Amazing Zone Conference

We had an amazing Zone Conference last week.! Elder Cornish of the Seventy came to speak to us. He is really awesome! He taught us a lot, but the main thing he focused on was the language of the spirit. He emphasized that it is indeed a foreign language that we are learning here, and it isn't Vincentian! lol. It is the language of the Spirit and our eternal salvation depends on our learning it. He said that it is just as difficult as any other language to learn, and one thing that makes it most difficult is that most people don't acknowledge it as a language at all. He gave some great suggestions about how to learn to recognize the spirit in our lives. He said that most of the time we need to first rely on trial and error until we get the feel for how the spirit works within us personally. As we act on the promptings that we get, we can tell by how things work out whether it was the spirit prompting us or not. We can then compare the feelings we get and learn to tell the spirit apart from our own thoughts. It is up to us to figure out how the spirit speaks to us, no one else can tell us. He compared it to trying to tell someone how salt tastes; it can't be done. In order for someone to know what it tastes like, they need to taste it for themselves. Just the same, no one can tell us how the spirit "tastes" to us. We need to experiment on it and "taste" it for ourselves.

He went on to talk about how the spirit is a person. Even though his body is one of spirit and not of flesh, he has feelings and can be offended. When we are not righteous, we lose our claim to divine guidance and help. If you offend the spirit, the heavens withdraw themselves; the administering angels leave. He concluded by saying that we should trust our common sense. The Spirit will never tell us to do something that goes against common sense, mission rules, or the church standards. He called it a Jacob 6:12 violation when a missionary just does something plain stupid! lol. "Oh be wise; what can I say more!" Lol!

Well, that was just a piece of what I learned. It was a great, but tiring day! I don't know how Elder Cornish and the others who presented with him managed to go do it again on another island the next morning and then again somewhere else after that! But it was so great to be fed spiritually!

Tell everyone "hi" for me, and know that I love you all!

Love,
Sister Bratt

 

 

 

 

  

 

yellow watermelon, pretty and sweet

 

Food in St. Vincent

The picture of us walking is actually in Glen our neighborhood. It
was taken right down the road from our house. We were on the way to an
appointment and they drove around the corner and yelled at us to stop
so Sister Bird could take a picture! She is such a mom! lol.

Yes, we were taught by some members how to make what they call
Dough-boy. It is just a bread with grated coconut in it. Then the other
day we taught them to make oatmeal chocolate chip cookies. They don't
eat a lot of sweet desserts here, but some of the members have grown to
like some of them because the missionaries will always bring them treats.
So they wanted us to teach them how to make cookies. It was funny
because Sister Crompton's mom's recipe uses apple sauce, so we
brought over all the ingredients including the apple sauce. We discovered
that they haven't ever had apple sauce! They asked, "where do you get that,"
and "what do you use it for?" and "It looks like baby food." Haha! Well we
let them taste it, and though a little unsure at first, after tasting
it they really liked it. The Sister called her kids all in to taste it!

The only thing I've really made that we make at home I  think was
haystacks once. I have been making a lot of homemade tortillas and I
made homemade pizza dough once with a recipe out of a little book of
recipes Sister Bird gave us. I made No Bakes once from Sister Bird's
recipe, but it was a huge recipe! I didn't realize it until it was too late.
Unfortunately we didn't give any away...lol! We put them in the freezer
and ended up eating all of them during our lock-in for Carnival.

I haven't been eating very many prepared meals here. We don't have
a lot of time to cook for one, and when we do it is around 8 at night and
I don't want to eat a lot that late, plus, Sister Crompton eats healthy
so I don't like just making things for myself. I did make some baked
bbq chicken the other night that was good, but she doesn't eat much
meat, so that was a rare thing. It has been good for me to follow her
example of eating better and working out. We either go jogging or do a
workout dvd she had her mom send. I don't know if I will actually
lose weight, because I am gaining muscle, but I think it is making a
difference.

Wow, I have been rambling about nothing of real importance and haven't
even gotten to talk about Zone Conference yesterday! Well it was
really good and we learned a lot!! I am out of time though, so I will
have to write down what I want to tell you about it for next week. We
learned a lot about how to work with members and less actives which
was good. Sister Crompton and I also got to talk one on one with
Sister Mehr which was really helpful because we never get to talk with
other sisters to get advice, it was a great opportunity!


Well I love you all!
Sister Bratt

 

 

On our way to an appointment.

 

District just before transfers.

 

Answers to Questions

I promised Mom that I would answer her questions. This week she asked about water purification, our area, and our district/zone. The answers may be interesting to others who follow my blog as well.

The water in St. Vincent isn't as bad as other places. We are actually fine without purifiers since all the islanders drink it just fine, but our apartment does have a nice purification system. We live in an area called Glen which I guess is part of Calliaqua...ish. There are really vague boundaries between the little areas/neighborhoods here. But Calliaqua is the main area that we are in and we are considered the Calliaqua branch and the Calliaqua 2 proselyting area because there is also a set of elders in Calliaqua branch who are actually the Zone leaders. I don't really understand how it works, but as far as I know our zone is also our district...the entire island is one zone/district. We have district meetings once a week in Kingstown at their chapel and then zone meeting once a month I think, but they are basically the same thing it just changes who is in charge. The district leader is in Kingstown. We also have zone conference every other transfer where we meet with I think Barbados and Grenada...maybe St. Lucia too. But this transfer it is different. Next Monday we are having the member of the seventy who is over our mission, Elder Cornish, come to speak with us and the branches. President and Sister Mehr, our Mission President and his wife, will be here too. So that is counting as our Zone Conference and all the other islands are having mini zone conferences on their islands as well.

We are at the end of my first transfer now. It has been a great six weeks! Sister Crompton and I are still companions which means that I am off the hook and won't have to train my second transfer like she and so many others have had to. I am very relieved about that and don't mind being here another transfer, because I don't know if I'm ready to get to know a new place. Sister Crompton is breaking the record for the longest time a sister has stayed in St. Vincent, at least in a straight. She has now been here for 6 months and will be here another 6 weeks. We'll see what happens after that.

I love you all and miss you lots!

Love ya!
Sister Bratt

 

Members teaching us how to make "doughboy" a coconut bread.

 

Sister Crompton grating the coconut.

 

She had to show us her braiding skills!

 

 

Brother Drakes and his concrete house that he and another

member built.

 

A member's dog and her puppy.

 

 

Sooooo cute!!!

Carnival and Branch Activity

We had a productive yet relaxing couple of days inside this week while we waited out Carnival. Because of that our P-day was pushed back to today. We got a bit of rain from the passing tropical storm, nothing too intense, unfortunately! Just kidding, but it would have been a cool story to say that Carnival was canceled because of a storm. Oh well, I'm just glad it is over and that we can get back to things as they normally are.

St. Vincent is doing well. We are trying to figure out ways to strengthen the branch here. We had an investigator at church this Sunday! A member referral who we have taught a few times . . . Sister Forbes and Sister Crompton taught her before I came. We had a really spiritual lesson with her on Saturday and were excited that she came to church on Sunday and to our branch activity on Monday. It was awesome! She even bore her testimony in Sacrament meeting! Another family we have been teaching came to the activity too and not only did they come, but they brought another family of 3 with them! It was a big success. We watched the Work and the Glory, took a break to eat Pilou, a chicken and rice dish that is common here, then watched The Emma Smith Movie. Everyone seemed to have a great time, and I think it really helped to strengthen the branch.

I am doing a lot of studying, but I feel like I could do more. We study the Book of Mormon every morning during our hour of personal study. I wish we could study other things as well , but I hardly ever have time. I want to read through the Bible and the Doctrine and Covenants but it is slow moving. I love listening to conference talks and reading the Liahona articles when I get the time. I just want to learn all I can so I can really teach people.

I need to go for now. I love you so much and miss you like crazy!

Love,
Sister Bratt

Top of the Island

This week was good. We were able to meet some pretty prepared investigators this week, so we are excited about that. One is a young mom with two kids. She had some awesome questions that we were able to answer about the Bible and the Trinity. She already believes that what we are saying is true. Now we just need to get her to church. There are a few issues she needs to work on, but hopefully she will do the right thing.

The other really awesome investigator we found this week is actually a man that has been living in New York, but is here for a few months with his mom. Most people in St. Vincent have either visited or lived in Canada, England, or Brooklyn. It is very interesting.

On Sunday we were able to watch the broadcast. We just had sacrament and then instead of talks or classes we watched the downloaded broadcast. I really enjoyed it. I liked the way it was put together with the video segments and such. I thought that it was very motivating for members especially to get more involved in the missionary effort in their area. I think every member should see it. It was also cool to hear about the new ways that we may be able to use technology. I don't know if we will get to experience it here, because it is hard to access computers very often, but it is still very exciting.

I will upload some pictures from our trip to the top of the island last Monday. We went to visit our Branch president and his wife. They live an hour or more away depending on stops and such. The roads are windy which makes it seem longer. But it was worth it. I was able to see some black sand beaches, a ship wreck, and President Young's garden and home. His wife is a great cook who studied culinary arts in Germany as well as somewhere else. She made us a meal of quiche, rice and beans, baked plantains, salad w/ tomatoes and cucumber, cole slaw, bread, and papa (papaya) for dessert. And I ate it all! It was actually really good. Jess should be proud! haha. That was the first meal I have been fed while here, but Sister Crompton has learned to make saltfish (codfish) and breadfruit and callilou soup. She has made the soup quite a few times and it is good. It has mostly vegetables and the callilou which is like....well its closest to spinach if I had to describe it. It is basically a big leaf that they chop up and then boil down in soup. It is very nutritious and doesn't taste too bad. Other than that all I have really tried is fried fish and chips. They used king fish which isn't too fishy so I liked it alright. It did have the bones in it though which I wasn't too fond of, but it wasn't too hard to eat around them and pick them out. Mostly we just eat LOTS of mangoes and bananas! That is what we eat pretty much twenty-four-seven. I never knew there were so many different types of mangoes! Our favorite are the grafted, especially the Julie grafted or the "big buff" which is a type of grafted too, but it gets huge!

Well, I'm out of time, but I love you all so much! I hope you are doing well!

Give my nieces and nephews kisses for me!

Love,
Sister Bratt

Pres & Sis Young (Branch President) live an hour away (29 miles) in Sandy Bay
                                             on the North end on the island Windward side
                                   

Sister Young weaves baskets from the Ping-Wing growing behind us. She's a great cook!

 

 

 

 

President Young grows everything :corn mangoes ,limes, papaya, bread fruit, cinnamon, grapefruit, all vegetables,--- if it grows here he has got it!!!