Kevan Kingsley Clawson's Blog, page 12

Senior’s Conference

This week we traveled to Barbados to attend a ‘Senior’s Conference’ where all the senior missionaries in the mission came together for training, and to share information with each other, and to get to know each other (since most of us live on separate islands and never actually see each other!), and to have some ‘down time.’

It was a great experience. We arrived late on Monday and were taken to the Mission Home for dinner (we had never seen the mission home before, just the office). We stayed at a local hotel close to the mission home with most of the other senior missionaries.

On Tues we went to the mission home for training and participated in some panel discussions about problems and concerns we faced in the mission, and in our specific callings. That afternoon we went to visit a house where George Washington slept… sounds kind of weird, but it was actually interesting! That night we all went out to dinner at a fabulous restaurant, and celebrated Sister Richmond’s b-day.

  Group shot at George Washington’s house in Barbados. From left to right:

Sister and Elder Goddard, Terri, Elder Monk, Sister and Elder Richmond, Kevan, Sister and Elder Turner, Sister and Elder Horne, Sister Monk, Sister & Pres. Herrington

 Group shot at the animal reserve we went to on Weds afternoon. Back row L to R:

Elder and Sister Horne, Pres Eclair (counselor in the Mission Presidency), Kevan & Terri, Elder & Sister Turner (our main office couple), Sister Richmond, Sister & Elder Monk, Sister Herrington. Down in front: Sister & Elder Goddard, Elder Richmond, Pres Herrington 

Terri and I at a secluded area in the animal park

Group shot at the mission home: Top to bottom: Elder & Sister Goddard, Sister & Elder Horne, Sister & Elder Turner, Terri, Pres Eclair, Kevan, Sister & Elder Richmond, Sister & Elder Monk, Sister & Pres Herrington

View from our hotel room– not bad, eh?

  Breakfast at the hotel before going tot he mission home  Mission home    Terri relaxing out by the pool before our meetings start    The Assistents to the President working hard… (Elder Broadbent & Cox)

Sister Richmond receiving a birthday cake (one of several times we sang happy birthday!)       Terri taking a break…by talking on the phone to sick missionaries! She was on the phone most of the time…  Here starts a small tour of the house where George Washington slept (it wasn’t his home, just a home he stayed at for a couple of months…). It is their claim on Barbados that this two months were formative for George: he learned his farming here, he made his decision to join the military, and he had smallpox–which later saved his life, as he was forever immune from the disease, and when it went through the ranks of the Colonial army during the Revolutionary war, it saved his life.   This is the house  Wasn’t it tough to live back in the late 1700s?  Georges room  His brother’s room (they came to Barbados to try to heal his brother, but he died anyway)   The one real piece of original wood in the home….

The colonial kitchen of the time

This thing is great! Any idea what it is? It is a water filter system. The three stone containers are made out of porous limestone. You filled the top stone with water, then it dripped through the stone to the next container, and then the next. By the time it got down to the bottom, it was clean water. It is the reason water on Barbados is so good: they have natural limestone that filters their water here (the same was true on Tinian)

 Terri taking a moment after a long day of phone calls     Sister Turner by the cannon  They had underground tunnels to be able to move between buildings   This is our hotel   Some pics of our dinner out on Tuesday. Weds we ate at the mission home     Sister Richmond and her birthday candle   more pics of the mission home. It is 5,000 SF, has a pool and lots of room

Here are some pics of the animal park we went to Weds afternoon. There were hundreds of turtles, monkeys, deer, etc.

  feeding time at the park     The Turners by the ‘love birds’ cage     Richmonds and Pres Eclair

Pres & Sister Herrington and the Richmonds

The Hornes

 The Monks   The Herringtons   The Clawsons

The Hornes The Turners  The Richmonds  The Goddards  The Monks   A few street scenes of Barbados  On the way back from the animal park we all stopped at a beach for a short walk    Getting ready for dinner Weds night. After dinner we held a testimony meeting. It was quite powerful, as many (actually all but Terri and I) couples will be going home soon! By March Terri and I will be the oldest couple, as all the others will have gone home… We do have other couples coming, but not enough! Know anyone?   We flew home on Thursday and got in late. We went to Correlation Meeting at 6pm, then headed back out to the airport to pick-up our two sisters who were coming back from training with the Sister Training Leaders.

The next morning I went on my normal morning walk–it was a beautiful day, and we are beginning to see a lot of large boats coming in for the holidays!  While in Barbados we had the opportunity to see Sister Robinson and her new companion Sister Knudsen. We were able to eat breakfast with them before we left, and talk to them about Barbados and their work there.

It is good to be ‘home’ in St Martin! Tonight Terri teaches Seminary, and Saturday we have two baptisms. We have to get back to work!

District Meeting for 14

We now can barely fit into the room while holding weekly District Meeting, as we now have 12 (well, 14 with Terri and I) missionaries on the island. All the members are excited about the new missionaries and the success we are beginning to have here (we have two baptisms scheduled this week, and two next week).

The primary are preparing for the annual primary program in the Branch!   They have been working hard each week  Although sometimes their minds wander…   And then it is back to work!   Here are some pictures of our most recent District Meeting   They spent time discussing some changes in the rules of doing missionary work, and also went over a map of the island showing where all the specific missionary areas are–so that each companionship knows the area of the island they are to cover.

The new missionaries

Here are some pictures of the new missionaries and our first Correlation meeting with TWELVE missionaries on St Martin!

  Sister Stewart with Sister Call (new), Elder Marae (new from Tahiti) with Elder Savard President Huggins in blue directing the Correlation Meeting with Brother George   As you can see, we could barely fit everyone into the room! But it will be great for the work here on St Martin. We have 5 baptisms scheduled for the coming weeks (some due to the hard work of Sister Robinson, who just left), and look forward to many more now… Elder George (new) with Elder Spencer (District Leader) working in Pointe Blanche area  Elder Cox (new) with Elder Pohl (Zone Leader) working in the Belvedere Area  Elder Marae (new) with Elder Savard (Zone Leader) working on the French side in Marigot–an area that was closed for a while due to no French speaking Elders on the island.  Sister Stewart with Sister Call (new) working the Cole Bay Area, near the Church, and near where Terri and I live  Elder Nixon and Elder Merritt (new) working the new area called Ebenezer. They live right next to Elders Page and Jones who work the St Peters area (they work the same ‘valley’ that has a lot of people–one set works one side, the other set works the other side.

We all have our work cut out for us, but once we get organized, I’m sure the work will move forward quickly.

Guadelupe Pics

Here are some pics from our trip to Guadelupe. For some reason we don’t have pictures of us and the Richmonds! We were so busy we forgot!

  Here we are wandering the streets trying to find our bed and breakfast hotel…  After some time, and calling the place, it was determined that it was all Googles fault: we had gotten a map of the place so we thought we knew where it was…only it wasn’t! We did get to see the new apartment right in the city of Pointe-Pitre that Elders would be moving into soon.    We finally gave up and went to our normal hotel. It was/is nice, but we were looking for something closer to the Richmonds and it looked good–it was just on the other side of the island… Here are some pics of the city, as we drove around with the Richmonds    Lots of old, boarded-up shops around the city   Occasionally you would see a city park     most of the roads use round-about intersections, and you drive on the right, like in the USA (many of the islands drive on the left, like England)    It rained like crazy while we were there! No wonder it is so green–much more tropical than St Martin! 

It was a nice, thought short trip to Guadelupe. We will probably be traveling back here the end of December, and once or twice in January. Then another couple (who speak French) are supposed to come take over as the island couple.

Guadelupe Training

We left on Tuesday afternoon for Guadelupe (bad timing on our part, as it was transfer week…), and arrived there late in the afternoon. We had planned to stay at a small bed & breakfast place, but could not find it. The Google map said it was in the city near where the Richmonds lived (the couple we were being trained by), but after wandering around the inner city for a while it became clear we were NOT where we were supposed to be. It turned out the place was clear on the other side of the island… So we had to cancel that and ended up staying in the same hotel we stayed at while attending Zone Conference in Guadelupe some time ago.

Early Weds morning we got picked up by the Zone Leaders (Elder Pape, who was also being trained just in case), and went over to the Richmonds. Elder Richmond had the morning perfectly scheduled out for us. We trained in their home office in the morning—learning to electronically pay bills, pay bills by check, apartment contracts, phones, utilities, etc. After we felt we had a good handle on that, which took us to noon, we went to lunch at a great little Chinese restaurant (all you can eat!). Elder Pape went back 4-5 times…

That afternoon the Richmonds took us around the city to show us where stuff was. We met with President Éclair of the Mission Presidency (he had to sign some Temple Recommends we had with us), and then we went to the insurance office, the bank, post office, FedEx, etc.

Late afternoon we finally ended our training and were taken back to the hotel. The next day we traveled back to St Martin, just in time to go to Correlation Meeting at the Church and meet all the new missionaries that had arrived !

November Transfers

October Transfers

It has been a crazy week this week. We had a lot of missionaries transfer in and out of St Martin this week—well, mostly in, only one out!

We were very sorry to see Sister Robinson leave the island. She came on her mission just after we arrived, so we were all ‘training’ together. She had become one of our very best missionaries on St Martin, so we will miss her a lot. She is a terrific missionary and a natural leader. She also did a great job training Sister Stewart (who is taking over for her, and is now a trainer herself!).

So we lost one missionary, but ended up getting FIVE new missionaries! As a result, we had to open two new apartments. We now have 12 missionaries on the island (for a short time we had 5). It is overwhelming, for the moment at least—we all have to get used to the idea of so many missionaries here!

 Here are some pics of the last Zone Meeting  Elder Savard and Elder Pohl  And the last District Meeting  Elder Spencer teaching the group Sister Robinson, Elder Pohl and Jones role-playing during District Meeting  Sister Robinson, Stewart, and Terri looking up info about the current transfers

 Here is the last picture of our missionaries before the transfer: Left to right

Elders Page Jones, Pohl, Nixon, Savard, Spencer, Clawson

Sisters Stewart, Robinson, Clawson  Sister Robinson and Stewart    We were not able to say goodbye at the airport, as usual, as we had to travel to Guadelupe for some training. So, Tuesday morning after District meeting we took pictures and said goodbye, and headed off to Guadelupe for three days.

Moving forward

Lots of things are going on here on St Martin! We have lots of people preparing to be baptized, and have been told that we will be getting more missionaries here on the island to aid in the work (transfers will be happening in about a week, so time will tell how big a change will be coming for us here!)

Elder Spencer does a great job conducting District Meeting each week. Some of the training involves roll-playing. This is Sisters Stewart and Robinson roll-playing with Elder Savard. They are practicing how to teach members how to give Book of Mormons to their friends.

This is Elder Page and Sister Robinson roll-playing

We have decided to try to eat better, so we are trying a new diet of fresh foods and fruits, etc. Terri has been the cook during this ‘trial’ of a new diet, which is helpful, as she is a much better cook than I am! So far the recipes have been great–actually better than eating out at some of the good restaurants here on St Martin! The tough part is the time it takes to prepare these meals…

Terri is slowing gaining more people attending her Seminary class on Fridays (there are some that study at home and can’t make it on Fridays). This year they are studying the Old Testament.

New apartments

Terri mentioned she discovered a large spider in the sink the other day. She already had it captured in a glass– so I took it to the patio and dropped it over the edge. It landed on the car below…

 We finally found a new apartment for the missionaries on St Martin. It is brand-new one bedroom on a second floor.  It’s small, but has a balcony with a fabulous view of their area. Elder Page and Jones will be living here and working this area.   So, its October, and here is the temperature outside our apartment…  One of the few areas one can safely walk on the island (for daily exercise) is walking over the bridge that crosses the large bay just below where we live. This morning I was stopped so that a large barge could pass through the channel.   This is the barge, and the hill where our apartment is located  I have been walking almost every day. It is almost always great weather, and just going over and back on this long bridge is about a mile.

More Baptisms

Things have been going well in St Martin, in spite of the “upheaval” that occurred when the mission split and all the changes that followed. The group of missionaries we now have on the island are beginning to gel and work together well, and are getting results.

We have eight missionaries here now: Two sisters: Robinson and Stewart (Stewart is just finishing her training), six elders: Elder Page and Jones (Jones is in training), District Leader Spencer and Dixon (who is in training), and two Zone Leaders: Savard (who speaks French–yea!) and Pohl.

 Here are all our missionaries at our apartment. They got permission to watch a movie/dvd on their p-day, so they came over for lunch an a movie! From left to right: Elders Pohl, Dixon, Page, Jones, Spencer, Robinson, Stewart, Savard, with me in the middle (I’m the one ‘larger’ than life…)   This is our most recent baptism: Roger Dunston. His father (who lives on another island and is a member) talked his son into looking for the Church here on St Martin. He was at the church, knocking on the door, when I happened to show up (the sisters were inside the building at the time). We talked for a while, and I even talked on the phone with his father, who asked if we would look after his son. The sisters came out and we all got introduced to one another. Roger was invited to come to Youth night, and the Sisters began to teach him the lessons. Terri and I joined in a couple of the lessons as he got closer to baptism, so we could answer questions the Sisters felt we would have more experience to give him good information. It was during a group lesson where I attended with the Sisters, that we convinced him to set a date for baptism. Here are the two Sisters who taught Roger–Robinson and Stewart  And here we are all together. Roger asked me to baptize him (it was quite a privilege), and Elder Page to give him the Holy Ghost, which happened the next day, on Sunday.  Here are some of the Elders with Roger: L-R Spencer, Dixon, Jones, Roger, Savard, and Elder Page on the far right Roger with Branch President Huggins  Terri’s Seminary class has doubled! She now has two people coming…

Updates

Just an update 10/16/2015

It has been very busy few weeks for Terri and I. Our responsibilities grow, and we always seem to have something come up that adds to our list of things to do (although often that ‘something’ is a great blessing!).

Since the last transfer we have had a full contingent of missionaries on island (we have 8 missionaries now, with three of them new and being trained), and we are looking for a new apartment in a new area.

Terri is teaching Seminary and I am teaching Institute one night a week, as well as choir.

We have another baptism coming up on Saturday—a young man from Jamaica that has lived on the island for a while and was asked by his father (who lives on Jamaica) to visit the church. I just happened to be at the church when he arrived and was looking to talk to someone. From there, he began talking to the missionaries and coming to church. He will be a great asset to the branch.

We recently had a member couple from a cruise ship get dropped off and left on island so the wife could go to the hospital. When they attempted to find some local members to give them some help, we got the call and had the privilege to aid them during this tough time (what a way to spend a vacation!).

Terri has been getting a lot of medical calls recently, and as she covers two missions, it can be taxing, especially with the other things we have going on.

We have also had a rash of car accidents lately (none of them serious), which has kept me busy, as I am in charge of all the vehicles now. For both Terri and I, our jobs are made more difficult because most of the events (medical and vehicle) are happening on other islands, in other countries…so it is often difficult to figure out the best way to handle situations since we are not ‘on site’ to see and deal with them ourselves. But we do have great help! On most islands there are other Senior Missionary Couples that we can, and do, turn to for aid.

I have been walking every day, which has helped my old-age ailments. The weather has been very hot: often over 100 degrees on our porch thermometer! Add the humidity, and it is tough this time of year. I really feel for our young missionaries who are working out in this heat!

But time is going by quickly, and we have been blessed with the news of a new granddaughter! Everything back home seems to be doing well, so we are being blessed for our labors.

We will be traveling to Guadalupe the first of November for some training by the local couple who will be leaving the mission soon; and then we travel to Barbados  a couple of weeks later for a Senior Missionary Conference.

Well that’s it for now. I have some pictures but can’t seem to load them… once Terri gets around to fixing that problem for me I will upload some more pics of the island and missionaries! EC