Leaving St. Vincent

Elders Platt and Jones took one last hike up La Soufriere, an active volcano on the island of St. Vincent.

It was great to be able to talk to Rob via Skype on Christmas. He loves the people and the island of St. Vincent and will be sad to leave. But he also loves St. Lucia and the friends he made there a year ago, so receiving the news that he would  finish his mission in Castries was bittersweet. Here are his notes from today: "Heyyyyy, sorry everything was closed for Boxing Day and then another holiday after Boxing Day -  so I’m just now getting on email. It was awesome to see you guys on Christmas! So cool! Not a lot to add since a few days ago. Hope we got to cover most of the bases. Boy, were we fed well on Christmas! WOOF! The day after Christmas we were fed by 2 members and they both served us HUGE meals. haha. And on Christmas day the senior couple fed us. It was really nice too! turkey, mashed potatoes, stuffing, the whole 9! [I mentioned Elder Booth’s Facebook post about Christmas traditions in St. Vincent. The people there do a lot of laundry, clean their homes, hang new drapes, and go into the towns for singing festivals – and sometimes Black Cake. Rob responded by saying:] Yes that's fairly accurate about the traditions here. Something that stood out to me is that people here just want a peaceful relaxing Christmas without all the huss and fuss. It made me wonder about the things I normally do on Christmas day, like get enveloped in the gifts I received, eat tons of food, things like that which are not necessarily bad - but it’s Christ’s birth we are celebrating. I feel like I could probably be a little more focused on Him on that day. That’s so cool Nana remembers seeing me! How awesome is that? I’m so excited I got to see her and the family AND BAXTER!!! What a good dog! Haha. It was fun seeing the kids too, even if they are timid little humans. ;) I’m glad the kids got to have an enjoyable Christmas! Sounds like it was a lot of fun! It was really cool to see you guys, feels like it’s been forever! Luckily only 3 more months and I’ll be back at home again. Lots of green here, so it’s gonna be weird coming back to the desert.  O ya! Duh! Transfer calls. President will sadly not be keeping me here, but I’ll be going back to Castries, so that’ll be nice. Elder Hardy is coming in to replace me, don’t know if you remember him. Hopefully he can pick it up where I left off. It will be great to go back to Castries for the end of my mission. I’ll be with Elder Hendricks. He’s a greenie that just finished his first 12 weeks so that should be... interesting. Thanks for the inspiring words. I appreciate it! I will be sure to ‘go and do’ for my next few months out here. Thanks again for everything.  Love you guys! I gotta get to saying my goodbyes and packing my things :)

Talk to you soon!”