Elders Platt and Hendricks at the chicken service project.

Map of St. Lucia, marking the route from Rodney Bay to Sunny Acres.

Rob is enjoying the last month of his mission and will be moving a short distance from Rodney Bay to Sunny Acres in St. Lucia. Here are his notes from this week: 

“St. Lucia is great! Love it here! It’s cool to be surrounded by so many familiar faces. Haven’t had that in a long time. As far as the baptisms go, I’m not too sure I’ll be able to squeeze one out before I leave. A lot of my investigators here are going to take a little while and we just got transfer calls. I’m going to be moving back down to Sunny Acres to be in a tripanionship with Elder Odihambo and Elder Hendricks. Elder Odihambo is super cool and I’m excited to finish my mission with him, so that’ll be fun! He’s from Kenya and came out with Elder Dancan. Sunny Acres is just about a ten minute bus ride from where we are now in Rodney Bay.

You mentioned the sons of Mosiah. The missionary work that takes place in the Book of Mormon (or as people here would say “Book of Dee Mormons”) is very inspiring and helps us recharge when we may have had a tough week with our investigators. I’m also very pumped to go through the temple with you guys! I’ve missed that a lot! Regarding the cheesecake we made, it was phenomenal!  But mind you, I had a LOT of help from Sister Tasha. So maybe we’ll leave the cheesecakes to Mom. This week has actually gone by fairly quickly! Which is really nice. I’m assuming these last three weeks are gonna sail by! This week I came down with a bit of a flu, so I’ve been trying to recover from that. Today was probably the worst of it so hopefully it just gets better from here? Haha. I don’t know, we’ll see. We haven’t exactly been the most productive we could be because of the sickness. But Jana gave me some really good advice to take a lot more pictures and videos for my last few weeks out here and I really need to start doing that too! Sounds like you had a really cool testimony meeting over there! Missionary work truly is a sacred calling! I like how Brother Shoemaker made the bold statement to say a prayer and people had the soft hearts to feel the difference it made. Kinda cool, cuz that’s what Dad was talking about in his email too!  About taking a stand and doing what is right. I love it! I feel like as members of the church we have a lot of opportunity to do that, you know? So many things that the world deems “okay,” it’s nice that we can remember who we are and what we stand for.

You asked about the chicken service project. Haha. So Elder Hendricks and I got a call from a member to come and kill a few chickens for her. Haha. I don’t know what I was expecting, but dang, those things can RUN! Elder Hendricks and I were running all over the place with our cutlasses trying to get them! I ended up getting one in the back end of a house. Lol. It tried to fly over me but I cut it down as it flew up!  It was way fun. We had a person walk by and said, “You no bushman! You can’t catch dem fowls, mon!” Haha. From that point forward it was game on, and I wasn’t leaving till I caught myself a chicken. I let one of the kids borrow my slingshot and he helped me out a lot, too. They were talking about it at church on Sunday. Haha. Saying things like “When are you coming to catch fowls again?” It was a good time! Pretty sure that’s what got me sick, though. #worthit;). Anyways, hope all is well back home. I’ll be seeing you guys in no time! Three more weeks! Thanks for putting a package together. You didn’t have to do that, though! I’ll be home soon, but I do appreciate it. Funny thing is I’ll be back in Sunny Acres for my birthday… again! Haha. Maybe Christina will make me some food. Either way should be lots of fun! Anyways, miss you guys. Hope you are doing good! Love you!”

Looks like a bushman to me.

One month to go!

Rob had a good week, including Nutella Cheesecake. Gotta get his recipe! Here are his notes from St. Lucia: “Hey! Well, I’m glad everything went well with Nana’s surgery! [Roger’s mom had oral surgery last week.] I was worrying about that and hoping it would be okay! Congrats on the 45^th wedding anniversary, though! That’s cool you guys got to have some time for that. Sounds like things have been very busy over there. Hope you get some time to yourself every once in a while. :/ Maybe I can help with that when I get home! As for the snail mail, I usually get it like a month later or sometimes just a few weeks, but ya, it’s usually way later when I receive it so don’t worry about it. You have a lot to do as it is and I always know you care about me. I’ll try to send more pics your way! I’ll do better this week, promise! [Still waiting for pictures.] But I need to be selective as to which ones I send now, so that I don’t get my uglies on Facebook anymore [See last week’s post]. Hahaha! Glad you got the info about the departure date [March 2]. It sounds pretty solid but with my history I try not to get my hopes up, ya know? I don’t think 4 weeks qualifies me as a short-timer, but I am hoping to finish strong! This week Elder Hendricks and I made a cheesecake for an investigator. Bahaha. With a LOT of help from Sister Tasha! She made it look nice and pretty. Lol. It’s a Nutella cheesecake. :O So bomb! Haha. And again, I have a lot of respect for all the cooks and chefs in the world! You guys are truly amazing. I don’t know how you do it. But we made two cheesecakes because we needed to make sure the other one tasted good, you know?! ;) We are going to give it to her either today or tomorrow, and hopefully she likes it. Her name is Kiki, short for Kianna. She is a less active member’s daughter. Thanks for all your good ideas on finishing strong. I will be sure to put it into practice in this last month. I’ll crank it out hard for the last little bit! Love you guys! I hope you have a great, stress-free week!”

Success in Rodney Bay

Here are Rob’s notes from St. Lucia this week. Counting down to March 2^nd:

“This was actually a really good week! We were able to get a less active out to church and she brought her 12-year-old UNBAPTIZED daughter with her! :D Haha. Notice the emphasis there? ;) Also our friend Link (yes he is named after the Zelda games) was able to make it out. His whole family is baptized and VERY active except him but he comes to church and sits in with the FHE's and all that. We're hoping he starts to soften his heart here pretty soon. :P SO! 2 investigators at church this Sunday! Not too shabby :) I’m hoping one of them will get baptized by the end of next month (hopefully before I leave.) Yes, our little area of Rodney Bay is seeing some success! The branch is getting a LOT bigger! The new branch presidency is being run by the senior couple missionary, Elder Leavitt, and it seems super smooth these days. We had 61 at church on Sunday, too! :O that’s huge compared to other places :D Johnathan and I got to go on splits twice this week which was really cool! He also came out with us on Saturday and we had a lot of fun! He’s an excellent person to take out teaching with you!

That’s nice that you guys got some rain though! I rarely get to hear about that. I was just thinking the other day about how I miss actual cold rain that lasts for more than 2 minutes. Haha. Normally here it'll rain for a few seconds then be blazing hot, then rain for a few seconds, then be blazing hot, etc. You get the picture. :P The pics I sent happened when we were going to teach a lesson but the investigator (Pinky) needed a few extra minutes. We asked if we could help but she said she didn't need it so we went on a little adventure. Lol. We found this big tall grass field and took it for a photo op. Haha. And yes, I am trying to not be too trunky but it is difficult. I’d be lying if I said I didn't think about it regularly. Luckily I have a diligent companion who keeps the work strong. :) I’ll do my best though. Thanks for everything! Love you guys!”