to get to work! I was able to have a great interview with President Egbert and we just talked for a bit and he was able to get to know me a little bit. He's a good guy and he keeps telling us about ideas he has and is excited to start trying for! 

Friday was pretty sweet! I was able to have one of our zone leaders come on a trade off with me here in Grande and it was Elder Parker from back in the MTC days! It was lots of fun to get to catch up with him and get to teach with him! That night we had a sweet turn out at game night too! Elder Peterson was able to get the basketball hoop set up sometime during the week too so we were able to ball it up hardcore with some brethren. Tons of fun! haha

Saturday was a little interesting... we traded back in the morning and had some lunch and headed out to have all of our appointments fall through on us and so we headed over to the church to set up for our movie night that we have been planning for a few weeks. We set up some chairs and the projector and borrowed the senior couples air popper! It was set up to be a huge success! We started the movie (Meet the Mormons) and started passing out the popcorn and about halfway through we started having people just walk out and leave... We even had one ten year old kid come up and talk to E. Peterson and I about how he thought we were going to watch a horror movie or and action and how much this movie sucked... It was pretty sad, but I enjoyed the movie... haha But probably the funniest part of the night was having one of the adolescent pre-teens trying to pull the moves on one of the sister missionaries in the Ward. It was super funny to watch him crash and burn. 

Sunday was pretty average... we had a pretty good attendance at church and it was especially good because we were able to have the Stake President there! He announced a change in the Sunday meeting schedule telling us that all Sunday school classes would be combined into one gospel principles class and that all priesthood classes would meet together and the same for relief society. it was pretty interesting, but I think it will be a good change up for the ward... haha

But this is the moment you have all been waiting for. We went into Port of Spain this morning to play a little flag football with another zone which was pretty fun, but what made it so exceptional was the fact that we were able to grab a BIG MAC on the way out of town! I was so happy to finally break my streak of no McDonalds. It was amazing. Haha it was a great little taste of America...

But it was a pretty great week! We are finally situated in our area so things should really be picking up this week!

Thanks so much for all the emails! Love you all tons!

Stay #Chard !

One Love, 

Elder Dorrance

Neither of us had seen McDonald's since we had been on our missions and there is only one in Trinidad so when we were in Port of Spain we took our chance and ate like Kings!

Moving Day 

Finally moved out! Week 75

Ricky

Well this week was another one on poor missionary work, but finally we were able to get out of living with the other Elders and back into our area, on SATURDAY...

But Tuesday was relatively exciting! I taught an alright, semi un-good district meeting, I guess it was okay, but not especially, but I was able to realize that I am now the oldest in my district in time I've been on my mission, and like the 3rd oldest in the zone. It's freaky to think about, so I try not to... But we had kind of a bummer day mostly because we spent a good chunk of it looking for apartments in our area but we did have a pretty funny lesson with a woman named Vashti. We were able to talk to her about an article in the Liahona, just trying to help her understand more about our church and while we were doing that, two bats flew in the house and were just taunting us, mostly me, but it was freaking the crap out of me for a solid 3 minutes. But I kept reading the article just hoping that they would fly out and in mid flight a member, Nigel, swung the handle of an umbrella at one and killed it in one fell swoop. It was completely amazing! I couldn't believe how simple it was for him to simply swat that out of the air. It was amazing and completely worth the few minutes of fear. But for the rest of the lesson there was a bat carcass on the floor while we finished up. Pretty eventful. After that we headed over to a members house to share something with them, but they were busy cooking, so while we were just talking to her as she was running around the kitchen her nieces boyfriend pops in, and just drops a soccer jersey to Elder Peterson and I. No Idea who this guy is or where he came from, but got a free soccer jersey, so that was pretty sweet...

On Wednesday morning we were able to do some sweet service at a members house and an amazing lesson on temples with the Samaroo family! It was so cool and they are so excited they say, but they didn't really show that excitement come Sunday morning. It was still a way cool lesson that we had with them! Also later that night we were able to have the Zone Leaders come out to interview Ricky for baptism! 

Thursday morning we were able to show Elder Bevins, one of the senior couples, to an apartment we wanted to rent and so we had to drive into Grande to do that and he loved it! It was sweet! And so to move in as soon as possible we drove straight to Valsayn to pick up the rent and the contract, and while we were there we were able to meet President Egbert! (New Mission President) He's the coolest! He's was easy to talk to and really excited to be here! We are just way stoked to have been able to meet him! He's coming out to Grande on Thursday to do interviews, so that should be really cool! But Driving to Valsayn threw off the rest of our night, so we were only able to go and visit Ricky and talk to him about a few more things before his baptism on Saturday!

Friday morning we had kind of an emergency service project that someone needed us to come and do so that they could get some dirt dropped off at their house later that day, so that is what messed up Friday for us. Burt that night we were able to have a HUGE turnout to game night with a bunch of kids that came to play some soccer with us! it was a ton of fun! 

Saturday morning we made a few trips from Valencia where we were staying with some elders to our new apartment in Grande to drop some stuff off that we would need to spend the night there and then we were able to go to lunch with a member to start our fast all together! It was way sick and lots of fun! And the coolest part about Saturday had to be Ricky's baptism which didn't start until almost 8 at night because we couldn't get a member of the bishopric to come out to it which was a bummer, but the whole thing was super great and other than that went off without a hitch! 

Sunday morning we walked over to walk with Ricky to church and called him at 8:40 to tell him to come outside and he told us he had to just jump in the shower real quick. Yes, we were late to Sacrament meeting, but made it on time for Ricky to get Confirmed! it was way cool! 

Sunday was pretty poor attendance at sacrament meeting which was a bummer but we were able to have a sweet meeting with Elder Bevins about some of the situations happening in the ward and talked to us a little bit about how he thinks we can help! It was super inspiring! 

But our week was pretty good! It's been real wet here, so we're staying nice and cool!

Thanks so much for all the letters!

Love you all tons!

One Love,

Elder Dorrance

District Meeting

New Jerseys

Elder Peterson

This stray dog would just follow us around int he neighborhood by the church and was super nice and let us take pictures with him.

"My new apartment has a sweet rooftop place to lime and ting (hang-out)"