African or European?

Family,

Well it has been a good week, and it sounds as if things are going well back home. Always great to hear from everyone again. 

We didn't have our baptisms on saturday we decided to give them another week, we didn't think he was all the way ready. So now he is going to be baptized this week with the possibility of 2 others. We have 2 others who want to be baptized and it is now just a matter of figuring out whether they will be baptized this week or next week.  Overall they are doing very well. One is a man named Danyello (not sure on the spelling), anyways he wasn't really all that interested but a few of our members talked to him about baptism and whatnot and then he learned that after he was baptized he would get a certificate saying he was baptized and he thought that was the greatest thing in the world and now he really really really wants to be baptized, he was jumping up and down announcing to everyone that he was going to be baptized...he will be a very interesting member.

We have another investigator, Reuben. He is a good man, I have been teaching him now for about a month and he is so close to being baptized. He loves the book of mormon and spends a ton of time reading it, he is convinced that this church is true but he is very concerned about his family and how they will react and very concerned about going back to Haiti, once in haiti the nearest chapel is 23 miles from his home. Well haven't given up on him yet, he is so close, just need to help him with these last few concerns.

We had a handful of tourists here last sunday and they took us out to dinner last monday, it was really good! we went to some fancy restaurant and it was good fun. It is nice to get dinner every once in a while, the members are to poor to feed us so out main source of dinner appointments is tourists. Then on Saturday we met a mother and a Daughter who came here to celebrate her daughters graduation and they took us and the herberts out for dinner on saturday and then they came to the herberts house for dinner on sunday. It was a lot of fun and nice to eat good food.

I saw a church film this week called "Pioneers in Africa" very good, a worthwhile watch if you ever get your hands on it. it was quite interesting. Ummm...well that is all I have to say about that.

In Sunday school I have the reputation of being the biblical scholar. I am not quite sure how I got this reputation, but if ever a question arises, and there is a disagreement on the answer they ask me and whatever I say must be the truth. It is sort of ironic that I am considered the master on the bible, when I am yet to read the entire bible (150 pgs left!). Anyways so now the reason for mentioning all this. Yesterday at the end of the lesson the teacher was talking about how fascinating the lesson had been and how much she had learned. Well then the class asked if I had anymore to add to the lesson. We had been talking about Ruth and Naomi and Hannah and they had gotten distracted talking about Samuel for a good portion of the lesson and I had been sitting there thinking about how samuel sort of typifies christ. Well I then shared a few of my thoughts. and I guess I might as well share that here. Before samuel Israel was in a state of mostly confusion, they had been through random judges, and they were lacking a stable government. Well Samuel came onto the scene as a man who had his entire life dedicated to serving the lord. Eli and his sons, the priests, were rejected and Samuel became this great prophet who brought order to israel and established the kingdom with saul as king and later david. When Christ came it was a similar situation, israel was yet again in a state of disrepair. They had lost all right to government and had become a overly religious group with crazy rules and laws. Christ came, his life was dedicated to serving god. The leaders of the Jewish religion were rejected and Christ established his gospel and his kingdom although this time it was on more of a spiritual level, samuel had established a physical kingdom. umm....hmmm...I am not sure where I am going with any of this anymore. hopefully that at least made some sense, it makes sense in my head but I think it got sort of mixed up as I was attempting to put it into words haha.

This week I had a few minutes to sit down and practice the piano and I opened up to a random hymn, number 126. I had never heard it before. I really like it, it is an excellent hymn. 

This morning we woke up to no power. turns out the only power company on the island was having problems so the entire island was out of power. Very annoying. Thankfully it came back on after an hour or so. We were wondering what we were going to do for preparation day having no power, no internet, no washing. I sort of see the problem with an entire island dependent on one company. If anyone wanted to take over this country that would be the first thing to go for, that and the only tiny airport. I am frequently reminded of a pinky and the brain quote that comes to my mind almost everyday during planning. "what are we going to do today/tomorrow elder" "The same thing we do everyday, try to take over the world." unfortunately I haven't succeeded yet, but I feel that the power company would be an ideal way to start.

Time is running short. I will include some pictures next week after our baptisms are through. Hopefully these last few weeks of school are going great and they end well. Things are going good here. I love you all and look forward to hearing from you next week! 

-Elder B. Kent Talbert