nate morris west indies mission

1/17/11

Hello!

Tomorrow is Zone conference!!! I can't wait. We only have them every 3 months and so this is my 2nd to last zone conference. Grenada and St. Vincent missionaries are flying to Barbados tonight then flying back tomorrow night. Zone conference usually goes from like 9-3 or something. I'm way excited for I haven't seen President Gamiette (let alone talked with him) for 3 months. That can really be hard sometimes, not seeing the mission president very much. All is well though cause tomorrow i will. Dad- to answer your questions, the planes that LIAT uses are these small twin propeller planes. They carry about 30 passengers or so and wrok really well for inter-caribbean flights. No big jet planes can come to st. vincent cause it's such a small airport. the security stuff is still the same just smaller lines because less people are flying. The mission pays for the trip and orders the tickets when they know when the Zone conferences will be which is usually about 2 weeks before the Zone conference. The president always travels with the Assistants, yes. It's quite fun and I'm way excited to see barbados again. I love that country. I just hope i can get some flying fish and chips. Mmmmm....

I want to tell ya of a cool experience we had yesterday. At church we met in Kingstown with both branches and had District Conference. It was a broadcast from the Conference Center broadcasting to the Caribbean area. Sister Thompson of the R/S spoke first, then an 70, Kent Richards, then Elder Oaks, then President Uchtdorf. It was amazing because they spoke to the needs of the Caribbean which are of course different from other parts of the world. Elder Oaks seemed to be the one that had to give the bad news and tell us what work needs to be done and where the caribbean needs improvement. He used many statistics t hat were really interesting. For example. 40 percent of children being born in the US are out of wedlock. I can't imagine the percentage for the Caribbean but it seems like it would be 70-80 percent. That seems to be such a horrible trend these days. Finding a husband and wife is a rarity and when we meed some we usually congratulate them for making that wise decision. Elder Oaks talked a lot about tithing and how when when it is paid in a country the entire country (not just the tithe payers) is blessed. It was an amazing meeting. The spirit was way strong. Elder Oaks' talk was my favorite just because he really did bring up the things that they need to change. Here there is no real youth programs set up yet and that's taking a toll, not many are paying tithes, and law of chastity issues. He talked a lot about the "gospel culture" which needs to be implemented in these developing countries. President Uchtdorf was very encouraging and spoke for a long time about how to become converted and stay converted. I wish more people could have been at the meeting.

At the end of the meeting we saw one of our investigators that came, Jasmine. We didn't see her come into the church, we weren't even expecting her, but she came all on her own. She lives on the top of a large hill in a small, 5 foot by 10 foot wooden house. She has 5 kids and only gets about 50 dollars a week from her child's father. It was amazing to see her make that sacrifice to come all the way to Kingstown to find the truth. We taught her later that day and she said that she felt strange ( a good kind of strange). She had the spirit with her as we read from the Book of Mormon and someone that we didn't think would go anymore now became one of our strongest investigators. Great thing to see that happen.

This week we worked harder than i ever think i've worked in my whole mission. On Saturday night we walked in and just fell on the couches. We were exhausted and fell asleep within minutes. I'm still trying to get over it as I am still way tired. However when we're working our hardest it feels so much better. We had a really successful week. I'm happy. I was thinking just now about how much i love the west indies. Despite all of its quirks and bad habits, I love these countries. There is nowhere like it in the world. This week ahead i'm pretty excited about and i'll let you all know how the zone conference goes and everything. I love you all!!

Elder Morris

PS: Grandpa, I did get your package! I thought i mentioned it two weeks ago but thank you so much! I also got the one from the caldwells. They were welcome treats and I will write back, when I have time. Which today i have none.

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Elder Nathan Morris