How did it get to be September already? When we first arrived time seemed to move slowly. Now it is flying by so quickly. We hope you are all well. We love you and we keep all our dear friends and family in our prayers each day. We hope everything is going great in your part of the world.
We have been busy as always. Lately, sometimes I wonder what we will do when we return home. It will be hard not to have missionary work to keep us running.
Last week we helped the Relief Society have a nice "sit down" dinner. They haven't had one for a long time (maybe ever?) and so it was greatly anticipated. Elder DeMille and I tried to make some table decorations to spruce it up. We had a good time trying to figure out what we could do without any craft supplies. Luckily, we were able to find colored paper and make giant paper flowers. We did have to buy a glue gun, however. It was fun to see what we could scrounge up with limited access to supplies. The dinner was a huge success. There were probably about 25-30 of our sisters who attended and 15-20 non member friends for a total of 45 sisters. The icing on the cake was today at church, when one of the non member friends came to church. She wants us to teach her and her husband about our beliefs this week. !!!!!!! is all I can say! The member sisters were so excited to bring their friends to something nice at our church. We hope it leads to some new possibilities for teaching the gospel.
For all of this mission I have been praying for Heavenly Father to send someone our way to teach. Lately, I have refined my prayers that we will RECOGNIZE the ones He sends our way. I know He is sending them. The hard part is recognizing them. He knows I am kind of dense headed so today He sent one to sit right by me at church! She was easier to recognize that way!
We have been running the last few days to prepare for Hurricane Irma. Some projections show her eye going slightly north of us and other ones show us right in her path. Most predictions show our whole mission in line for a hurricane. Hard for anyone to know, but at this point she is heading our way and at the least we will have a strong storm. The electricity or what they call "current" goes out here frequently. We know with such a powerful storm that we will have lots of rain and lose current. D-sized batteries are impossible to find and everything is flying off the shelf. The parking lots of the stores look like the parking lots of the malls at home during the week before Christmas. Gasoline is getting scarce. Today they spent the last 30 minutes at church going over lists and giving us names to call members to help them get ready. Elder DeMille and I have spent the last few days buying flashlights and water for some of the single sisters who didn't have them in their homes. This afternoon we taught an investigator. As we taught, I couldn't help but look up at his ceiling which is made of 2 x 4s and plywood. If the storm gets too bad he will lose his roof for sure. We worry for many of them in their living conditions.
As for Elder DeMille and I, we feel we will be safe. Although we live right on the water, our apartment is high enough on a hill that we don't anticipate getting flooded from the ocean surge. The road below us may be flooded, but we will just stay here until we aren't stranded. We are not too worried about the wind as our apartment is made of concrete. We are worried, however, that with no electricity we may sweat to death. That may sound funny to you, but it is so hot here that it is a worry to us!
We just heard a weather forecaster talking about the hurricane. She was more concerned with where it would land on the continental US. She said, "There are only about 30,000 people in the northern Caribbean islands that it would affect so not too big a deal." I know there are thousands of more people it will affect on the mainland, but I love these Caribbean people and I pray we don't lose any of them.
We want you all to know how much we love this little island and the people who live on it. We feel so blessed to be able to serve the Lord by serving a mission here. When else in our life would we have ever learned to love these people so much that it already hurts thinking some day we will leave? I especially love singing the 4th verse of Hymn 117, "Come Unto Jesus"
Come unto Jesus from every nation,
From every land and isle of the sea.
Unto the high and lowly in station,
Ever He calls, "Come to me."
We are just a speck of dirt in a humongous ocean, yet Heavenly Father is aware of each of his sons and daughters even on the isles of the sea. We feel that love every day.
We pray that you will all draw your families close together and help your children and grandchildren prepare for the storm of these latter-days. There is much we all can do to fortify ourselves against the winds and waves of Satan's storms. That is our fondest prayer for our family.
We hope you will all keep us in your prayers this Wednesday and Thursday!
Love to you all,
Elder and Sister DeMille
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