Staying In Aruba . . .

Bon dia kerido Famianan i amigunan, awe nos a recibi algun cambianan di e trasladonan!! (rough translation from Popiamento to English - Good Morning dear family and friends, I will be receiving a new companion for transfers!)

Hello! We just got the call last night for transfers, here is what is happening:

First off, I'm with Elder Holt and Elder Welch right now, they had to come over here to Aruba to renew Elder Welch's permission to be in Curacao, you have to do it every 90 days. So yesterday for a good part of the day I was the only missionary on the island!! Way cool, I went to church with a member from San Nicolas and then stayed the rest of the day after church with President Buckley, the Branch President down in San Nicolas until the other missionaries got here.

Ok, here are transfers:

My new companion is named Elder Jensen, he is a way cool guy, I met him while we were in Santo Domingo, we served the in the same zone. He is one transfer ahead of me, so that means he is like one transfer older than me. He is way cool and I am very excited to get to work with him.

I will be the new district leader down here in the islands. Wow, that's a lot of responsibility, but more opportunities to serve!

Elder Holt and Elder Welch will both be staying in Curacao. We are hoping keep everything the same for a couple of transfers now. Elder Jensen gets here tomorrow at about two, so I'm going to be the only missionary on the island again for a little while.

I am way pumped!!!!

Our baptisms went great. I had the privilege of baptizing Mariana, and Elder LeCheminant baptized Edward. It was awesome, a bunch of members came and it was on the beach at sunset, wow, it was great! They both got confirmed yesterday too, so they are doing great!

We have a couple of people who are close, a lady named Miriam who is the wife of a member, she is great and really understands the Gospel. We also have a man progressing named Daniel. He is a good guy who is coming to church and reading, so we're going to keep working with him. But, we're really going to have to start looking for more people now.

The Mission President still hasn't been able to make it down here and we still don't know for sure when he is coming, but hopefully soon!

I got all of your packages this week, I got the birthday package from you guys and two packages from Grandma Joy. There was a hold up in DHL. There were some big charges to get them out though - like $130! I think the problem was mostly just because of sending food. But go ahead and send the new CD and garments down directly to President Pepe Gonzalez's house (the address that I sent to Dad and then had to make a correction in the next week). But if it costs too much, just send it to Santo Domingo. I think the big thing is just not sending candy or food. But thanks so much for doing that for me!!! Thanks for the garments and the dvds and tell Grandma thanks for the hair clippers. Sorry it caused such a big problem and cost so much to get it here.

Wow! I'm stoked for our AZ teams! Thanks Dad for the update!

I really hope that Dad's back gets better and doesn't hurt him so much, he will be in my prayers!! I love you all and thank you so much for all that you do. I'm transferring all of my pictures onto a flash drive so that I can send you my SD card home when the President comes down. Thank you so much! I love you! Keep up the good work, and never forget to keep putting one foot in front of the other! Christ will walk with us!

Elder DeSpain