Life with Sandy Toes January 2024

 The past few weeks have been a blur of mission life, serving, studying, and learning what God has need of us to do.  We hear talks in conference on feasting upon the Words of Christ and often think …. If only I had the time!  We’ve come to the time in our life when feasting is truly a delight and we intentionally carve out that time to do just that.  If that time gets interrupted, we  miss it.  Feast upon the Word, as it will help answer and guide you in all that is needful for you personally.  We’ve indeed found peace and answers in His word.

Sister Ardon's arrival from Philippines

Hard to believe January is almost in the books.  We’ve had the opportunity to welcome another Sister missionary from the Philippines  to our mission this week.  I always text Blake and ask about their areas etc., as he is my resident expert.  He will always give me a quick something to connect with them in their culture which is nice. We’ve got quite a diverse culture set just here on Barbados: Africa, Dominican, Philippines, Jamaica, Tonga, Samoa, Brazil, Belize, Mexico, and America.  We’ve had the opportunity to do language study with a few of them, which we have enjoyed tremendously.

Sisters Takapu (Tonga), Leavitt (US), Lewis (Jamaica), Ardon (Philippines), & Reis (Brazil)

Doug has been busy automating a lot of the financials and organizing everything else that he can.  It will definitely help the next senior missionary who comes!  Speaking of change, we learned this past week that we are not only getting new mission leaders in July, but a new area presidency as well.  We are also getting visits from Sisters Porter & Yi from Salt Lake in a few weeks to do some meetings and training with the Barbados sisters.  They always get so excited to show off their island and partake of the spirit of our church leaders.

Lately I’ve had this feeling that there was a need I was missing. We’ve been really trying to take Elder Bednar’s counsel to pray for what Heavenly Father has need of us and not for our laundry list of wants. We know that He knows what we need before we ask, but to align our wants with what is needful has been a shift that Elder Bednar promised would change how we pray  forever.  That impression has led to finding a new gospel literacy program through the self-reliance focus of the church.  I’m just in the baby phase of learning, but I think  this is where He needs me to assist and I’m positive that Sister Wiggins in our branch and I were meant to meet and work together.  She’s from Trinidad but has lived in Barbados for years.

We had the opportunity to support the district Young Women’s President in the World-wide Youth discussion with 12 of the youth on the island participating with their leaders.  It is always humbling and wonderful to see youth stand up and be a Disciple of Jesus Christ wherever they are in the world. Barbados needs these youth to strengthen the branches here to one day become a ward, a stake, and have a temple!  That’s their goal!
Our young missionaries are a delight!  We enjoy them so much.  As we serve them, we always try to think that we want to be the couple that our children would have liked to serve with.  Dengue fever  has raised its head here in the Caribbean a little off season, so we’ve been supporting them as best we can.  It’s hard for them being sick and far from home.  Doug chuckles every now and then when he hears some of my calls.  I’m grateful they feel comfortable calling and sharing with me.  I’m here to help lift, relieve suffering, and support the feeble.  Sometimes the feeble have to sheepishly tell me some of their antics and I smile  and say….now Elder…..and they say…..I know but….. Luckily, our Physician has amazing power and loves His missionaries.

Sister Jacie Walker---departure to US

Former Sister Walker, now known as Jacie, was in the Caribbean for a month visiting the islands of her mission with her family.  We never served with her, as she was completing her mission about a week after we got here.  Since that time, we’ve heard story after story of Sister Walker from members and other missionaries.  She was just a stellar missionary.  We could tell that from her last week of interactions with her here.  Fast forward, she had a 24 hour layover in Barbados airport last week, so Doug & I were able to pick her up and spend that time with her before taking her back to fly out the next day.  It was so fun getting to know her better.  She got engaged and will be going to nursing school at USU in the fall.  We are grateful to make these connections with these young missionaries and hope to see their dreams come true!

Shout Out to the St. Vincent Ellis’, we are excited to have them in our mission! We are hoping to island hop for General Conference & Doug’s birthday to see them, our missionaries serving there, and the island with the “favorite vibe” according to the young missionaries.  I’ve decided their vibe is definitely more adventurous than mine!

Fun Facts of Barbados:

• They are very patient.
• They don't mind waiting in lines.....ever
• Water randomly goes off for days and they roll with it.
• One can park ANYWHERE at ANYTIME.
• Cars can stop in the middle of the road to converse with each other.
• Cars will randomly stop right in front of you to buy local produce or shaved ice drinks on the side of the road.
• Want to go to the beach or anywhere really?  Park on the sidewalk, dirt lots, or if nothing else right on the road outside wherever you are visiting.  No towing and locals will just patiently wait to go around the parked car.
• Horns on cars can be friendly
• Quick honks are thank you or go ahead
• Long honks mean that you have exhausted their patience.

Whatever your vibe, Life is better with sandy toes!