One Love Jah Bless, Mon

With Thanksgiving this week, we are especially grateful for Rob, the work he is doing, and the fact that he seems to be faring better. Great emails from him today, with some fun updates and stories. Here are his notes: "Man oh man, Barbados is HOT. haha No surprise there, though. haha Things are ok. We had 4 people come to church on Sunday, which is the most I've ever gotten to go, which was really cool. 3 of them were a family (the mom and her 2 kids). Her husband couldn't make it, but he had a drinking problem that he's still kind of going through and has been raised Hindu. She said if we can get him on board and help change his life that she'll get the whole family baptized, so we're working on that. We try to get him involved in the lessons but he normally just sits there, and when we ask him questions he just responds "I'm a good listener." haha It's ok though, because we can get him to laugh and have a good time. Even if he isn't learning anything or accepting anything he's still having a good time. I'm trying to figure out a way to help him. Also, Tonya came to church again. She's really cool and REALLY smart which is refreshing out here. lol Sounds bad, but people here are very uneducated. But her main concern is the same as Angela's (the mom with kids,) that is, that she wants her boyfriend to be a part of it and she wants to start obeying the law of chastity with him, so were getting him involved. He actually read 7 chapters in 1 Nephi and explained them all and stuff. I had to take a step back and be like uhhhhh where do we go from here? haha (Doesnt happen EVER.) He's very smart and sarcastic so we get along ok, but I don't exactly know how to be like... "Hey, you 2 need to just get married." lol But we'll figure it out. Anyway, that's been my week. Thought I'd fill you in on what's going on over here as far as my work goes. Transfers are going to be in about 3 weeks or so. Still no word on where I'm going but we'll see. lol ummmm Thanksgiving I'm pretty sure isn't going to be anything special for us, unfortunately. Jillean said she was gonna make us dinner but we haven't heard from her in awhile. Last time I talked to her she told me the reason she backed out of the baptism was because of all the rules that she had to hop though in order to get baptized (beach, people, etc.). So that was a little disappointing. I know she'll one day get baptized, just probably not while I'm here. :P But right now is Barbado's 49th anniversary of independence, which is pretty cool! Lots of Bajan flags hanging all over the place and Bridgetown is lit up in all blue and gold. It's really beautiful! haha Super funny though, they are already celebrating the 50th year. Like, they have a bunch of pins and flyers and stuff for the 50th year, so I asked someone once, I was like, "Isn't it the 49th year? You guys just couldn't wait or what?" haha And basically that was the answer. lol They said, "Well, it's so you'll have 'em for next year!" lol -__- Bajans. Man, I'll tell ya, crazy people, gotta love 'em. Food here is good. We live right next to this place called Skymall. It's like the nicest mall in the whole island, so I can't complain. lol Ya, Ziggy is super rad! [Ziggy sometimes posts pictures on the mission Facebook page. I told Rob to thank him for the photos. Credit to Ziggy for the pictures below - which may actually feature Ziggy between Rob and his companion.] We found out he lives near us so we get to teach lessons with him. It's nice to have an old Black Rock friend to lime with here and again. lol. Had to break up a fight between missionaries in my district earlier, so that was fun haha. Basically, one of the missionaries has had a problem with fighting for his whole mission, and so I sat them both aside and talked with them, then talked to them together, and was just like, "Ok, I want you to focus on three things: 1. missionary work 2. respect one another as adults and 3. communication." Since then they've been all right, so I felt pretty good about that. The mission pres. was going to have to handle the situation but apparently he called them and they were like, we're good now, Elder Platt solved the problem. [In response to my email about Paul from our Sunday School lesson, Rob wrote:] But ya, if I could be like Paul just in a small sense I'd be pretty stoked on that. He was a brilliant man. Ya, thanking God is for sure a very key step in this process. Something cool we talked about on Sunday was our talents and the parable of the talents. The way I look at it is God GIVES you those talents so when you hide them it's like receiving a Christmas gift and then throwing it away. The person who gave you that gift is going to be hurt because it was thought out and something that you really wanted them to take advantage of and enjoy. I think it's the same for God. He gives us all agency so he can't MAKE us use our gifts, but when we choose to hide them (throw them away) it upsets him because he wants you to enjoy it. Anyway, I'm doing well. Things are ok and looking up... for now >.> never know what the Lord has in store for you next, so I'm just gonna ride out the wave while it's still good. lol. I appreciate the good thoughts and prayers coming my way they really do make a difference. Anwyays love you guys and can't wait to be back and tell you all the crazy stories of things that happen out here. haha. It just gets more wild as the time goes by. One love jah bless mon! O ya, haha, this REALLY ghetto area we go to this guy who we stopped teaching cuz we found out he has murdered a few people pulled me aside the other day and was like "MORMONS! Hey, you let me know if anyone gives you any trouble out here. I got your back." bahaha I was like alright, dude. You're the man! So funny! Anyway, that's my funny story for the week. 'Stay classy, San Diego.'" -(Anchorman, Ron Burgundy)