As you can see, St. Lucia has a little language of its own. They speak "patwa" which is broken french. I am learning a little of it as the days go by. Elder Felix knows how to speak it very well.
That is very exciting to hear about the youth! Nana is setting a great example for the youth and I hope they are pertinacious in their efforts to do temple work. Yeah I would love to stay back in our homeward. I need to slap around (with love) some of our YM to go on missions. haha but I am excited to work with the leaders in our ward.
President Mehr has called a lot of old zone leaders to be regular missionaries to train up new leaders. President Mehr said he will be putting me back at a leadership position either next transfer or after this one. Its been really nice to be a regular missionary, I have the opportunity to show Elder Merrell how to be an effective missionary and being able to apply all the things I have learned when I was a leader. I remember my second day with him, as we ended our day he dropped on the couch and said "man I am tired, I have never been this tired before on my mission" I smiled and told him to get use to it its going to be like this for as long as we are together! :)
This past Saturday we had Zone Conference in St. Vincent! We left Thursday night to Barbados and from there to St. Vincent. Boy these islands are amazingly beautiful! Zone Conference was great, we learned a lot about member missionary work and the immutable laws, justice and mercy. Definitely learned a lot about the covenants we have taken upon ourselves. Something President Mehr shared I really liked. He said "the ONLY way to receive the Lords mercy is by covenant, which covenant we make at baptism, which must be done by proper authority. This is what the scriptures mean when the prophets say "baptism unto repentance".. he said a lot of great things I would love to share when I go home teaching! :)
Member work has never been this great here for a long time. Elder Merrell asked me not too long ago, why didn't I have this much success with member work when I wasn't with you? I simply told him that it is about EXPECTATION. I taught a zone meeting on "expecting to baptize" and a lot of it has to do with the missionary. Success in missionary work doesn't come by the message along, it comes from the missionary's talents and how well they are able to utilize the talents and abilities the Lord has blessed them with. Elder Merrell and I are doing great together and should be drowning some people in a few weeks.
Well family I sure do appreciate the work you are doing for the Lord, the euphonious sound of the spirit comes to "those who diligently seek him". have a great week!
With love,
Elder Brown
