Mission Update:  August, 2008

 

Welcome Sister Missionaries/Zone Mtg.

We had a unique event happen here.  Two of our senior sisters, who joined the Church two years ago, wanted to serve a mini mission during their summer break from employment.  Sisters Victor and Galbas  were officially called and set apart to serve a full time mini mission for one month.  We helped train them with the Zone leaders, and they did a great job working with members and non members alike.  Someday they want to serve a full time mission.  Our multi-island Zone meeting was a great time to welcome our new sister missionaries, who are serving here.  Elder Malmrose and Pres. Robison welcomed them and presented them with their official Name Tags.

See the Caribbean article:     Brother Cesarin and Sister Missionaries

 

Missionaries Zone Conference

Pres. and Sister Robison and the Platts come over to have dinner with us.  What wonderful people these folks are and it is a privilege to be with them  We also have a lot of fun, when we do get together. 

 

One of our missionaries, Elder Catherine, is a very talented artist.  He does mostly cartoons and caricatures drawings.  Here is a picture of one of his freehand board drawings.  He did one of us, that we will bring home and frame.

 

We have a great group of missionaries.  Some are from the U.S., some from France, and a few from French Tahiti.  We love them all.

 

We then had an island zone conference that our zone leaders did.  These are the 14 missionaries from our island of Guadeloupe.  Elder Garotta is from France.  He was playing soccer with the other missionaries on a P Day and fell and broke his wrist.  He got it casted and is doing fine.  The next week he was moving slowly, and I asked him why.  He said that he was playing soccer and fell on his shoulder.  Will they never learn?

 

Sometimes Pres. Robison brings the assistants with him, to our zone conference.  Elder Walker and Williamson had heard about the talk we give to our missionaries when they are ready to return home.  We call it the Malmrose Proclamation on a Happy Life.  We talk about choosing wisely in marriage and how to raise, well behaved children.  They live in Trinidad in the mission home and when they came to visit our island, they asked if they could have the “talk”.  We obliged and sent them away happy.  We expect some day to have a mission reunion filled with these returned missionaries, with their perfect wife and well behaved children, all because of our talk to them J

Robisons & Platts

Lesson by Elder Catherine

Object lesson

Senior couples

Zone mtg

Elder Walker

Gwada Misc:

Here are a few interesting sights we see.  Some are nice, some are not so nice (bugs have bad days too), and others just interesting.  We didn’t know much about bananas before we came here.  They gown on these tall plants, not trees.  They only produce one bunch each plant and then the next one comes up and starts another one.  They have this flower thing that comes up first and then it starts the bananas and they gradually droop over until the bunch is picked.  The commercial farms pull blue plastic bags over the whole bunch, while it ripens. We think to keep insects, etc. out and to hold the bananas in place.

Missionary changes:

Next, we had transfer day and have to say goodbye to some of our missionaries, who are being sent to other islands.  Elder Doumbia is leaving us and we are getting Elder Catherine.  We also said goodbye to Elder Pahio, one of our Tahitians.  We will miss seeing them as often as we have when they serve here.

Elders Wright & Doumbia

Elder Catherine, the artist

Elder Doumbia farewell

Elder Wright

Goodbye Elder Pahio

Welcome Elder Gray by Elders Garotta & Garrett

Hurrah for Israel:

We have this thing in the mission where we raise our hands up and say, Hurrah for Israel.  We saw this billboard poster with the little kid doing the same thing, “ Hurrah of Israel”.  Cute!

Skies and Houses:

House construction is interesting here.  Most everything is concrete, due to hurricanes, etc.  We did find this one house under construction, and it appears to be wood.  Thought Steve would be interested.

Constant Family:

We were invited to come to lunch with one of our active families.  Sister Constant served a mission to Temple Square and now is married to a branch president.  The have a beautiful family of two boys and a little girl.  We talked a lot and shared many great experience that the Gospel has brought into our lives.  That’s what it’s all about.  We walked through their neighborhood and took a few pictures from their porch.  They live a bit in the country where there are lots of animals and beautiful scenery.

The Color Purple:

At church, unplanned, the sisters and their girls all came in pinks and purples.  It was so much fun, we decided to get a picture.  This is Sabrina and her two girls, Sarah our dear friend, in the lavender color.  Adds new meaning to the color purple.

The purple sisters

Another Baptism:

Our new Branch at Gosier, had a very nice baptism.  The missionaries sang at the service and them we all went to the beach, where the brother wanted to be baptized.  The waves were pretty rough, but they managed just fine and he was baptized.

 

We then attended the district meeting with some of our Elders in Capesterre.  They are always fun to be with.  They work hard, but also enjoy life.  Great to be young.

Funeral:

One of the long time members, who was in his 90’s, passed away.  This is the first funeral we have been to.  They asked that the members give the talks and the missionaries be pallbearers. The widow asked that Elder Malmrose dedicate the grave site.  It was a lovely service.  Their cemeteries are rather different.  They use a lot of concrete and then put the caskets inside.  Here are some pictures of what it looks like.  If they don’t have enough money to build one of these things, they just pile up dirt and put shells on it.  Everything went well until they tried to put the casket into the concrete box, and they almost dumped the whole thing.  One of the workers was down in the hole and they had to pull it back up and let him out.  It was a bit like the Keystone Cops, but we tried to keep a straight face.  I hope the good brother has a good sense of humor.  We visited with his wife on a different day, and she is doing just fine.

Another Baptism:

Brother Cesarin is one of the people we have taught and who joined the Church a while ago.  He has shared the Gospel with a friend and he was baptized by his friend.  What a nice experience for them both.

Also, we had a young woman, who had been taught by Elder Carlson and Elder Kelley, join.  This was Elder Kelley’s first baptism and he did great.

It was held at the ocean and there were a lot of crabs coming out of their little holes in the ground.  When we walked near them, they would scramble into their holes until we were gone.  Then out they would come again.  They were probably interested in what we were doing in their territory.

 

See the Coincidence article:     There are no Coincidences (2008-06)

 

Hospital Baby:

While we were visiting St. Martin, one family there had a set of twin boys 5 months ago.  One of the babies has something wrong with his hip, so he had to be returned to the hospital here in Guadeloupe for several months.  I asked the Dad if they get to see him. He said no, that they couldn’t afford to travel there and his wife was home with the other baby and older sister.  I said that the baby has to have visitors because babies need a lot of attention.  I was really concerned about his being away from his family so long.  I asked if we could visit and they said sure.  I also suggested that people from Church come by and see him regularly.

We arranged to get a list of people and took it to the hospital.  We got to see him and I did observe that he was clean and well cared for.  We visited another time with the Gamiettes and others will continue to come see him.  What a cute little boy.  Hopefully, his hip joint will heal properly, so that he can walk normally.  He did seem to respond well to our visits, and that is encouraging.  It will be interesting to see how things go when he returns home to his twin brother and older sister.  Hopefully, all will be well. 

St. Martin Trip:

This was our last trip to visit the island of St. Martin.  Our friends the Platts are the senior couple there and we always enjoy being with them.  This island is more commercial as many cruise ships dock there and they have an English and French side to the island.  There are many casinos and lots of restaurants.  Fun for visiting, but not as nice to live in full time.  There is a medical school there, so they get several families every year from the states and that helps in the branch.  This little girl is a member family  

As you can see, they also have some interesting creatures, but the scenery is often beautiful.  We had a P day with the Platts and they took us site seeing.  We got a few photo shots from the mountain.  Then they took us to an abandoned hotel that was operated for a short time and then had some financial troubles.  It is supposedly owned now by Donald Trump and waiting for a redo.  It was a bit spooky as it looks like they just up and shut the doors, leaving some furniture and other things.  A bit like a ghost town.  It must have been lovely, at one time.  Just seems a shame to let it go back to mother earth.  Seems like such a waste.  The flowers are happy anyway.

Elder & Sister Platt

Little Mayeko