24 January 2010
A mile stone achieved in the branch today as the first elder’s quorum president, Evans William, was sustained -and on his 47th birthday. Even though he will be serving without counselors for a while he seems excited about this calling-as we are. He will be set apart by President Gamiette at our zone conference in February. He is a good man. As this was transfer week the elders decided they would like to spend park of the day viewing one of the attractions in the area-namely Sulphur Springs near Soufriere. This is touted as a drive-in volcano. From the viewing area you can see a number of boiling pots emitting plumes of steam and the pungent odor of rotten egg gas. Also highly touted are the health benefits one can obtain by soaking in the water, at designated areas, that flows from theses pots. Anything from arthritis, rheumatism, bad back to enhancing the tone of your skin by applying the mud from the bed stream to your face/body. The elders took this to heart and from the enclosed pictures their bodies should now be smooth as silk and blemish free. This same evening Elders Rosales and Morris invited Randy to the apartment and together they made a batch of chocolate chip cookies. Of course Sister Faux was there to give needed instruction, suggestions, and hints for best results. It was fairly late before they finished-late enough Elder Faux had gone to bed-and to their credit the cookies were really quite tasty. It was fun to see Randy brighten up after a few weeks of being elusive with a somewhat dour attitude. Tuesday morning we took President Nicholas with us to visit Patricia Freeman. She is a less active member who the president met for the first time. President Nicholas is one who is not at a loss when it comes to words. Notwithstanding, he met his equal, and then some, in Patricia. After visiting for about one-half hour she went to find her Book of Mormon and while she was gone President Nicholas just sat and shook his head in disbelief. We had forewarned him but it was evident he still was not prepared. Nonetheless we had a good visit and our visits with her are going to be more often. Transfer day Wednesday. We are saying goodbye to Elder Rosales, for the second time, and Elder Thomas for the first time. Elder Thomas is a fun and pleasant elder to be with. We were hoping that he might stay one more transfer so that Jeff, Kris, and family would have the chance to meet him when they visit. Elder Thomas needed to be at the airport in Castries by 6:00 a.m. Wednesday morning which would require us to be on the road by 4:30 a.m. Enter Elder and Sister Treseder-such good people. They being aware of the situation graciously offered us ‘our’ bedroom at their apartment therefore we drove to Castries Tuesday afternoon and stayed the night. A plus for us going Tuesday also provided the opportunity to visit with Elder and Sister Collins. They had come from Guyana to meet family members vacationing in St Lucia. Wednesday was a busy day as Elders Treseder and Faux shuttled back and forth to the airport either taking elders, and sisters, departing or to pick up elders arriving. We finally had our two new elders, Elders Larson Lundberg, so we could be on our way back to Vieux Fort by 4:00 p.m. Elders Larson and Lundberg are both from Logan, have many mutual friends, but today is the first time they have met one another. Interesting…
Sister Faux: As I write this Monday morning, from our little Hilly-Billy town (as our California neighbor describes this area) I am continually thankful for the blessing of good health. We have been blessed each day while serving our mission with being healthy, a little flair up now and again makes us more aware of how blessed we are. We are thankful to be able to serve here among good people and great missionaries. As I have said before we enjoy our young elders. They work hard and for the most part have a good time doing it. Sad to see Elder Rosales leave again and Elder Thomas, we have enjoyed them very much and know they will continue to have successful missions. Our two new elders will be fun to get acquainted with and they have nice companions to show them the area. Elder Rosales described the difference here in St Lucia with Trinidad. He said if they get 10 contacts in Trinidad they would set up 5 appointments to teach. In St Lucia if they get 10 contacts they would only be able to set up 1 appointment. They are assigned to get 10 contacts each day, so you can see they need to work hard each day.
The other morning as we were driving we came to a corner and met a large van/bus. We stopped and Elder Faux backed up to let the van have more room and for some reason upset the van driver who leaned out the window yelling at us. Innocent Elder Faux said “He must be upset with his passengers”. I told him no, he was upset at us. That totally surprised him as he thought he was being kind. He was a big man and I am glad he was in his van.
Sunday was nice and we had four investigators, three women and one man, two will be baptized this week. That is always a happy time for the elders and everyone. We had 41 people in attendance at church. When we held our last correlation meeting the men sounded nice as we sang our opening hymn. I asked President Nicholas if they could sing in Sacrament meeting, and so they did. I believe there were thirteen singing and they sounded very good. Now Sister Elliott is going to start having a choir practice each Sunday morning. That is very exciting, some are quite nice singers.
Now for the most embarrassing part of the week. This morning Elder Faux picked up my earrings that I had taken off last night-one was black and one pearl. That was what I wore all day –to church and elsewhere-no one said anything but I am sure some must have noticed…What can I say---- Have a good week. Elder and Sister Faux